The Ironsmith

by Nicholas Guild

  Then he remembered the wine, took a swallow, and handed the skin back to Noah.

  “She’s a pretty woman, your Deborah. You are fortunate.”

  “I know I am.”

  “I was married once.”

  Lemuel sighed and shook his head. It was obvious that he wanted to talk.

  “What happened?”

  With his long hand, the brigand made a surprisingly graceful gesture, suggestive of the perversity of fortune.

  “I was a weaver,” he said. “I owned my own loom. Then I fell into debt to the wool merchants—I had no choice. I bought the wool from them and sold the finished cloth to them, and the prices were not in my favor. Then one day a man came and said that the loom and the house we lived in belonged to him now. We went to stay with my wife’s family, but my wife caught a fever and died. She did not struggle against it and died quickly. I think she wished to die. Then I was by myself.”

  “And you became a brigand?”

  “Yes. It came down to a choice among being a thief or a beggar or starving to death. I wanted to live, and a man must have a little pride. I don’t rob the villagers, so they will hide me when the soldiers come looking. Only the rich think ill of a robber, and they are the worst robbers of all. To the poor I am a champion because I oppress those who oppress them.”

  “You almost oppressed me today.”

  “Anyone can make a mistake.”

  * * *

  Lemuel and his companions had decided that the pickings were too thin in Galilee and so were on their way to Judea. Thus, because the southern road was on their way, they volunteered to accompany the little group to within sight of Sepphoris—any closer would run the risk of encountering the Tetrarch’s soldiers—and for this they agreed to accept fifteen silver pieces, which was close to the amount in Noah’s purse. Thus was their honor as brigands satisfied.

  They all parted as friends, about an hour and a half’s walk from Nazareth.

  The encounter left Joshua exuberant and, as it was obvious he had exhausted the subject with his disciples, for the first time in the journey he sought out Noah.

  “I was never afraid,” he said, his voice confidentially low as he threw an arm across Noah’s shoulders. “I felt as if God had me cradled in His hand.”

  “When were you ever afraid? You weren’t even afraid when we were seven and you jumped from the top of the vine terrace, but you broke your arm anyway.”

  Joshua threw back his head and laughed.

  “You are an inconvenient friend for a prophet. You have a perfect memory of every time I have made a fool of myself.”

  “Are you a prophet then?”

  “If I am not, then I am mad, for God speaks to me. I hear His voice in my heart. Do you think I am mad, Noah?”

  It was not a jest but a real question, and Noah weighed his answer accordingly.

  “No,” he said at last. “I do not think you are mad.”

  “But you are not prepared to repent and join me in awaiting the Kingdom.”

  Then it was Noah’s turn to laugh, and it was not a pleasant sound.

  “Do you imagine, Cousin, that you have a monopoly on repentance?” He turned and looked up into Joshua’s face. “Anyone who tries to live under God’s law tastes repentance every day of his life. Since I was received as a man in the prayer house, I am not conscious of having broken any of the commandments, but I know that God requires more. I am honest in my dealings and I give to the poor, but I have been guilty of a thousand compromises with life, so that sometimes I wonder if it is even possible in this world to be a good man.”

  “In this world, probably not.” Joshua smiled, as if he had just guessed the answer to a riddle. “And why is it you only call me ‘cousin’ when you are annoyed with me?”

  Noah could laugh again, and this time with pleasure, for thus easily was the estrangement between them bridged. They could talk again with the effortless understanding of old friends.

  One time Noah looked over his shoulder at Deborah, who was leading the donkey, wondering if she felt neglected, but she merely smiled at him, as if guessing his question, and shook her head. The renewed intimacy between the two men seemed to please her.

  “I suspect it is a great folly for me to return to Nazareth,” Joshua announced suddenly, for they had been speaking of other matters. “Father and I will only quarrel.”

  “Try to avoid it. The excitement will only wear him out.”

