by Tessa Afshar
My heart stopped, I am certain, though physicians would tell you of the impossibility of such an event. I had hoped that with time, Ethan would learn to care for me again. Never had I imagined that he would ask me to wed him right away. I thought about the many times I had denied him in our youth, delaying his desire for marriage and rebuffing him altogether in the end. This time, I decided, would be different. I would make up to him for all the denials of the past. “Ethan Ben Ezer, I will marry you tomorrow if you wish.”
Ethan jumped to his feet. “Are you in earnest?”
“I am an old woman, as Rachel confirmed. I can’t afford to waste any time.”
Ethan burst out laughing. “If you are that old, perhaps I should reconsider.”
Thirty-two years I had lived on this earth and I was still a virgin, God help me. I was not about to let my bridegroom spring free. “No reconsiderations are allowed. You better ask Chuza’s permission, though, for he is my closest male relative.”
Ethan grasped my hand in his. His fingers were warm and strong. And I was clean enough to enjoy the touch of them without shame. “You are so dear to me, Elianna. After these long years, to know that you will finally be mine! I must find the teacher and thank him for this gift most of all, for by healing your heart and body, he made our marriage possible.”
“Ethan, I believe he is the Messiah. He restored me as no ordinary man could.”
Ethan nodded gravely. “I have thought the same since the day I saw Lilit rise from the sleep of death. When I saw you so transformed . . .” He shook his head. “It isn’t merely your body he healed. That dark shadow that haunted you from the time Joseph died is gone. It’s as if the real Elianna was lost for years, and she has now found her way home.”
“Do you know the psalm, ‘If the Lord had not been my help, my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence. When I thought, “My foot slips,” your steadfast love, O Lord, held me up’? I’ve had it memorized for some years now. It captures my life over the past sixteen years perfectly.
“If not for God’s mercy, many were the times my soul would have slipped into the land of silence. Empty. Hopeless. Lifeless. His steadfast love held me up, even when I was not aware. Jesus became to me the consolation of the Lord. He restored life to me and rescued me from the land of silence.”
Ethan squeezed my hand hard for a moment. His eyes shone with tears. “I hope to hear him speak. They say he plans to come to Jerusalem soon.”
“I could think of nothing better than going to hear him together. Perhaps we can bring Viriato and Keziah. And Rachel. And Claudia and Titus.”
Ethan laughed. “If you are not careful, you might bring Calvus along as well.”
I bit my lip. “I might.” I was only half jesting.
“And now to practical matters.” His mouth softened with a wry smile. “I do feel a little sorry for Chuza. He may lose what is left of his hair when I tell him my news. He and Joanna are so attached to you. I think they hoped you would live near them all the days of your lives. I feel a little guilty stealing you away to Jerusalem.” Before I could respond, he pulled me into his arms. “Not guilty enough to reconsider, don’t worry. I am in no mood to wait another day.”
Chuckling, I pressed against his chest and leaned back. “Where are we supposed to live, since you are in such a hurry to whisk me away?”
“How would you like to move back into your childhood home? Half of it belongs to me now.”
“What of Viriato?”
“He is welcome to live with us if he wishes. Would you mind?”
“I can’t think of a better solution. He is like a brother to me.”
“Then pack your belongings, my bride. I am going to visit Chuza right away.”
My brow puckered. “Shouldn’t we talk to Rachel first? She might not want to have a new mother. It might be better if we gave her some time to grow used to me.”
Ethan gave me a lopsided smile. “Don’t start coming up with excuses now. You were doing so well. I have already talked to Rachel. She is a little anxious, as you might expect. But she is as happy as I for you to become part of our lives.”
I was busy packing when Calvus arrived at my door. This time, Keziah was with me, and I expected Ethan to arrive at any moment. He had deposited Rachel with Joanna for a tour of the palace grounds and taken the opportunity to visit a merchant who might be interested in purchasing cloth from the workshop.
