Two from Galilee (14 page)

She stared at him aghast. "You're out of your mind to even consider such a thing. You too must be ill."

"It's lack of faith in God's word that bespeaks illness, Hannah. Have you never heard the words of the prophets? Every one of them from Samuel's time on has predicted the Messiah, to be born of a virgin, Isaiah said. And when has Israel ever needed a Saviour more?"

"I don't believe it," Hannah said flatly. She was angry now in her dismay. "Nor do you, not really. You've been out in the sun too long."

"The Lord himself promised us that the time would come— and the time is surely upon us. The scholars are convinced of it, all the sages and seers."

"People see what they want to see. Joachim, please. Our daughter has never needed a strong straight-thinking father so much as she needs one now. I'm but a woman; our daughter's in serious trouble and I can't handle this alone. Nor can I handle it sanely if you too are carried away by visions that may only make her worse. Help me, my husband, please help me!"

Her cry broke through his soaring dream. A sound that was human and real, tearing asunder what must surely be only a fantasy of fulfillment, a hope pursued so passionately and long that it had become a kind of delusion.

"I'll try," he said. "I'll try to set aside my own convictions for your sake and listen without prejudice. Let's go to her now and see. But one thing I know—ill she may be, but never evil. Our Mary could not lie."

Mary was in the yard as they hastened up the path. She was at the fence, testing some of the clothes, turning them about, the better to receive the sun. She too wore a skimpy washday garment and her feet were bare and a lock of hair fell into her eyes. She brushed it aside, lifting her face to greet them. And seeing her thus, so young, so normal about this everyday task, Joachim felt both a strange sharp disappointment and a glorious surge of relief. All was well. All was truly well with his daughter.

It was a grave thing to become involved with God. But now he saw that she had been spared. She hadn't been singled out, either for tragedy or an honor so enormous that it was beyond human comprehension. She and her mother must have had one of their differences, that was all, and Hannah always reacted in some fashion—a headache, a cleaning spree, or now possibly this fantastic account born surely of misunderstanding. It might even be that Hannah herself was sick.

"Come into the house, come in out of the sun," Hannah ordered as she made for the door. "I must see about the midday meal, we must talk, we must discuss this thing but first we must eat," she said incoherently. "The children will be back."

"They're here," Mary told her. "They came while you were away, they couldn't find the bees."

But her mother rushed on in, and she was glad. She was not afraid of her father; she always had had a dumb, consoled, fated feeling that he would believe. But to try to explain again in the presence of her mother—no, her voice would only shake, her ability to make it sound credible would be tried all over again.

"Mary, Mary . . . what is this thing that your mother tells me?"

"It's true, Father. Believe me—you must believe me. If you don't then surely all is lost."

"Come, now. Come, come. . . ." He led her to the selfsame bench under the dry dusty palm tree. His heart was sore within him at her tone. She seemed so little and lost, as she had often seemed to him when she turned to him after some bout with Hannah when she was small. So stricken at having done something, she knew not quite what, to estrange her from her mother. It was all he could do to refrain from putting his arms about her where she sat huddled into herself on the bench. "Have I ever failed to believe you, little Mary?"

"No. No, but I'm not a little girl any more. And this—this that has happened to me is an appalling thing. I am going to have a baby, Father, but I have not sinned. Joseph and I have not sinned."

"It would be no sin," he said almost too quickly, for he must give her that assurance, just in case. "It would be a grievous wrong to your mother and me, yes, but no sin in the eyes of God, Mary, since you and Joseph have publicly pledged each other and are betrothed."

"Don't make excuses for me, Father. They're not necessary. That is what I beg you to believe!"

She turned to him, her face grave. "The prophecies are about to be fulfilled, as you have always said. Father, I am the chosen one. Humble as I am, faulty, weak, wicked even—the Lord has chosen me."

