Noah and Abijah sat down.
“Grandfather,” Noah began, “my friend Abijah wishes to be introduced to you. He has a matter dear to his heart, which he wishes to discuss.”
The old man, who knew his part in this little drama, raised his eyes to Abijah’s face and nodded.
“What business can he have with me?” he asked.
Abijah then took the marriage contract from his pocket and read it aloud. He promised to love Sarah all the days of her life. He promised to take no other wives. He promised to pay five hundred silver shekels to her family as a compensation for their expense in raising her.
During this recitation Benjamin seemed not to be listening. When it was over he glanced at Noah, who nodded his approval.
“It seems in order,” he said at last, his face remaining expressionless. “But my granddaughter must signify her consent.”
Abijah took up the jug of wine and poured some into the cup that rested in front of Sarah. After a few seconds she raised the cup to her lips and drank.
“She has accepted your offer,” Benjamin announced, and for the first time he smiled.
He rose from his seat and went into his bedroom. When he returned he was carrying a piece of cloth. He stood behind Sarah’s chair and held up the cloth by the corners, revealing it to be about two cubits square and of a linen so fine as to be almost transparent.
“This was your mother’s veil,” he said, as he let it flutter down to cover Sarah’s head. “You will wear it whenever you go outside, that all may know that you are spoken for.”
There followed, of course, the gift giving. A silk shawl, dyed the purple of kings along the borders. Bracelets of silver. Little leather bags filled with spices. Noah and his grandfather made appropriately admiring remarks and Sarah smiled and blushed. It was a moment of unblemished happiness.
At last Abijah rose from the table. “I go now to build a house to receive my bride,” he said, and made a slight bow. When he was out the door, the old man shook his head.
“If he can afford to pay five hundred silver shekels for his wife, doubtless he already has a house.” Benjamin picked up one of the bracelets that was lying on the table, considered it for a moment, and then set it back down. “Such a sum. I think you young people must all be mad.”
“One must honor the forms, Grandfather. And he loves her.”
“Yes, Noah. I have eyes to see that.”
Then the old man reached up and lifted the veil from Sarah’s face.
“I think he will make you a good husband, Sarah. Provided he doesn’t beggar himself.”
Then everyone could laugh.
* * *
In the evening, after the first stars had appeared, Noah and his grandfather sat outside and drank water, dipping their cups into a jar filled from the village well. The well was deep and the water was cold, and the emerging darkness was still pleasantly warm.
“Where is Sarah?” the old man asked.
“Gone to see Deborah. As you can imagine, they have a lot to talk about.”
“Then they get along?”
“Like sisters, as if they’ve known each other all their lives.”
“That is a blessing.”
Benjamin sat with his head resting against the wall of his house, his eyes closed. Anyone might have thought he had drifted off to sleep, but he had not.
“Two grandchildren betrothed in the same day,” he said finally. “That too is a blessing. Perhaps God has forgiven us.”
“Forgiven us what?”
“Only He knows that.”
He closed his eyes again, and a faint smile played across his face.
“Who will be married first?”
“Deborah and I, after the next Sabbath.”
“Here in Nazareth?”
“Yes.”
“Good. The family will appreciate that.” And then suddenly, as if the question had just come into his mind, he asked, “How much did you give for her?”
“Six hundred silver shekels.”
“Joshua drives a hard bargain.”
“Yes.”
They both laughed, for it was an exquisite jest.
“I was a little surprised you didn’t return here yesterday,” Benjamin said—quite casually, as if the matter were of little interest.
“I discovered I had an appointment this morning.”
“I see.”
The old man seemed to regard the subject as closed, but suddenly Noah, like a little boy with an overburdened conscience, found that he wanted to tell him everything.
Except, how could he do that? He settled for telling him about his meeting with Eleazar.
“I see.”
Benjamin nodded. He had never heard of the priest Eleazar, who sat at the Tetrarch’s right hand, but he knew that his grandson, who had suddenly disappeared for almost two months, had left many things out.
“Are you in danger?” he asked.
“Not now.”
Benjamin looked away for a moment, as if he did not care to meet his grandson’s eye, and then with elaborate care he dipped his cup into the jar of water.
They sat for a while in the gathering darkness, saying nothing. Benjamin seemed to savor the water like wine.
“Is Joshua in danger?”
Noah shook his head. “For the present we are all safe.”
“And how long will the present last?”
“I don’t know.”
The old man, accustomed to accepting the uncertainties of life, merely nodded.
Then, apparently, he decided to change the subject.
“Joshua spent the morning with me,” he said. “I suspect he merely wished to escape his family for a time. We had a long talk.”
“What about, Grandfather?”
“About God, and the mystery of His intentions.” Benjamin made a gesture with his hands, lifting the palms upward as if balancing some object. “And it became clear to me that he has thought more deeply about this question than I have. Would you like to hear what he said?”
“I already know what he said. He does not make a secret of his beliefs.”
“And what, then, do you think?”
