Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt

by Anne Rice

  And tomorrow we would leave this terrible place. We would leave my cousins here, the strange solemn boy John, who said so little and looked at me so much, and our beloved Elizabeth, his mother, and we'd go on to the refuge of Nazareth.

  8

  RIGHT AFTER THE COMING OF THE LIGHT, men on horseback came on a "rampage" through the village.

  We left our little circle in which all had only just begun to listen to our cousin Elizabeth, and crowded into the back room of the house together.

  Cleopas had never moved from there, as he had coughed very badly in the night and was feverish again. He lay smiling in his usual way, his eyes wet as he stared up at the low roof over our heads.

  We could hear screams and the braying of the lambs and the screech of the birds. "They're stealing everything," said my cousin Mary Alexandra. The other women told her to be quiet, and her husband Zebedee patted her arm.

  Once Silas tried to get up to go to the curtain, but his father ordered him to go to the far corner with a firm gesture.

  Even the little ones who were always excited by everything were quiet.

  Aunt Esther, Simon's wife, had Baby Esther in her arms, and every time the baby started to cry, she gave her the breast.

  I wasn't afraid now, and I didn't know why. I stood among the women with the other children, except for James who stood beside his father. James was really not a child anymore, I thought to myself, looking at him. Had we stayed in Jerusalem, had there been no rebellion, James would have gone into the Sanctuary of the Sons of Israel with Silas and Levi and with all the men.

  But I was interrupted in this thought by the sudden fear that gripped everyone, and the feel of my mother's fingers closing around my upper arm.

  Strangers were in the front room. Little Salome crushed up against me and I hugged her tight as my mother hugged me.

  Then the curtain was ripped off the door. I was blinded and blinked, struggling to see. My mother gripped me very tight. No one spoke a word, and no one moved. I knew we were to be quiet and to do nothing. Everyone knew it, even the very littlest ones knew it. The babies cried but it was soft and it had nothing to do with these men who had torn the curtain away.

  There were three or four of them, black against the daylight, big rough figures, with rags tied around their legs under the lashings of their sandals. One wore animal skins and another a gleaming helmet. The light hit their swords and their daggers. They had rags around their wrists.

  "Well, look here," said the man with the helmet. He spoke in Greek. "What do we have here? Half the village."

  "Come on, everything!" said another forcing his way towards us. He too spoke Greek. His voice was ugly. "I mean it, every denarius you have, all of you, now. Your gold or your silver. You women, your bracelets, take them off. We'll cut you open for what you swallowed if you don't give up what you've got!"

  No one moved. The women did nothing.

  Little Salome began to cry. I held her so tight I must have hurt her. But no one answered the men.

  "We're fighting for freedom for our land," said one of the men. More Greek. "You stupid fools, don't you know what's happening in Israel?"

  He stepped towards us and flashed his dagger at us, glaring into the face of Alphaeus, then Simon, then Joseph. But the men said nothing.

  No one moved. No one spoke.

  "Did you hear me? I'll cut your throats one by one, starting with the children!" said the man, stepping back.

  One of the others kicked at our well-bound bundles, another lifting a blanket and letting it fall.

  Very softly in Hebrew, Joseph spoke.

  "I can't understand you. What do you want us to do? We are people of peace. I can't understand you."

  Very softly in Hebrew, Alphaeus said: "Please do not harm our innocent children and our women. Do not let it be said of you that you shed innocent blood."

  Now it was the turn of the men to be still as stone, and finally one of them turned away.

  "Oh, you stupid worthless peasants," he said in Greek. "You miserable ignorant filth."

  "They've never seen any money in their lives," said the other. "There's nothing in this place but old clothes and stinking babies. You pitiful wretches. Eat your dirt in peace."

  "Yes, grovel while we fight for your freedom," said another.

  They turned and went out with heavy steps, kicking baskets and bedrolls out of their way.

  We waited. I felt my mother's hands on my shoulders. I could see James, and he looked so much like Joseph, it was a wonder I never saw it before.

  Finally the cries and the noise were over.

  Joseph spoke. "Remember this," he said. He looked from James to me and to Little Joses, and to my cousins who stared up at him, and to John who stood beside his mother. "Remember. Never lift your hand to defend yourself or to strike. Be patient. If you must speak, be simple."

  We nodded. We knew what had happened. All of us knew. Little Salome was sniffling. And all at once, my aunt Mary, who had been feeling so sick, broke into crying, and turned and sat down beside Cleopas, who was still staring up as he had been before. He looked like he was already dead. But he wasn't dead.

  All at once we children rushed to the doors of the little house. People were pouring out into the street. They were in a fury against the robbers. Women were chasing after fluttering birds and I saw the body of a man lying in the very middle of all that was going on, and he was staring up at the sky the same way that Cleopas had stared, but with blood streaming from his mouth. He was like our dead man in the Temple.

  No soul in him.

  People were going around him, and nobody wept for him, and nobody knelt beside him.

