Mary of Nazareth (25 page)

“Not me, Barabbas.”

“I don't understand what you're saying. It doesn't make any sense.”

“Don't be angry. Don't think I don't love you….”

“It's because of Obadiah! I knew it. You're still angry at me!”

“Barabbas!”

“You say you love life, you want justice! But you can't forgive. Do you think I've stopped grieving? I miss Obadiah as much as you do…. No, you still want revenge!”

“No! No, you're wrong….”

He did not want to hear anything more. He turned his back on her and walked quickly away, anger and pain accentuating his limp. The sun had risen now over the hills. Barabbas was like a shadow fleeing from the light.

Miriam shook her head, a lump in her throat. She knew how angry and upset he must be feeling. And how humiliated. But how could it have been otherwise?

CHAPTER 17

“
I
DON
'
T
understand. You don't want a husband? Why not?”

It had not taken long for Joachim to find out about Miriam's rejection of Barabbas. In spite of the rain teeming down on Galilee, Barabbas had come to him in the night, soaked to the skin and as pale as a corpse, and opened his heart to him.

Now, after prayers, everyone was sitting around the big table for the morning meal. It might have been better to wait for a more appropriate moment, but Joachim could not contain his anger. Pointing his wooden spoon at Miriam, he went on. “I don't understand you, any more than Barabbas does! If you don't like him, then say so. But don't tell me that you don't want a husband.”

His voice shook and his eyes were wide with incomprehension.

“That's the way it is,” Miriam replied, in a humble but firm tone. “I have other things to do in this world than be a man's wife.”

Joachim struck the table with the palm of his hand. They all jumped. Yossef, Zechariah, Elisheba, Ruth—all of them avoided looking at him. It was the first time they had ever seen him angry at his beloved daughter.

But Miriam's words, her refusal, embarrassed them even more. Who was she to dare oppose her father's choice, whatever it might be?

Only Mariamne was prepared to leap to Miriam's defense. She was not surprised. How many times had her mother, Rachel, repeated that the aim of a woman's life didn't have to be to end up in the arms of a man?

“Solitude isn't a sin or a misfortune,” Rachel would say. “On the contrary, it's when she's able to live alone that a woman can give the world what it lacks. That's what men deny by forcing her into the role of a wife. We must learn to be ourselves.”

As if these very words had been spoken now, Joachim again hit the table, making the platters and the bread shake. “And if you're alone, without a husband, who will help you, who will provide for you and make sure you have a roof over your head when I'm not here anymore?”

Miriam looked at him sadly. She reached out her arm across the table and tried to take his hand. But he pulled it away, as if trying to put his heart and his anger out of reach of his daughter's tenderness.

“I know my decision hurts you, Father. But for the love of God, don't be so impatient to give me to a man. Don't be in a hurry to judge me. You know I want what's best, just as you do.”

“Does that mean you'll change your mind?”

Miriam sustained his gaze, then shook her head without replying.

“So, what am I supposed to wait for?” Joachim growled. “The Messiah?”

Yossef put a hand on his friend's shoulder. “Don't let yourself be ruled by your anger, Joachim. You've always trusted Miriam. Why doubt her now? Can't you give her time to explain?”

“Oh, you think there's something to explain, do you? Barabbas is the best young man in the world. I know how much he cares for her. And he's felt this way for a long time.”

“Oh, Joachim,” Elisheba said, with an affectionate glance at Miriam. “Saying that Barabbas is the best young man in the world is a bit of an exaggeration. Don't forget he's a thief. I know what Miriam must be going through. Becoming the wife of a thief—”

Zechariah interrupted her. “A girl must marry the man her father has chosen for her. Otherwise, what would happen to the order of things?”

“If that's really the order of things,” Mariamne cut in, in as peremptory a tone as Zechariah, “then there must be something wrong with it.”

Miriam put her hand on Mariamne's wrist to silence her.

Joachim gave Elisheba a withering look and pointed to the slopes above Nazareth, where Barabbas might well be wandering at this moment, in spite of the rain that was transforming the paths into muddy streams. “This thief, as you call him, risked his life to save mine! Why did he do that? Because this girl, my daughter, asked him to. I still remember that. I don't have a short memory. My gratitude doesn't vanish in the gray light of dawn.”