  “It will be almost impossible to avoid.”

  “Nevertheless, try.” Noah made a gesture with his right hand, as if to silence objections. “I know that it will not be easy, but try not to be provoked by anything he says. He does not understand the turn your life has taken, and he will never be made to understand, so let it pass.”

  “Why is it so difficult for him to see? You see, don’t you?”

  “I suppose, in some sense. Yet this path you follow can only lead you away from what most of us call happiness. What did the Baptist’s father think, I wonder.”

  “I never heard him mention his family.” Joshua shook his head. “Until this moment, it never occurred to me to think he might have one.”

  “Yet he must have. Perhaps in some village his parents grieve and wonder why their son chose to live, and to die, as he did.”

  “Except that perhaps he did not choose, but was chosen.”

  “Perhaps. But that is not a possibility that would occur to your father.”

  “That is the truth.”

  By then they were within a few minutes’ walk of the village, along a road dividing fields whose owners they could have named. The familiar world of their childhood was closing in around them.

  Joshua picked up a small stone and threw it, just as Noah had seen him do hundreds of times before. When they were boys, it might have been a gesture of pure exuberance. Now it suggested that his thoughts were not pleasing to him.

  “What plagues me, more than anything else,” he said, his eyes still following the trajectory of the stone, “what I cannot bring myself to be reconciled to, is that the truth of my message is as transparent as water. I am like one who points his finger and says ‘Look! The enemy comes,’ and anyone who troubles to turn his head can see the dust raised by the approach of a hostile army. And I know that my father will not think to turn his head, and only because I am his son.”

  * * *

  As they walked through the outskirts of the village, people looked up from their daily occupations, and a few smiled and waved their hands in friendly recognition. Most ignored them. Noah and Joshua they of course knew, but the others were strangers and thus objects of suspicion.

  The first member of the family to see them was Noah’s grandfather, who was sitting on a stool beside the door of his house. His face, only the instant before vacant of expression, registered first surprise and then pleasure. He stood up and embraced them, first Noah and then Joshua, and then his attention fell on the only woman with them.

  “Is this then she?” he asked, his smile almost flirtatious. He took her hands in his. “Are you Deborah?”

  Deborah was so overcome with embarrassed pleasure that she could only nod.

  “I think you will make Noah very happy.”

  “She has done that already, Grandfather,” Noah said, at which they could all laugh, as much in relief as anything else.

  Suddenly the old man frowned. He glanced at Noah, as if in reproach.

  “Your sister should be here.”

  “Why isn’t she?” Noah felt a sudden surge of anxiety. “I told her to stay with you.”

  Grandfather smiled, as if at a story he had heard many times before.

  “She doesn’t go near your house,” he said. “She stays with a friend in the next street. I think she doesn’t want her cloth merchant to forget her.”

  “Yes, of course,” Noah answered, feeling a trifle foolish. After all, the danger was past, wasn’t it? “She will be with Abigail. I shall have to get a message to her.”


  “I’ll go.” It was Judah who spoke. He pushed himself forward. “I’ll be happy to. Just give me directions.”

  At first, Noah’s only reaction was astonishment, and then he remembered himself.

  “It will add another two hours to your journey,” he said. “I could not ask it.…”

  “Two hours is nothing. I have been so long in the country, it will be good once more to have cobblestones beneath my feet. Simply tell me where she lives.”

  It was obvious he meant to do it, so Noah told him where to find the house.

  “Do you know Sepphoris at all?”

  “No.”

  “It is not so vast a place. There are a number of streets that branch just to the left of the eastern gate. Follow the Street of the Carpenters south until you see a house with a green door. It will be on your right and, believe me, there is only one. My sister’s name is Sarah. Tell her I hope to see her in the morning.”

  There was an awkward moment as Judah departed. He turned and suddenly found himself facing Joshua, and for an instant he seemed ashamed. But Joshua merely smiled.

