Second Touch (22 page)

Rabbi raised his hand for silence. “Fine lads, all of you. Cantor would be proud of your eagerness. You’re sons of his brave heart, that’s certain. But without a leader. Without Cantor or Carpenter . . .” Lily grasped Carpenter’s hand. “Carpenter! Oh! Cantor loved you so. Made you second in command in case . . . in case . . . something happened to him. He knew you could lead the others. Would you have turned back if he had died on the road?” “I may well have done so,” Carpenter admitted. “And if the Messiah was just over the next hill? If hope was within reach! Just a mile away. Would you have turned back?” “Well, now . . . well, now . . . that’s altogether another story.” Lily held up her clawlike left hand. “And if you knew a touch or word could restore this? And the One we’ve all been waiting for was close enough for you to shout to him? to run to him? to grasp his knees and not let him go until . . . until . . .” “If you put it that way, Lily, of course we’d go on.” “Yes. Yes, Carpenter! Cantor would expect it of you. Expect you all to be brave!” The hawking boys rallied behind her, cheering her on. “Sure. Sure. That’s right. Just what Cantor would say, I suppose, if he could speak. Well spoken, Lily,” Carpenter said approvingly. Rabbi nodded. Lily sat back and gazed down at her hands. Now she had no feeling in her right index finger. Bite by bite she was being devoured. She longed for physical pain. Pain to mask the deep internal ache that throbbed in her. But she felt nothing. Nothing where the sickness consumed her. “I know!” Carpenter exclaimed. “Lily can go with us! Lily can be the tenth in our minyan!” Hopeless thought. “The baby. I ¬can’t. Deborah is my sister. My mother. As she grows weaker, she’s becoming my child. I have no one left now but Deborah and the little ones. I ¬can’t leave them.” ¬I’m crying out to you, Unhearing One! Who among men and angels will hear my cry now that Cantor’s gone? No one. No one. And so I hold back my dark sobs and look them in the eye and speak rationally when ¬I’m shattered like a tree blasted by a bolt of summer lightning. I will not leave Deborah. Though the hours are coming soon when she, like Cantor, will leave me. And so it was settled. Carpenter and the other eight men and boys marched out of the Valley of Mak’ob as those who remained Inside gathered on the Valley floor to cheer or shake their heads or tap their temples . . . because not ¬everyone believed. Not ¬everyone still had strength to hope. And before the end of the day, nine new lepers from Outside had descended into Mak’ob to fill the places of those who had gone in search of Messiah. Each who entered brought with them a new story of the prophet Elijah returned to earth, or of King David’s long-awaited son, or of Mosheh the righteous lawgiver raised up from the dead . . . whose touch could cure any ill.

None of them, however, had ¬ever come near enough to know if these rumors were myth or reality.

Lily tried not to think about what was coming as she worked through the day. ¬I’m praying again, Silent One. I am the tree. My roots are here . . . now. These, my dear ones, are the dusty soil where my heart grows. The winds are coming. I feel it. Must I live on through the tearing? Why ¬don’t you answer? Heal little Baruch! Make Deborah strong again! Save this baby! The Hawk had hunted and brought back three pigeons this morning. Lily made soup. A pinch of salt, a little cabbage, a handful of lentils. It tasted almost as good as Mama used to make. Almost. That evening Lily fed Baruch first, sang to him, prayed with him, told him a story, and tucked him in. Deborah looked on through fevered eyes. The baby nursed quietly. A whisper. Almost inaudible. “What would I do without you, Lily?” “You’re my family.” Lily ladled soup into a cup and brought it to Deborah’s bedside. The baby was dozing but still contentedly attached. “God knew we needed you.” “¬I’m just Lily. No one’s answer to prayer.” “Since Jekuthiel left, you’ve been taking care of us all. All the work. The garden. The hawking. Chickens and goats. Baruch. The baby. Me.” “My family.” Lily waved her hands expansively at the interior of the cave. “What else? It ¬isn’t so bad.” Two wooden chests of belongings had been carted down from the Outside. Once a month, meager supplies arrived from Jekuthiel’s father. A basket of salt, oil, grain, a jug of wine, seeds for planting—all were dropped off at the top of the cliffs. Lily hiked up, retrieved the delivery from the barrier wall, and carried it down. Deborah told her, “Last month I wrote Jekuthiel’s father. Asking if Jekuthiel had come back to him for help. I told him about the baby coming. Asked if he would take in a healthy baby. His grandchild.” Lily glanced up sharply. So, they would talk about it now. “And?” “No. No about Jekuthiel. ¬I’m afraid. If Jekuthiel ¬didn’t go home to his father for help, then . . . ¬I’m afraid.” “Jekuthiel ¬wouldn’t have gone to that old jackal. There’s no help from the likes of him. Every month for years he’s sent just enough supplies to the top of the cliff to pay off his conscience. Less and less as time passes.” “He said no . . . about the baby. Doesn’t want him. Said he’d keep sending supplies until we ¬don’t need any more. Until we’re all dead, he means. But he wants nothing to do with tsara’im or the child of tsara’im. The shame of it. Disgrace. Even though he’s a healthy baby . . . I suppose he’s afraid. You know?” Lily touched the baby’s soft head. “Who could be afraid of this?” Deborah stroked the infant. “Jekuthiel tried to leave the boys behind with his father when we were exiled . . . but . . .”

