Another man stands and tells the tale of the prophet Jonah and the big fish. The same tale Andre told two weeks ago, but so grim it seems almost a different tale. There are some who say the fish killed Jonah and ate him and his shade went down to Sheol and prayed to HaShem for mercy and HaShem heard his voice and made the fish vomit him out on dry land and then HaShem raised him to life again. This man tells it so, and at the end, Nineveh is shamed. He does not say Nineveh repents, only that it makes a big wailing.
Even if it is grim, the tale is well told, and there are shouts for another tale.
Another man stands and tells the tale of Elijah the prophet, who killed four hundred prophets of the ba’al.
Another tells the tale of David killing two hundred Philistine men for their foreskins as a bride-price for his woman.
The stars shine bright when the tale is told of Joshua destroying the city of Jericho. We can see the lights of Jericho from here, across the river by a walk of one hour.
Finally every group has told a tale or sung a song.
Every group except ours.
The man nearest us shouts, “Sing us a psalm, newcomers!”
My men look on me.
I shrug like a man who says no.
Yohanan the immerser looks on me with bright eyes.
Other men shout on us to recite an oracle from the prophets.
Again I shrug.
Yohanan the immerser studies me hard.
All the crowd begins calling me to tell a tale.
I look to Yohanan.
He makes a big grin on me. “Tell us a tale, Yeshua from Nazareth.”
I raise my eyebrows like a man who asks what tale to tell.
“A tale of repentance,” Yohanan says.
Yoni seems to be hopping up and down for his excitement. Andre grins. Philip leans back on one elbow. Natanel the hireling taps the side of his nose and smirks. Yehuda Dreamhead rubs his hands together for his glee.
I stand.
I tell the tale of Apis, the golden bull-god of Egypt.
As I speak, I watch the people. The men’s eyes light up with a big rage. The women cover their mouths in dread. The children cry and cry for their terror.
I tell repentance to Israel.
When it is done, there is a long moment of silence.
Then all the men fall on their faces, repenting.
My men fall on their faces, repenting.
Yohanan the immerser falls on his face, repenting.
I sit in the sand and feel the Shekinah all around me.
A pillar of cloud.
A pillar of fire.
I look up in the night sky and wonder if Yohanan the immerser heard true from HaShem when he said I must destroy the first Power or be killed. I have made my first attack on the first Power, and see how easy it was. Everyone who heard my tale repents.
I do not see a hazard here. Yet Yohanan the prophet told that there is a big hazard.
That is what Yoni calls a paradox. He means the matter is deeper than it appears. The way ahead seems smooth, but hidden pits wait in the road for a man to fall in unawares.
I will trust in HaShem to protect me.
But I will discuss the matter with Yoni.
Chapter Thirty
Yoni of Capernaum
“We are almost to Uncle Elazar’s house.” I point to the marker stone by the side of the road. “That is the third marker before Bethany. We will be there by the walk of one hour. The sun hangs one hour over the mountains, so we will get there at the going out of the day.”
Rabbi Yeshua nods and says nothing. His lips are blue from the cold.
His brother Yehuda Dreamhead shuffles beside him. His eyes are half-closed, and I think that is ice on his eyelashes.
Andre and Philip and Natanel the hireling walk behind us. I hear their grumbling, and I do not blame them.
I think it is the coldest day of the year. Tomorrow begins Hanukkah, and we are walking up the Jericho Road to the home of Aunt Miryam and Aunt Marta and Uncle Elazar so we can celebrate with them. We went there two weeks ago for Shabbat, and they were all pleased to meet Rabbi Yeshua, for they had heard big tales on him already.
We have been helping Yohanan tell repentance to Israel now for five weeks, and it is good. Yohanan spends all but the hottest part of the day telling repentance. He still terrifies me, but I am getting used to him. When we first went to join him, I had evil dreams every night—Jerusalem burning in the fires of the wrath of HaShem. I have not had any evil dreams in a week. Yohanan seems angry all the time. I would be angry too if my hair ran with insects and smelled like haryo.
