“Right here.”
“Then why isn’t he talking for himself? Where do you come from, kid?”
“Nazareth,” Joshua said, “but I was born in Bethlehem. I am Joshua bar Joseph.”
“Oh yeah, I’ve talked to your mother.”
“You have?”
“Sure, almost every time she and your father come to Jerusalem for a feast she tries to see me. She thinks you’re the Messiah.”
Joshua swallowed hard. “Am I?”
Hillel snorted. “Do you want to be the Messiah?”
Joshua looked at me as if I might have the answer. I shrugged. “I don’t know,” Josh finally said. “I thought I was just supposed to do it.”
“Do you think you’re the Messiah?”
“I’m not sure I should say.”
“That’s smart,” Hillel said. “You shouldn’t say. You can think you’re the Messiah all that you want, just don’t tell anyone.”
“But if I don’t tell them, they won’t know.”
“Exactly. You can think you’re a palm tree if you want, just don’t tell anyone. You can think you’re a flock of seagulls, just don’t tell anyone. You get my meaning? Now I have to go eat. I’m old and I’m hungry and I want to go eat now, so just in case I die before supper I won’t go hungry.”
“But he really is the Messiah,” I said.
“Oh yeah,” Hillel said, grabbing my shoulder, then feeling for my head so he could scream into my ear. “What do you know? You’re an ignorant kid. How old are you? Twelve? Thirteen?”
“Thirteen.”
“How could you, at thirteen, know anything? I’m eighty-four and I don’t know shit.”
“But you’re wise,” I said.
“I’m wise enough to know that I don’t know shit. Now go away.”
“Should I ask the Holy of Holies?” Joshua said.
Hillel swung at the air, as if to slap Joshua, but missed by a foot. “It’s a box. I saw it when I could still see, and I can tell you that it’s a box. And you know what else, if there were tablets in it, they aren’t there now. So if you want to talk to a box, and probably be executed for trying to get into the chamber where it’s kept, you go right ahead.”
The breath seemed to be knocked out of Joshua’s body and I thought he would faint on the spot. How could the greatest teacher in all of Israel speak of the Ark of the Covenant in such a way? How could a man who obviously knew every word of the Torah, and all the teachings written since, how could he claim not to know anything?
Hillel seemed to sense Joshua’s distress. “Look, kid, your mother says that some very wise men came to Bethlehem to see you when you were born. They obviously knew something that no one else knew. Why don’t you go see them? Ask them about being the Messiah.”
“So you aren’t going to tell him how to be the Messiah?” I asked.
Again Hillel reached out for Joshua, but this time without any anger. He found Joshua’s cheek, and stroked it with his palsied hand. “I don’t believe there will be a Messiah, and at this point, I’m not sure it would make a difference to me. Our people have spent more time in slavery or under the heels of foreign kings than we have spent free, so who is to say that it is God’s will that we be free at all? Who is to say that God concerns himself with us in any way, beyond allowing us to be? I don’t think that he does. So know this, little one. Whether you are the Messiah, or you become a rabbi, or even if you are nothing more than a farmer, here is the sum of all I can teach you, and all that I know: treat others as you would like to be treated. Can you remember that?”
Joshua nodded and the old man smiled. “Go find your wise men, Joshua bar Joseph.”
What we did was stay in the Temple while Joshua grilled every priest, guard, even Pharisee about the Magi who had come to Jerusalem thirteen years before. Evidently it wasn’t as big an event for others as it was for Josh’s family, because no one had any idea what he was talking about.
By the time he’d been at it for a couple of hours he was literally screaming into the faces of a group of Pharisees. “Three of them. Magicians. They came because they saw a star over Bethlehem. They were carrying gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Come on, you’re all old. You’re supposed to be wise. Think!”
Needless to say, they weren’t pleased. “Who is this boy who would question our knowledge? He knows nothing of the Torah and the prophets and yet berates us for not remembering three insignificant travelers.”
