Second Touch (39 page)

Alek yawned and stretched. He arched his back and lifted his jaw. His Adam’s apple grew still more prominent, as if his throat had developed a second chin to wag in time with the one on his face. Gideon and Amos remained tied in their respective corners of the hut. “Wonder if that Galilean prophet’s dead yet?” Alek mused aloud. “Eglon’ll be on his way back here to take care of you two then.” Gideon looked startled. “What? What do you mean?”

“Tidier that way. Eglon hates loose ends, see? Loose ends are bad, he says.” Amos hunched miserably. His undamaged cheek was curled against his shoulder. The dwarf sat very still as if at the slightest movement, his scorched face would crack apart. Gideon straightened up, shook his shoulders, cleared his throat. “Not me,” he said. The cripple studied Amos, then appeared to make up his mind about something. “Untie me,” he demanded. “Enough with this charade. No reason to keep pretending now.” Alek’s grin widened. “You ¬really think he’d let you go? Ho, ho! Hee! Planning on spending your share of the reward?” “I’ve done ¬everything he asked!” Gideon protested. “Gave you reports. Kept Peniel from getting suspicious when you idiots showed up in villages!” “Good boy,” Alek offered. “Good! Sure that’ll be comforting to you in Sheol. In Sheol!” “Cut me loose!” Gideon shrieked. “Cut—” Amos opened one puffy and smoke-blackened eye. Through cracked and swollen lips he growled, “Better hope Eglon kills you quick. If I get a chance, I’ll sit on your chest and gnaw your liver myself.” “Ho!” Alek gurgled. “Pay to see that, I would! Yep! Pay to see it.” “Let me go!” Gideon screamed. He lunged sideways and rolled thrashing toward the door. Alek laughed and let Gideon flail helplessly before pursuing him. The cripple sprawled athwart the doorsill, the upper half of his body outside the hut. Alek bent over to grab Gideon by the feet to drag him back. The stench of an open tomb filled the air. A horrible moaning voice shrieked, “Now . . . death . . . ¬comes for . . . you!” Alek crouched, trembling. “What? Where?” A hooded figure stood framed in the doorway. Alek was transfixed by the claws protruding from the sleeves . . . but even more rooted by the space within the cowl. The thing had no face. Eyes, yes, but no face. It lunged for Alek, wrapped long, bony arms around his neck, pressed its horror of a mouth against his cheek. “Another soul . . . for the . . . living dead! By the time . . . I count three . . . you’ll be . . . one of us! One! Two!” Alek gave no thought to dagger or club, never considered defending himself from Jekuthiel. He did not know how lepers got made. He ¬only knew he ¬didn’t want to become one. With a scream and a backwards lunge, Alek wrenched himself free from Jekuthiel’s embrace. Two strides took him across the room to the window. Alek plunged headfirst out the uncovered opening. Lighting on his back, he rolled onto his feet, ran, and kept on running. “Get . . . up!” Jekuthiel urged Gideon. “Untie Amos. We’re . . . going to . . . Shunem.” “Not with him, ¬I’m not,” Amos corrected. “He can still go to Sheol . . .

lousy traitor. Untie me so I can cut his throat!” “Let me get out of here!” Gideon pleaded with Jekuthiel. “Eglon’ll kill me if he catches me. Kill all of us . . . by now he’s killed the Teacher! Let me go.” Shucking his bonds, Gideon bolted from the room. His last words seemed to have struck Jekuthiel like a blow in the midsection. The leper sank down on the dirt floor clutching his head and rocking. “Messiah . . . dead? What’s . . . the point? No use. No . . . use.” “Come on, Jekuthiel,” Amos urged as the dwarf in turn escaped the knotted cords. “There’s still a chance.” But Jekuthiel had clearly reached an end. “You go. Leave me. No more . . . no more . . . strength. I’ll be . . . dead soon . . . anyway.”

Along the highway Lily encountered other travelers. Keeping her distance, she overheard scraps of repeated tales. “Blind men could see again.” “The demon-possessed were set free.” “Yeshua, the Teacher . . .” “Yeshua, the Healer . . .” At the junction of two roads, Hawk’s flight veered right. She called to him. Whistled, then whistled again. He did not circle back to her but lighted on a stone wall some distance away. When she followed him he lifted off, drawing her farther and farther down the secondary road. Again and again the bird played his game, allowing her to come almost near enough to touch before he lifted off again. Yard by yard plains gave way to rolling hills. The route ascended into them, skirting the sharper peaks and steeper gorges. Glancing back, Lily saw how far she’d come. Mount Tabor blocked the sinking sun. Its shadow darkened the surrounding villages and fields. Encroaching haze further blanketed the scene, a curtain of reproach drawn across Shunem, shutting her out. Yeshua, salvation, were within just a few miles. But she would never reach the encampment before nightfall. The mountain called Purity by the sages seemed to reject her as she turned away from it. Lily felt a renewal of the creeping numbness. The loss of sensation in her limbs moved inward to deaden her heart with hopelessness. Why had she taken this road? Why had she followed Hawk’s course instead of taking the way she knew was correct? The separation between Lily and the Hawk decreased. At last Hawk reached the thick stand of an olive grove. Lily trailed haltingly after him. Inside the canopy of tree limbs Lily ¬couldn’t see him. She whistled and called to him. Would he dart away again? In a clearing Lily spotted a tumbled-down hovel, the ruins of a farmhouse. She heard a low moan, and on a broken stone wall she saw the figure of a little man sitting, head in hands. Was he a statue? She squinted. The thing moaned again. It was human! Or demon. Dwarfish, of half height to a man,