  Finally two men with a rope came and they looped it over him and under his arms and they dragged him away.

  "He was one of them," said James. "Don't look at him."

  "But who killed him?" I asked. "And what will they do with him?" In the light of the day it was not so frightening as it had been in the night. But I knew, even at this moment, that the darkness of the night would come. And it would be very frightening again. I knew the fear was waiting. The fear was something new. The fear was terrible. I didn't feel it but I remembered it, and I knew it would come back. It would never go away.

  "They'll bury him," said James. "His dead body can't be left unburied. It's an offense to the Lord in Heaven. They'll put him in a cave or in the earth. It doesn't matter."

  We were told to go inside.

  The room had been cleared, the floor swept and beautiful rugs had been put down, rugs covered with flowers woven in the wool. We were told to sit down and be still and listen because Elizabeth wanted to talk to us before we left to go on.

  I remembered now that we had been gathered for this purpose before, but the rugs had not been unbound yet when the first horsemen had come.

  Now as if nothing had happened, as if no one had died in the street we went on.

  We made a big thick, crowded circle. The babies were quiet enough for Elizabeth to be heard. I sat before Joseph, my legs crossed, as were his, and Little Salome was right by me, leaning back against her mother. Cleopas was still in the other room.

  "I'll make my words quick," Elizabeth said. When I'd awakened this morning, she'd been talking of grandfathers and grandmothers, and who had married who and gone to what village. I couldn't remember all those names. Both the women and the men had been repeating what she'd been telling, in order to remember it.

  Now, she shook her head before she began and she lifted her hands. I saw her gray hairs under the edge of her veil, running through her darker hair.

  "This is what I must tell you, what I never put in a letter to you. When I die, which will be soon—and no, don't say

  that it won't. I know that it will. I know the signs. When I die, John will go to live with our kindred among the Essenes."

  All at once there was fussing and crying out. Even Cleopas appeared in the door, huddled over, with his hand around his chest.

 
"No, why in the world have you made such a decision!" he said. "To send that child to people who don't even worship in the Temple! And John, the son of a priest! And you married all your life to a priest, and Zechariah, the son of a priest, and before him?"

  Cleopas limped, holding his stomach, until he reached the circle and then dropped to his knees, my mother right there to help him and pull his robe free, and straighten it around him. On he went. "And you would send John, whose mother is of the House of David, and whose father is of the House of Aaron, to live with the Essenes? The Essenes? These people who think they know better than all the rest of us what is good and what is bad, and who is righteous and what the Lord demands?"

  "And who do you think the Essenes are!" said Elizabeth in a low voice. She was patient but wanted to be understood. "Are they not from the Children of Abraham? Are they not of the House of David and the House of Aaron, and from all the Tribes of Israel? Are they not pious? Are they not zealous for the Law? I'm telling you, they will take him out in the wilderness and there they'll educate him and care for him. And he, the child himself, wants this and he has reason."

  My cousin John was looking at me. Why? Why not at his mother as everyone else was, when they were not looking at him? His face didn't show much. He stared at me and I could see only a calmness in him. He didn't look like a little boy. He looked like a little man. He sat opposite his mother, and he wore a plain white tunic of far better wool than mine, or any of ours, and over that a robe of the same fine weave. And these things I'd seen before but not thought of, and now as I took them in, I felt a great wondering about him, but Cleopas was talking and I had to follow his words.

  "The Essenes," Cleopas said. "Will none of you speak up for this boy before he becomes the son of men who don't stand before the Lord at the appointed times? Am I the only man here with a voice? Elizabeth, on the heads of our grandparents, I swear this must not—."

  "Brother, calm yourself," said Elizabeth. "Save your passion for your own sons! This son is mine, entrusted to me by the Lord in my old age against all probability! You don't speak to a woman when you speak to me. You speak to Sarah of old, to Hannah of old. You speak to one chosen for a reason. Am I not to provide for this child what I think the Lord will have?"

  "Joseph, don't let this pass," said Cleopas.

  "You stand closest to the boy," said Joseph. "If you must speak against his mother, then speak."

  "I don't speak against you," said Cleopas. Then the cough came up in his chest, and he was in pain. My aunt Mary was worried and so was my mother. Cleopas raised his hand, begging for patience. But he couldn't stop the cough. Finally he said, "You speak of Sarah, the wife of Abraham," he said, "and you speak of Hannah, the mother of Samuel, but did either of these men fail to do what the Lord commanded, and you talk of sending your boy to live with those who turn their backs on the Temple of the Lord?"

  "Brother, you have a poor memory," said Elizabeth. "To whom did your sister, Mary, come when she learned that she was chosen to bear this child Yeshua? She came to me and why? Now, before some other calamity befalls this village, I beg you to listen to my decision, and I have asked you to listen to it, not to dispute with me. I don't put it before you for judgement, you understand. I tell you, the boy goes to the Essenes."