It was the wrong thing to say to Joshua. No one had studied the Torah harder. No one knew scripture better. “Ask me any question, Pharisee,” Joshua said. “Ask anything.”
In retrospect, after having grown up, somewhat, and having lived, died, and been resurrected from the dust, I realize that there may be nothing more obnoxious than a teenager who knows everything. Certainly, it is a symptom of the age that they think they know everything, but now I have some sympathy for those poor men who challenged Joshua that day at the Temple. Of course, at the time, I shouted, “Smite the sons-a-bitches, Josh.”
He was there for days. Joshua wouldn’t even leave to eat, and I went out into the city to bring him back food. First the Pharisees, but later even some of the priests came to quiz Joshua, to try to throw him some question about some obscure Hebrew king or general. They made him recite the lineages from all the books of the Bible, yet he did not waver. Myself, I left him there to argue while I wandered through the holy city looking for Maggie, then, when I couldn’t find her, for girls in general. I slept at the camp of my parents, assuming all the time that Joshua was returning each night to his own family, but I was wrong. When the Passover feast was over and we were packing up to leave, Mary, Joshua’s mother, came to me in a panic.
“Biff. Have you seen Joshua?”
The poor woman was distraught. I wanted to comfort her so I held my arms out to give her a comforting embrace. “Poor Mary, calm down. Joshua is fine. Come, let me give you a comforting embrace.”
“Biff!” I thought she might slap me.
“He’s at the Temple. Jeez, a guy tries to be compassionate and what does he get?”
She had already taken off. I caught up to her as she was dragging Joshua out of the Temple by the arm. “You worried us half to death.”
“You should have known you would find me in my father’s house,” Joshua said.
“Don’t you pull that ‘my father’ stuff on me, Joshua bar Joseph. The commandment says honor thy father and thy mother. I’m not feeling honored right now, young man. You could have sent a message, you could have stopped by the camp.”
Joshua looked at me, his eyes pleading for me to help him out.
“I tried to comfort her, Josh, but she wouldn’t have it.”
Later I found the two of them on the road to Nazareth and Joshua motioned for me to walk with them.
“Mother thinks we may be able to find at least one of the Magi, and if we find that one, he may know where the others are.”
Mary nodded, “The one named Balthasar, the black one, he said he came from a village north of Antioch. He was the only one of the three that spoke any Hebrew.”
I didn’t feel confident. Although I’d never seen a map, “north of Antioch” sounded like a large, unspecific, and scary place. “Is there more?”
“Yes, the other two had come from the East by the Silk Road. Their names were Melchior and Gaspar.”
“So it’s off to Antioch,” Joshua said. He seemed completely satisfied with the information his mother had given him, as if all he needed were the three Magi’s names and he’d as much as found them.
I said, “You’re going to go to Antioch assuming that someone there will remember a man who may have lived north of there thirteen years ago?”
“A magician,” Mary said. “A rich, Ethiopian magician. How many can there be?”
“Well, there might not be any, did you think of that? He might have died. He might have moved to another city.”
“In that case, I will be in Antioch,” Josh
ua said. “From there I can travel the Silk Road until I find the other two.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “You’re not going alone.”
“Of course.”
“But Josh, you’re helpless out in the world. You only know Nazareth, where people are stupid and poor. No offense, Mary. You’ll be like—uh—like a lamb among wolves. You need me along to watch out for you.”
“And what do you know that I don’t? Your Latin is horrible, your Greek is barely passable, and your Hebrew is atrocious.”
“Yeah. If a stranger comes up to you on the road to Antioch and asks you how much money you are carrying, what do you tell him?”
“That will depend on how much I am carrying.”
“No it won’t. You haven’t enough for a crust of bread. You are a poor beggar.”
“But that’s not true.”
“Exactly.”
Mary put her arm around her son’s shoulders. “He has a point, Joshua.”