I felt no fear at the sight of the Roman. Not even the smallest shiver of alarm or shudder of dislike went through me. Since having prayed for him, I could not help but pity him every time he came to mind, which was rare. Not bothering to straighten from my packing, I said, “What brings you to my door, Decimus Calvus?”
“So it is true. You are leaving.”
“I am. Ethan and I are to be married in Jerusalem as soon as we arrive.”
“Did he set his mousy wife aside for you?”
I straightened with a sigh and rubbed my back. “Sarai died years ago. And she was lovely.”
Calvus shrugged. “She was nothing to you.” He had a whip in his hand, which he flicked against his boot. “They say you are cured.”
“Do you believe in miracles, Calvus?”
“No.”
“You are looking at one. A Jewish prophet healed me.”
“You Jews and your prophets. There is one hiding under every bush.”
I laughed. “Not like this one. He even helps Roman centurions.”
“I don’t need the help of some zealot from the backwaters of Galilee.”
“You might change your mind if you met him,” I said, and turned to the next box that Keziah had hauled out of our curtained nook. Not recognizing it, I flipped open the lid and peered inside. “Look at this! I had forgotten about this box. Twelve years ago when we left Jerusalem, my mother insisted on dragging it along with us. It’s full of the workshop’s old papers and account books. I bet Ethan will want to go through every scrap.”
Calvus walked over and peered inside. “Make a bonfire of it. It’s old rubbish. Hardly worth dragging back to Jerusalem after so long.” His mouth had become a straight line, rigid with tension.
I sighed. “I fear Ethan will not agree.” I closed the lid and pushed the box aside and pulled over a pile of pots to sort through. “Keziah,” I called out. “Let us give the kitchen furnishings to the poor. The house in Jerusalem will already be stocked with what we need.”
Keziah, who was working in the next room, said, “I have a pile here as well. I will take care of them later.”
“When do you leave?” Calvus asked.
“The day after tomorrow. Early in the morning.”
Calvus drew close. “You were ever a thorn in my side, Elianna.”
I laughed. I could not help myself. “I might say the same of you, Centurion.”
“Good day, Calvus,” Ethan said from the door. I tensed, wondering how he would react to the Roman’s visit. To my relief, Ethan sprawled on the couch, his movements relaxed and measured. I sensed the tension in his bunched muscles and watchful eyes, but that was only because I knew him so well.
“Did you have success with your merchant?” I said.
“A small one. It’s not a large order, but a good start.”
“So you are marrying Elianna after all these years,” Calvus interjected. “You must allow me to celebrate your good fortune. There is a tavern in Tiberias that serves the best wine outside of Herod’s palace, and their food tastes palatable, though it is Jewish. They have a private room. Very respectable, and visited by many of your own people. I wish to treat you both to a night out. To show there are no hard feelings. After all, we were friends, once.”
Ethan sat up stiffly. “That is generous, Calvus. Unfortunately, we have too much to do before we depart.”
“What? Pack this hovel? It won’t take but an hour. Come now. If you wish, I will not accompany you. Just pay for your bill. You can take Elianna’s sister and that maid of hers along, if you wi
sh. The innkeeper knows me. I will leave him word to expect you.”
“We will be happy to accept,” I said before Ethan could refuse again. I saw no sense in provoking Calvus. He never liked being thwarted, even in such a small matter.
Calvus relaxed at my answer. Giving us directions to the tavern, he took his leave with abrupt haste.
“That is a strange man,” I said with a sigh.
Ethan let out a slow breath. “I don’t trust him, Elianna.”
“Neither do I. But I see no reason to give him offense over such a trifling matter. We can go for a short time. What could be the harm?”
In the end, we went to the tavern as a family, with Rachel, Chuza, and Joanna as well as Keziah in tow. We found that Calvus had not lied when he described the private dining room as respectable, the wine excellent, and the food tolerable.
