by Joan Wolf
My biggest misery of the first few months in Magdala came from the girls my age, the daughters of Benjamin and Joses. They all slept together in one of the big upstairs rooms, and none of them was nice to me. Fortunately, I got to sleep in a small room with my Aunt Leah so I didn’t have to put up with their snide comments at night, but they kept it up in the daytime. Or they just turned their backs and ignored me. I knew I shouldn’t respond, but it was hard to keep a quiet tongue.
I explained this to Daniel one day, when he came home from the synagogue. He saw me in the vegetable garden viciously pulling weeds and came to speak to me. He was the only male in the family who did not work in the family business of salting, packing, and shipping fish. Instead he went into town every day to study with the rabbi. Lord Benjamin’s plan for his brilliant youngest son was to send him to Jerusalem when he was sixteen to complete his studies at the Temple and become a scribe.
On this particular afternoon I watched him making his way along the narrow garden paths, and I smiled. He was twelve, two years older than I, tall and slim and elegant looking in his immaculate white linen tunic and cloak of fine blue wool. Its ritual blue tassels swung rhythmically as he strode along.
It was not the first time we had talked together in the garden, and he grinned as he came up to me. “You are certainly attacking those weeds, Mary.” He looked around. “Where is Rachel? I thought she was supposed to help you today.”
“She said she had a headache and went to lie down.” I ripped out another weed and tossed it into my basket.
Rachel was Joses’ daughter and my chief tormenter. I thought the rest of the girls might be friendly if not for Rachel’s influence. They seemed to be afraid of her.
“Come and sit down,” Daniel said, gesturing toward the wooden bench that was nestled in the shade of the house.
I sat next to him, licking the perspiration from my upper lip. I poured a cup of water from the jug I had brought with me and offered it to him. He took a sip and then gave it back to me. I drank thirstily.
“Is Rachel still making life difficult for you?”
I put the cup down on the seat next to me with a loud click. “She hates me. I have tried to be nice to her, Daniel, but she goes out of her way to be mean. And she makes all the other girls act mean too. I don’t know what’s wrong with her.”
“She’s jealous of you,” Daniel said.
I frowned. “What does she have to be jealous about? She’s the granddaughter; I’m only a poor cousin.”
“You’re prettier,” he replied and stretched his legs comfortably in front of him.
“Much good that does me.”
He turned his head to look at me. “Before you came, Rachel was the prettiest of the unmarried girls. You’ve taken her place, and she resents you for it. Give her time, and she’ll come around. She’s spoiled, that’s all.”
“I don’t care about Rachel,” I said with a sniff. I turned my face away so he couldn’t see my expression and regarded the sparkling lake that lay beyond the walls of the house. “I just want the other girls to like me. I have to spend so much time with them, and they’re either mean or they act like I don’t exist.” I swallowed. “It’s horrible.”
Daniel took my hand. “I’m your friend, Mary. Try to remember that when they upset you; you do have a friend in this house. And my sisters and cousins will come around eventually. They’re good girls at heart, truly.”
I turned back to him. He was so handsome, with his warm red-brown eyes, chiseled nose, and neat ears.
Without thinking, I blurted, “You were lucky you didn’t get your father’s ears.”
He looked startled, and then he burst into laughter. I put my hand over my mouth and stared at him in dismay. “I didn’t mean to say that.”
“I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I’ve had the same thought myself.” He was breathless with mirth.
Lord Benjamin had huge ears. Sometimes, as we all sat in the courtyard in the evening, I would find myself staring at them. Aunt Leah had once leaned over to remind me that I wasn’t being very polite.
“They’re enormous,” I said now with awe.
“They are, aren’t they? My mother once told me large ears were a sign of God’s special blessing.”
“I never knew that.”
Daniel grinned. “She made it up. I’m sure of it.”
We both laughed.
After that day, Daniel made a point of seeking me out when he got home from school. Spending time with him made all the difference in the world to me. I was no longer alone in the hurly-burly of this big, confusing family. And he was right about the girls too. As time went by they did soften their attitudes, and I actually began to feel at home in Magdala.
Chapter Three
I stood on a bench and surveyed the courtyard where I had brought the nine children in my custody to play. Like everything in the house, the courtyard was large, with three fig trees strategically placed to give the greatest amount of shade.
I wasn’t looking for shade at the moment, however. I was enjoying the feel of the warm spring sunshine on my head and shoulders. I inhaled the soft air, relishing the scent of the almond blossoms the breeze carried from the garden. I could hear the faint hubbub of men on the shorefront haggling over the price of fish. Lord Benjamin was the biggest employer in the area; most of the fishermen in town sold their catches to him. Lord Benjamin once told me that their fish was sold as far away as Rome. I was very impressed.
This would be my second spring in Galilee, and I was a very different person from the girl who had first arrived in Magdala. I was a real part of the family now, assured of my place and my status. Even my girl cousins had become my friends—with the exception of Rachel, who was just as nasty as ever.
Sometimes I felt sorry for Rachel. Ruth had told me that nobody liked her because she was such a bully. Ruth and I had become very close, so now Rachel didn’t like Ruth either, even though Ruth was her sister. It must be horrible to be a jealous person, I thought, with the superiority of one who has never had that particularly spiteful feeling.