  “Go,” he said. “It is a good thing that you do.”

  When Judah was gone, Joshua put his hand on Noah’s shoulder and bent his head, as if to whisper a confidence.

  “Now, will you do something for me? Come with me to my father’s house.”

  It was not a thing that required explanation.

  “Of course.”

  Noah glanced at Deborah, offering an unspoken apology.

  “She will be safe enough with me,” his grandfather announced. “I will entertain her with prodigious lies about your childhood.”

  Since there were still a few hours of daylight left, Noah and Joshua went to the workshop, where they could expect to find the men of the family. They were not disappointed. Both brothers were there. Joseph, who could no longer work, occupied a stool in the middle of the room, where he could sip water from a jug resting on the floor and watch his sons with envious eyes.

  He was the first to see Joshua, and was so taken by surprise that he actually stood up. Joshua immediately strode over and embraced his father.

  “So. You are here. Well. Good.”

  These were all the words Joseph could bring himself to utter, but they were enough. The two men stood with their hands on each other’s shoulders, and all they could not say was reflected in their faces.

  “Noah.” Joseph’s voice, when at last he did speak, was choked with emotion. “I have you to thank for this.”

  At last, when his father had released him, Joshua went to his brothers, each in turn, and embraced them. Jacob seemed glad to see him. To Little Joseph he might have been a stranger.

  “Are you home to stay?” Little Joseph asked him. His tone suggested that he already knew the answer. But Joshua was wise enough to act as if he hadn’t heard.

  He stayed for perhaps a quarter of an hour, sitting beside his father and speaking to him in a low voice. Noah could not hear the words, but it was clear from the expression of something like gratitude on Joseph’s face that Joshua was keeping the peace.

  At last Joshua stood up.

  “I should see my mother now,” he said, and went through a door into the house.

  Joseph looked up at Noah and shook his head.

  “He is much more his mother’s son than mine,” he said, as if resigned. “We will not see him again before supper.”

  Noah, his duty done, went back to his grandfather’s house, where he found Deborah and the old man sitting together beside the doorway, deep in conversation. His grandfather, he noticed, was holding his future wife’s hand.

  He was so pleased with the picture they made that he was almost disappointed when they noticed his presence.

  “Ah, you are back,” his grandfather announced. “How was it?”

  Noah shrugged. “A good beginning. For the rest, we’ll see.”

  “You don’t sound hopeful.”

  “Grandfather, some collisions are inevitable.”

  Benjamin nodded sadly. Then he released his hold on Deborah’s hand, but not without giving it a final pat.

  A few minutes later Gemariah, Jacob’s wife, turned up with an invitation to dinner.

  “Miriam sent me,” she said, addressing herself mainly to Deborah. “She wants the whole family to be together. And we all want to meet Noah’s intended.”

  “Can I help?” Deborah asked. “Another pair of hands…”

  Gemariah, who was a plain, good-natured country woman, seemed both pleased and embarrassed by this and didn’t know how to reply.

  “Please?” Deborah smiled prettily and the matter was settled. They bade the men farewell and went off together.

  When they were out of earshot, Grandfather shook his head and laughed.

  “As you see, she conquers us all,” he said.

  * * *

  As the sun began to descend below the hills, they all sat down to eat. As was customary on such occasions, tables were set up outside. Miriam, marshaling her daughters and daughters-in-law with a precision a Roman general might have envied, managed to arrange things so that nothing disturbed the felicity of her son’s homecoming. Joshua sat with his father, his brother Jacob, Uncle Benjamin, and several children. Little Joseph sat with Noah and Joshua’s disciples. When the meal was served and the women could take their places, it was apparent that Deborah had already established herself as a great favorite.

  About an hour later, Sarah appeared out of the darkness. Noah rose and embraced his sister.

  “You shouldn’t have come all this way in the dark,” he said sternly, trying to conceal his pleasure.

