Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt (3 page)

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Authors: Anne Rice

BOOK: Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt
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He thought for a moment. Then he said, "A Jew can live anywhere and be a Jew. We have the Torah, the Prophets, the Tradition. We live as Jews wherever we are. And don't we take the Word of the One True Lord wherever we go? Don't we establish his Word among the pagans wherever we live? I live here because my father lived here and his father before him. You go home because your father wants you to go home."
My father.
A chill passed over me. J
oseph was not my father.
I had always known this, but it wasn't something to be said to anyone, ever. And I didn't say anything about it now.
I nodded.
"Remember me," Philo said.
I kissed his hands, and he bent down and kissed me on both cheeks.
He was going home to a fine supper perhaps, in his house of marble floors and lamps everywhere, and rich curtains, and the upper rooms open to the sea.
He turned back once to wave to me and then he and his servants with their torches were gone.
I felt sad for a moment, just a moment, enough never to forget it, this stabbing sadness. But I was too excited to be returning to the Holy Land.
And I hurried back home.
In the darkness, I came up quietly on the courtyard, and I heard my mother crying. She sat next to Joseph.
But I don't know why we can't settle in Bethlehem," she was saying. "It seems we were meant to return there."
Bethlehem, where I was born.

'Never," said Joseph. "We can't even consider such a thing." He was kind as always with her. "How could you think this, that we could ever go back to Bethlehem?"

"But I've been hoping all this time," my mother pressed. "It's been seven years, and people forget, if they ever understood. ..."
My uncle Cleopas who lay flat on his back with his knees crooked was laughing softly, the way he laughed at so many things. My uncle Alphaeus said nothing. He appeared to be looking up at the stars. I could see James in the doorway watching, and listening too perhaps.
"Think of all the signs," said my mother. "Think of the night when the men from the East came. Why, that alone—."
"That's just it," said Joseph who sat beside her. "Do you think anybody there has forgotten that? Do you think they've forgotten anything? We can never go there."
Cleopas laughed again.
Joseph paid no mind to Cleopas and neither did my mother. Joseph put his arm around my mother.
"They'll remember the star," said Joseph, "the shepherds coming in from the hills. They'll remember the men from the East. Above all, they'll remember the night that—."
"Don't say it, please," said my mother. She put her hands to her ears. "Please don't say those words."
"Don't you see, we must take him and go to Nazareth. We have no choice. Besides . . ."
"What star? What men from the East?" I asked. I couldn't hold back anymore. "What happened?"
Again, my uncle Cleopas laughed under his breath.
My mother looked up at me. She hadn't known I was there. "You mustn't worry about it," she said.
"But what happened in Bethlehem?" I asked.
Joseph was looking at me.

"Our house is in Nazareth," said my mother to me. Her voice was stronger. It was a voice for me. "You have more cousins than you can count in Nazareth. Old Sarah's waiting for us, and Old Justus. These are our kindred in common. We're returning to our house." She stood up and beckoned for me to come.

"Yes," said Joseph. "We'll leave as soon as we can. It will take us a few days, but we'll be in time for Passover in Jerusalem and then go on home."
My mother took me by the hand and started to lead me inside.
"But who were the men from the East, Mamma?" I asked. "Can't you tell me?"
My uncle would not stop his soft laughing.
Even in the dark, I could see the strange expression on Joseph's face.
"Some night, I'll tell you all of it," said my mother. Her tears were gone. She was strong for me as always, not the child she was with Joseph. "You mustn't ask me these things now. Not now. I'll tell when the time comes."
"This is true," said Joseph. "I don't want you to ask, do you understand?"
They were gentle, but these were clear and strange words. All the words they'd spoken were strange.
I should have let them go on talking. I would have learned more. And I knew it was a great secret, this that they talked about. How could it not be? And as for me hearing it, they knew they'd made a mistake.
I didn't want to sleep. I lay on my blanket trying to sleep, but sleep didn't come and I didn't want it. I never wanted it. But now my thoughts were racing. We were going home, and I had so much to think about because so much had happened, and now they were saying these strange things.

