Two from Galilee (6 page)

His first thought was escape. The desert monastery of the Es-senes, holy men who fasted and prayed the better to draw near and know the unknowable one. Joseph winced. As he had bitten the leaf so he set his teeth against his own brown, salty flesh. He did not want to deny it, to beat or starve it into submission, he wanted it to be fulfilled as a man must be fulfilled. He wanted it to live and to beget further life. But if he was not to have her, his heart's true wife?

He flung himself over, brought his fists down savagely upon the hard unyielding earth. "Oh, God, my God, if this be thy will then so be it. Thy will be done!"

And then the peace of his first awakening came over him and he lay quiet once again. He lay regarding his lifted hands. Scarred though they were he knew their strength and skill. They could fashion things, good worthy instruments for the business of living. Plows and wagons and yokes, benches and tables. For he would prove that celibacy need be no disgrace. He would build the houses and furnishings for the married; some day he might even build the cupboards and railings in the synagogues. And that would be his manner of worshiping the Lord of Life. He would be a good man, a good carpenter, better than his father, better than anyone perhaps in all Galilee. Such would be his aim and his purpose, his method of making amends to the God Jehovah for having dared in his brash and passionate youth to presume that God had somehow made with him a covenant.

He had risen that day many months ago and brushed the earth and leaves from his tunic and come back into the village curiously cleansed and freed. His parents, sensing some change in him, did not badger him further. They were strangely quiet about Mary, though the news had gotten about: her betrothal was not imminent after all. Evidently it was as Timna had predicted, no suitor was considered up to Hannah's expectations. At least Joachim had found excuses to put them off.

Relieved though Joseph was, he had gone on hammering nails into boards, hammering his own hopes back into subjection. For he must turn his thoughts elsewhere, avoid her at all costs. He knew there would be others; the hour had merely been postponed. He must practice the detachment and self-control he would need to endure it when it arrived.

But now—this day. . . . Staggered, he watched the departing form of Joachim. And it was as if the thick shoulders in the faded brown tunic, the staff that almost truculently struck the stones, were bathed in a small burning cloud of glory, belying his hard-won knowledge that no more did Jahveh mingle in the affairs of men.

Joseph's face was slightly dazed as he turned back into the shop.

His father waddled in, rosy and puffing from his own merry chase of the hen. "What ails you, son?" he asked. "You look as if you'd just seen a vision."

"Perhaps I have," Joseph said. "That was Mary's father. I have been bade to his house to share the evening meal with them."

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TH
E meal was almost ready.

The bread had been baked and was cooling, the table was set. Anxiously Mary surveyed the bowls of curds, the dishes of dates and raisins, the squat earthen mugs of wine. In a few weeks there would have been fresh vegetables from the garden, she thought with regret, but no matter, the duck would compensate. Its aroma roasting on the spit outside intensified her affection for her father. Wiping her hands, she raced into the yard to turn it once again. The fat dripped into the fire, smoking and hissing, the flesh was turning a golden brown.

"Matthew!" she summoned. "Come keep an eye on the duck, don't let it burn. Esau, your sense of smell is keen, you warn him when it's ready to be turned."

She flew inside, glancing at the table with a start of pride—its white linen cloth, and the best goatskin rugs and cushions which she had spread down beside it. Then she climbed the ladder to the loft to freshen herself. But first she pulled aside the drapery and looked into her mother's room. Hannah lay huddled on her pallet, one hand flung over her eyes.

Mary tiptoed in. "Is your head any better, Mother? Let me sponge it for you."

She knelt and dipped a napkin into the basin of water and vinegar that stood on the floor. But her mother turned away. "No, don't bother yourself. You have more important things to do."

"Nothing is more important than the health of my mother. It grieves me to know that you're suffering."

"It's nothing," Hannah said tightly. "There are worse pains."

Yes, worse pains, Mary thought. Worse pains than this sourness that had come between them again and hung as sharp as the vinegar in the room. But no, she would not let herself be troubled, not tonight.

