The Collected Novels of José Saramago (106 page)

Time and time again one has seen, even in people not particularly given to reflection, that the best way of finding a solution is to let one’s thoughts drift until the right moment comes to pounce, like a tiger taking its prey by surprise. And so the false promises of the master carpenters of Bethlehem led Joseph to think about God’s true promises, then about the Temple of Jerusalem, still under construction, where there must be demand for laborers, not only bricklayers and stonemasons but also carpenters even if only to square joists and plane boards, basic tasks that are well within Joseph’s capabilities. The only drawback, assuming they give him a job, is the time it takes to reach the site, a good hour and a half’s walk at a brisk pace, because it is uphill all the way and there is no patron saint of hill climbers to extend a helping hand, unless Joseph rides there, but that would mean finding a safe place to leave his donkey. This may be God’s chosen land, but there are still plenty of rogues around if we are to believe the dire warnings of the prophet Micah. Joseph was pondering this when Mary emerged from the cave after feeding her child and settling him down to sleep. How is Jesus, his father asked, conscious of how foolish the question sounded but unable to suppress his pride as the father of a son who already had a name. The child is fine, replied Mary, for whom the name was of no importance. She would have been just as happy to call him my child for the rest of her life, were it not for the fact that she would bear more children, and to refer to them all simply as my child would create as much confusion as in the Tower of Babel. Joseph said, allowing the words to come out as if he was thinking aloud, which is one way of not showing too much confidence, I must earn a living while we are here, yet there is no suitable work in Bethlehem. Mary said nothing, nor was she expected to speak, she was only there to listen, and her husband had already made an enormous concession by taking her into his confidence. Joseph looked at the sun, trying to decide whether there was enough time for him to go and come back. He went into the cave to fetch his mantle and pack and, on reappearing, told Mary, I’m off, trusting in God to find work for this honest artisan in His tabernacle should He deem him worthy of such an honor. Joseph threw his mantle over his left shoulder, adjusted his pack, and went off without another word.

Truly all is not gloom. Although work on the Temple was making good progress, laborers were still being hired, especially if they accepted low wages. Joseph had no difficulty passing the simple test given by the head carpenter, which should make us reflect whether our earlier disparaging comments about Joseph’s professional skills might not have been unjustified. This latest recruit for the Temple site went off giving profuse thanks to God. Along the way he stopped some travelers and asked them to join him in praising the Lord, and they cheerfully obliged, for these people see one man’s joy as something to be shared by all. We refer, of course, to people of humble condition. When Joseph reached the spot where Rachel is buried, a thought occurred to him which came from the heart rather than the head, namely, that this woman eager to have another child might die, if you will pardon the expression, at his hands, and before she could even get to know him. Without so much as a word or a glance, one body separates itself from another, as indifferent as the fruit that drops from a tree. Then an even sadder thought came to him, namely, that children die because their fathers beget them and their mothers bring them into the world, and he took pity on his own son, who was condemned to die although innocent. As he stood, filled with confusion and anguish, before the tomb of Jacob’s beloved wife, carpenter Joseph’s shoulders drooped and his head sank, and his entire body broke out in a cold sweat, and now there was no one passing on the road to whom he could turn for help. For the first time in his life he doubted whether the world had any meaning, and said in a loud voice, like one who has lost all hope, This is where I will die. Perhaps these words, in other circumstances and if spoken with the courage and conviction of those who commit suicide, words devoid of sorrow and weeping, would suffice to open the door by which we depart the land of the living. But most men are inconstant and can be distracted by a cloud on high, by a spider weaving its web, a dog chasing a butterfly, a hen scratching the soil and clucking to its chicks, or something as commonplace as a sudden itch on one’s face, which one scratches, wondering, Now what was I thinking about. For this reason Rachel’s tomb instantly reverted to a small, windowless whitewashed building, a building like a discarded die forgotten because not needed for the game under way. On the stone at the entrance there are marks left by the sweaty and grimy hands of pilgrims, who have been coming here since ancient times, and the tomb is surrounded by olive trees, which were perhaps already old when Jacob chose this spot for the poor mother’s last resting place and felled as many trees as were necessary to clear the ground. When all is said and done, we can confidently say that destiny exists and each man’s destiny is in the hands of others. Then Joseph moved on, but not before saying a prayer suited to the time and place. He said, Praise be to You, O Lord our God and God of our forefathers, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, great, almighty, and wondrous God, praise be to You.

