Two from Galilee (5 page)

"But if the loom needs attention let me give it at once," Joseph said. "My family will excuse me from their celebration."

Joachim handed over the fat protesting hen. "I'm afraid we won't have so royal a feast as you could be enjoying here."

"I wouldn't have the wife or daughters of Joachim trouble themselves over what is served," said Joseph. "The honor of being asked to my lord's house is more than enough."

Joachim winced. Yet the words were so warm, so anxious, yet fraught with such dignity that he stood for a moment regarding Joseph. So this was the object of Mary's desire, he realized in a baffled protesting. He had paid scant attention to the village youths. Like Hannah, he had simply been unwilling to visualize the hour when Mary must leave them. And while fathers did the bargaining when that time came, it was usually the mothers who had subtly but firmly accomplished the first vital weeding out. If Hannah had dismissed this one as unsuitable, he had thought, then so be it.

But now almost angrily the question struck him: Wherefore? Unconsciously he took a step forward, studying Joseph boldly in his zeal to know. The fair young passionate face yet had a steadfast look. The sea-gray eyes that returned his gaze, unflinching, were to be trusted. The mouth, with its full sensitive lips was gentle. The body, hard as an axe, was also supple and neat. Glancing about the untidy shop it bore in upon Joachim: He is shamed by it even now but too loyal and proud to betray it. His own shop will be a good shop, well-ordered and dependable.

"Until this evening then," he said curtly, to cover his astonishment, and turned on his heel.

Striding back up the hill, he veered right, toward the market. It was late in the day; such few fish as there had been were gone and there were never many fowls. Even so, he found a fat duck which he bought and carried determinedly to the home of the rabbi to be blessed and killed. If the family of Jacob could eat flesh when it was not a feast day, he thought, then so could his.

Joseph watched the burly departing figure with a sense of amazement. Even the thrilling encounter with Mary this morning had not had the impact of this visit. He braced himself where he stood in the door. It was an attitude of flight, almost; it was also a position of restraint. For this was more than a bid to the house of the girl he had loved from his earliest memory. It was as if Jahveh himself had stepped down from whatever remote throne he must occupy in the mysterious reaches of heaven, to place a reassuring hand upon his shoulder. To confirm some bargain made with his servant long before.

Then he told himself not to be foolish. Everyone knew that the Lord of Hosts did not hear such private entreaties as Joseph had been making so long. Everyone knew that God was but the vast unknown, nameless yet omnipotent, all-powerful, who in his own good time would deliver The Land once again from bondage— this time forever. But as for the bondage of his poor weak sons to their desires, what was that to him? No, for that one should be a Greek or Roman worshiping at the altars of their all too human deities. Or a heathen Canaanite performing obscene rites before that god whom even a good Jew blushed to mention, Astarte.  Jahveh, hope of Israel, was neither friend nor father but fearful master, who had bigger fish to fry. And yet, Joseph could not help it, he had uttered his humble insistent prayers almost from the day he had first become aware of Mary, daughter of Joachim.

At first they had taken the form of sheer grateful adoration. "Praise be to Jahveh for fashioning her for me." Innocent, callow, straightforward, there had not been the slightest doubt. She was his, that radiant little being whose great eyes became so enchanted when he tossed her a ball to catch, or sailed the little boats he had made for her, after a rain. Joseph thought of those early years of his own ingenuousness with a tender incredulity now.

Just when the prayers had turned to desperate imploring he didn't recall. Was it when other boys first began to notice Mary, discuss her beauty among themselves, vie for her hand in the dancing? Even then, though he had been assaulted by a fierce jealous sense of protest, he had been fortified by the almost serene conviction that no outer force could alter: God had given her to him. Yet he had begun to pray with a kind of stubborn assertion tinged with anxiety: "She is mine. Oh, Lord, surely that is your intention." (He almost said, "You promised.") "One day she will truly be mine."

Yet God did not communicate with his yearning children. If the Lord did not send down plagues and scourges upon the enemy as he had done in Egypt, or call forth his promised Messiah to spare his tortured people now, why should he heed the voice, however desperate, of one young man in love?