“I don’t know what to think. I have no answers, only questions.”
The invisible object in Benjamin’s hands became two objects. He seemed to be trying to decide which was heavier.
“What questions are those?” he asked. It was not a challenge. He seemed genuinely curious.
“I wonder how someone I grew up with can see into the mind of God.”
“The same question his own family asks.”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps he does not see at all. Perhaps God whispers these things to him, as a father whispers to his son while he falls asleep. He trusts in God as a child trusts in his father.”
“Do you believe Joshua is a prophet, Grandfather?”
The old man shook his head.
“I do not know. Perhaps he is not a prophet. But perhaps our family has produced one whom God loves as a son.”
“We all call God our father. Yet He is the greatest of mysteries. Joshua presumes to speak for Him, to know His heart, and for that reason I dread what may become of him.”
The old man dropped his hands.
“Yes, I understand what you mean,” he said. “To be loved by God is to assume a fearful burden.”
30
The next morning, after breakfast, Joshua came and invited Noah to take a walk with him. They set out together for the hills, where they had played together as boys, and for a long time Joshua was silent.
“You paid six hundred silver shekels for Deborah’s bride price,” he said at last, making it sound like an accusation. “That is a great deal of money. Who were you trying to impress?”
Noah laughed. It seemed such an odd way to begin a conversation.
“It is about the sum she received for her house and business. All of that comes to me as her dowry. The bride price is hers alone, since she has no famil
y. Do you begin to understand my reasoning?”
“Yes. You wanted her to have her own property. But if you ever divorce her, you forfeit the dowry and thus you lose both halves of the transaction.”
“Who would ever be fool enough to divorce Deborah?”
“That is a point.”
The ground under their feet was beginning to rise. Noah pointed to a grape terrace above a steep face of rock.
“Remember when you jumped from there and broke your arm?” he asked.
“You keep bringing that up.” Joshua smiled and rubbed his elbow. “We were just seven. I didn’t realize that the farther you fall the harder you hit the ground.”
“After that, it was the rest of the summer before your mother let you come out and play again.”
“But you kept me company.” Joshua put his hand on his cousin’s shoulder. “We read Torah together—it was the only thing I was fit for.”
“So why now are you asking me about Deborah’s bride price.”
“Why? Did I offend you?” He looked at Noah as if that possibility had never occurred to him.
“Yes. A little.”
“Then I am sorry. These days you and I don’t think alike, at least not about things like money. Your motives were honorable, but such a sum, given to the poor, would abate much suffering.”
“Deborah and I have set aside two hundred as a wedding offering to the poor.”
“But two hundred is not six hundred.”
“Joshua, you grow tiresome in your righteousness.”
This observation was greeted with an explosion of laughter.
“Then truly it must be that I am God’s prophet,” Joshua announced triumphantly. “For we have it on the authority of their own writings that many considered them tiresome. Perhaps no one becomes a prophet until after he is dead.”
They had reached the summit of a low hill, so they sat down to enjoy the view. With the sun at their backs, they could see Sepphoris in the distance, shining like a jewel on the other side of the plain.
“Noah, will you go to Jerusalem this year?”
“Yes. Deborah has never seen it.”
“And will we meet there as always?”
Noah smiled to himself, for he knew this was Joshua’s way of apologizing. They always spent the Passover together, at the house of a distant relative.
“Yes. We will meet there, as always.”
“I wish Uncle Benjamin could go with us.”
“He is too old. Even the thought of the journey wearies him.”
“I know, but he will not be any the more wearied for my wishing it.”
Joshua sat with his elbows resting on his knees, the expression on his face as keen as a hunting dog’s. What is he thinking of? Noah wondered. Merely Grandfather in Jerusalem?
“When we come back, we can tell him all about it,” Noah said.
“Perhaps he will know without our telling him.”
Noah was about to ask him what he meant, but he seemed so concentrated on his own thoughts that it would have been an intrusion.
But then Joshua saved him the trouble.
“This Passover will see great changes,” he said, almost as if speaking to himself. “And Jerusalem will be where they will begin.” Then he turned his head and smiled. “You don’t believe me, do you.”
“I am like Grandfather. I don’t know what to believe.”
“Did he talk to you about me?”
“Yes. He thinks you may be one of the pious, whom God loves.”
“Did he really say that?”
Noah could not help but be amused that Joshua was so pleased.
“Yes, he did.”
“Well then, in Jerusalem we will see if he was right.”
Suddenly Joshua climbed to his feet and then reached down to offer a hand to Noah. The two of them stood for a moment, looking at Sepphoris in the distance.
“Remember the summer Father and I spent working there?” Joshua shook his head, as if trying to clear his thoughts. “What was it we were building there?”
“The scaffolding for the baths. I remember I came along with you one day, just to see this great wonder.”
“How old were we? Seventeen?”
“I think so.”
“Father is so very sick now. And so afraid of death.”
“Has he spoken of it?”