He turned to Miriam, and again pointed at her with his spoon.

“I, too, am sad about Obadiah's death,” he said, his voice breaking. “I, too, will always remember the boy who took me down from the cross. But I tell you this, my girl: You've been wrong from the start in blaming Barabbas for his death. It was the mercenaries who killed him. The same people who killed your mother. No one else. Except that Obadiah was fighting. Because he was a brave boy. A fine death, if you want my opinion. For the freedom of Israel, for us! I wish I could die like him. There was a time when you would have said the same, Miriam.”

He paused for breath, and once again brought his fist down on the table.

“And I tell all of you this, once and for all,” he went on, head held high, a severe look in his eyes. “I don't want anyone to call Barabbas a thief in front of me! Call him a rebel, a fighter, a resister, whatever you like, but not a thief. He's head and shoulders above most of us. He has the courage to do what other people don't dare, and he's loyal to those he loves. And when he asks me for my daughter, I'm proud to say yes. No one else deserves her, only this thief.”

This powerful speech was followed by a glacial silence.

Miriam, who had not taken her eyes off Joachim, nodded. “What you say is right, Father. Please don't think my refusal is due to resentment. I know that Obadiah, wherever he is, loves Barabbas, just as Barabbas loved him. I also think Barabbas is a courageous man, and he should be admired for that. I know as you do that beneath his fierce exterior he's a good, gentle, tender man. As I said to him, ‘If I had to marry a man, it would be you.' ”

“So do it!”

“I can't.”

“You can't? Why not, damn it?”

“Because I am me, and that's how it is.” Calmly, unhurriedly, confidently, she stood up, and said to her father, as gently as she could, “I, too, am a rebel; you've always known that. We won't achieve a better tomorrow through Herod's death and the slaughter of his mercenaries. We'll only achieve it through the light of life, through a love for mankind such as Barabbas will never be able to bring about.”

She turned, left the table and, without another word, went inside the house to join the children, leaving everyone dumbfounded.

Ruth was the first to break the embarrassing silence that had settled over them. “I haven't known your daughter for very long,” she said to Joachim. “But what I do know of her, from having seen her at Beth Zabdai, is that she never yields. Whatever it costs her. Even Master Joseph of Arimathea had to admit it. But make no mistake: She loves and respects you as much as a girl can love her father.”

Overcome with emotion, Joachim nodded his head.

“If you're worried about it,” Yossef said suddenly, “Miriam will always have a roof here. You have my promise, Joachim.”

Joachim stiffened, and his eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You'd let her stay with you, even if she wasn't your wife?”

Yossef blushed to the roots of his hair. “I think you understand what I'm saying. This is Miriam's home. She knows that.”

         

F
OR
the next few days, not only did Joachim's mood not improve, but it also infected everyone. Mealtimes passed in heavy silence. Joachim tried as far as possible to avoid Miriam, and he was distant toward Yossef while they worked together.

Yossef did not take offense at this. The depression into which he had fallen after Halva's death seemed to have lifted, to be replaced by a serenity, a peace that was not shared by the others.

Barabbas did not reappear. No one dared ask Joachim if he was still in the vicinity.

Then time did its work. Spring arrived, and the fields and groves burst into bloom. The children were the first to respond by leaving the house and running into the countryside to play.

There was a more forgiving expression now in Joachim's eyes. More than once, he was heard joking with Yossef in the workshop. One day, at the end of a meal, he took Miriam's hand. The others looked at each other and smiled with relief. Joachim kept Miriam's hand in his while Ruth and Mariamne recounted, with much laughter, how young Yakov had started acting the prophet to his brothers and sister.

Ruth found this very amusing. “Your son has a real aptitude for it,” she said to Yossef. “He was better than all those people in Beth Zabdai. I wonder where he got it from.”

“A man was holding forth in the synagogue when I went there with Yakov the other day,” Zechariah said, only half laughing. “Yakov liked it a lot. You joke about it, woman, but he may have an aptitude.”

Ruth gave a sardonic chuckle and glanced at Miriam. She and her father, still holding hands, both laughed.

