The Ironsmith

by Nicholas Guild

  The shop of Noah bar Barachel was at the end of a street that opened into a small square, in the center of which there was a fountain. The women who were filling their water jugs were better dressed, and a few wore thin gold bracelets on their wrists. There was a general air of prosperity around the square.

  This was encouraging, because the more the ironsmith had to lose, the more pliable he was likely to be. Wealth, even comparative wealth, makes a man fearful.

  The interior of the shop was surprisingly cool. The door and the one window stood open, but the room was still dark enough that an oil lamp hung from one of the rafters.

  Around counters on the sides were displayed numerous iron objects that glittered in the lamplight almost like silver: knives, saws, chisels, the blades of reapers, awls and hammerheads. On the floor were pots full of nails, and on a small table in the center of the room was a collection of pliers, some of them distinctly odd looking. Caleb picked up one of these to examine it more closely.

  “Those are for extracting teeth, Excellency.”

  Caleb was not conscious of anyone having entered. He glanced at the instrument in his hand and noticed how one edge of the vice curved in slightly to conform to the shape of a tooth and allow for a better purchase. It was, in its way, very clever.

  But he had not come here to admire a set of pliers. He frowned, feeling somehow that he had been tricked, and set them back down on the table.

  “You are Noah?” he asked coldly.

  “Yes, Excellency. I am Noah.”

  The man who was Noah smiled. It was not an ingratiating smile but one which suggested … what? Something like compassion, which Caleb always equated with contempt.

  Caleb had to remind himself not to take offense.

  Noah the ironsmith was slightly under average height and wore a plain, dun-colored tunic, beneath which were outlined the muscles of his arms and chest, so that the total impression was one of compact strength.

  He reached up to touch the mustache of his short black beard. He seemed thoughtful, giving the impression that he was trying to remember something, and then he smiled again.

  “Yet I perceive that your visit is not one of business. At least, not the business of pliers. May I then presume to offer Your Excellency a cup of wine?”

  Caleb considered the question for a moment and then managed to nod, as if granting permission. He gained nothing by insulting the man, but the distinctions of rank must be preserved. It would not do to appear too cordial.

  The wine was actually quite good, delightfully cold, and the cup was of hammered bronze.

  “You honor me with your visit, Excellency. And I am curious to know what business brings you here, without your customary escort.”

  Caleb was first surprised and then amused. So, he had been recognized.

  “You know me, then.”

  “Yes, of course, Excellency. Sepphoris is not so vast a place that the great are suffered to remain faceless. Particularly not one such as you, upon whom the Tetrarch depends for protection against his subjects.”

  The two men sat facing each other across a small round table, and Caleb considered how to deal with so politely phrased an affront. An affront, as it were, wrapped in a compliment.

  He decided, with effort, to ignore it.

  “Do you often go home, Noah?”

  “Home?” The ironsmith seemed perplexed. “I am home now, Excellency.”

  “I had understood that you were born in a village called Nazareth.”

  “I was born in Sepphoris, Excellency. In this very house.”

  “Yet you are familiar with Nazareth.”

  “Yes.”

  “You go there often?”

  “I am there every Sabbath, to accompany my grandfather to the prayer house.” Noah leaned slightly forward, and for the first time a hint of anxiety showed in his face.

  “May I know, Excellency, what there is to interest you in so small a place as Nazareth?”

  “Probably nothing.” Caleb, feeling that he had reclaimed control, allowed himself a thin smile. “Tell me, apart from your grandfather, do you have other family connections there?”

  “Excellency, Nazareth is a small village. Perhaps four hundred people have their homes there. In such a place, everyone is related to everyone else.”

  “And is one of your relatives there a certain Joshua bar Joseph? A carpenter?”

  There was a pause, lasting perhaps as long as two breaths.

  “Yes, Excellency, he is my cousin. Our grandfathers were brothers.” For a moment the ironsmith looked almost stricken, and then he seemed to come back to himself, even managing a faint smile. “So, precisely what could my cousin, the carpenter from Nazareth, have done to make him of interest to a man with your responsibilities?”

  “That is what I want you to find out—precisely what he has been doing.”

  * * *

  At dinner Noah seemed preoccupied. He tore off small pieces of bread and ate them as if he didn’t realize what he was doing. He was silent and stared at the walls. Sarah hardly knew what to make of him.

  “Is something wrong?”

  The question intruded on his reverie and he took a sip of wine.

  “Yes, something is wrong. I had a visitor today.”

  Sarah was relieved. Noah was a good man and a loving brother, who never found fault with her, but still she was relieved.

  “A visitor? What did he want? Money?”

  “No, not money.” Noah smiled. It was a smile she had seen countless times before, a mingling of affection and amusement. “My visitor was from the Tetrarch’s palace. A man named Caleb.”

  Sarah, who took little interest in anyone she did not know, had never heard of such a person. She needed to have explained to her that this was the man almost certainly responsible for the arrest of John the Baptist.

  “Then he must be evil.” She shook her head, as if to deny the possibility of such wickedness. “John was a holy man, much loved by God. How could the Baptist have threatened him?”