Returning to the cave, he went to look at his little son, asleep in the manger, before telling his wife that he had found work. He thought to himself, He’ll die, he must die, and his heart grieved, but then he reflected that by the natural order of things he himself would die first and that his departure from the land of the living would bestow on his son a limited eternity, a contradiction in terms, an eternity that allows one to go on for a little longer when those whom we know and love no longer exist.

Joseph had been careful not to mention to the head carpenter that he would be staying only a few weeks, five at the most, enough time to take his son to the Temple to complete Mary’s purification, and to pack their belongings. He said nothing rather than be turned away, which shows that the carpenter from Nazareth was not familiar with working conditions in his own country, no doubt because he thought of himself, and rightly, as his own master and took little interest in the rest of the working community, which then consisted almost entirely of casual labor. He kept careful count of the remaining days, twenty-four, twenty-three, twenty-two, and to avoid making mistakes he improvised a calendar on one of the cave walls, nineteen, drawing lines that he then erased one at a time, sixteen, watched by an admiring Mary, fourteen, thirteen, who thanked the Lord for having given her, nine, eight, seven, six, such a clever husband, who could turn his hand to anything. Joseph told her, We’ll leave after we go to the Temple, for it’s time I got back to my work in Nazareth, where I have customers waiting, and she tactfully suggested, rather than appear to be criticizing him, But surely we cannot leave without first thanking the woman who owns the cave and the slave who helped deliver our child and who still calls every day to see how he’s coming along. Joseph made no reply. He’d never admit to having overlooked such an act of common courtesy, although he had intended to load the donkey beforehand, tie it up during the ceremony, then set off for Nazareth without wasting any time on thanks and farewells. Mary was right, it would have been ill-mannered to go away without so much as a word of gratitude, but if truth, poor thing, were to be known, Joseph was somewhat lacking in manners. To be reminded of this omission caused him to sulk and become irritable with his wife, behavior which usually served to ease his conscience and silence remorse. So they would stay on for two or three days, make their farewells as was only fit and proper, and leave the inhabitants of Bethlehem with a favorable impression of this devout family from Galilee, courteous and dutiful, notably different when one considers the low opinion the inhabitants of Jerusalem and its environs generally have of people from Galilee.

The memorable day finally arrived when the child Jesus was carried to the Temple in the arms of his mother, who rode the patient donkey that had accompanied and assisted this family since the beginning. Joseph led the donkey by the halter, he was in a hurry to get there, anxious not to lose a whole day’s work, even though their departure was imminent. The next day they were on the road as dawn dispersed the last vestiges of night. Rachel’s tomb was already some distance behind. When they passed it, the façade had taken on the fiery hue of a pomegranate, so unlike its appearance at night, when it became opaque, or in the light of the moon, when it looked deathly pale. After a while the infant Jesus woke up, and had scarcely opened his eyes when his mother wrapped him for the journey, and he cried to be fed in that plaintive voice, the only voice he has so far. One day, like the rest of us, he will learn to speak with other voices, which will enable him to express other forms of hunger and experience other tears.

On the steep slopes not far from Jerusalem the family merged with the pilgrims and vendors who were flocking to the city, all intent on being the first to arrive but cautiously slowing down and curbing their excitement when they came face to face with the Roman soldiers who were moving through the crowd in pairs, or with a detachment of Herod’s mercenary troops, who recruited every imaginable race, many Jews, as one might expect, but also Indumaeans, Galatians, Thracians, Germans, Gauls, and even Babylonians, who are unrivaled as archers. A carpenter who handles only peaceful weapons such as the plane, adze, mallet, or hammer, Joseph becomes filled with such fear and revulsion when he runs into these louts that he can no longer behave naturally or disguise his true feelings. He keeps his eyes lowered, and it is Mary, who has been shut away in the cave for weeks with no one to talk to apart from the female slave, it is Mary who takes a good look around, her dainty little chin held high with understandable pride, for she is holding her firstborn, a mere woman yet capable of giving children to God and her husband. She looks so radiant and happy that some Gauls, fierce, fair, with large whiskers, their weapons at the ready, smile as the family passes, their cruel hearts softened by the sight of the young mother with her first child. Smiling at this renewal of the world, they bare rotten teeth, but it’s the thought that counts.

