But Rabba coughed so much she couldn’t answer.
‘You shouldn’t be alone,’ I told her.
A ghost of a chuckle. ‘I will not die till you are back. I promise.’ She heaved in three more breaths and added, ‘My bark . . . will keep even the wolves away.’
Was she trying to laugh? I hesitated, then kissed her cheek. She allowed it.
I lit a lamp, in case the new cave was big and dark. Rabba seemed to be dozing. She was so small, so old. But her breathing was steady, and the cave wasn’t far away. We would be back soon.
I held the lamp carefully so the breeze didn’t blow out the flame and led the others around the ridge. There was the fig tree and a red rock, as high as my waist. If humans had ever been there, rain had washed away the signs. The ground was marked only by a scattering of coney droppings.
We pushed the rock. At last it moved, sliding in the mud rather than rolling. A gust of damp and bat droppings met us. We peered inside.
I had expected a cave like ours, high enough to stand in. This one was hardly bigger than a sheep stall. But it was just big enough to hold a solid wood chest sitting on four piles of rocks to keep its base dry.
It took all three of us to haul the chest out. I lifted the lid, then the layer of supple leather that protected the contents.
‘Oh,’ breathed Baratha.
The chest was full of cloth. I picked up the first. It was a man’s robe of finely woven white wool, made in one piece, not sewn together, with a narrow band of embroidery at the edges. It was beautiful. I handed it silently to Caius. He wouldn’t look like a slave wearing this.
Another man’s robe and two tunics, then four women’s dresses, two blue, two yellow, each embroidered at the neck, hem and sleeves. The needlework must have taken years. I remembered Sawtha Rabba telling us how she and her sisters had sat in their courtyard embroidering. These were rich people’s clothes! Was this Rabba’s work? Fine cloth like this lasted for generations.
Four cloaks of dun-coloured wool, also beautifully woven in one long piece, not sewn together. Four pairs of sandals: two the size of a man’s foot, two for a woman. Four embroidered veils, two head-coverings for a woman and two for a man, two men’s belts and two women’s, and then at last more leather wrappings at the bottom of the chest to keep the cloth dry.
Baratha stared at the finery. ‘I don’t understand.’
I did. ‘It’s a dowry chest. The goods a woman takes to her husband’s house, as well as bringing him land or animals or money.’
‘Your dowry?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know.’
Rabba had said she had offered a bigger dowry for me if my parents betrothed me to someone from Jerusalem. Was this it? It didn’t matter now whose dowry the clothes had been intended for. We would all use them.
We carried the chest back to our cave. Maybe we should sell the garments, I thought. They were too fine for beggars or poor travellers. But I couldn’t bear the idea. They were all Baratha and I had left of the women of our family, their weaving and spinning and embroidering so their daughters could enter their marriages with dignity and grace. Perhaps the clothes might help us find Sarah or Rakeal.
Rabba lay where we had left her, on her pallet in the dimness. We put the chest down and I ran to her.
‘We found it, Rabba! The tunics are so beautiful. Did you do the embroidery?’
She didn’t answer. She just lay there, curled in a heap like a coney.
She wasn’t dead, though her breathing was so faint it was hard to tell. Nor could we rouse her. I made a herb broth in case she wakened . . . for when she wakened.
She was still sleeping when the goat wandered in at dusk, fat with spring grass and looking pleased with herself. I’d heard wild goats nearby a few days ago and had wondered if ours might join them. But it seemed she wanted to be with us, at least at night, where there was fresh bread and hay to sleep on.
I made us a stew of lentils and spring onions, oregano and mint, sweetened with pomegranate honey, and added meat left from yesterday’s pigeons. Caius and Baratha made the bread. And still Rabba didn’t wake, even with the scent of baking bread.
We washed. I said the blessing, the one Ma or Rabba had said all my life, and we began to eat.
We had just passed the pot around three times when Rabba’s voice came from the dimness. ‘You, girl! Are you going to starve an old woman?’
Her voice sounded odd. I kneeled beside her. ‘We couldn’t wake you, Rabba.’