She sprang up, since Hannah would not accept her ministrations. What if Joseph arrived before she'd changed her spattered tunic or brushed her hair! She caught her breath before the enormity of his coming; its miracle sweetened the fetid air. "Then forgive me, Mother, if there's nothing more I can do I'll go to prepare for my father's guest."

Hannah lowered her hand, gazed at her daughter, so excited, so flushed. "Your father's guest," she said drily. "In the middle of the week, not even the Sabbath, and flesh roasting. A
duck.
And you speak of your father's guest."

"Would that he were to be your guest too," Mary said. "Would that you felt like rising and freshening yourself and coming down to greet him."

"I'm ill." Hannah turned her face once more to the wall. "There are hammer blows on my head and nails in my heart, and nobody cares. Neither you nor your father. Nothing matters but the coming guest."

"I care, Mother. I'd stay with you if I could. But since I can't let me call Salome."

"No, no, go on. If I can't have you I don't want anyone. Go and make yourself fair," she said. "For your
fathers
guest!"

Mary bathed swiftly from her own basin of soft cistern water. She longed to linger. Her body was hot and sweaty from the rushing around. She longed to lavish on it the care she had given the food, to annoint and perfume it and bid it be still for the coming of Joseph. But he might be striding up the hill even now, and the water for his own handwashing wasn't drawn. Thank goodness the cistern was full from the rains, but this very water in which she was sponging was brackish and gnat-filled. It would never do for Joseph—was there enough clear well water for the purpose in the jugs?

And the children—she could hear them shrieking as they pranced around the duck. What if they upset the spit and it fell into the coals? It might be burning—there was almost too crisp a smell of it coming through the window slit.

She kicked aside her stained tunic and pulled a fresh one of pale blue over her head. Its cool touch against her skin was calming. It helped to stifle the resentment that had come out of nowhere and had been smouldering, gaining strength, until now it too seemed to be burning deep in her vitals. This is my mother's house and these are her children; wherefore is it that she leaves me alone to cope with them when I have already prepared the meal? No, no, my mother is ill. . . . But she had to bite her quivering lips. For it was surely tonight's event that had brought Hannah's illness on. And if one visit was enough to drive Hannah to her bed, what of more serious demands?

A sudden desolation came over Mary. She stood very still for a moment, giving herself over to the hopelessness. Then she brushed and bound up her damp dark hair and went below.

He came early, in his eagerness. He arrived before Joachim was in from the fields. The children, who had been perched on the step watching for him, ran shouting the news to Mary, who had brought the duck indoors. It was indeed burned on one side, she saw, stricken. Well, no matter, she would carve the other side to be served the men; she and the young ones could eat the bitter side later. A flat dull resignation had replaced her earlier nervousness. He was here. She had assaulted him brazenly on a public street this morning and then bullied her father into inviting him, and now dutifully he had appeared. Only to find her mother absent and her father still not home. It served her right for her folly, this humiliation that seemed symbolized in the charred, half-ruined duck. But since there was no undoing any of it, go now and get it over with.

Head high, she went to greet him. "Peace be with you," she said. "And please forgive my mother's absence. She bids you enjoy the hospitality of this house, which she regrets she can't extend to you herself since she is ill."

He murmured something—she was too troubled by her subterfuge to heed. And the water, here came Esau proudly bearing the basin and jug, his sweet face wearing a bright fixed smile, his twisted leg hobbling carefully so as not to spill it. He must have strained it through a cloth, she noticed gratefully, for it seemed clean and clear. A sudden rejoicing sped through her, a blessed recklessness. Joseph had come, he was truly here. He was standing before her, washing his hands, taller than she had believed, remote and grave with his tense cleft chin, and even more fair.