There is the Temple. Viewed at close quarters, the building gives one vertigo, a mountain of stones upon stones which no earthly power seems capable of dressing, lifting, laying, and fitting, yet there they are, joined together by their own weight, without mortar, as if the entire world were a set of building blocks. The uppermost cornices, seen from below, appear to graze the sky, like another but quite different Tower of Babel, which even God will be unable to save because it is doomed to the same destruction, confusion, and bloodshed. Voices will ask, Why, a thousand times, believing there must be an answer, but eventually they will die away, because it is better to be silent. Joseph goes off to tether the donkey in the caravansary set aside for the animals. During Passover and other religious feasts the place gets so crowded that there is not enough room for a camel to shake the flies from its tail, but it is easier now that the last day of the census has passed and travelers have returned to their homes. In the Court of the Gentiles, however, which is bordered by colonnades on all four sides, with the temple precinct in the center, there is a large crowd, money changers, bird catchers, merchants trading lambs and kids, pilgrims gathered here for one reason or another, and numerous foreigners curious to visit the famous Temple built by King Herod. But the court is so spacious that anyone on the far side looks no bigger than an insect, as though Herod’s architects, seeing through God’s eyes, wanted to show the insignificance of men in the presence of the Almighty, especially if they happen to be Gentiles. As for the Jews, unless they have come for a leisurely stroll, their goal is the middle of the court, the center of their world, the navel of navels, the Holy of Holies. That is where the carpenter and his wife are heading, that is where Jesus is carried after his father purchases two turtledoves from the steward of the Temple, if such a title is appropriate for one who benefits from the monopoly on these religious transactions. The poor birds are ignorant of the fate that awaits them, though the smell of flesh and singed feathers lingering in the air does not deceive anyone, to say nothing of the much stronger stench of blood and excrement as oxen, dragged away to be sacrificed, foul themselves in terror. Joseph cradles the doves in the palms of his callused hands, and the poor birds, in their innocence, peck with satisfaction at his fingers, which he curves to form a cage. It is as if they were trying to tell him, We are happy with our new master. But Joseph’s skin is far too rough to feel or decipher the affectionate nibbling of the two doves.

They enter by the Wooden Gate, one of thirteen entrances to the Temple. It has an inscription in Greek and Latin carved into the stonework, which reads as follows, It
is forbidden for any Gentile to cross this threshold and the balustrade surrounding the Temple, trespassers will be put to death. Joseph and Mary enter, carrying Jesus between them, and in due course will make a safe exit, but the doves, as we know, must be killed according to the law before Mary’s purification can be acknowledged and ratified. Any ironic or irreverent disciple of Voltaire will find it difficult to resist making the obvious remark that, things being what they are, purity can be maintained only so long as there are innocent creatures to sacrifice in this world, whether turtledoves, lambs, or others. Joseph and Mary climb the fourteen steps to the platform of the Temple. Here is the Court of the Women, on the left the storehouse for the oil and wine used in the liturgy, on the right the Chamber of the Nazirites, priests who do not belong to the tribe of Levi and who are forbidden to cut their hair, drink wine, or go near a corpse. On the opposite side, to the left and right, respectively, of the door facing this one, are the chamber where the lepers who believe themselves cured wait for the priests to come and examine them, and the storehouse where the wood is kept and inspected daily, because rotten and worm-eaten wood must not be thrown on the altar fire. Mary has not much farther to go, she still has to climb the fifteen semicircular steps leading to the Nicanor Gate, also known as the Gate Beautiful, but there she will stop, because women are not permitted to enter the Court of the Israelites, which lies beyond this gate. At the entrance, the Levites receive those who have come to offer sacrifice, but the atmosphere is less pious, unless piety at that time had another meaning. It is not just the smoke rising from the burning fat or the smell of fresh blood and incense but also the shouting of the men, the howling, bleating, and lowing of the animals waiting to be slaughtered, and the last raucous squawk of a bird once able to sing. Mary tells the Levite in attendance that she has come for purification, and Joseph hands over the doves. For one brief moment Mary places her hands over the birds, her only gesture before the Levite and her husband turn away and disappear through the gate. She will not stir until Joseph returns, she simply steps aside so as not to obstruct the passage, and waits, holding her son in her arms.