Every evening after we eat, the people sing psalms and tell tales. Now that they know Rabbi Yeshua, they demand two or three tales from him in a night. His tales are the best I ever heard.
I rub my hands together for the cold. It was warm and fine until yesterday, but the weather turned cold this morning. It rained all afternoon, a freezing rain mixed with ice. The Jericho Road is very steep, and now it is a big mud. All of us are wrapped in our cloaks, walking slow, careful not to step on a loose stick or a stumble-stone or a hole in the road.
There is nothing worse than walking all day uphill in a cold mud. But I know at the end of the road is Uncle Elazar’s large house, and he will make a roaring fire, and Aunt Marta will serve us hot drinks, and Aunt Miryam will warm us with her smile.
Yehuda Dreamhead staggers sideways on a sudden. “Aughh!”
A fist-size stone runs out from under his feet. A roll-stone.
Yehuda falls hard on his right knee.
He collapses in the mud and clutches his left ankle.
My face feels hot and my neck is cold. I rolled my ankle once on a roll-stone, and I was lame for three weeks.
Rabbi Yeshua kneels beside his brother in the mud. “Yehuda! Can you walk?”
Yehuda Dreamhead shakes his head. His teeth grit against the pain.
My heart flutters. If Yehuda Dreamhead cannot walk, we must camp here and start a fire. But there is never any wood on the Jericho Road. A few twigs, maybe, but they will be wet and frozen.
We cannot stay here overnight. We must get to Bethany, to Uncle Elazar’s house. But we cannot leave Yehuda Dreamhead here. He would freeze in an hour, lying on the icy ground.
I do not think we can carry him. Yehuda Dreamhead is a big man like Little Yaakov. He weighs more than any of us, even Andre.
My mind runs in circles like a three-legged dog with its tail on fire.
Rabbi Yeshua pulls up Yehuda Dreamhead’s cloak and tunic to see the hurt.
His left ankle has a bad look on it. Also, blood streams from his right knee where he fell.
“Can you stand?” Rabbi Yeshua asks. “If we walk with one man on each side, can you hop on the right leg?”
Yehuda Dreamhead clenches his teeth. “Maybe.”
All of us together lift him. Andre stands on his left side and Philip on his right.
Yehuda Dreamhead wraps his arms over their shoulders and puts his right foot to the ground. Slowly, slowly, he puts weight on it. His face twists in a big agony. “Aughh!”
Rabbi Yeshua shakes his head. “He cannot walk.”
My belly burns and my nails bite my palms and my head hurts. If Yehuda Dreamhead cannot walk, even with help, he will die here. We cannot leave him to die. But if we stay with him, we will die too.
Rabbi Yeshua stands facing Natanel the hireling. “Put your right hand on my left arm, here.”
Natanel the hireling clamps his right hand on Rabbi Yeshua’s left arm, just below the elbow.
Rabbi Yeshua does the same with his own left hand on his own right arm. In a moment, their four arms lock together to make a square.
Rabbi Yeshua says, “We must test it. Yoni, sit on the throne.” He and Natanel squat so their square is low enough to sit on.
I sit in the chair and put my arms around their shoulders.
Rabbi Yeshua and Natanel stand.
I grin on them. “It is very
comfortable.”
“Natanel, walk with me,” Rabbi Yeshua says.
Together they walk. They are facing each other, so they must twist their backs a little. They are not fast, but they can walk.
“See? Not so hard,” Rabbi Yeshua says.
Natanel the hireling shakes his head. “The boy is light as a sunbeam. Yehuda Dreamhead is twice the weight of the boy. Two men cannot carry one man so far.”
Rabbi Yeshua shrugs. “When I was a boy, Little Yaakov and Yosi and I went to Mount Tabor to climb the mountain for an adventure. It is a walk of two hours, and Imma sent food with us. We climbed to the top and ate our food. Then Little Yaakov said we must run down the mountain like the army of Deborah the prophet attacking the army of Sisera the Canaanite. Yosi fell and hurt his ankle. Little Yaakov and I made a square and carried him all the way home. If two boys can carry one for a walk of two hours, then four men can carry one for a walk of one hour. Yoni, give place to Yehuda Dreamhead.”