Joshua wrinkled his brow as if he had to think about it, but I could tell that he was relieved that I wanted to go along. “When do you want to leave?”
“When did Maggie say she was getting married?”
“In a month.”
“Before then. I don’t want to be here when it happens.”
“Me either,” Joshua said.
And so we spent the next few weeks preparing for our journey. My father thought I was crazy, but my mother seemed happy to have the extra space in the house and pleased that the family wouldn’t have to put up a bride price to marry me off right away.
“So you’ll be gone how long?” Mother asked.
“I don’t know. It’s not a terribly long journey to Antioch, but I don’t know how long we’ll be there. Then we’ll be traveling the Silk Road. I’m guessing that that’s a long journey. I’ve never seen any silk growing around here.”
“Well, take a wool tunic in case it gets cold.”
And that was all I heard from my mother. Not “Why are you going?” Not “Who are you looking for?” Just “Take a wool tunic.” Jeez. My father was more supportive.
“I can give you a little money to travel with, or we could buy you a donkey.”
“I think the money would be better. A donkey couldn’t carry both of us.”
“And who are these fellows you’re looking for?”
“Magicians, I think.”
“And you want to talk to magicians because…?”
“Because Josh wants to know how to be the Messiah.”
“Oh, right. And you believe that Joshua is the Messiah?”
“Yes, but more important than that, he’s my friend. I can’t let him go alone.”
“And what if he’s not the Messiah? What if you find these magicians and they tell you that Joshua is not what you think he is, that he’s just a normal boy?”
“Well, he’ll really need me to be there, then, won’t he?”
My father laughed. “Yes, I guess he will. You come back, Levi, and bring your friend the Messiah with you. Now we’ll have to set three empty places at the table on Passover. One for Elijah, one for my lost son, and one for his pal the Messiah.”
“Well, don’t seat Joshua next to Elijah. If those guys start talking religion we’ll never have any peace.”
It came down to only four days before Maggie’s wedding before Joshua and I accepted that one of us would have to tell her we were leaving. After nearly a whole day of arguing, it fell upon me to go to her. I saw Joshua face down fears in himself that would have broken other men, but taking bad news to Maggie was one he couldn’t overcome. I took the task on myself and tried to leave Joshua with his dignity.
“You wuss!”
“How can I tell her that it’s too painful to watch her marry that toad?”
“First, you’re insulting toads everywhere, and second, what makes you think it’s any easier for me?”
“You’re tougher than I am.”
“Oh, don’t try that. You can’t just roll over and expect me to not notice that I’m being manipulated. She’s going to cry. I hate it when she cries.”
“I know,” Josh said. “It hurts me too. Too much.” Then he put his hand on my head and I suddenly felt better, stronger.
“Don’t try your Son of God mumbo jumbo on me, you’re still a wuss.”
“If it be so, so be it. So it shall be written.”
Well, it is now, Josh. It’s written now. (It’s strange, the word “wuss” is the same in my ancient Aramaic tongue as it is in this language. Like the word waited for me these two thousand years so I could write it down here. Strange.)
Maggie was washing clothes in the square with a bunch of other women. I caught her attention by jumping on the shoulders of my friend Bartholomew, who was gleefully exposing himself for the viewing pleasure of the Nazarene wives. With a subtle toss of my head I signaled to Maggie to meet me behind a nearby stand of date palms.
“Behind those trees?” Maggie shouted.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“You bringing the idiot?”
“Nope.”
“Okay,” she said, and she handed her washing to one of her younger sisters and scampered to the trees.
I was surprised to see her smiling so close to the time of her wedding. She hugged me and I could feel the heat rise in my face, either from shame or love, like there was a difference.
“Well, you’re in a good mood,” I said.
“Why not? I’m using them all up before the wedding. Speaking of which, what are you two bringing me for a present? It had better be good if it’s going to make up for who I have to marry.”
She was joyful and there was music and laughter in her voice, pure Maggie, but I had to turn away.