I had just tasted my first spoonful of the delicious stew when I remembered that I had intended to give Chuza Gamaliel’s Scriptures as a parting gift. I would not see my brother-in-law again before our departure, since Herodias was sending him on some frivolous assignment for the whole week.
Of course, he and Joanna would travel to Jerusalem as soon as they could, but I wanted to give him the parchment as a remembrance of the years we had studied and prayed together. Those hard years when our dreams had seemed so impossible. I knew how he would cherish that roll of parchment. Foolishly, I had left it behind at home.
“I must go home,” I whispered to Ethan. “I forgot Chuza’s gift.”
“I will come with you.”
We made our excuses and raced back to the house, intending to return before the meal grew cold. A strange sight met us at the door. A bright light, like that of a torch, shone through the window. It should have been dark inside.
“Remain here,” Ethan ordered before dragging the door open. I could see into the front room with perfect clarity. Decimus Calvus stood before the old box of papers I had discovered that afternoon, a blazing torch in hand, clearly intent on setting everything inside it on fire.
I walked in behind Ethan. “What are you doing, Calvus?”
“You bothersome woman!” Calvus shouted. “Why can’t you just once do what you are supposed to do?”
Before Ethan could prevent me, I drew closer. “Why do you care about those old papers?” With sudden clarity, understanding dawned. “It’s the account books. You want to destroy those old account books.”
Calvus remained silent. Sweat glistened on his forehead. The torch dipped toward the wooden box. A handsbreadth away, it stopped.
I frowned. “You want to burn those old accounts? Go ahead. Do you think I care after all these years? What did you do? Neglect to pay my father for your purchases? Once, that would have mattered. But it is of little importance to me now.”
Calvus glared. “You can’t mean it,” he said, as if the words were ripped out of him.
“Calvus, I forgive your debt. It’s of no account.”
“What if I said it was a great deal of money?”
I shrugged. “It matters not how much. I forgive your debt. Take the account books if it makes your heart easy.”
Ethan pressed me behind him. “Wait a moment. This liking for fire is not a new hobby, is it, Decimus Calvus?”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“The night your father’s chamber burned. We never found the source of the fire, remember? Didn’t you tell me that you had a quarrel with Calvus over the accounts that day? Even then he was desperate to destroy them. It was you, wasn’t it, Roman? You set fire to that chamber.”
The centurion shrugged. “Was it you?” I said, shaken, thinking of the devastating loss of that night. “You ruined all our stock. I almost died!”
“I never meant harm to you,” he said gruffly.
“And the horse,” Ethan said as if Calvus had not spoken. “You pressed it on Elianna’s father the night of Avram’s feast. I always assumed that someone had tried to kill you by injuring the horse. But it was you the whole time. You tampered with the saddle yourself because you wanted Benjamin out of the way. You had no way of paying your debts. So you decided to kill him in order to save your skin.”
“Is it true?” Even as I asked the question, I knew Ethan had arrived at the right conclusion. My voice had become a croaking whisper. “You harmed my father for the sake of money?” I thought of my father’s suffering, of those months when he lay caught between life and death, shattered. For a moment, a spark of hatred for this man threatened to consume me.
“Love your enemies.”
I heard the words as clearly as if Jesus himself had spoken them again. The hate dissolved, leaving only sadness in its wake.
“These crazed accusations are nothing but the workings of your wild imaginings,” Calvus said through frozen lips. “Can you prove a single word before a legal tribunal? If not, you had better shut your mouth, Jew, or you will grow intimately familiar with the inside of a Roman jail.”
Ethan took a step forward. “I can show those accounts. I may not be able to prove the fire or your murderous plot. But I can demand my money. The workshop belongs to me now. What you owed Benjamin, you now owe me.”
Calvus lifted the torch like a weapon. Ethan bent at the knee, ready to rush him, intending to take the torch away from him. With a calm I did not know I possessed, I grabbed a burning lamp from the table near me.