"You're not faulty or weak or wicked!" he stormed, for he felt shaken now with his own dismay. It was an effort to speak. "Mary, if this be true and not . . . not . . ." he hesitated, "not just another dream—if God has truly deemed that the time has come, then he has chosen wisely. Surely he could find no purer or lovelier maid in all Israel." He broke off, unable to continue. The divine fate that he had sensed even in her infancy when he had that strong impulse to give her to the Temple. Her whole childhood, its queenliness, its touch of mystery. . . .

"If
it be true, Father? If God has deemed the time has come?" She gripped his great rough hand, her eyes were wet. "Father, it is no dream. I am with child. A child that can only be his child, since I have known no man."

"How do you know?" he said sternly, almost impatiently. "Forgive me, but I'm your father and your mother is right— I've got to deal with this sanely and wisely. I must not let myself be carried away by my own tendency to dream, or my long obsession with the hope of Israel."

"God's own angel came to tell me that this was to be," Mary whispered, eyes low. "And the Holy One invaded my being-how, just how I cannot say. Only that I was uplifted, I felt myself one with the infinite, one in a bliss indescribable. . . ." Her voice broke, and through her closed lids the tears glinted. "Maybe somewhere, sometime there will be an experience like that for all of us. Maybe the grave is not the end, Father, maybe we are not doomed to wander through Sheol forever. Maybe one day every human being will know what it is like to be one with God." She paused. There was only the dry clashing of the palms, the sleepy mourning of doves in the nearby meadows.

"I cannot tell you how it was," she went on, "I can't even remember clearly, only that it was, it was! And now—since then my very body has begun to change. There are signs, purely human signs. It wouldn't be proper to describe them to you, but I have told Mother what they are and she—even she agrees that there can be no doubt. I am to bear a child."

"Have you told Joseph?"

"No. I have been beside myself wondering what to do. At first I wasn't sure myself. In my amazement I thought perhaps I might be ill, or carried away by the intensity of some childish dream. Then I knew, gradually I knew—and my body began to give proof. Until today I couldn't bring myself to tell Mother; and whenever I think of Joseph my heart dies."

"He loves you. Surely he, of all people, wouldn't turn against you." In great agitation, Joachim rose. "You must tell him at once. Tonight, if possible. Meanwhile we must try to think how best to handle this."

"Then you believe me? You do believe me, Father?"

"I have no choice save to believe. Like Joseph, I love you. And without faith love would be a mockery."

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JOSEPH was late that evening. He had wanted to finish off the batch of mortar he had made before it set. Then he could not resist gazing at the growing shape of his labors. It stood there, glowing with a soft and secret fire that his very ardor had blended into the clay. It had no roof as yet, but he had already begun the stairs that would lead to an upper chamber. It was going to be a good strong house, sturdy and graceful as it clung to the hillside, and it gave him satisfaction that it adjoined no other house.

In time it could be expanded so that their children could have more room. . . . Their children! His seed and Mary's. . . .

He turned abruptly, hurried down to his room to wash and draw on clean garments. His whole body was pulsing with love as he strode up the hill to be with Mary. He had never felt closer to Jahveh, whose sky arched above him, riddled with stars. It was as if his head and shoulders were crowding and thrusting among them, in a proud bright sharing of joy. He sang as he hastened toward her that night, he felt blessed above all men.

There was something arid and vacant about the house of Joachim; he sensed it as he approached. The family had come down from the roof, if indeed they had gone up at all. Hannah was putting the children to bed. When she came out and found Joseph there she gave him a curt, startled greeting and disappeared again. But there was no predicting Hannah. Joseph went into the garden where he found Joachim pacing, and Mary sitting in a strange attitude of quiet. Something was in the air. He could taste it, feel it, yet his earlier sense of elation was not to be denied. The life force was still throbbing within him, his manhood, his awareness of coming fulfillment.