“Hey, I was only joking,” she said. “You guys don’t need to bring me anything.”
“We’re leaving, Maggie. We won’t be there.”
She grabbed my shoulder and forced me to face her. “You’re leaving? You and Joshua? You’re going away?”
“Yes, before your wedding. We’re going to Antioch, and from there far into the East along the Silk Road.”
She said nothing. Tears welled up in her eyes and I could feel them rising in mine as well. This time she turned away.
“We should have told you before, I know, but really we only decided at Passover. Joshua is going to find the Magi who came to his birth, and I’m going with him because I have to.”
She wheeled on me. “You have to? You have to? You don’t have to. You can stay and be my friend and come to my wedding and sneak down to talk to me here or in the vineyard and we can laugh and tease and no matter how horrible it is being married to Jakan, I’ll have that. I’ll at least have that!”
I felt as if I’d be sick to my stomach any second. I wanted to tell her that I’d stay, that I’d wait, that if there was the slightest chance that her life wasn’t going to be a desert in the arms of her creep husband that I could hold hope. I wanted to do whatever I could to take away even a little bit of her pain, even up to letting Joshua go by himself, but in thinking that, I realized that Joshua must have been feeling the same thing, so all I said was “I’m sorry.”
“And what about Joshua, wasn’t he even going to say good-bye?”
“He wanted to, but he couldn’t. Neither of us can, I mean, we didn’t want to have to watch you marry Jakan.”
“Cowards. You two deserve each other. You can hide behind each other like Greek boys. Just go. Get away from me.”
I tried to think of something to say, but my mind was a soup of confusion so I hung my head and walked away. I was almost out of the square when Maggie caught up to me. I heard her footsteps and turned.
“Tell him to meet me behind the synagogue, Biff. The night before my wedding, an hour after sunset.”
“I’m not sure, Maggie, he—”
“Tell him,” she said. She ran back to the well without looking back.
So I told Joshua, and on the night before Maggie’s wedding
, the night before we were to leave on our journey, Joshua packed some bread and cheese and a skin of wine and told me to meet him by the date palms in the square where we would share supper together.
“You have to go,” Joshua said.
“I’m going. In the morning, when you do. What, you think I’d back out now?”
“No, tonight. You have to go to Maggie. I can’t go.”
“What? I mean, why?” Sure I’d been heartbroken when Maggie had asked to see Joshua and not me, but I’d come to terms with it. Well, as well as one ever comes to terms with an ongoing heartbreak.
“You have to take my place, Biff. There’s almost no moon tonight, and we are about the same size. Just don’t say much and she’ll think it’s me. Maybe not as smart as normal, but she can put that down to worry over the upcoming journey.”
“I’d love to see Maggie, but she wants to see you, why can’t you go?”
“You really don’t know?”
“Not really.”
“Then just take my word for it. You’ll see. Will you do this for me, Biff? Will you take my place, pretend to be me?”
“That would be lying. You never lie.”
“Now you’re getting righteous on me? I won’t be lying. You will be.”
“Oh. In that case, I’ll go.”
But there wasn’t even time to deceive. It was so dark that night that I had to make my way slowly through the village by starlight alone, and as I rounded the corner to the back of our small synagogue I was hit with a wave of sandalwood and lemon and girl sweat, of warm skin, a wet mouth over mine, arms around my back and legs around my waist. I fell backward on the ground and there was in my head a bright light, and the rest of the world existed in the senses of touch and smell and God. There, on the ground behind the synagogue, Maggie and I indulged desires we had carried for years, mine for her, and hers for Joshua. That neither of us knew what we were doing made no difference. It was pure and it happened and it was marvelous. And when we finished we lay there holding each other, half dressed, breathless, and sweating, and Maggie said, “I love you, Joshua.”
“I love you, Maggie,” I said. And ever so slightly she loosened her embrace.
“I couldn’t marry Jakan without—I couldn’t let you go without—without letting you know.”
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal Page 11
