Two from Galilee (17 page)

"I must go!" she cried and forced herself to hasten forward, clutch at her father's sleeve.

He was conferring with a tall swarthy man in striped garments who was leading a horse, as Esau had predicted. He was delivering it to its owner in Jericho, he explained. He seemed proud of having it in charge but was afraid of mounting it and advised against Esau's trying. They listened nervously to his friendly tale, diverted but preoccupied. The man told Joachim they'd be glad to have Mary accompany them. They had decided to avoid the Samarian towns that lay along th§ Sichem-Ephraim highway; they felt it would be safer to take the longer more rigorous Jordan mountain route, but if that was acceptable she was welcome. He waved aside Joachim's offer of money.

Thus her fate was settled. She kissed Esau, who now began to cry and cling to her, and the rough grizzled face of her father. He would have lifted her onto the donkey, but Joseph reached for her first—between them she almost fell. Then she was on its back, the paniers at its sides bumping, and Joseph's face was tormentingly near, moving along beside her. "Don't stay long, Mary," he pleaded. "We've got so much to talk about, there's so much I must know. . . ." But the others were crowding in upon them, the animals and the people who wanted to continue on their way. "Oh, Mary . . . Mary!"

The donkey rocked and jarred along beneath her. She turned for one last forlorn, near panicky look at the three who stood shielding their eyes. They lifted their hands stiffly to wave at her and she made a wistful little gesture of waving back before grabbing the reins once more.

Thus she left behind her all that she loved in Galilee.

On they moved, on and on forever. The muscles of the sturdy little beast had become her muscles, nerveless, insensate, a part of the endless winding road. Across the boggy plains of Esdrae-lon they plodded, then east across the Jordan and up into the mountains where she must clutch the reins tighter, though they were already cutting her wrists where she had wound them lest she fall asleep and pitch headlong off into one of the steep gorges where the tiny hooves picked their way so gingerly.

At night she lay shivering in her heavy wool cloak, wrapping it closer around her, trying to rest upon the hard ground. The campfire was a core of comfort in the darkness; figures huddled around it, some sitting, some sprawled. Fear lurked in the shadows. Once there was a bloodcurdling cry. She sat up, dry with terror. But she heard the shouts of the watchers, and their beating staves. Hagar, the wife of the leader, lying near, reached out a motherly hand. "Lie still, child, they will drive the lion away." Trembling, Mary crept nearer to her, this large rawboned woman, who had taken her under her wing. Except for several small children Mary was the youngest of the group.

One night when they had reached the stony wilderness of Judea they took refuge in a cave. Perhaps one of those that had given David shelter from the pursuing Saul, the men remarked as they built the fire at its mouth. Or where he had taken his child bride of the wastelands on their wedding night, Mary thought as she lay down. She could not sleep, she lay stiff with weariness and homesickness and longing, she lay thinking of Joseph. His last words, his bewildered and tormented eyes. She ached with a hunger which she fought to set aside ... it was not right, it must not be. A different fate awaited them.

But oh, Joseph, my Joseph—believe in me. You must believe!

Toward evening of the fourth day, tired as they all were, a sense of excitement gripped everyone. They were nearing their destination. Some of the families had already dropped off at small mountain towns. The others were proceeding on to Jerusalem. Mary's anticipation was surpassed by her anxiety. Only twice before, with her parents, had she been in the teeming city of Jerusalem. Already exhausted, half-sick from the journey, now she was sick with dread lest she fail to find her way to Ain-Karem. But Hagar put her mind at ease; she and her husband would not think of abandoning her, they would ride on with her to make sure she found the home of her aunt.

Elizabeth had been restless all night.

The child was now so big she found it difficult to adjust its crowding weight to the couch. She flung off the coverlet and walked about to ease herself, her bare feet noiseless on the marble floors or the soft Persian carpets of her house. She could not leave off touching it, this precious bulge that she carried, for to do so eased a constant concern. It was there, daily growing heavier, and so surely it lived, this belated gift from God. Yet thus far she had not felt it move.

