Mary of Nazareth

by Marek Halter

  Nevertheless, thinking about it on his way back to Yossef’s house, Joachim decided to trust in the supreme wisdom of the Almighty, to keep his worries to himself, and not to aggravate Barabbas’s touchiness and impatience.

  CHAPTER 6

  FOR some weeks, they forgot the drama that had brought them together and the battle that awaited them. The days passed, gentle and calm, full of deceptive little joys, like the lull before a storm.

  Miriam looked after the children. Finally able to take the rest she needed, Halva regained her color, her dizzy spells became less frequent, and, every day, her laughter rang out in the shade of the great plane trees.

  Joachim spent all his time in Yossef’s workshop, running his hands over the tools, lifting the shavings to his nostrils, stroking the smooth wood with the same sense of wonder as he had felt in his youth, experiencing his first amorous caresses.

  Discreetly informed by Hannah, Lysanias came running to see them, babbling with happiness, blessing Miriam and kissing her forehead. He brought good news of old Houlda. She no longer felt any pain from the blows she had received and had recovered all her old energy—and her bad temper, too.

  “She treats me like her husband,” he chuckled delightedly. “As badly as if we’d lived together for years.”

  He missed the communal life of the workshop so much that he immediately started working with Yossef and Joachim. In a few weeks, the three of them managed to do four months’ work.

  Every evening, putting away his tools as he had done so often before, Lysanias would declare with satisfaction, “Well, we certainly got a lot done today.”

  One day, Yossef, who usually responded with a grateful smile before inviting everyone to sit down to the evening meal, said, “This can’t continue. I pay Lysanias what’s due to him, but you, Joachim, won’t accept any wages. It’s unfair. I’m only getting all these orders because your workshop is closed. I feel ashamed. We have to come to an arrangement.”

  Joachim laughed heartily. “Nonsense! Board and lodgings, the pleasure of friendship, a quiet life…that’s our arrangement, Yossef, and it’s enough for me. Don’t worry, my friend. I haven’t forgotten that you’re taking a big risk, having Miriam and me here.”

  “Miriam’s another one! She works as hard as a handmaid!”

  “Not at all! She’s taking the strain off your wife. Pay Lysanias what he deserves, Yossef, but don’t have any qualms about me. The happiness of working with you is all I need. God alone knows when I’ll be able to go back to my own workshop, and nothing gives me greater satisfaction than being able to keep myself busy in yours.”

  Yossef protested. This was no laughing matter. Joachim wasn’t being sensible. He ought to be thinking about the future. He had Miriam and Hannah to provide for.

  “From now on, whether you like it or not, every time an order is paid for, I’ll put some money aside for you.”

  Lysanias interrupted the conversation. “What you should do, Yossef, is give your customers a specific time limit, and then go over it. Otherwise, they’re going to think you’ve made a pact with demons to be able to work so fast!”

  Only Barabbas remained in somber mood. Impatient, always on the alert, he was still convinced that the mercenaries would swoop on Nazareth to take revenge for Joachim’s escape. The fact that they hadn’t so far done so unsettled him, and he feared they were planning something. In order not to be taken by surprise, he decided to become a shepherd.

  From morning to evening, wrapped in an old tunic as brown as the earth, he would go out onto the slopes of wild grass around the house, surrounded by the sheep that Yossef had managed to hide from the greed of the tax collectors. He would get far enough away to keep an eye on the comings and goings around the village. He found this freedom, these long walks over the fragrant hills in the late spring heat, so exhilarating that more than once he slept in the open air.

  His impatience, his eagerness to do battle with the mercenaries, made him less vigilant, and he did not even notice when Obadiah returned, as unobtrusive as a shadow.

  IT was nearly nightfall. Miriam had told the children a last story and kissed them good night. Halva was already asleep. From the workshop behind the house, bursts of merry chatter could be heard. Joachim, Lysanias, and Yossef really enjoyed working together, Miriam thought. Soon they would be sitting around the table, as greedy for words as for food.

  Their discussions could last for hours when Barabbas was present. But she was unable to take them seriously.

  “They’re just like children,” she would say to Halva. “They want to remake the world the Almighty has created.”