Mary, sitting with her head bowed, had never seemed more beautiful, or her father's greeting more kind. "Peace be with you, Joseph. Mary, see who has come." Joachim's tone, hearty and rather anxious, sounded as if this were unusual. He turned then with a brief nod and left them alone. And this too seemed strange, yet in tune with Joseph's need. As if her father, in a burst of generosity and decency, had remembered what it was to be young.

Mary rose, gazing at him in a way that pierced him oddly. A direct and searching look, yet fraught with concern. "We must talk," she said, "let's go up onto the roof."

"Can't we walk down the path a little way, instead? It's a beautiful night." His voice was trembling. She must come. They had kissed in the olive grove a few precious times. "The flowers are so fragrant, let's walk down to the olive grove. Please."

She nodded almost absently. She moved ahead of him, her robes catching on the blooming oleander bushes, her sandals sounding like the scurrying of little animal feet along the stones. She moved swiftly as if in flight, yet she suffered him to catch her hand. How small it was, how cold.

"Wait," he cried out, laughing. "My darling, wait for me." She halted and he could restrain himself no longer, he swept her into his arms. He tried to find her lips and was the more aroused when she twisted her head away. "Mary, Mary, have you no idea how much I love you? How I think of you, nothing but you all day? Kiss me, Mary, in the way I want you to. Love me, Mary, love me in return. You've been so far away
lately," he said, voicing what he had dimly sensed. "Come back, my beloved, come unto me." He was pleading in a way he had never pleaded before. His breath came hard. "Oh, Mary, my love, my sister, my child, my bride—hold me. Hold me close and suffer me to hold you. Let me love you as I long to, let me teach you what it is to know delight."

It was too much, it was folly, for she broke wildly away. "No! No." The concern he had sensed earlier had become an intense alarm. "You must not say such things, do such things. It isn't right!"

"But I love you and we are betrothed. We are husband and wife in the sight of God. Surely the one who made us did not give us these passions only to torture us. Surely a few more months can't matter, my dearest, when you are already my bride."

"We cannot, we must not, it isn't right."

"Right according to the cruel and foolish customs of Galilee, or right in the sight of God?"

But they were arguing now, and that was wrong. That was the only true wrong, to be separated from her in spirit, as indeed they had been separated these past weeks, he realized helplessly. What had come over her? What elusive yet insistent thing, changing her, making her so aloof, troubled, withdrawn? Had she tired of him? Was she ruing her bargain? Incredible. Such things might happen among heathen, but never among the decent women of Galilee. Never his Mary. She loved him. She could have no regrets—and certainly no other. She loved him!

Yet he stood shaken and baffled, searching himself for error. Desperately he regretted his outburst. He longed to cradle her against his breast, gently without passion; he longed only to know the touch of her once more. "Forgive me if I've spoken or acted rashly, Mary. I promise to bridle both my tongue and my desires. Only—don't look at me like that," he begged softly. "Don't draw so far away from me!"

She had backed up against the trunk of a tree. Her hands were behind her, clinging to it as if for support. Her face was a small white oval hung between the dark mists of her hair and the sheltering trees. "Don't come nearer," she whispered. "Joseph, I beg you—don't touch me! There is something I must tell you." Her lip trembled; it was a second before she could go on. But her eyes were unflinching.

"I am with child."

In the silence that followed he could hear her breathing, or perhaps it was only his own blood pounding in his ears. There was the incessant rattle and chirp of insects in the grasses and the trees. Somewhere a pariah dog was yelping, a wild and eerie sound. A bat dipped out of the star-weighted skies, as if to mock him, then wheeled away.

Numb with astonishment, he could only gaze at her for an eternity. Then he spoke one word. One alone, which later seemed to him almost as unbelievable as the thing she had told him.

"Whose?"

"1
don't know."

"You don't
know!'
His hands, dangling at his sides, felt wooden. A kind of paralysis had come over him. He couldn't have moved nearer now if he had tried. "Mary, are you mad? Or do you think I am?"