I jump out of the chair.
Andre and Philip help Yehuda Dreamhead sit in it.
Rabbi Yeshua and Natanel the hireling walk.
Every step is a grunt of hard work, but they are walking.
I hurry to walk alongside Rabbi Yeshua. “How did you think to make the square when you were a boy? That was a good cleverness.”
“It was Little Yaakov’s cleverness,” Rabbi Yeshua says. “When we got home, all the village shouted what a clever boy I was. I said it was Little Yaakov’s cleverness, but they did not believe me, and Little Yaakov made a rage on them.”
I ask, “Is that why Little Yaakov is always so angry, because he is jealous on you?”
Yehuda Dreamhead moans with a big moan.
Rabbi Yeshua says, “Yehuda Dreamhead, are you well?”
“C-cold,” Yehuda Dreamhead says. “Very cold.”
Rabbi Yeshua says, “Yoni, run ahead to the village. Ask Elazar to bring us a donkey to carry Yehuda Dreamhead. Wait for Marta to warm a skin of water by the fire. And ask Miryam to find a cloak of goat hair woven tight. When you have both, bring them back to us as fast as you can run.”
“Rabbi Yeshua, is that why Little Yaakov is always so angry—”
“Run!” Rabbi Yeshua shouts.
I run.
Chapter Thirty-One
Miryam of Bethany
I hand Yoni the cloak and the waterskin. “Be careful and run slow!”
Yoni runs fast.
The sun is just disappearing over the hills behind Jerusalem. I shiver from the cold, for a terrible freezing rain has been falling all day. I think it might snow. We had snow once when I was six years old, and I thought it was a wonderful thing. Then we had snow again when I was twenty. I remember because it was the month after my lord divorced me. I wanted to go out and lie down in the snow and die. I would have too, if Marta had not stopped me.
“Miryam Big-Eyes!” Marta shouts on me. “Come in the house now!”
I hate my nickname. When I was the age of ten, the boys of the village named me Big-Eyes. They grinned when they said it, and I took it for a kindness. Then the men of the village called me Big-Eyes, and they grinned when they said it. Then the women of the village called me Big-Eyes, and they grinned when they said it. Last of all, the girls of the village called me Big-Eyes, but their grins were twisted by a thing I did not understand.
I asked Imma why all the village grinned when they called me Big-Eyes. I did not see why large eyes should be funny.
Imma would not explain the matter.
My sister Marta would not explain the matter.
My brother Elazar would only say it was not to do with my eyes. He said it was a joke.
I did not understand what was the joke.
Then one day one of the men of the village leered on me and called me Miryam Big-Eyes, only he was not looking on my eyes.
Then I understood the matter at last.
I did not think it was a good joke.
Imma said a big-eyes girl is blessed by HaShem, because her father can find many men who wish to buy her for their woman.
I thought that would make it right in the end.
It did not make it right in the end.
“Miryam Big-Eyes, come in now or your eyes will freeze off and fall down in the road and roll all the way to Jericho!”
I sigh and turn from squinting down the road after Yoni. He never calls me a big-eyes. He is a good boy, and I wish he will grow into a kind man and never make cruel jokes on a woman. That is the best a woman can hope, that a man will not be cruel on her.
Marta stands inside the door frowning on me. “We must throw more wood on the fire and make tea and put out food. Find basins to wash their feet—they will be filthy. Your tunic is too tight. Those fish-men will be staring on you. And do something about your hair—it is poking out again.”
I scurry through the receiving room of our house.
The servants fly about. Shmuel the woodcutter lays more wood in the firepit while a boy blows air on the fire through a hollow reed. The servant girls run back and forth to the kitchen, preparing bread and cheese and olives and chickpeas and wine. Marta shouts directions on them all.
I reach the courtyard and slog through the wet slush to my room. The air there feels frozen, painful to breathe.
I inspect my tunic to see if it is too tight.
It is not too tight. I am cold, that is the only problem. If those fish-men never saw a big-eyes when she is cold, they will stare, but that is not my fault.
I touch the edges of my hair covering.
A few wisps poke out again.