“No mercy.” “Why, Lily? They ¬don’t see us as we are, I suppose.” “Don’t see that they are us. On the inside they are what we are. The same. Needing mercy. No different . . . wounded. In different ways. But still wounded. All of us. They want to forget. Not think about it. Get on with their lives.” “I long for that oblivion sometimes. The days when I cheerfully dissected and diagnosed the problems of ¬everyone who ¬wasn’t me.” A bitter laugh. “If the ones I injured by my gossip could see me now!” “Eat, Deborah. You’re melting away to sticks and straw while the baby gets fat.” “They were healthy boys until we came here. Both of them. They could’ve lived a life without Jekuthiel and me . . . Outside. Lived. Grown up. But their grandfather ¬couldn’t be bothered. Didn’t want the family disgraced.” She cast a sorrowful look towards Baruch. “First Hosea. His lungs filled. Less than a year and Hosea was gone.” As if to emphasize her point, Baruch coughed in his sleep. “Soon Baruch. The baby eventually unless . . . unless . . .” “Here. Soup. It’s good. Three pigeons the Hawk caught today. I cleaned them. Fed the Hawk what we ¬couldn’t eat. He was very happy to have it too. He’s a useful bird.” “Good.” Deborah sipped gingerly from the spoon. “Good.” “Like home,” Lily agreed. “Mama always thought I’d make a good cook.” “Your mama. Ever hear from her?” Lily shook her head. She did not want to talk about what was past. “Never.” She held another spoonful of soup out for Deborah. “Here. Eat. You’ve got to get strong again. You must. You . . . must.” ¬I’m praying again, Uncaring One. Can you hear my groaning from your distant outlook above Mak’ob? ¬I’m the tree. Things are calm again, for the moment. My branches ¬don’t yet tremble. The dust sleeps quietly. See? But the winds are coming. I sense them. My heart fears their approach. The winds. They’ll tear us apart. Blow away the ¬only ones who love me. I’ve seen it before. I recognize the signs. You’ve already taken Cantor. And when it’s finished I’ll be the ¬only one left. Alone! The tree, alone!

The rest of Simon’s household was still asleep. In minutes the sun would peep over the eastern horizon, bringing a new day to the Galil . . . and a restored life to Simon. Ten pounds of the bitter black chaulmoogra seeds cost Simon more than a camel-load of frankincense—almost as much as a whole field of saffron. To complete the purchase he’d borrowed the cash against six months’ income from his wine sales. Judah of Bethsaida, the moneylender, had advised against it. Of course he believed Simon’s story: The denarii would be used to expand Zeraim wine and fish sales into Damascus. “Things are very unsettled right now,” Judah warned. “¬Pass¬over riots, the Roman governor pulled this way

and that by the high priest and Herod Antipas. Lots of would-be liberators running around the countryside and half the am ha aretz running after whoever will promise them bread. It’s a bad time to be overextended.” Judah was a fellow Pharisee, a good friend, and a wise counselor. His cautionary opinion was well meant, and in ordinary matters Simon would have acquiesced to it. But not in this instance. It ¬didn’t matter. Nothing compared with reaching Simon’s goal and achieving the release from the burden that haunted his ¬every moment. Crushed and then squeezed for seventy-two hours between the heavy granite stones of a small olive press, the chaulmoogra seeds had yielded up their secret. The process produced murky, pale yellow oil that hovered above the black crusts and had to be skimmed off with a silver spoon. It was now easy to see why it took its name from the Hebrew words khalav mooglah, “pus milk.” It smelled bitter. Simon dabbled the fingertips of his left hand in the fluid, then massaged it into his right palm. Almost at once he could feel a tingling sensation. His excitement mounting, Simon smeared a dollop of oil across his forehead and scraped it into his scalp behind his ears. A stinging, burning feeling followed. He was exultant. But the ultimate test was yet to come. The scroll was very explicit. Simon had already completed the chalk inscriptions on the floor of his study. He had practiced the unfamiliar Egyptian words until they flowed from his lips as though he’d been born to them. The image of a hawk-headed god drifted across Simon’s thoughts. Angrily he rejected the self-accusation, but he could not fully eliminate the fear. Was he playing with fire? Stories from Torah arrived unsummoned for his consideration: Jews from ancient times falling ¬under Elohim’s wrath for associating with foreign gods. The Pharisees scrupulously observed 613 regulations so as to please the Almighty. What lightning would strike Simon for violating the one that read “You shall have no other gods before me”?28 Wasn’t that the first of all the commandments? Simon forcibly rebuffed his dread of a possible curse by reminding himself of his present reality. He stood within the geometric device drawn on his floor and lifted a beaker of chaulmoogra oil toward the rising sun. Reciting hesitantly at first, then faster and faster, Simon’s words raced onward toward a climax. Swept up by the momentum of the chant, Simon’s crabbed right hand cupped the bottom of the flask. His left guided it to his lips. Holding his breath against the stench, Simon drained the cup of oil. It burned his throat as if he had swallowed a stream of molten lead from a refiner’s forge. The chaulmoogra landed in his stomach the same way. A