Joseph thought of the massacres that prostrated Jerusalem under the vassal king, Herod. The outrages that happened sometimes even in outlying provinces. Romans were seldom seen in Nazareth, but when they were, in their red cloaks and flashing helmets, people fled from their uncleanness and the terror they revived. For who could forget the horde that had once come charging through the streets, whipping dissenters and suspects before them to be crucified?

Even then Jahveh had stopped his ears and averted his eyes. If he saw or heard the rearing steeds that trampled the crowds, the neighing, the screaming, the blood and dust and the vileness —the girls dragged from their houses like little white kicking rabbits to be violated in the ditches—if he had cared about the crosses where men writhed in agony, then Jahveh gave no sign.

All this Joseph knew. Yet he could not leave off wrestling with that dear dread figure, as if to wring from it some visible warrant that his life's wish was to be realized.

Outwardly he had remained composed. He had evaded the issue of marriage with ancient quips and ironic jokes about its miseries. "Besides, I'm so poor who'd have me?" Whistling, he had gone on carving the spindles of the cradle he was building for a well-to-do bridegroom friend.

"Also, you're waiting for someone, isn't that it?" his father prodded. Jacob's merry, sly little eyes shone in their darkish pouches. "If Mary, daughter of Joachim, was old enough we'd see, you'd be anxious enough even if it meant lying with her in the storage cave."

The image, so stirring yet so unspeakably put, filled Joseph with a blind fury. But his mother's words, however kindly, were almost more insufferable. "Well, if that's what's keeping you from marrying and bringing grandchildren into this house, my son, I fear you'd best forget it. Hannah sets great store by that girl."

Timna hesitated where she sat sewing in the company of her men, there amongst the pleasant litter of sweet smelling cypress shavings, planks and tools. She was a large-faced white-haired woman, bland, serene, undisturbed by what people said about her chaotic household or even her husband's weakness. For she knew that he couldn't help it; it was like a sickness. It sprang from some secret sickness of the spirit that no one else suspected beneath that jocular exterior, and that no man could heal. She bore it with the same quiet courage that she had borne the loss of three children. In other ways Jacob made them happier than most. His effusive love, the contagion of his humor. She was a self-assured, benevolent woman.

"As well Hannah should be," Timna added, biting a thread. "That dear child came late and has been a blessing ever since.  I don't wonder that Hannah might well want to cling to her."

Jacob leaned on his saw. "What about Joachim?" he blustered. "What about grandchildren to brighten their old age? He sets great store by Mary too, but he'd find it a sorry thing to have a spinster on his hands."

Timna sewed on, gentle, generous, not wishing to hurt others, unaware of the hurt she was dealing her son. "All Nazareth knows that Mary's a choice flower. If she's not plucked early it is only because such was her parents' choice. And when they do betroth her it will surely be to someone who has more to offer than we can." Troubled, she gazed at Joseph's stricken face. "Son, I beg you—if indeed you do have any such intentions, put her out of your heart. I've heard it said at the well that Reb Levi is going to speak to Joachim for Cleophas. Also that the parents of Abner aren't loath to consider her for him."

Joseph's eyes blazed. "Am I then so poor a thing in the sight of my parents? Do you think that either of them would make Mary a better husband?"

"No, now, you know better than that," protested Timna. "That's not the issue."

"Your mother's right," said Jacob with his usual quick amiable resignation. "We're as well born as the parents of Mary. Why, we all come from the royal stock of David," he declared, vaguely marveling. "But for some reason they think awfully well of themselves, those people. They've set their sights high. Now me, I wouldn't care to compete with either Reb Levi or Reb Saul in this matter. It would only mean further humiliation for this family and for you. Come on now, stop brooding and wasting your time." Playfully he jabbed the outraged flesh of his son. "You're a strapping youth and fair in the eyes of all the maids."

"Yes, and estimable in the eyes of their parents," said his wife.

"Choose someone else, it won't be hard," Jacob went on. "Take Leah, her cousin. She's been mooning after you. Just say the word and we'll ask."