I no longer missed Bethany. The previous spring, when we went into Jerusalem for Passover, I had spent a month in Bethany with my family, and I was glad when it was time to return to Galilee. I had wished I could bring Martha and Lazarus with me, but leaving them wasn’t as hard as it had been the first time.
I thought of my little brother and sister as I stood on the bench surveying my charges, who were playing a throwing game with a ball I had made by winding cord. They became more and more noisy as the game went on, and I was just telling Amos to lower his voice when Daniel came strolling out of the house eating a slice of bread.
I frowned at him. “You sneaked that from the kitchen.”
He grinned. “Leah is such an easy mark.”
“Daniel!” The cry went up from all nine of the children. “Play with us! Play with us!”
Dinah came running up to me and grabbed my hand. “You too, Mary! You too!”
Daniel finished his bread, and the two of us joined in the game. Twenty minutes later I called for a respite, and the children sat cross-legged on the ground and drank water from earthenware cups I had filled and passed around.
They were lovely children, full of life and exuberance but obedient as well. After they had finished their water, I distributed small clay animal figures and told them to play quietly. Then I went back to Daniel.
This time together had become part of the pattern of our days. Daniel would come home from the synagogue, change into the same plain tunic and brown robe that the rest of the men wore, and then join the children and me. His father never expected him to join his brothers and cousins on the shore, doing the hard physical labor of packing salted fish into great wooden barrels for shipping.
Daniel was his father’s pride and joy, and as long as the rabbi continued to sing his praises, he was excused from physical labor and left to do almost anything he wished to do.
What he wished to do was to spend
time with the children and me—mostly with me. For my part, I looked forward to this moment all day long. “What do you and Daniel talk about?” Ruth had once asked.
I answered, “The scriptures.” I don’t think she believed me, but it was true. Daniel told me about what he was studying with the rabbi, and we would discuss some of the questions the rabbi had posed. We were fortunate to have such a scholarly rabbi at our synagogue in Magdala. Daniel said that none of the other towns around the lake had anyone nearly as learned.
I loved to listen to Daniel talk. He was much more interesting than any of the men who stood up to speak in the synagogue. When Daniel talked about the Lord and His covenant with the Jews, it made me understand how fortunate I was to be one of God’s chosen people. Daniel said he liked to discuss things with me because I had a quick mind and I made him think. I treasured those words as the greatest compliment I had ever received. That was what was so splendid about Daniel. He would have liked me just as much if I hadn’t been pretty.
Lately he had been intrigued by the story of Judas Maccabeus, the hero who raised a Jewish army and drove the Syrian empire out of our lands. I heard about every battle that Judas ever fought and every campaign he ever planned. If anyone else had dwelled on these military details, I would have found it tedious, but I loved the fire that came into Daniel’s eyes and the flush that rose in his cheeks as he related the heroic deeds of Judas and his brothers.
“David led an army and won back our lands,” I pointed out to him this afternoon, as the children played. “Why isn’t David your hero? He was our greatest king, after all. Surely he was a greater man than Judas.”
“Of course I revere David. But the important thing about Judas, Mary, is that he did all of this only a hundred and fifty years ago! Now here we are in the same situation, only this time it’s the Romans, not the Syrians, who are occupying our lands. We must find another Judas Maccabeus to rise up and lead us. We need the Messiah to come!”
This was not a new refrain, nor was Daniel the only man in Magdala to speak of the Messiah. Our people were growing increasingly weary of the Roman occupation, which our own kings had invited and seemed happy to collude with. Herod the Great and his son, Anti-pas, had built great palaces modeled after the buildings of Greece and Rome. Magdala itself was too small a town to have Romans stationed here, but Capernaum, only a few miles away, had a large Roman army presence. Everyone in Magdala hated the Romans and longed to be rid of them.
I decided to change the subject. “Tell me the story of Esther.”
The fiery look faded from his face to be replaced by amusement. “Again?”
“I could say the same thing when you start talking about the Maccabees,” I retorted.
I loved the book of Esther. There was so little in our literature about women, and I thought Esther was just as great a hero as David or Judas Maccabeus. After all, hadn’t she saved the Jewish people from total destruction? Not even David or Judas had done that. Maybe Esther was even greater than they were!
I secretly loved to pretend that I was Esther, that I was the one entering the harem of the great king of Persia . . . that I was the one he chose to be his wife because of my great beauty . . . that I was the one who foiled the dastardly designs of the villain Haman. The king must have loved Esther very much, because he pardoned her for interrupting his religious service and hanged her enemy, Haman, high enough for all of Susa to see.
Daniel crossed his arms behind his head, leaned against the fig tree, and started the story.
I thought as I listened, When we’re married, we will name our first daughter Esther.
Chapter Four
Remember what a scared little chicken you were when you first came to live with us?”
I stared at Daniel and replied with dignity, “I have never in my life been a scared little chicken.”
“Well, an unhappy little chicken then,” he amended.