Was it in the fourth month or the fifth that women said the mysterious stirring began? She was nearly six months now. Six proud, anxious, enthralled months since her husband had come home from the Temple, white and shaken, struck dumb by some experience there too awesome to reveal. And that night when she had lain down with him to comfort him he had come into her with a power and strength amazing in a man of his years. And when she arose from his side she had wept for the joy that had been so long denied them. Her seed had been quickened at last—she knew at once, she knew! And for days she too had been almost too overcome with thanksgiving to speak.

The moon laid a tracery of silver on all the finely wrought furnishings of the house, and the broad balcony that overlooked the town. Elizabeth made her way there and stood gazing out. The moon was a half-man lying on its back, laughing down. "You are too old to bear a child," the shadowy mouth taunted. But she tipped her black head proudly back; the two white wings at her temples were all that revealed her age. She had a glad sweet noble face that pregnancy had enhanced. Yet alarm touched her, unconsciously she stroked her sides, as if to force some signal from them.

What if it were true, what if she were actually too old? What if Zachariah's muteness was not from wonder but from fear for the greater disappointment that awaited them? God's miracle would prove only a mockery if she delivered a stillborn child.

She clasped her bare arms against the chill of the summer night. Fireflies winked like little fallen stars over the rooftops that fell away and away, down the hillside, at the foot of which ran the narrow road to Jerusalem. The city too glimmered with a few late-burning lights, while beyond, swathed in pearly clouds, mighty and eternal, rose the Mount of Olives.

A sense of anticipation began to mount in Elizabeth. A strong conviction of some important thing impending. She could hear the crickets singing, the beat of a night hawk's wings. And quite clearly, far below, the rhythmic pluck and plod of hooves as some late traveler persevered along the winding road.

She had settled down on her couch once more, and was half-asleep, dreaming, dreaming . . . when she heard the insistent pounding on the thick oak door. Alarm tightened her skin. Twice robbers had crept up the steep stone steps and forced their way boldly into the home of the pious unarmed priest. But it wasn't of her remaining silver she was thinking, only the safety of the child.

Then the voice came to her. The sweet young voice that sounded so familiar and yet so startling. "Aunt Elizabeth. Don't be afraid, it's Mary, your sister's daughter. It's only me."

"Mary!" Fumbling for robes, Elizabeth caught up the night lamp. "How can this be?" She hurried to the door, flung it wide. In the added glow of a sputtering torch two figures were revealed.

"Forgive us for disturbing you so late," Mary said. "We took the wrong fork in the road." She turned to the heavy dark man in the striped robe. "Thank you, Seth—you and dear, dear Hagar. I'll never forget-your kindness in coming with me."

"Yes, yes," Elizabeth cried. "Bless you for bringing her safely to me. But why? How? No, time for explanations later, when you have come in and refreshed yourself. Let me call my husband."

No, no, the man said, his wife was waiting below with the beasts, they must be on. He hesitated. "However, if you could send someone to stable the ass."

"Yes, I'll send a servant," Elizabeth said. "If you're sure you won't summon your wife and honor us by your presence?"

No. No, they must be on, he insisted. He was a bluff and hearty man, vigorous and talkative on the trip. But now a great shyness had come upon him. He lingered, his eyes fixed upon Mary, his large jaw thrust outward. It was plain that something within him was struggling to be said.

"Farewell," he blurted finally, and had started awkwardly down the steps when suddenly he halted, jerked back his head. "Forgive me, but I—I feel that some strange honor has already befallen me this night!"

The two women gazed at each other in wonder a second after they had embraced. "Is it really you, little Mary?" Elizabeth asked. She lifted her lamp to the young face, so sunburned and dusty from the road.

"Yes. Though I can hardly believe I'm here. Never has a journey seemed so long, never has the distance from Nazareth seemed so great." Her voice broke. "And I—I'm not little Mary any more, my aunt. I am a woman grown."