  “It was perfectly light until a few minutes ago.” She laughed. “Besides, I wanted to meet my new sister.”

  “Did you come alone? Where is Judah?”

  “He told me you were here, and then he left. Didn’t he come back?”

  “No.”

  “Then I expect he is still in Sepphoris.”

  “So it would seem.”

  27

  The next morning, nothing would do except for Noah, Sarah, and Deborah to walk to Sepphoris. The danger was past, so Noah assured them, and Sarah announced to her brother that his betrothed would certainly be eager to see her new home. Sarah was insistent.

  A single evening had been enough to make the two women friends. Noah had watched their developing intimacy with pleasure, but without surprise. They were almost the same age, both sweet tempered, and neither had a sister. Certain affinities were inevitable.

  During the hour from Nazareth to the eastern gate, Sarah carried most of the burden of conversation. She described all the rooms of the house: which had the best light at what times of day, the strengths and deficiencies of the kitchen, the problems of storage. Deborah added a word or two about the furniture she was bringing from Capernaum and was content to listen to everything Sarah had to say concerning the probable best placement of each piece. Noah, for the most part, kept silent, occasionally shaking his head in amazement. He would never have imagined that domestic order was so complicated.

  It also occurred to him that Sarah was uncharacteristically excited, almost hectic, and he was pleased to observe the placid kindness of Deborah’s responses. She seemed to understand whatever was afflicting his sister.

  Probably, Noah thought to himself, it all had something to do with the cloth merchant.

  Abijah and Noah had known each other for a little over two years. There was a circle of men in that quarter of the city who met at irregular intervals in one another’s homes to discuss Torah with perhaps more freedom and greater intensity than was quite appropriate to the prayer house. Abijah lived only two streets from Noah, and they had formed the habit of walking to and from these meetings together. Their conversations along the way were frequently more interesting than the meetings themselves. Eventually, and without the hint of an ulterior motive, Noah had invited Abijah to dinner, and that was when he met Sarah.

  Abijah was a few
years lacking of thirty. At nineteen, while still living with his parents in Caesarea and apprenticed to his father in the cloth trade, he had been engaged to marry a young girl, the daughter of his mother’s cousin. For some reason—which, apparently, he felt bound in honor not to explain—the engagement had been broken off, and Abijah had moved to Sepphoris and set up in business on his own. He worked hard and achieved success, and apparently had given no thought to women until he set eyes on Sarah.

  That was a year ago, and ever since, he had been her ardent suitor. He was handsome, prosperous, learned, and agreeable. He could have secured the favor of any girl in their stratum of local society, but only Sarah would do. It was Sarah, plain, awkward Sarah, who had presented the obstacles. She loved Abijah—that was apparent. She valued his many good qualities and was grateful, as only an unmarried woman of twenty-six can be grateful, for his love, his ardor, and his persistence. But she would not leave her brother.

  Then, providentially, her brother had fallen in love with a widow in Capernaum. Was it any wonder that Sarah was eager to discuss housekeeping arrangements with her new sister-in-law to be?

  When they entered the city gates, Deborah was as one struck dumb. Sepphoris seemed a place beyond belief. All she could do was look about her and stare.

  At the house, after Noah had unlocked the door, Sarah and Deborah passed quickly through the shop and into the living quarters. They simply vanished, and Noah was left behind to count the stock.

  Half an hour later, Abijah turned up. They embraced, as if they were brothers already, and Noah offered him a cup of wine.

  “I hear you are soon to be married,” Abijah said abruptly.

  “Yes.” Noah could only laugh. “Sarah and my betrothed are inside now, deciding on all the details of my future life.”

  “And on the strength of your engagement, Sarah has finally consented.”

  Abijah did not laugh, but he smiled broadly. They were sitting at a small, circular table in the shop, and Abijah was stroking his beard with the back of his left hand, the way he did when he felt he had offered an unarguable interpretation of Torah.