  And they would both laugh in secret at the men’s pride.

  Still amused at this thought, Miriam went through into the main room of the house. It was already dark. She could smell the fragrance of a lime tree, carried on the evening breeze.

  She went to look for the lamps and a jar of oil to fill them. On her return, she thought she sensed a presence behind her. She looked around, peering into the gloom. But there was no one here. No figure stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the reddening sky.

  She got back to work. But when she struck a light, a hand took the stone from her. She cried out and stepped back, dropping the tinder wick.

  “It’s me, Obadiah,” a whisper came. “No need to be afraid!”

  “Obadiah! What an idiot! You scared me, creeping around like a thief!”

  She laughed and drew him to her. He abandoned himself to her embrace, quivering with pleasure, then broke free, overcome with emotion.

  “I didn’t mean to frighten you!” he said, lighting the tinder. “It was nice to look at you, after all this time. I’m really pleased to see you.”

  The flames grew, dispersing the shadows. Miriam sensed how embarrassed Obadiah was after the admission he had just made. With a maternal gesture, she ruffled his unkempt hair.

  “I’m pleased to see you, too, Obadiah…. Did you come back alone?”

  “No.” He pointed nonchalantly at Yossef’s workshop with his thumb. “They’re there. The two Essene wise men, as your father calls them. The one from Damascus, no problem. He may really be a wise man. But the other one, Giora of Gamala, is a madman. He didn’t even want to see me, let alone hear what I had to say and take Joachim’s letter! I was white with dust by the time I got to Gamala, and my tongue was hanging out. You’d think they’d have given me a few drops of water, wouldn’t you? Not a bit of it.” He growled in disgust. “My friends wanted to leave again, because there was a big market where we could get something to eat and ply our trade.”

  Miriam raised an accusing eyebrow. “You mean steal?”

  Obadiah grinned magnanimously. “After such a long journey and a welcome like that, we had to amuse ourselves. But I didn’t go. I found a way to get Joachim’s message to the old man.”

  His face lit up with pride, softening the strangeness of his features. His dark eyes glowed like coals.

  “For three day and three nights,” he said, “I didn’t move from outside that farmhouse or whatever it is, where he lives with his followers. All of them in the same white tunics, beards so long they could walk on them. Always looking furious, as if they were going to cut you in pieces. Always washing themselves and praying. Constantly praying! I’ve never seen people pray so much. But for those three days, they kept seeing me, which really got on their nerves. Then on the fourth day, surprise! I wasn’t there. No more am ha’aretz to sully their eyes. They ran to tell Giora the good news. But that night, another surprise! When Giora walks into his bedchamber, what does he see? Me, sitting on his bed! You should have seen the way he jumped, heard the way he screamed, that wise old Essene….”

  Obadiah laughed heartily at the memory.

  “You should have heard him, waking up the whole pack of them. And me, sitting there as calm as anything while they all shouted at me. I had to wait for them to tire themselves out before I could tell them why I was there. Then the old man took another
two or three days to make up his mind. Anyway, here we are. It took time to get back because we had to stop twenty times a day for prayers…. If we’re going to have Giora with us for this rebellion, it won’t be fun, I can tell you.”

  When Miriam finally met Giora, she realized that Obadiah had been telling the truth. She, too, was very struck by his appearance and character.

  He was so small and had such a long beard that it was impossible to guess his age. He looked frail, but he possessed enormous energy. His voice was shaky but solemn, and he underlined every one of his sentences with a sharp movement of his hands. If he caught your eye, he wouldn’t let go of you, forcing you in the end to look down as if to shield yourself from a blinding light.

  The evening that he arrived, he demanded that neither she nor Halva nor Obadiah share his meal. That would have been impure, he explained: Women and children were by nature bearers of weakness and infidelity. Only Yossef and Joachim could break bread at his table—apart from the other newcomer, of course. This other man’s name was Joseph of Arimathea, and he had come all the way from Damascus, where he, too, led a community of Essenes. But even though he wore the same immaculately white tunic as Giora, he was quite different.