“Stop this at once,” I said. My voice sounded cool in my own ears. They turned toward me, both of them frozen midstep. Ethan’s mouth clenched and turned white. I gave him a small smile and looked deep into his eyes. Without hesitation, I put the flame of my lamp against the papers in the wooden box and watched them catch fire. The flames licked up the dry contents with ferocious speed.
The two men grew paralyzed in the center of the room. Calvus lowered the arm that held the torch, staring at me with stupefaction.
“What are you doing?” Ethan cried. “Have you lost your mind?”
“I said I forgave him for his debts, and I meant it, Ethan.” I turned to Calvus. “Remember the prophet I told you about? The one who healed me? He said that we were to love our enemies. To do good to those who hate us. That’s what I am doing, Calvus. For his sake. For mine. For Ethan’s. I choose to forgive you.”
“I don’t understand. How can you?”
“I have made many poor choices in my life. I have hurt the people most precious to me. My father could not offer me his forgiveness. Nor could I overcome my own burden of guilt. Then this prophet—they call him Jesus—healed me. His touch made me whole again. Body and soul. Do you understand, Decimus? My guilt is gone, replaced by grace.
“I think that if I have received such an undeniable mercy, who am I to withhold it from you? Take the gift. It is from our Lord more than from me. Do not squander it, Decimus.”
Calvus swallowed convulsively. I could not tell if it was the acrid smoke rising out of the wooden box or my words that caused his eyes to fill with tears. He opened his mouth to speak. No words came out. He ran past me, past Ethan, outside the door and into the night.
“You better put out those flames,” I said to Ethan.
He gaped at me for a moment before rushing to the box. Everything inside was a ruinous mess by the time he quenched the fire.
It occurred to me that I had burned his documents, his account books. As he had said, Calvus’s debt belonged to him now. Cringing, I said, “Are you angry?”
“Why would I be angry?”
“I ruined your chances of revenging yourself on Calvus and getting your money back.”
He walked to me and drew me into his arms, cradling me against him with such careful tenderness you would have thought I was made of Persian glass.
“You are beautiful, my love. You are beautiful. Never again will I care about Decimus Calvus and the harm he has done to us. You have set me free of him.”
EPILOGUE
He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the LORD.
AFTER YEARS OF DISAPPOINTMENT, loss, and suffering, the Lord gathered his many blessings and poured them upon me in such a deluge that I sometimes caught myself wondering if I was dreaming. Ethan and I were married in peace. Jerusha and Ezer shed tears of joy, knowing now the full extent of what had taken place over a decade ago. They welcomed me as if I were their long-lost daughter. I suppose I was. Joanna and Chuza were present at my wedding, as were Claudia and Titus. Viriato actually cried, which set me to weeping. In the end, I do not believe there was a dry eye in the whole feast.
Every bride should go through a trial of fire before her wedding. Though I would not wish my own misfortunes upon another, many good fruits came from them, and these I cannot regret. One result of my years of loneliness was how I cherished Ethan. He could say little to disappoint or rile me. I was so happy to share my life with him that nothing he did caused me to love him less. I never took a moment of our time for granted. Being with Ethan always seemed to carry with it a touch of the miraculous. My marriage overflowed with happiness not because Ethan and I never had problems, but because we never allowed them to come between us.
He did complain that my favorite word was still no. This charge was entirely unjustified. I did not once say no when he tried to kiss me or hold me in his arms.
Although Jesus had healed me of my disease, I did not know whether having suffered so many years of sickness would affect my womb’s ability to bear children. But the Lord made my cup overflow with joy when after only four months of marriage to Ethan, I could tell Rachel that she was about to have a little sister or brother.
“Sarah was also ancient when she had Isaac, and that turned out well,” Rachel said.
To my relief, we got along beautifully. I suppose she could sense that I loved her dearly, and that was enough for her, even though I was very old! Her mother had died when Rachel was so young that she had little memory of her. Though she still thought of Sarai with loyal fondness, she had no problem turning some of her affections toward me. Of course, Ethan was the star of her sky. Feeling the same, I could not fault her.