“No. But for the first time he listens to me. I tell him of God’s kingdom, and how want and death and unrighteousness will be banished, and he listens. I tell him to embrace repentance, and it is a measure of his fear that he listens. He wants to believe.”
“What is stopping him?”
“My brother, Little Joseph. Father favors him because he is the most like him. Jacob stands aside.”
As if from a single impulse, they both turned and started back toward Nazareth.
“If I could bring my father to God…” Joshua began, and then smiled and shook his head. It seemed beyond his power to finish the thought.
“Then it would heal the breach?”
“Then I might save them all.”
The path they took swung around a piece of rising ground and they came within sight of the road that ran south from Sepphoris. They saw a man coming toward them from the road, and almost immediately he raised his arm and waved.
“Look there,” Joshua said. “It’s Judah, returned from the fleshpots of the city.”
The man started running toward them, and it was perhaps half a minute before Noah, who was not as farsighted as his cousin, could make out that in fact it was Judah.
He remembered Deborah’s odd story about him, and his own answer: “Perhaps it will all be explained when Judah comes back.”
Suddenly he knew that it would not be.
By the time Judah was with them he was out of breath. He embraced Joshua and then quickly greeted Noah.
“I couldn’t resist it,” he said at last. “I have been so long in the villages that I longed to feel cobblestones beneath my feet again. I drank wine and took a bath. It was glorious!”
Joshua laughed.
“Well, you came back. That is the main thing. I pray you will be brought to repentance.”
“Not yet! I enjoyed myself too much.”
As they walked, Judah regaled them with his adventures, none of which seemed to have involved breaking the commandments. It was a sketchy narrative, Noah observed to himself—not enough to fill three days. There were things he was leaving out.
“I hope, at least, you didn’t have to sleep in the street,” Noah said.
“Oh no.”
Noah caught Judah’s sideways glance, as if the disciple realized he had made a mistake.
“But perhaps you had some acquaintance you could stay with,” Noah continued.
“No. I know no one in Sepphoris.”
“Well, you do now.” Noah smiled benignly, for all that he felt as if a sliver of ice had pierced his heart. “Next time, you must make my house your own.”
Judah’s thanks were just a shade exaggerated. He was relieved, and could not quite disguise it.
Joshua, of course, noticed nothing. Why should he? He had not heard Deborah’s story, and he was not a man given to suspicion.
They walked back toward the village together. For the most part Noah kept silent, merely interjecting a word here and there. He was more interested in listening, and more in the way the conversation proceeded than in its content.
“I should have come back sooner,” Judah said, dropping his head in a show of repentance.
“Then why didn’t you?”
“Perhaps because, until recently, I have lived all my life in cities. I feel comfortable with the crowds and the noise. I like buying a cup of wine at a stall, where the man who pours it looks not at me but at the coins I drop on his counter. With all its crush of people, one is somehow more alone in the city. I missed that.”
“Cities encourage one to be selfish. In cities humanity becomes a blur, just part of the background. We forg
et the love we owe to one another.”
“Yes. You are right. I have been selfish.”
“Perhaps it is man’s nature to be selfish, just as it is God’s nature to be loving and forgiving. The path to salvation is the path of learning how to be like God.”
“Yes. I am weak and sinful. I despair of salvation.”
“God will uplift you. You have merely to open your heart to Him and He will bring you to Himself.”
“I will try to be better. I won’t drink wine again.”
This made Joshua laugh, and he put his arm on Judah’s shoulders.
“No one asks such a sacrifice of you. Wine is God’s gift to us and we should accept it with gratitude, knowing it belongs to Him and not to us. But drink it with your friends.”
So it went—the disciple accusing himself and the teacher opening the way to forgiveness. And it was impossible not to believe in the sincerity of Judah’s repentance. He really seemed to believe that he had fallen into sin. He wished to be forgiven.
But there could be many sins besides drinking wine at a stall.
* * *
Noah, Abijah, and Sarah had agreed among themselves that they would leave for Sepphoris early enough to be back in the city by noon. Deborah would remain in Nazareth, with Joshua’s family, until Noah came for her, the day following the next Sabbath.
The wedding would be celebrated in Grandfather’s house.
But that meant that three days would intervene until Noah would see his betrothed again, and four before he could claim her. It seemed an eternity.
He wanted to see Deborah one last time before he left.
In theory, the betrothed couple were not supposed to keep company together between the betrothal ceremony and the wedding, but, given the conditions of everyday life, the prohibition was largely ignored. After all, Sarah and Abijah would be walking back to Sepphoris together. All that was required was that some pretext be found so that the meeting did not seem arranged.
So, when Noah returned to his grandfather’s house and learned that Sarah was visiting Deborah, presumably at Joseph’s house, Noah had merely to go and fetch Sarah.
He found the two women sitting together outside, on a wooden bench in the shade of an ancient fig tree. They looked so odd in their veils that he was relieved when they saw him and uncovered their faces.
The Ironsmith Page 28