  He was tall and well built, with a short beard, a bald head, kindly features, and a friendly manner. He was perfectly civil toward Obadiah. Miriam felt immediately drawn to him, if for no other reason than the serenity that emanated from him. His calm presence seemed, as if by magic, to temper Giora’s aggressiveness.

  All the same, the meal was somewhat out of the ordinary. Giora demanded absolute silence. When Joseph of Arimathea suggested that words could be tolerated while they were on their travels, he replied, his bread quivering, “Would you sully our Law?”

  Joseph of Arimathea did not take offense, but yielded to his wishes. A strange silence filled the house. All that could be heard was the noise of the wooden spoons in the bowls and the chomping of jaws.

  Disgusted, perhaps even somewhat alarmed, Obadiah grabbed a lump of buckwheat and some figs and went and ate them under the trees in the yard, surrounded by the nocturnal chirping of the crickets and the rustling of leaves.

  Fortunately, the dinner did not go on for too long. Giora announced that Yossef and Joachim were to join him in a long prayer. Joseph of Arimathea, who was tired after his journey, skillfully managed to spare them this chore. He convinced Giora that praying in solitude would be more pleasing to the Lord.

  THE following day was no less full of surprises. At first light, Barabbas arrived, pushing his flock ahead of him. With him were three men covered in dust.

  “I found them at nightfall, lost on the path,” Barabbas said to Joachim, with a hint of mockery.

  Joachim smiled as he and Yossef greeted the newcomers. One of them, a stocky man with a dark complexion, had a large dagger thrust through the belt of his tunic. “I’m Levi the Sicarion,” he announced in a loud voice.

  Behind him, Joachim recognized Jonathan of Capernaum. The young rabbi timidly bowed his head. The oldest of the three, Eleazar, the Zealot from Jotapata, rushed to Joachim and hugged him, babbling about how glad he was to see him alive and well.

  “God is great not to have called you to him too early!” he cried in delight. “Blessed be the Lord!”

  The other two men noisily echoed his words. Barabbas explained, with the same mocking tone as before, how he had discovered them in the forest, heading wearily away from Nazareth, in the direction of Samaria, for fear of finding mercenaries in the village.

  “I let them sleep a few hours before we set off, guiding ourselves by the stars. Not bad training for future fighters.”

  Joseph of Arimathea, drawn by the noise, appeared in the yard. His reputation for wisdom and great medical knowledge, and the renown of the Essenes of Damascus, preceded him, but none of the newcomers had ever had the opportunity to meet him.

  Joachim introduced them. Joseph of Arimathea took their hands in his with a simplicity that put them immediately at their ease.

  “Peace be with you,” he said to Levi, Eleazar, and Jonathan in turn. “And blessed be Joachim for having brought about this meeting.”

  Yossef invited them to sit down around the big table beneath the plane trees. Then each man spoke at length, presenting his life story and detailing the misfortunes that had befallen his region, misfortunes for which, in each case, Herod was to blame.

  Meanwhile, Halva and Miriam were busy laying the tables, putting out fruit, cups of curdled milk, and biscuits, which Obadiah, his cheeks red with the heat, had skillfully removed from the oven.

  “I was apprenticed to a baker for half a year,” he said proudly to Halva when she expressed surprise at this dexterity. “I liked it a lot.”

  “So why didn’t you also become a baker?”

  Obadiah’s laugh was more mocking than bitter. “Have you ever seen an am ha’aretz as a baker?”

  Miriam had heard this exchange. She looked at Halva. Neither could stop herself blushing. Halva was about to say something kind to Obadaiah, when the sound of raised of voices in the yard made her turn. Giora had come out and was standing before the newcomers, so stiff and tense that his small stature was forgotten.

  “What’s all this noise?” he exclaimed, gesticulating. “I can hear your voices from the other side of the house, and I can’t study anymore!”

  They all stared at him in surprise. Joseph of Arimathea stood up and went close enough to Giora for the physical difference between them to be particularly striking. He smiled. It was an amiable, amused, but curiously glacial smile. There was a strength in his features that would not easily be shaken, it seemed to Miriam.