‘Ha,’ she snorted. The left side of her face hung down even more, and her lips slurred her words, but her eyes were bright. ‘Old women need sleep. Where is my dinner, girl?’
‘Here, Sawtha Rabba.’ I brought her a goblet of broth.
‘I want proper food,’ she mumbled.
I smiled, relief washing through me. Baratha brought the stew over. I scooped out some of the softest parts and fed them to Rabba on pieces of bread. She managed about five mouthfuls, dribbling some of it where her mouth didn’t work. I had to keep wiping her chin.
Finally she waved me away. ‘Is the boy here?’
‘Yes, Wise Mother,’ said Caius.
She cackled. ‘Wise Mother! That wasn’t what men called me when I was young. They called me . . .’ She glanced at Baratha, then me. ‘No, I won’t tell you what men called me. But it wasn’t Wise Mother.’
She stopped and just breathed for a while, more strongly than she had before. The spring warmth is making her well, I thought. She will be even better when there’s more heat in the sunlight.
‘Did you find the chest?’ she asked, as if she had only just remembered it.
‘Yes. Look, it’s over there. The clothes are the most beautiful I’ve ever seen.’
‘Ha! Far too good for a village of mud and dust. I stored them in the cave when I first came here, when my oldest son died and I had to leave Jerusalem to live with your father and that fool he married. I wasn’t giving them to her! I thought for a while I might give them to you for a dowry. But I wasn’t going to let that Jakob have them.’ Her smile was lopsided in the firelight. ‘He won’t get them now.’
Another pause while she sucked in breath. ‘Boy?’
‘Yes, Wise Mother?’
‘I need to tell you something. Need to tell you all. But not now. Let me sleep now . . .’ Her head nodded.
I lowered her gently onto the pallet. I pulled the sheepskins up over her shoulders.
‘Do you think she wants to tell us about another cave?’ wondered Baratha.
‘Who knows?’ I replied.
Maybe she wanted to give us more details about wedding nights, or a recipe for almond cake. Perhaps she’d hidden silver goblets and candlesticks when she first came to the village. Just what our cave needed — a silver menorah and goblets. But silver could be sold, couldn’t it? I knew people in the world beyond my village used money instead of trading, but had only a vague idea of how it worked.
I placed chunks of hardwood and then ash over the fire to keep the coals alight till morning. I hesitated, then kept the lamp lit in case Rabba woke in the night. We had less oil in the stores than other supplies, as this year’s oil hadn’t yet been pressed — but we could press it ourselves this autumn, I thought. We could harvest the olives and turn the big oil press now Caius could help push.
The whole village and its farms were ours now, I realised. Baratha and I were the only ones left to inherit them. I even knew where the title deeds to our fields were kept, buried under the stable floor. And yet I could not imagine living there, just the three of us. I didn’t even know if that was what I wanted. I couldn’t think at all just now.
Caius lay down on his sheepskins. Baratha was already asleep on her own bed of sheepskins, snuffling occasionally. At last I slept too.
Chapter 25
‘Boy? Are you awake?’
Rabba’s new slurred voice woke me. I peered at the cave window, looking for cracks of light between the sheepskins. But there were none. The darkne
ss must still be thick outside. I moved the lamp closer to her.
‘I am awake, Wise Mother,’ came Caius’s voice.
‘Me too,’ said Baratha sleepily.
Rabba coughed a little. She didn’t have enough breath to cough deeply now. ‘And listening?’
‘I always listen to you, Wise Mother.’
And he did, I realised. Caius always listened, even if his thoughts were his own.
‘I lied to you, boy.’ Her whisper was almost too soft to hear. ‘I was ashamed. I did go and see her.’
‘Who, Wise Mother?’
‘The girl you asked about. But she was a woman then, advanced in years. Maryiam, widow of Joseph. He was long dead, poor man. He died before all the trouble began. A good man. Such a pious man, a kind man always. I went to see Maryiam in Jerusalem . . .’ Rabba stopped to breathe again. ‘I’d heard about her son’s death, of course. How he was crucified on a hill like a thief, like a slave. The lowest death a man can have. A shame to all his family. A shame to Nazareth! Of course I heard of it. My husband was one of the chief tax collectors of Jerusalem. Our house had a tiled floor, a design from Rome . . .’ Her voice faded, then she muttered, ‘What was I saying?’