I remove my hair covering and shake out its wrinkles. My hair falls to my waist. My hair is very thick and long. Marta’s is thin and silky. When I was a small girl with thick hair, Marta praised it much. When I was a large girl with thick hair, she still praised it much. When I became a woman and a big-eyes, she said I had hair like a zonah. The day I was betrothed, I wrapped my hair in a covering, and no man has ever seen it since, except my lord. But my thick hair could not prevent me being barren, so Marta was avenged in the end.
The rabbi and his men will be here soon, and I will be shamed if even one strand of my hair shows. I am not a seducing woman, who lets little wisps of her hair hang out to be seen by strange men. There is a zonah in the next village who does that. I have seen it myself, and it is a big wickedness.
I wrap my hair in its covering and fold it as carefully as I ever did. I check it three times and then go back to prepare for our guests.
I am terrified on Rabbi Yeshua. Yoni told me the mighty wonder he did at his sister’s wedding feast. Rabbi Yeshua is a prophet and a tsaddik—a very holy man. I am afraid he will know I am cursed by HaShem and he will make a big scorn on me.
He came with his men two weeks ago for Shabbat, and I was afraid to go in the same room with them. I was glad when they went to the Temple with Elazar most of the day. I do not need a tsaddik watching on me to catch me in a sin. I already have Marta.
Now they will be here for all of Hanukkah, eight whole days and maybe longer if the weather stays foul. I will have to hide away from Rabbi Yeshua all that time. I wish I can go somewhere with Yoni and talk, as we used to. But he is a man now, doing a man’s work. Perhaps he will have no time for me.
If Yoni ignores me, that will be good, for then I will not make a scandal on him. But if Yoni ignores me, I will cry until all the tears in my eyes run out of my head.
I bring out foot basins from the storage room, twelve of them. We get them cheap from Gamliel the potter, whose foot is crippled. I lay out six basins in front of the benches in the receiving room and leave the rest as spares by the fire. I also bring out two large stone warming vessels and set them in their places in the firepit. I haul in three buckets of water from the cistern in the courtyard and fill the vessels so the rabbi and his men can wash in fire-warmed water.
When it is all done, I sit and wait.
After the fourth part of an hour, I hear shouts outsi
de in the street.
Marta and the servants hurry to the door and go out to greet our guests.
I go to hide in the central courtyard, even though it is bitter cold. I will spy on them and see that Yoni is warmed and fed, and I will steal a look on the rabbi, and then I will run to my own room and hide.
Yoni comes in the receiving room first. His nose is blue, and his hair is caked with ice. He stands near the firepit and stretches hands toward the heat.
Elazar leads our donkey in, carrying the rabbi’s brother. They all lift him off and set him down on the bench nearest the fire. Rabbi Yeshua peels up his brother’s cloak and tunic to his knees. His legs are caked with mud and ice and blood.
Marta brings a basin and water and puts a servant girl to work washing his feet.
Rabbi Yeshua calls for his other men to sit and finds them all places on the benches.
Elazar leads the donkey out to the courtyard and back to the stables.
Marta runs around in a flurry, making sure that each of the men has a servant girl to wash his feet.
At last she turns and sees Rabbi Yeshua still standing, talking to Yoni.
“Rabbi Yeshua, what are you doing?” Marta says. “Sit! Sit! We should have seen to you first.”
The rabbi smiles on her and says something in a quiet voice I cannot hear.
Marta pushes him to a bench and makes him sit. Her head spins around, and she sees what I have already seen.
All the servant girls are at work, washing the feet of the rabbi’s men. There is none left for the rabbi.
Panic flashes in Marta’s eyes. “Miryam Big-Eyes, where are you? Come serve the rabbi!”
I do not wish to go in the receiving room, but I will make a scandal on myself if I do not. It is my duty, for I am the youngest. I make myself small as a mouse and hurry in on my quietest feet.
Fear grips my belly in an iron knot. Rabbi Yeshua is a prophet. If he looks on me, HaShem will tell him I am barren and cursed and he will tell repentance on me. He will do it well, for he has been telling repentance to all Israel.
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