"It becomes you," her aunt said softly. "You are even more beautiful as a woman than I would have believed."

"I had to come," Mary said. "My parents wanted it, and though I dreaded leaving them I realize now that I wanted it even more. I had to come," she said again. "Seeing how it is with my aunt. That God has finally favored her with seed that is likewise fated to be holy seed. I realize now that my aunt, and only my aunt, will understand."

"Mary!" Elizabeth's face was contorted with a joy that was akin to pain. "Oh—
Mary!"
Again her hands flew to her bulging body, but this time to know and savor the sweet throbbing. "It moves, it moves! My little one moves. Zachariah!" She turned to the slight figure that had appeared blinking in the arched doorway, bearing another lamp. "Oh, my husband, our baby lives and breathes and twists its little body within me. Our baby moves!"

She was crying. The tears ran unchecked down her cheeks; they mingled with the kisses that fell on Mary's face, her hair, her hands. "Blessed are you among women," she cried. "And blessed is the fruit of your womb." Still weeping, she knelt and kissed the girl's grubby feet.

'Then you know? You already know how it is with me, my aunt?"

"I know. I knew it on the instant that my own child leapt. How is it that I have deserved to be thus visited by the mother of my Lord?"

His mother. . . . The mother of their Lord.

Mary stood shaken and dazed. It was true then, true. Her aunt bore witness. This, then, was the reason for the long arduous journey. This confirmation.

But she was so tired, so tired, rocking back and forth on the small beast still, making her way forever to this place of light, high on a mountainside. This pure and quiet place of peace and confirmation and holy refuge. And the voice of her gratefulness rose up in her, it poured forth from her in joy and wonder:

"My soul doth magnify the Lord! . . . My heart rejoiceth, for in him is my succor!" she cried. "He hath seen the lowliness of his handmaid, and behold, from this day all generations shall call me blessed, for the mighty one hath done great things in me. . . ."

And as her song of bliss and prophecy continued, Elizabeth could not leave off kissing her dusty feet and washing them with her tears. And Zachariah, Elizabeth's husband, wept too in exaltation for this thing that had come to pass.

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Now
in
new
ways
she
heard
the
voice
of
God.
It
roused
her
at dawn when his seven silver trumpets at the Temple heralded the day's first sacrifice. And every few hours the hills were pierced again by these wild and holy signals for songs and psalms. Each time Mary trembled; it was as if the thrill of his presence rang through her, rousing her from her dreamy meditations that were a strange blend of homesickness, bliss and awe.

How had she ever lived otherwise than in this place of gentle elegance that was itself a kind of temple, spare and sanctified like the aged priest who dwelled here, yet rich with the warmth and color of his wife? The walls and floors and draperies were purest white; not the flaking gray-white of the little houses of Nazareth, but radiant with the sunshine that spilled from the sky by day, and the brilliance of the huge Judean stars at night. White and shining like Zachariah's hair and beard and robes. He almost glistened as he moved about, his hands, so curiously massive compared to the rest of him, clasped across his breast.

Or the hands would gracefully beckon, direct—communicating as clearly as the prominent eyes that shone in his pale and shrunken face. Before him Mary felt a kind of stricken adoration.  She flew about waiting on him, smoothing his bed, bringing him sweets from the table, sometimes washing his parchment-yellow feet. These duties were like devotions, or supplications. He seemed, in his shadowy rustling radiance like some emanation of God's very breath. Surely he had the ear of the almighty, for in his power and purity he flowed into God like some undefiled stream. Let him then persuade the Lord to absolve her of her unworthiness. The anxieties that still plagued her, the purely human concerns. For she still longed desperately for Joseph; consciousness of him was with her always, despite this life so different from the one they had known. What was he thinking? What were his plans? Would he ever truly believe her? Would her mother? Or the people of Nazareth? Did even Joachim believe any more?