She longed to search his eyes, to see if his mood matched that of the morning, but she did not dare. Instead, she fastened her gaze upon his hands. How large, how rough and fiercely beautiful were the hands of a man. A little forest of black hairs grew on Joseph's long fingers, sturdy and brittle like the fragrant seas of brushwood that ran triumphant over rocks and fields. Look at me! they seemed to boast—both the brush and the bristling hairs. I will survive despite drought and wind and battering rains, I am tough, I am strong! But his nails were blunted and bruised; there were callouses from the hammer and saw. A mute pity went through Mary. Vaguely she sensed and was awed by the tremendous burden of being a man.

Even as she was thinking this, she noticed that the hands were not quite steady. Joseph was trembling. In astonishment and pain for him she saw that he sloshed the water on the floor and dropped the towel.

"Forgive my clumsiness." Joseph bent to retrieve it, silently cursing himself. To be here with her, a guest at her father's table and have his very limbs betray him. His suffering gaze met Mary's. Was she laughing at him or trying to console him? Impossible to tell for she turned abruptly away, startled by the voice behind her.

"Peace be with you, Joseph. Here, don't use that towel, we have more." Hannah stood there, holding out another. Her small sunken eyes were distant and chilling, her mouth tight for all its courteous words.

She had caught Joseph at his worst, the awkward groping for the dropped linen, the strong assertive face gone scarlet with embarrassment. And the hands that had so moved Mary—she was newly conscious of their scars. But the main thing was that Hannah had risen. She had put on fresh garments and twisted her hair into a hard little knot and come down.

"I'm glad you're feeling better, Mother," Mary gasped. And scarcely knowing what she was doing, she snatched the abandoned towel and ran with it. Outside she leaned limp against the wall for a moment, the scrap of cloth pressed against her cheek. It was still warm from his touch, it bore the marks of his hands. Oh, let her father come soon and make Joseph truly welcome, and let her mother be in an amiable mood after all, kindly and entertaining the way she could be if she wanted. An amused tenderness came over Mary. She might have known that her mother would join them, if only because Hannah couldn't bear to miss anything.

There now, her father was coming along the path from the olive grove. The sun had already vanished behind the mountains, but for a moment before the darkness fell its scarlet enflamed the sky. And against it, between the shimmering silver of the trees and the small crouched shed she saw him and the ox in silhouette. Tired beasts both of them, heavy and stolid, pushing hopefully toward the evening's rest. And wonder and gratefulness flooded her afresh, akin to the wrench of awed pity she had felt at sight of Joseph's hands.

Stuffing the little towel impulsively into her bosom, she ran to help her father with the ox. "Oh, I'm so glad to see you. Joseph is here and Mother's feeling better and now surely all will go well."

In the house Joseph sat playing with the children while Hannah rattled bowls and vessels and darted about in a burst of perverse animation, correcting the meal. She snatched off a dish of dates that seemed to her too dry and added more curds. Where were the onions? No meal was complete without onions! She thumped and rearranged cushions. As for the duck, the near-tragedy that had befallen that rare indulgence struck her as both fitting and devastating. How had they let it burn? "I can't turn my back a minute. Esau, Salome, somebody—stop those children from clambering all over our guest."

"Oh, but I'm used to children. Remember, there are even more of them at our house." Joseph caressed the curly fluff that covered the head of three-year-old Judith. It was like Mary's; it too would strive to escape its braids some day. His eyes sought hers where she knelt by the hearth. "I love children." And the words, however open, bore a message for her alone.

Joachim had come in and washed himself. He greeted the guest cordially but with a trace of something restrained, vaguely on guard. The two of them sat down while Mary and her mother served the food. The silence was uncomfortable at first as they dipped their bread, each groping, Mary sensed painfully, to find something to say to each other. Then gradually their voices rose above the click and rattle of the bowls. The gruff, weary and opinionated nasal of Joachim, and the respectful golden tones of Joseph, discussing the subjects on which men could always grow heated—taxes, tributes, and the latest atrocities of Herod.