‘You heard about the death of Joshua, Wise Mother.’
It was impossible to read Caius’s emotions in his voice.
‘Oh, yes, I knew. I even heard he had come to Jerusalem. A man from my own village, come to preach?’ Her voice grew stronger, though it was hard to make out some of the words. ‘Of course I knew. I knew Maryiam would be there to see her son enter Jerusalem in triumph. An honoured preacher, a teacher, with crowds calling his name. What mother would not? And it was Passover too. Maryiam and the other women who followed him must prepare the Passover supper, the bread, the bitter herbs, the wine. And Maryiam was there to see him die.
‘I heard about his death just days after it happened,’ she said, her voice shaking like water trickling over stones. ‘I even knew the house where Maryiam was staying . . . the house of James.’
‘James the Just?’ asked Caius.
‘Yes, that’s what they called him. He was a good man. All of them were good men. Silly at times, like all men can be silly, and so stubborn . . .’
‘And Maryiam, Wise Mother?’
‘I visited her a year after her son’s death. I waited all that time, even though she was a woman from my village, a girl I had known. A good girl, despite all the gossip. A truly good girl. I loved her. I never told you that. I am ashamed I never told her either. I abandoned her, thinking of the grand marriage my father planned.
‘I always knew that whatever happened had not been her fault. I was ashamed I didn’t go to see her sooner too. I have been ashamed ever since. I abandoned her again and again. But I was scared for my husband’s reputation, for his position with the Pharisees and Romans, and the King. My husband was a tax collector, you know, my Gideon, may his name be a blessing . . .’
More silence, except for the gasps of her breathing. We waited while she found her memory again, her whispered voice panting through the darkness beyond the tiny pool of lamplight.
‘Gideon was away, the day I finally gathered my courage to see her. I took a basket of grapes, the best from our estate, and honey cakes, a recipe from Athens. The servants carried them. James’s wife let us in.’ She hesitated once more, so long I thought she had drifted off to sleep. ‘And there was Maryiam, seated in the courtyard. I knew her, even though it had been more than thirty years since I had seen her. But I could not forget her. If my heart lived two thousand years, it would not forget Maryiam. She wore an undyed dress and veil, just like a country woman would wear. No colours or pattern, not even embroidery. But she was beautiful. She sat there with the sun upon her face, and even as she talked there was a stillness, as if she listened too, to words that others couldn’t hear. All around the courtyard men and women sat and listened to her. Men, waiting for her words! They listened to this country woman, who had been just a village girl, as if she were a rebbe, as if she were a prophet. As if she knew the secrets of the mountains.’
She paused again. This time I knew she was gathering breath and strength, and not just to speak the words.
‘I waited in the shadows so she didn’t see me,’ her slurred voice went on. ‘I listened as Maryiam told the story I knew from gossip so long ago. About when she was just a girl and pregnant, her baby conceived before her marriage, and cast out from her family.
‘But now she told us what had happened when she and Joseph left Nazareth. She told the men and women sitting in that courtyard about that young girl’s journey to Bethlehem, just her and Joseph and the donkey, all alone, with no women relatives with her, even though she was so near her time. Such a long journey, and at the end, no pallet for her in a guest room. Her baby was delivered in the straw of the stable below —’
‘That is what I was told,’ said Caius eagerly. ‘And then the shepherds came, and it was wonderful —’
‘You fool, boy!’ Rabba’s cry echoed around the cave. ‘Can you imagine the terror of that journey south, abandoned by their families? You have never had a child. Women die giving birth when they have no women to help them. Do you know the pain of childbirth? Do you know how you must lie there helpless? She and Joseph had to bear that all alone. And after? A young girl, alone. What use was Joseph, who had never seen a child born? No cradle for the birth, no herbs for her to drink, no midwife guiding her, no grandmother to hold her hand? How can any boy know what that is like?’ She gasped, her voice anguished, full of emotions buried for so many years. ‘It is the saddest story in all the world. The baby born to a young girl cast off by friends and family, and her husband’s family too. And finally that son is crucified as a criminal, and she must watch his death. The most tragic story ever told. And yet . . . and yet . . .’