On another occasion, Elisheba took their hands and joined them on her belly. She still loved getting other people to feel the child inside her. “This boy moves as soon as he senses Miriam's hand,” she said. “Don't you feel it?”

Joachim laughed. “He runs about just as much when other people put their hands on your belly. All babies do that.”

“He's different. He's telling me something. Perhaps the day is not far off”—and here she winked at Joachim—“when you, too, will become a grandfather. It'll happen, I'm sure of it.”

Joachim raised Miriam's hand, then let go of it, and feigned a gloomy expression. “You're very clever if you can tell me what's in store for me, with a daughter like this one.”

In his voice, though, there was obvious tenderness and even amusement.

         

M
ARIAMNE
was the only one to notice it: Although Joachim's bad mood had abated, Miriam remained distant. Her nights were restless, and full of dreams that she refused to talk about the following day. At other times, she would wake very early. No longer at the crack of dawn, as before, but well before anyone in the house had woken. Mariamne decided to keep an eye on her. She lay in the darkness, eyes wide open, listening to her slip out of their bedchamber and waiting for her to return. Because it was still so dark, she knew that dawn was a long way away.

The third time it happened, she said to her, “Isn't it dangerous to go out the way you do, in the middle of the night? You don't know who might be lurking out there. Or you could easily hurt yourself in the dark.”

Miriam smiled and stroked Mariamne's cheek. “Go to sleep and don't worry about me. I'm in no danger.”

That merely stoked Mariamne's curiosity. The next time it happened, she decided to follow her. But the moon was nothing but a thin sliver of silver, and the stars gave barely enough light to illumine a single stone. By the time Mariamne got to the yard, she could see only shadows, and none of them stirred. She stopped dead and peered into the darkness, listening. She heard the crickets chirping, and sensed an owl flying overhead, but that was all.

Anxious and disconcerted, she resolved to confide in Ruth.

Ruth took her time before replying. “It's Miriam, so what do you expect? All the same, it's best if the others don't notice she spends half the night outside. Keep all this to yourself.”

Ruth waited until a moment when she was certain that she and Miriam were out of earshot of the others, then said reproachfully, “I hope you know what you're doing.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The nights you spend away from your bed.”

Miriam looked at her wide-eyed, then burst out laughing. “Not whole nights. Only dawns.”

“Dawn is when it starts to get light,” Ruth snorted. “Not when it's pitch dark. When you go out, no one can see a thing.”

Miriam was still smiling, but the amusement had gone from her eyes. “What is it you're thinking?”

“Nothing! Where you're concerned, I don't think anything at all. But take my advice. Make sure your father, Elisheba, and Zechariah don't find out about your escapades.”

“No, Ruth! You must be imagining something.”

Ruth went red with embarrassment and waved her hands. “I don't want to know what's making you so strange lately and drawing you outside like this, let alone imagine it. The best thing you can do is take my advice.”

Some time later, Miriam sat down next to Mariamne. “Don't worry,” she said. “Have no fear. Sleep all night, and don't try to spy on me. There's no point. You'll know when you have to.”

Mariamne was burning with curiosity. She was tempted to visit Yossef's workshop in the middle of the night, but she resisted the temptation. Although Miriam had not said it in so many words, Mariamne knew that if she wanted to keep her friendship, she had better avoid letting her suspicions get the better of her. But sometimes, in the morning, she and Ruth exchanged knowing glances.

Almost an entire moon went by. And then, as they were entering the month of Sivan, the blow fell, as sudden as lightning.

         

M
IRIAM
came to see her father when he was alone and said, with a happy, confident look on her face, “I'm pregnant. A child is growing inside me.”

Joachim's face went as white as a block of chalk.

“What Elisheba said was true,” Miriam went on, gaily. “You're going to be a grandfather.”

Joachim tried to stand, without success. “Who with?” he breathed.

Miriam shook her head. “Don't worry.”

There was a curious rumbling in Joachim's chest. His lips curled, as if he were trying to chew the hairs of his beard. “That's enough. Answer me. Who with?”

“No, Father. I swear to you, may the Lord strike me down.”

Joachim closed his eyes and struck his chest. When he opened his eyes again, the whites had turned red. “Is it Yossef?” he asked. “If it's Yossef, tell me. I'll talk to him.”