his face was blackened and creased like a carved image. At the snap of a twig beneath her foot, he gasped in fear and turned toward her. “What’s this? What’s this? Just a woman. A woman is all,” he muttered to himself. “¬I’m sorry I frightened you. ¬I’m looking for my Hawk. A hunting bird. Have you seen a hawk? Heard his bell?” The dwarf made a dismissive gesture, waving her away. He shook his head mutely, as if nothing in the world mattered but meditating on his own misery. Then the bell tinkled from the far side of the grove. Hawk swayed on the topmost branch of an olive tree. He ruffled his wings as if to show her where he was. Angry now, she whistled. Whistled. Whistled again! Lily neared the tree. He launched from the olive tree, then skimmed the orchard to perch on top of an acacia. As she approached, Hawk once more dove from his outpost. This time he did not soar away. Sideslipping, he veered between tree limbs to land atop the sagging roof of the deserted farmhouse. “Hawk!” she demanded. Another whistle. “Hawk!” Lily lifted her fist aloft to coax him to her. The bird remained pinned like a sentinel. “You! Bird! You’ve cost me ¬everything! Everything! Why have you done this?” After these furious words she heard a weak reply, “Lily? Lily? Is it you?” Could it be? She recognized the voice. “Jekuthiel?” She gawked at the hut. A chill of apprehension coursed through her. She wondered if she had died somewhere on her way to see Yeshua. Or if she had fallen into a deep sleep and was dreaming the dream of walking forever on the road to nowhere. The Hawk made no attempt to fly again. She stared at him. Had his sharp eyes seen Jekuthiel somehow? guided Lily to him? “Is it you, Jekuthiel?” She approached the building. “Lily.” One word. Her name ¬only. She entered the hut. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim interior. What she saw shocked her. She did not recognize Jekuthiel. Nearly five months outside Mak’ob had changed him. Jekuthiel’s breathing was shallow. He was nearly blind. At the sound of Lily’s approach his body convulsed with sobs. Weeping without sound. Without tears. He lay propped against a wall. Flies swarmed around him. “Oh!” she cried, knowing how little time was left for him. “Oh, Jekuthiel! My dear brother! My old friend.” Lily held a cup of wine to his mouth. For the next hour she cleaned maggots from his wounds. She poured wine into the open sores and bandaged them with strips torn from her robe. ¬I’m praying again, God Who Knows My Path. No mistake this! No accident! You carried me to this desolate place on the wings of the Hawk. Led me here to my dear Jekuthiel! In halting phrases Jekuthiel pestered her with queries. “What . . . are you

doing . . . here? Deborah . . . how is she?” Patiently, kindly, Lily explained about baby Isra’el—Jekuthiel’s child, the boy he would never see or hold. Jekuthiel feebly nodded his approval. “It’s . . . best. You’ve . . . done well . . . Lily.” “I’ve come looking for the Healer. The Prophet from Nazareth,” Lily added. She stopped and shrugged. “But, Jekuthiel! To find you here! Oh, my heart is glad to see you! Glad!” “Yes. Yes . . . but . . . what’s the use . . . of any . . . of this? All of it? Finished . . . finished . . . so long . . . we’ve been searching . . . for him. Now . . . the Healer’s . . . dead . . . by now.” “Dead?” Lily drew back from Jekuthiel. How could this be? All hope was obliterated from her soul. It became a tree struck by a lightning bolt. “Oh no! No! We’ve come too late? We’re too late?” “Over. Done,” Jekuthiel wheezed. “What’s the . . . use?” Drawing the scrap of parchment from her tunic, she stared at the distinct lettering of Mary’s handwriting. “Poor woman. Poor dear lady. Oh, Jekuthiel! What’s it all been for?” Lily cried out in anguish, crumpled the scroll, then threw it against the wall. “Dead,” Jekuthiel repeated. “And . . . so are we . . . Lily. No hope left. Nothing left . . . to stay for.” “Yes . . . then let’s go home, Jekuthiel. Cantor’s dead. Soon Deborah too. She needs you. Oh! What was the use! Why? Why? Oh, Jekuthiel! Let’s go home.” “Yes. Yes . . . back . . . Mak’ob. The Valley of Sorrow . . . where we . . . belong.”