  “We were making so much noise, my dear Giora, to express our joy at being here together. These companions have just arrived here after a difficult trek through the forest. God guided them to our friend, who led them here by trusting in the stars.”

  “Trusting in the stars!” Giora’s beard quivered, and his shoulders shook with rage. “Absurd! You, a follower of the sages, dare to repeat such nonsense?”

  Joseph of Arimathea’s smile was broader than ever now, but just as glacial as before.

  Obadiah had left the oven and was standing beside Miriam. She sensed that he was having to stop himself from jeering. Out in the yard, the newcomers had risen, embarrassed by Giora’s anger. While Joachim appeared to be amused by the situation, Yossef was watching the two Essenes anxiously. Without responding to Giora’s belligerence, Joseph of Arimathea pointed to a free place on the bench.

  “Giora, my friend,” he said calmly, “do join us. Sit down and drink some milk. It’ll be good for us to get to know one another.”

  “There’s no point. We don’t need to know one another, we only need to know Yahweh. I am going back to my prayers in order to cultivate that knowledge.”

  He turned abruptly, glared at Miriam, Halva, and Obadiah, who were in his way, then turned again, just as abruptly.

  “Unless we start the meeting we’ve come here for, and get it over with?”

  Joachim shook his head. “Nicodemus isn’t here yet. We ought to wait for him.”

  “Nicodemus from the Sanhedrin?” Giora said disgustedly.

  Joachim nodded. “He’s coming all the way from Jerusalem. It’s a long journey, he has to be careful.”

  “That’s the Pharisees for you! They’d keep God himself waiting!”

  “Let’s give him another day,” Joseph of Arimathea intervened, ignoring Giora’s invectives as usual. “Besides, our friends need to rest. The mind is clear only when the body is at peace.”

  Giora laughed. “Rest! A body at peace! Damascus nonsense! Study and pray if you want to have a clear mind. That’s what you need. Anything else is folly and weakness!”

  This time he disappeared behind the house without turning back.

  Obadiah gave a stifled groan and touched Miriam’s hand. “I may have judged him badly, this Giora. There’s no need for battles or rebellions. Just put him in front o
f Herod. In less than a day, the king would be even sicker and more insane than he is now. ‘Giora our secret weapon,’ that’s what we should call him!”

  He had said this in a loud voice, with such comical seriousness that Halva and Miriam burst out laughing.

  From the table in the yard, the men looked at them and frowned. Barabbas gave Obadiah a scathing look. But Joseph of Arimathea, who like the others, had heard what Obadiah had said, responded with laughter, although in moderation. That set the others giggling, which did them all a lot of good.

  IN the middle of the afternoon, while the late spring sun was still hot, Obadiah’s comrades, who were keeping watch, came running into the yard.

  “Someone’s coming along the Tabor road!”

  “The wise man from the Sanhedrin?”

  “Doesn’t look like it. Unless he’s in disguise. He looks more like a ghost.”

  Accompanied by Barabbas and Yossef’s children, Joachim again went to greet the newcomer. As soon as he saw the figure, he realized that the boys were right. It wasn’t Nicodemus. Dressed in a brown linen cloak, his face hidden by a hood, the man was advancing quickly, and his shadow seemed to run behind him like an apparition.

  “Who can this fellow be?” Joachim muttered. “Do you think we invited him?”

  Barabbas kept watching the newcomer. When the man pushed back his hood, he cried, “Mathias of Ginchala!”

  The man let out a cry like a horse’s whinny and waved a hand sparkling with silver rings. Barabbas grasped him by the shoulders, and they embraced with a great show of friendship.

  “Joachim, let me introduce my friend. More than a friend, a brother. Mathias led the rebellion in Ginchala last year. If there’s one person in Galilee with the fighting spirit to stand up to Herod’s mercenaries, here he is.”

  That fighting spirit had left its mark on his face, Joachim thought, as he greeted him. There were two wide scars on Mathias’s forehead, which ran back across his head, leaving two pale, ugly furrows in his hair. Behind his graying beard, his lips were scarred. When he opened his mouth, he revealed gums from which most of the teeth had been knocked out. A terrifying face, all in all; it was obvious why Mathias preferred to hide it under a hood.