And what had happened today? What had happened

with Eleazer and what had happened with him, that, and the memory of the sparrows insofar as I could remember it— these were like bright shapes in my mind for which I didn't have words. I'd never felt anything before like the power that had come out of me just before Eleazer fell dead in the dust, or the power that had come out of me just before he'd risen from the mat.
Son of
David, Son of David, Son of David. . .
Little by little everyone came in to sleep. The women were in their corner, and I had Little Justus snuggled up to me, Simon's youngest son. Little Salome was singing softly to Baby Esther who was, by some miracle, quiet.
Cleopas was coughing, talking to himself but saying nothing, then sleeping again.
I felt a hand on mine. I opened my eyes. It was James next to me, James, my elder brother.
"What you did," he whispered.
"Yes?"
"Killing Eleazer, bringing him back?"
"Yes?"
"Never, never do that again," he said.
"I know," I answered.
"Nazareth is a small place," he said.
"I know," I said.
He turned away.
I rolled over, my head on my arm. I closed my eyes. I stroked the head of Little Justus. Without waking he snuggled closer.
What did I know?

"Jerusalem," I whispered. "Where the Lord dwells in the Temple." No one heard me. Philo had told me, It is the biggest Temple in all the world. I saw the clay sparrows that I had made. I saw them spring into life, heard the flap of wings, heard my mother's breath, Joseph's cry: "No!" and they were gone, tiny dots against the sky. "Jerusalem." I saw Eleazer rise from the mat.

Philo had said on that day when he received me in his house that the Temple was so beautiful that thousands came to see it, thousands, pagans and Jews from all the cities of the Empire, men and women journeying there to offer sacrifice to the Lord of All.
My eyes snapped open. All around me the others slept.
What did I think had happened in all this? A
great stumbling.
Where had that power come from? Was it still there?
Joseph hadn't spoken one word to me about it. My mother hadn't asked me what had happened. Had we ever talked of the sparrows made on the Sabbath?
No. No one would talk of these things. And I couldn't ask anyone, now, could I? To talk of such things outside the family, that could never happen. Any more than I could stay in the great city of Alexandria and study with Philo in his house of marble floors.
I must be very very watchful from now on, that even in the smallest things I might misuse what was inside me, this power that could make Eleazer die and come back to life.
Oh, it had been all very well to make everyone smile at my quickness at learning, Philo and the Teacher and the other boys, and I knew so much of the Scripture in Greek, and in Hebrew thanks to Joseph and Uncle Cleopas and Uncle Alphaeus, but this was different.
I knew something now that was beyond what I could put into words.

I wanted to go to Joseph, to wake him up, to ask him for help in understanding this. But I knew he'd tell me not to ask about this any more than I should ask about the other things, the things I'd heard them saying. Because this power, this

power was somehow linked to the things they'd been saying, and to the strange talk of the Teacher which had made them all go silent and look at him. It had to be linked.
It made me sad, so sad I wanted to cry. It was my fault we had to leave here. It was my fault, and even though everyone was happy, I felt sad and to blame.
All this was mine to keep inside. But I'd find out what had happened in Bethlehem. I'd find out some way, even though I had to do as Joseph said.
But for now, what was the very deep secret of all this? What was the inside of it? I must not misuse who I
am.
A coldness came over me. I felt still and I felt very small. I pulled the blanket up around me. Sleepiness. It came as if an angel had touched me.
Better to sleep as all of them were sleeping. Better to drift as they drifted. Better to trust as they trusted. I stopped trying to stay awake and think on these things. I felt drowsy, so drowsy that I couldn't think anymore.

Cleopas was coughing again. Cleopas was going to be sick as he so often was. And that night I knew it would be bad. I heard the rattle down in his chest.