cramp clamped around him from backbone to sternum, driving him to his knees. From throat to groin his body went into a spasm. It was impossible for him to breathe, let alone cry out for help. ¬I’m dead, he thought, just before his body slumped sideways. He struck his head on the table leg, then slid down to the floor.

From a great distance away Simon heard someone calling his name. He could not move, his eyes ¬didn’t focus, and his breathing roared, though his ears seemed stuffed with cotton. Simon, an angelic voice summoned him. He was dead, then. No doubt about it. Unaccountably, since dead people feel no pain and suffer no sickness, Simon experienced a surge of nausea. Unable to turn his head, he vomited straight up, then panicked, lest he drown. Someone gently pushed his head to one side, and he retched again. Not dead then. Paralyzed? “Simon,” Jerusha’s voice repeated his name. “Come back to me, Simon. Don’t leave me!” He moaned. It was the ¬only signal he could manage. When he opened his eyes, the world swam worse than on any trip across the Lake of Galil he’d ¬ever experienced. Simon tried again, opening ¬only one eye this time. That was some better. He looked up into Jerusha’s upside-down face. Ignoring the stench of the oil and the vomit, she cradled his head in her lap. Dipping a cloth in a bowl of clean water, she sponged his forehead and his cheeks. “I . . . I took sick . . . ,” he managed to mutter. “Something I ate.” Jerusha said nothing, ¬only wet the cloth again and, folding it into a square, placed it over his eyes. How could he explain this? The oil press clogged with chaulmoogra seeds was still on his worktable; the enigmatic figures were still traced on the floor. Feebly Simon rubbed his left sleeve over the chalk marks, trying to erase them. “Simon,” Jerusha said firmly, “I know you are tsara. I’ve known for some time.” Simon stiffened, held his breath. Now she would call the priests to examine him and then reject him, as was her right. All his secrecy had come to nothing. Then why was she still embracing him? “You wanted no one to know . . . to heal without risking exposure. But oh, Simon! You might have killed yourself!” “How . . . did you . . . ?” he mumbled. “Do you think after our years together I’ve stopped looking at you? I noticed when your eyes were too bright, when your ears were too pink, when your hands ¬weren’t the same . . . your poor hands!” Jerusha picked up Simon’s right hand, now more drawn into a rictus than before. Lifting it,

she pressed it to her own cheek. “Don’t . . . Jerusha,” he protested immediately, sweeping aside the cloth from his face with a clumsy gesture. “Here’s what we must do,” she said firmly, without relinquishing his arm. “No one else knows. ¬I’m sure of that. We’ll hire a steward, place all the business ¬under him. Send Jotham away to school, as you said. Then we’ll go away together—someplace outside Judea. Damascus, perhaps, or even Rome. We’ll try ¬every cure till we find one that works. Perhaps this smelly oil is it, if you can keep it down! A smaller dose next time; build you up gradually. You’ll see. We’ll tackle this together.” She was rambling. Perhaps relief that Simon was still living had made this normally serene and subdued woman turn garrulous. Simon’s cheeks were now moist from more than the cold compress. His eyes overflowed with tears. How could he have been so stupid? This wonderful, blessed woman; this faithful, practical wife. They’d face this crisis together, find the solution together. “Money . . . may be a problem,” he said, remembering the cost of just one batch of chaulmoogra seeds. “Then we’ll sell this house. No need for it to stand empty, waiting for our return. When you’re well, we’ll buy another. Nothing matters except that you get well.” “Yes . . . yes,” he agreed, strength finally returning to his limbs. He sat up so he could see Jerusha’s face. “We’ll find the answer . . . together. You and . . . I,” he said. Then hoarsely, anger giving him momentary breathless vigor, “Already know the cause: that wretched harlot, Miryam of Magdala! Came to the supper here. She brought this scourge on me! Should have had her beaten . . . thrown out.” The false coin of energy fueled by resentment already spent, Simon leaned back against the wall and shut his eyes. Jerusha cleaned him up but made no further comment.