Joseph could bear it no longer. Blindly, scarcely knowing what he was doing, he had flung off his leather apron and run out into the streets . . .
Abner.
The thought of that cold
thin necked creature ever laying his skeletal hands on Mary filled Joseph with such revulsion that he almost retched.
As for Cleophas.
He caught up a rock and hurled it savagely over a precipice.

The handsome face taunted him. The heavy-lidded eyes, the seductive, gaily jeering mouth. Again Joseph heard the remark that Cleophas had made about Mary one Sabbath on the way to the synagogue. It had set Joseph at his throat. One minute friends, the next murderous enemies, they had rolled in the dust, dressed though they were in their best garments, battering each other. Then, panting, both were on their feet. And Cleophas, with an expression more of surprise than anger, was staring at the blood that spurted from his splendid purpling nose.

"Just look what you've done to my robe," he'd scolded, grinning. "Now I'll have to go home and change." He glanced about, alert for his reputation. "Fortunately nobody saw us. And for her sake I won't speak of this if you won't."

"For
her
sake!" Joseph had cried, furious. "What of the vile thing you said about her?"

"Oh, that. Come now, don't tell me you haven't thought of her that way yourself?" Suave even in his dishevelment, he had mopped his face with the skirt of his striped linen robe. "Or is it milk that flows in your veins instead of good red blood?" Cleophas laughed again richly, flinging out his hands—"Of which I seem to have no lack!"

"What you lack is a decent tongue."

"True, true," Cleophas admitted cheerfully. "My tongue has been colored, no doubt, by the talk I hear in the ports of Tyre and Sidon. But I assure you I meant no offense either to you or to our pure and beautiful Mary." He had even slapped a jaunty hand on Joseph's taut shoulder. "And now let's go before the gossips come along and ruin all of us."

His rival's casualness only increased Joseph's indignation. From that day the mere thought of the merchant's son had been enough to make his fists clench. And now it was he, even he, his mother said, who was about to seek Mary's hand.

In his frenzy Joseph had paced the fields and forests, scarcely knowing where he went. But in late afternoon, thirsty and spent, he had flung himself down under a terebinth tree and slept. And when he awoke it had been with a curious sense of release. The sun was setting, laying a banner of flaming orange across the sky. Overhead a hawk was lazily wheeling. He could smell the dry toasty wheat that rustled just beyond the fence, and the rich black earth beneath his head. He could hear the crunch and rattle of stones as farmers trudged the roads that led home, sickles over their shoulders. His tongue was dry, his bones stiff, but the feverish thirst with which he had dropped to the ground was gone. One hand over his eyes, he lay staring into the vast blueness, now turning to lavender, and considering his lot.

His parents were right. He was in no position to compete with anyone. To press his cause would only result in failure and humiliation for his family, and distress to Mary's. For several years, in crisp, firm little ways, Hannah had been making her attitude plain. She never returned his mother's offerings in kind —cakes or flowers or wild honey. She managed to hasten her children off when they would have lingered to mingle with those of Jacob after services. And seldom had Joachim brought any business to his shop. A subtle yet very real barrier had separated them, a barrier as forbidding as if Mary's people had been wealthy and highborn.

"Is it never to be then?" he demanded of the empty, uncaring space above. He searched it vainly a moment for some sign. And Joseph's eyes were wet, in part for the immutable loss of Mary, but in part for the loss of his faith. He thought with shame and bitterness of the long communion that in his desire he had conjured up. He had given himself the answers all the time! Now he saw that the true worshiper does not expect answers. The days were long past when God summoned Moses up onto a mountain, or revealed himself through a burning bush or a ladder of stars. This was a new age and a new era, where the true believer did not expect such evidence from Jahveh. Least of all should he expect personal favors.

"So be it."

He watched a lizard dart up the tree, its iridescent blue whip of tail quivering. He sat up and plucked a leaf from a low bough and bit down hard upon it. Its taste was bitter, like life. But it existed. It was. As he was and would continue to be. Even without her who had gradually become his primary excuse for being, he would survive. But how? How? The prospect was scalding.