3

WITHIN DAYS THE NEWS ARRIVED in the port that Herod was dead. It was the talk of the Galileans and Judeans everywhere. How had Joseph known? The Teacher came storming back, demanding to know, but Joseph said nothing.
We were busy long hours completing the tasks we'd taken on, finishing doors, benches, lintels, and such that had to be leveled and smoothed, and finished, and then delivered to the painters. After that came the picking up of the items already painted and the putting of them into place in the houses of those who had hired us, which I liked because I saw many rooms, and different people, though we always worked with our heads down and our eyes down out of respect, but still I saw things. I learned things. And all this meant coming home after dark, tired and hungry.
It was more work than Joseph had thought but he didn't want to leave any promise unfulfilled, and meantime my mother wrote home to Old Sarah and her cousins that we were coming, James penning the letters for her and both of us taking them to the post, and all life was excited with preparations.

The spirit in the street was with us again now that everyone knew we were soon going. Other families gave us presents to take with us—small pottery lamps, and one a stoneware cup, and another a fine bit of linen.

It was almost resolved to go by land, with the purchase of donkeys planned, when Uncle Cleopas rose from his bed one night coughing badly and said:
"I don't want to die in the desert." He had become very pale, and thin, and had not been working much with us anymore, and this was all he had to say. No one answered him.
And so it was resolved, we would go by ship. It would cost us, everybody knew, but Joseph said we would do it. We would go to the old harbor of Jamnia. And we would reach Jerusalem in time for the Feast, and after that Cleopas slept better.
Then came time to leave. We were dressed in our finest woolen robes and sandals, everyone loaded with packs of goods. And it seemed the whole street turned out to see us off.
Tears were shed, and even Eleazer came to nod at me, and I at him, and then we were pressing our way through the thickest crowd I'd ever seen in the port, with my mother herding us together, and I clutching Salome's hand tight, and James telling us over and over to stay together. Over and over the heralds blew their trumpets for ships. And at last came the call for a ship to Jamnia, and then another, and another. Everywhere people were shouting and waving.
"Pilgrims," said Uncle Cleopas, laughing again the way he used to before he got sick. "The whole world's headed for Jerusalem."
"The whole world!" Little Salome shrieked. "Did you hear that?" she said to me.
I laughed with her.

We went pushing and shoving and clinging to our bundles with the men hollering and gesturing over our heads, the women cleaving together, and reaching out to snatch our arms and pull us in, and suddenly we were on the gangplank, very nearly falling into the murky water.

In all my life, I had never known such a thing as hitting the deck boards of this ship and as soon as the bundles had all been set down all together, and the women had climbed on top of them and faced each other with veils drawn, and James had given us his more serious and warning face, Salome and I dashed off and made for the rail of the ship, slipping under everyone to reach the point where we could see the port and all the other hurrying people who were still waving and disputing and carrying on, even though we were all but crushed by the bellies and backs against us.
We saw the plank drawn up, the ropes tossed aboard, the last sailor jumping onto the boat, and the water widen between us and the harbor, and suddenly there came that lurch as the boat moved out, and all aboard gave a loud shout, and we slipped away onto the belly of the sea and I squeezed Little Salome to myself, and we laughed for joy to feel the boat borne along beneath us.
We waved and hollered to people we didn't even know, and they waved back and I could feel the high spirits of everyone around me.
For moments, I thought Alexandria would disappear behind all her ships and their masts, but the farther out we moved, the more I could see the city, really see it as I'd never seen it, and a shadow passed over me, and if it hadn't been for Little Salome's happiness, I might not have been so happy too. But I was.

The wind picked up; the smell of the sea was suddenly clean and wonderful, and it caught at our hair and was cool on our faces. We were really leaving Egypt behind, and I wanted to break down and cry like a baby.

Then everyone was shouting for us to look at the Great Lighthouse, as if we could not see it looming over us to the left.
Now many times, I'd looked out to sea at the Great Lighthouse.

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