Ruth and I were supposed to be spreading clothes to dry in the autumn sun, but Daniel had appeared and told her he would help instead. She had given me a look, rolled her eyes, and gone off to begin her next chore. She wouldn’t give us away. She never did.
Daniel and I festooned the bushes with clothes and then went to our spot in the corner of the garden out of sight of the house. We sat side by side with our backs propped against the thatched stone enclosure that held the gardening tools.
I rested my head on his shoulder and inhaled the familiar scent of his body. I sighed with happiness.
“The rabbi said today that he has made arrangements for me to study with the best teacher in Jerusalem,” Daniel said.
My happiness dimmed. Daniel would turn sixteen in another month, and when we went to Jerusalem for Passover in the spring, he was to stay behind to begin his studies at the Temple.
I removed my head from his shoulder. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“I know you don’t. But avoiding the subject isn’t going to make it go away.”
I raised my legs to rest my forehead on my knees. “I know.” My voice came out sounding muffled. “But we still have a few months together. We shouldn’t spoil them by worrying about the future.”
“Maybe we should.”
I turned my head to look at him. His profile looked stern, as if he was trying to hold back some emotion.
“What’s wrong, Daniel? You want to go to Jerusalem. The rabbi in Magdala has nothing more to teach you, and you’re hungry to learn. Nothing has changed.”
He didn’t look at me. “On my way home I stopped to buy some dates at Abraham’s market stand, and his son asked me how my beautiful cousin was doing and whether he would see you on the Sabbath.”
He still wasn’t looking at me.
“And . . . ?” I prompted.
He met my eyes at last. “I wish you weren’t so beautiful, Mary! All the boys in town stare at you.”
I knew this was true, but it had been true ever since I had grown breasts last year. Why should it bother Daniel now?
I turned to him, tucking my legs under me. “Daniel, will you please tell me what is really wrong?”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. “Last night my father told me that Joses has agreed to a marriage for Anna. It’s Tobias ben Joseph. They will be betrothed next month.”
“Why should that concern you?” I said.
He answered in a fierce voice. “Don’t you see, Mary? You’ll be fourteen soon yourself, and the men will be begging to marry you. And I’ll be in Jerusalem studying, a boy with no money and no hope of getting any until I qualify as a scribe.”
I almost laughed. I would have if he weren’t so upset. I pressed a little closer to him and took his hand.
“Daniel, I’m flattered that you think so highly of me, but be sensible. No father wants a girl who has only a pretty face to recommend her for his son. I have no great family connections, no notable housewifely skills, no money.” I held his hand to my cheek. “The only man who will ever want to marry me is you.”
He still looked worried. “But what if someone does ask for you? What will we do then?”
I smiled at him. “I’ll refuse him. No one can make me marry if I don’t want to.”
He sighed. Then, slowly, he grinned. “I don’t believe anyone has ever made you do anything you didn’t want to.”
“I have perseverance. You have nothing to worry about. I’ll simply stay here until you’re ready, and then we will marry.”
He looked around to make sure there were no observers, and then he pulled me against him and kissed me.
The december rains were dark and chilly as usual, but the week after Hanukkah we suddenly had an unusual burst of mild and sunny weather. Everyone reveled in it, and one evening it was even warm enough for us to go out into the courtyard, which was sheltered by the surrounding walls of the house. I sat on a low bench with a group of children gathered around me. We were playing a word game, and occasionally I glanced away from the uplifted little faces to where Daniel was sitting
beside his eldest brother, Samuel.
Samuel was the only member of the family besides Rachel who disliked me. He wasn’t unpleasant; he just acted as if I didn’t exist. When we met unexpectedly, he would avert his eyes as if I were unclean. I couldn’t imagine what I had done to offend him and did my best to stay out of his way.
It was unusual for Daniel and Samuel to be talking so comfortably. The age gap between them was many years, and Samuel always seemed more like Daniel’s uncle than his brother.
Samuel was unfortunate to have been the only son to inherit his father’s ears. True, they were not so tremendous as Lord Benjamin’s, but they were big enough to be remarkable. He also had inherited his father’s bulky body and wide, flat nose.
Poor Samuel, I thought, as I compared him to the elegant young brother sitting beside him.
Suddenly there was activity at the far end of the courtyard, and I turned to see Abigail, Samuel’s wife, getting laboriously to her feet. Esther and Miriam, Joses’ wife, rushed to join her. Abigail was nine months gone with child, and I thought her time might have come. Esther turned and beckoned to Aunt Leah, and the three women supported Abigail as they all entered the house.
“Where are they going, Mary?” a small voice asked.
I smiled into the curious face of Dinah, one of Joses’ granddaughters. “Abigail is going to have a baby. Isn’t that nice? You will have a new little cousin to play with.”
Dinah looked around the courtyard and shook her head decisively. “I already have enough cousins.”
I smothered a laugh. “Well, this little cousin won’t be big enough to join our group for a long time.”
Dinah smiled. She loved having my full attention. “Good.”
Lord Benjamin leaned over to slap Samuel on the back. “This time you will have a son, eh?”
Poor Abigail had thus far only given Samuel three daughters. Everyone was praying for a son.
Samuel gave a strained smile. “I certainly hope so,” he replied.