  “By criticizing Antipas for marrying his half brother’s wife. He said it was an unclean thing. Besides, Antipas was probably worried that so popular a man might have raised a rebellion against him. Despots always live in fear of rebellion.”

  “Is the Tetrarch a despot?”

  “Yes. He is greedy and vain and he does not love God. He taxes the villagers so heavily that many are driven off their land. The land is our heritage from God, and he takes it so that the rich can have their great estates, and the poor have only enough to keep the breath under their ribs—sometimes not even that. Besides, the Baptist was right. It was an unclean thing for him to marry that woman. When have the sons of Israel ever fared well under kings—no matter how they style themselves?”

  Criticisms of the great made Sarah feel uncomfortable, so she changed the subject.

  “What did he want, this man?”

  “He was asking about Joshua.”

  Noah shrugged, as if to say, Doesn’t that explain everything? “My visitor wants to know if Joshua is dangerous. He wants me to find out.”

  “What will you do?”

  “That is the question, isn’t it.”

  Noah sat looking at his sister for a moment. He was conscious of the sacrifice she seemed to insist on making for him, and it pained him to watch her fading into quiet despair in his service. Besides, Abijah was a close friend and a good and pious man who could see beyond her awkwardness and appreciate the gentle, sweet creature that she was.

  If he was honest with himself, he had to admit that he would miss her dreadfully. But it was time she became Abijah’s wife. She had a right to a husband and children and the happiness they could bring. Besides, if this business about Joshua led to his arrest, he wanted Sarah safely married.

  And prison was a real possibility. Soldiers could arrest him one day, and no one would ever hear from him again. It happened more and more.

  Because this man Caleb seemed already to have made all
the important decisions.

  “I have not seen Joshua since the Passover,” Noah had told him, convinced that God would pardon him the lie.

  “Then see him again, wherever he is, and make your report. I simply need certain points confirmed.”

  The implication was clear: the report, to be considered accurate, would have to incriminate Joshua. Otherwise, Noah would be considered an accomplice.

  “Your cousin was the disciple of a man guilty of sedition. Therefore it follows that he is guilty.”

  “But if you know he is guilty, why do you require my report?”

  “Because the Tetrarch must know that justice has been done.”

  Yes, of course. This man’s profession was to protect Antipas from his enemies. Thus, enemies must be demonstrated to exist. This all fit with Noah’s general impression of this beardless murderer with the face of a naughty apprentice.

  But Sarah, sitting across from her brother, in the house where they had both been born, could never be brought to understand a man like Caleb.

  So what was he, Noah, ironsmith of Sepphoris, to do?

  Then, seemingly from nowhere, a memory swam up before his eyes.

  “Joshua stole a fig once.” Noah smiled, shaking his head. “Right off the Passover table. I saw him do it. I was just tall enough to peer over the edge, so I suppose we were about four years old. And there he was on the other side. We stared at each other for a moment, and then he reached out, grabbed his prize, and ran up to the roof with it. I don’t suppose anyone missed a single fig, but at the time I thought he had committed the greatest crime imaginable.”

  “Did you tell on him?”

  “No. So presumably that made me as guilty as he.” Noah smiled. “Do you want to know something? I don’t think he would have done it if I hadn’t been there. He wanted me to see that he was a big boy, and not afraid.”

  6

  After dinner Noah retired to his bedroom. There was nothing unusual in this, and Sarah, who had long since grown accustomed to her brother’s habits, did not inquire why. Perhaps, if she thought about it at all, she would have assumed he wished to study or to read, or perhaps merely to rest. The one thing that never would have occurred to her was that he withdrew to pray.

  And Noah would not have described what he did—or tried to do—as prayer. For him, as for most people, prayers were the strings of words he had learned as a child, to be recited on set occasions. Prayers were ceremony, elements in the ritual of life. Before meals, one blessed God for sustaining one’s life. While the Sabbath candles were being lit, one acknowledged God’s commandments. Sometimes one reflected upon the meaning of the words and sometimes not, but the words themselves were unchanging.

  Noah thought of what he did as “coming to God” or “talking to God,” and he always began with the formula that contained almost the first words he could remember hearing: “Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe…”

  And yet that was never quite the beginning, for God was not to be approached in pride. Why should God listen except if a man recognized he did not deserve to be heard? So before he addressed God, Noah always addressed his own heart, humbling himself, numbering to himself his failures and his small list of sins.

  And then he would open his soul to God—or try.

  Sometimes he had the sense of being heard, but more often not. He never asked for good health or fortune or anything for himself beyond enlightenment and the comfort of being understood. He merely wished to feel God’s presence, and when God would not listen he blamed himself. God was angry with him and the anger of God was always just. Who was he to claim God’s attention?

  It was the thing he had always envied most about Joshua, the ease with which he reached out to God. God loved Joshua. But who was Noah that God should love him?

  Tonight, what burdened his heart was this man Caleb. Noah wanted to understand God’s will. What should he, Noah, do about this trouble with Joshua and the Tetrarch’s watchdog? But there came no answer. God was silent.