The full weight of Simon’s loss slammed down on him like a hammer. Between the blows of reality his heart continued to beat. He was still alive. There was some consolation in that. He tried to comfort himself even as truth chipped away the stone of his resolve. No use. No use. No use. Every step felt as if chains of iron bound his ankles. He shuffled forward blindly, scarcely caring where we went. Simon pictured his life like an hourglass turned upside down by his own leprous hand. Sand at the top—reputation, status, self-esteem—all these flowed away with the first grains. But the outsurging tide did not stop with those things he had once held so dear. His business was gone, now and forever. Who would deal with the House of Zeraim, the cursed of God? Sinking, sinking, the level in the glass dropped. Friends abandoned him, welcomed the opportunity to distance themselves from him. His son, driven away first by Simon’s pride and self-centeredness, now lost to him forever. Deeper and deeper.

Simon’s vital parts—what he kept most concealed from ¬everyone else in the world—approached the lip of the abyss. “Jerusha!” Her name leapt from Simon’s lips unbidden. How he loved her! Relied on her. Counted on her. Always there, never complaining, never rebuking. Simon . . . always before too proud to acknowledge how much he cared for her. His greatest fear had always been of losing her. Oh, God! Everything I feared has come upon me! The last grains of life slipping, slipping toward the edge. Only now, when the glass was completely empty of self-delusion and pride was there room for new thoughts to enter. What if Jerusha is right? What if I had ¬only gone to Yeshua openly, admitted my needs, my fears? Begged for help. Too late now. He’d never help me now. I’ve taunted him. Libeled him. Abused him. Born false witness against him. Hated him . . . and he saw through me all the time. Saw me washing the outside of the cup while the inside was . . . Too late now, though. Simon was a leper. Lower than ¬every publican he ¬ever heaped abuse on. More tainted than any am ha aretz of unwashed hands. Images of what he had done to others who had needed his mercy tumbled into his mind like an avalanche. He had evicted the tenant family of a young girl with leprosy. What was the little girl’s name? Lily. Yes, Lily. No doubt dead by now. Her mother. Poor woman. Broken woman. Oh! What have I done? Where did they go after I drove them away? How could I know what they felt? Simon had separated Jerusha from the love of her father and mother. Zadok! The old man. Forbidden by my edict to ¬ever see his daughter or hold his grandson! Punished by the withholding of love! Was there ¬ever a more brutal weapon than love? Zadok! Exiled from ¬everything he ¬ever lived for. Now driven from his flocks. And I gave the high priest my approval for his expulsion! What have I done? What have I done? Along with these two streams of unkindness flowed a thousand insignificant others. Rivulets of wrongdoing and neglect. Anger! Envy! Resentment! Gossip! Coveting! Small wrongs he had committed against others! Small acts of mercy he had failed to do for those in need! All these together became a broad, deep river washing away the last pretense of righteousness! Simon the Pharisee had lived a lifetime without true chesed, mercy! Yet how desperately Simon the Leper longed for mercy to be shown to him! A whitewashed tomb, full of dead men’s bones. Lie down and die then. He was dead already inside. The stink of his own corruption was rank in Simon’s nostrils. The stench of death.

One more agonizing stride and then: My stubbornness is killing me. Startling thought. Simon grasped for it like a drowning man clutches at a vine. Urgently he told himself not to let that idea slip away unexamined. It ¬wasn’t the tsara’at killing him. It was Simon’s stubbornness! Everything Yeshua said was true. Every word about cleansing the inside! And I hated him for it! The blind beggar . . . healed. All the others . . . cured. What if ¬I’m limping away right now from the ¬only possibility of hope, of salvation, of safety? Naaman the Leper was healed of leprosy when he dunked in the Jordan seven times.76 But Naaman had to overcome presumptuous pride first. He almost allowed his hard-hearted arrogance to stop him from obeying Elisha. The Syrian captain had to be instructed by his servants: “If the prophet of God told you to do a difficult thing, ¬wouldn’t you have agreed?” Go to Yeshua and admit my need, my failures, my sin? Otherwise, hard-hearted stubbornness will kill me. Otherwise, presumptuous pride will be my death . . . not tsara’at. Simon stopped in his tracks. Yeshua was behind him! Hope lay in the opposite direction from where he was headed! The ¬only hope left for me is the One I rejected, ridiculed, resisted! Turn around! Turn around! Maybe it’s not too late! With a groan, Simon turned. Set his face toward Yeshua. Took the first limping step back.