‘Yes?’ Caius whispered.
‘She told that story with such love. It was not a tale of grief and terror now. It was the most joyous story in the world. She said the stars shone like the eyes of Heaven, guiding their way along the track that led to Bethlehem. The donkey whickered and its breath was warm. She did not speak of being frightened, or of pain, only of her baby, whole and safe at last and lying in her arms, and Joseph’s arms around her too. She smiled as she told how travellers at the inn brought gifts to her new baby; the shepherds, poor men, rough men, but an angel told them a child had been born. Wise men came too, from far in the east, who had followed a star all the way to Bethlehem. Maryiam spoke of happiness and love, not pain.’
‘I . . . I have heard that story too, Wise Mother. I did not know it came from her.’
‘Who else could it come from, fool boy?’ Her voice was more distinct now. ‘Joseph, may his good soul rest forever, was long gone before Joshua began to preach. Could the donkey tell that story, or the goats or sheep? There was only one who could tell the story of the birth of Joshua. Only his mother knew. And she made that story the greatest tale of happiness and love.’
Silence filled the cave, and something else as well. Love and happiness, I thought. That far-off birth still sends us happiness, though it was more than seventy years ago.
At last Caius whispered, ‘What then, Wise Mother?’
‘Everyone in the courtyard said that prayer together, the one I heard you say. Oh, yes, I remembered it. I remember every word. That prayer and the story she told are written into me like your letters on a scroll. Then I picked up my basket and took it to her, and said all the proper things, the greetings and condolences.
‘But I did not tell her how my heart sang to hear her. I did not say I loved her, that when her son died up on that hill I should have stood with her. We drank juice that the wife of James brought out to us. I said my polite and empty words. We ate a honey cake. And then I left.’
‘Did you see her again?’ Caius asked.
Rabba shook her head. ‘She left for Ephesus soon after, and lived in the house of John. I heard she preached there too. I longed to see h
er, longed to listen once again. But a woman is bound to her husband, Gideon, may his name be blessed.’
‘So that is all?’ asked Caius.
‘No,’ said Rabba, and when she spoke again, her voice was even stronger than before. ‘Every day since then I have remembered Maryiam in that courtyard. All she had been through, the loss and grief and pain. Yet her life was none of those, for it was filled with love. If there is love enough, there is no room for pain. I lived my life . . . a good life until my Gideon died, and good enough until my sons died too. It is hard for a mother to outlive her sons and grandsons, and her great-grandson too. But I remembered Maryiam. I made myself remember all the love, like she did, and I survived. If it had not been for Maryiam, I would not have forced my old body to keep living after your father left, girl. He was a fool sometimes, that boy, but he was of my blood and heart. I knew the Romans would come. I knew at last I would be needed, truly needed. So I lived. I brought you to this cave.’ Her voice faded. Her breathing became hard and fast. Then she said, ‘Life twists you like a stream: trickling you in one direction, then throwing you about in flood.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I said.
A sound erupted from her half-mouth; an attempted chuckle. ‘I was so fine in my great house, not like Maryiam giving birth in a poor stable. And now here I lie in a cave with a goat.’
‘I . . . I’m sorry you have only the cave, Rabba,’ I said.
The almost-chuckle again. ‘You didn’t listen, girl. There is love here. I will die richer than I ever was in life. Do you know why I saved you, Judith?’
It was the first time she’d used my name.
‘You said it was because I would follow your orders.’
She laughed weakly. ‘Because you have strength, girl. You and Baratha. You brought meat to your family. You girded your skirts about your loins, even though the women scoffed. You fought for your family. I saved you because you have the strength of love. I saw Maryiam in that courtyard and knew that love is stronger than any army. Not even the Pharisees and Romans have the power to steal love. You were never just a girl.’
Just a Girl Page 15