  Never had I heard a woman speak with this kind of authority. True, there had been venerable women in the Street of the Carpenters in Alexandria, women who could bring the children to silence with the clap of their hands, and women who asked questions in the synagogue to make the Teacher go to his scrolls. But this was stronger, and more clear than anything I'd ever heard.

  Cleopas fell silent.

  Elizabeth lowered her voice and spoke on.

  "We have brethren with them, grandsons of Mattathias and Naomi, who went out long ago to the desert to live with them, and I've spoken with them, and they will take him, even now. It's their way to take children and bring them up strictly, abiding by their rules of purity and fasting, and strict community, and all these are natural things to my son. And he will study with them. He will learn the prophets. He will learn the word of the Lord. The desert is where he wants to be, and when I'm gathered to my ancestors there he will go until such time as he is a man and decides for himself what he will do. I have already provided for John with the Essenes and they wait only for my word, or for him to come to those that live on the other side of the Jordan and they will take him far out away from here to where he's to be brought up removed from the affairs of men."

  "Why can't you come with us to Nazareth?" asked Joseph. "You are welcome. Your brother surely will say so, as it's the house of his parents that we go to, all of us—."

  "No," said Elizabeth. "I will stay here. I'll be buried with my husband, Zechariah. And I will tell you the reason why this child is to go."

  "Well, say the reason," said Cleopas. "And you know I want you to come to Nazareth. Surely it is right for John and Yeshua to be brought up together." Then he started coughing again, trying to hide it. But I knew if he hadn't been coughing he would have said a lot more.

  "This is what I couldn't write to you in a letter," said Elizabeth. "Please listen because I only want to tell it one time."

  The mothers said hush to the babies. Cleopas cleared his throat. "Come out with it," he said, "or I may die without hearing it."

  "You know that after you left for Egypt, you, Mary and Joseph and the little one, Herod was of restless and cruel mind."

  "Yes," said Cleopas. "Out with it." He began to cough again.

  "And you know that John was born to me and to Zechariah when both of us were in our extreme old age, as were Sarah and Abraham when Isaac was born." She stopped and looked to each and every one of us little ones who were in the inner circle and we nodded that we understood. "You know of Hannah's prayer for a child, do you not, children, when she stood before the Lord at Shiloh praying, and who was it that thought she was drunken, can you tell me, any of you?"

  "Eli the priest," said Silas quickly. "And she told him that she was praying and why she was praying, and he prayed for her as well."

  "Yes," said Elizabeth, "and so I too often prayed, but what you may not know, all you young ones, is that the birth of my child was foretold."

  I had not known it. And I could see that the others had not known it. As for John, he sat quietly, watching his mother, but it seemed nothing was disturbing him and he was deep in his thoughts.

  "Well, how that is explained to you, I leave it up to your fathers, because there are reasons not to speak of it, but I will say only that it was known that the child came to us late in life by the will of Heaven, and when he was born I consecrated him to the Lord. You will see that no razor has ever touched his head, and he takes nothing of the grape. He belongs to the Lord."

  "The Lord of the Essenes?" asked Cleopas.

  "Let her speak," said my mother. "Do you forget everything you know?"

  He was quiet.

  Elizabeth went on.

  Again she looked at each and all. And no one spoke, all of us waiting to see what all this could mean.

  "We are of the House of David," Elizabeth said. "And you know that Herod so hated all of us, and any of us with the faintest claim to royal blood, that he burned all the records in the Temple by which everyone suffered the loss of the archives in which the names of all their ancestors had been written for all time.

  "And you know what happened before you went to Egypt, you know what sent my beloved cousin Mary and her newborn into Egypt with Joseph and with you, Cleopas. You know perfectly well."

  I didn't dare to ask the question that was on my lips. I didn't know what had sent us into Egypt! But she went on.

  "King Herod had his watchers everywhere," she said, her voice getting rougher and deeper.

  "We know this," said my mother softly. She lifted her hand just a little, and her cousin Elizabeth took her hand and held it and they nodded at one another, their veils almost touching, as if telling each other without words a
secret.

  Then Elizabeth said,

  "Now, Herod's men, his soldiers, rough as those thieves who just came into our village, into this very house thinking to rob us for their petty wars, soldiers like that came into the very Temple and sought out my Zechariah to ask him about the son born to him, the son of the House of David. They would see this son for themselves."

  "We knew nothing of this," Joseph said in a whisper.

  "I told you I would not write this in a letter," said Elizabeth. "I had to wait until you came. What was done could not be undone. Now they accosted him in the Temple, these soldiers, as he came out of the Sanctuary where he had fulfilled his duty as it was his time as a priest. And do you think he would tell them where to find his son? He had already hidden me away with the baby. We had gone into the caves near the Essenes and they had brought food to us. And he wouldn't tell these soldiers where we were.

  "They pushed him and knocked him to his knees, and this right outside the Sanctuary, and the other priests could not stop them. And do you think they even tried? Do you think the scribes came to his defense? Do you think the chief priests came to protest?"