  And then it occurred to him that God’s silence was itself an answer. God does not repeat Himself. He had given His answer long ago.

  For in the end it came down to the Law. The Law was from God, a gift more precious than life itself because it consecrated life. To reject the Law was to reject God, and thus to wander in darkness.

  The Law commanded justice and mercy, and Caleb had turned his back on both. In their place he had embraced expediency. He wanted something—the Tetrarch’s favor, the protection of the state, or some other, more personal satisfaction about which Noah could not begin to guess—and to these ends the man was prepared to sacrifice innocent people.

  And yet, what was he except a reflection of the power he served? The Tetrarch, like his father before him, like his masters the Romans, knew no law except his own will.

  Did Caleb say his prayers? Probably. But at some point he must have stopped listening to the words. The living God had faded out of his life without his even realizing it.

  Did the Tetrarch say his prayers? Possibly. Or perhaps he prayed only to Rome.

  And if Noah did what they required he would become like them.

  So what could he do? He could flee. He could sneak away to Damascus or someplace even further, beyond the Tetrarch’s reach. But then he would be leaving his family to the mercy of men who had no mercy. Or he could refuse, and suffer arrest and death. And neither of these would save Joshua, because Caleb would only find another and more willing spy.

  The one thing he could not do was what Caleb required of him. He could not provide a report in which “certain points” were “confirmed” so the Tetrarch might “know that justice has been done.”

  Thou shalt not bear false witness. Such was God’s commandment, and Noah dreaded to separate himself from God.

  Thus, he must find Joshua and make him understand that his life was in peril, and then he must write a report that portrayed his cousin as a harmless preacher of virtue. He did not think that God would be offended if he left a few things out.

  Whether Caleb would be offended was another matter.

  * * *

  So the following morning, after breakfast, he struggled through the crowds entering Sepphoris by the southern gate. The road led on to Jerusalem, but after perhaps twenty minutes a trail branched to the left, passed between wheat fields, then skirted around the brow of a low, terraced hill before it descended into another valley. There lay Nazareth.

  It was an hour’s walk, yet every time his feet left the main road he had the sense of entering another existence, a place as far removed from Sepphoris as the wilderness of Europe. Sepphoris was young, undefined, and as changeable in its moods as a child. Nazareth seemed as old as the earth. In Nazareth one found only the ancient, immutable patterns of peasant life.

  It was small, even for a village. The houses, which were principally of mud brick, were scattered apparently at random but in fact followed an intricate pattern, reflecting the structure of kinship ties, which governed the whole of its people’s lives. Noah’s father had been born and was buried here. His grandfather lived here still.

  It was the ancestral place, at once familiar and strange. But where was it any different? In Sepphoris, his birthplace, he sometimes felt like a rude peasant, and in Nazareth he felt—and was made to feel—a stranger. His own kinsmen did not entirely trust him, for the simple reason that he had ceased to be part of their daily experience.

  Not for the first time, it occurred to him that home was not a place but a system of relationships, and his consisted of his grandfather and Sarah. His grandfather was old. Death would soon claim him. And Sarah had a right to a life of her own, to a husband and children, to a family in the midst of which he would be but the most welcome of visitors. What then? Then he would become what his grandfather was now.

  The cluster of buildings, of which his grandfather’s house was the approximate center, in a sense represented the disappointment of the old man’s hopes. He li
ved surrounded by his brother’s progeny, to whom he was Uncle Benjamin. His one son had moved to the city, returning only to fill an ossuary, and Noah, his sole male descendant, and childless, was little more than a frequent visitor.

  The house itself consisted of three rooms: a main room, which included the kitchen; a bedroom; and the workroom, which was now largely left to the mice. A few years ago Noah had replaced the floor of packed earth with stone, something his grandfather had lamented as a useless expense, and he paid a village girl to clean and do the cooking. By the standards of Nazareth, Noah had prospered and could afford to see that the man who had raised him lived out his last years in comfort.

  Noah heard him before he saw him. Benjamin was sitting on a stool beside his doorway, busy with a small object that seemed to require a file. He looked stooped and wasted. Even into middle age he had been a strong man, but time had worn him down.

  “What are you working at, Grandfather?”

  The old man looked up and then shaded his eyes with his hand. He peered for a long moment, as if trying to recollect something.

  “Noah? What are you doing here on a workday?”

  Noah ignored the question, with its implied disapproval, and crouched down so that his grandfather would no longer have to stare into the sun.

  “What is it?” Noah asked.

  “A padlock.” Grandfather held it out for inspection. It was open like an oyster. “The mechanism is clogged with rust—you’d think they’d been keeping it at the bottom of a well. It just needs cleaning up.”

  Noah recognized the design as his father’s.

  “People don’t remember to keep them oiled,” he went on, allowing the disemboweled padlock to absorb his attention. For perhaps a minute the only sound was the remorseless rasp of his file as the old man patiently repaired the creation of his dead son.

  What did he feel? Possibly nothing. Possibly that sorrow had become too remote to trouble him. Or possibly time had merely refined it.

  “Why are you here, Noah?” he asked, without lifting his eyes. “You should be attending to business.”