The Brother's Keeper

by Tracy Groot

  Jorah swept an up-and-down look at Nathanael, then whirled away.

  Mother nodded at the young man. “You must be the lad Annika told us about.”

  Nathanael straightened and ducked his head respectfully. “Yes, I am.”

  Mother folded her arms and, with her eyes twinkling, said, “How do you like living with Annika?”

  Nathanael darted a look at James. “I—she—”

  “Annika is a wonderful woman, I am sure you have discovered,” Mother said.

  “That she is,” Nathanael replied, not meeting her eyes.

  “Do join us for the meal,” Mother urged. She glanced at James. “I want to know what made my son laugh.” She disappeared behind the curtain.

  Visibly relieved, Nathanael resumed his slouch at the workbench.

  James went to the passage and held the curtain aside to watch Mother’s retreat. Then he let the curtain fall back and turned to Nathanael. “Now, what do you really think of Annika?”

  Nathanael snorted. “Sounds like you know her.”

  James straddled a stool at his bench and picked up the crooked piece of olivewood. “All my life. She is more of an aunt than a family friend. She is a grandmother to every child in Nazareth; they all adore her. The opinions of the adults are different.”

  Nathanael hesitated, then said quietly, “I have never met anyone like her.”

  James raised his eyes from the wood. He watched the lad look around the shop.

  “My uncle never kept his place so neat.” Nathanael shook his head. He jerked a thumb at Jude’s bench. “The amount of tools you have . . . I have never seen so many, let alone so many sizes.”

  James pried off a piece of bark from the olivewood. “Tools are a hobby for Judas. We have a decent set for every bench. ‘He who does not teach his son a trade brings him up to be a robber.’ My father used to say that.”

  “My father is a drunk.”

  James pursed his lips, nodding. He broke off more bark. “Anything else?”

  Nathanael folded his arms. “My mother is a whore.”

  James shifted his jaw, then offered, “My brother walks on water.”

  “Anything else?”

  James studied him long before he could answer. He liked what he saw in those strange bright eyes, liked the defiant tilt in the chin. He liked this boy, and he already feared for him.

  “Yes, I am afraid there is something else,” James said, resting the olive piece on his lap. “Work for me, and you will regret it. You will be scorned and ridiculed, sometimes refused trade in the marketplace. Some cowards will throw things at you when you pass. They will spread rumors about you and shun you in the synagogue. Some will cross to the other side of the street when they see you coming, people you have known all your life. People who used to be friends.

  “Your chances of a decent marriage will be ruined, unless you choose to marry one of the—seekers. You will have more interruptions to your work in one day than you will have visits to the brush. You will deal with fanatics and with fools. And if you are used to being liked, forget about it. Forget all about it, because you will be hated.” He broke off to smile grimly. “Work for me, Nathanael, and your life will be misery.”

  A gleam came into Nathanael’s eye, and with it a slow grin. “I have not had such an offer in a long time.”

  “I hope you refuse it. I like you.”

  Nathanael stretched his legs out and folded his arms. “Let me see . . . they won’t have much chance to shun me in the synagogue since I am a bad Jew and do not go. If they throw things at me, well, I can hit a gecko at fifty paces—I will keep a rock or two handy. Being scorned and such . . .” He lifted his hands and shoulders. “My mother is a whore. I have been scorned since birth. So I hate to disappoint you, but I accept your offer.”

  James smiled. “You will live to regret it.”

  “From what you tell me, I can only hope so.” He looked about the shop. “Where do you want me?”

  James hesitated. All of the other apprentices had worked at Father’s bench, or alongside Judas and James. The corner bench had been vacant for three years.

  He had hoped . . .

  Jorah called them from the courtyard to the midday meal.

  Nathanael looked at James, who waved him on. “I will join you in a moment.”

  Nathanael set the gouge adze down on the corner bench and went to the passage. The curtain flap swished behind him.

  James lingered to look at the tools hanging above the corner bench.

  Sounds and smells drifted into the workshop from the almost-spring day outside: the bray of neighbor Eli’s cantankerous donkey, some children shouting to one another, the fragrance of rain and of wet grasses and of early spring wildflowers. From the courtyard he heard Jorah laugh, heard the soft clatter of a lid on a cook pot.

  He remembered the way it used to be. On a day like today it might be his turn to check the barley crop on their terraced strip of land. Or he might have gone to Capernaum with Jude. He might have been on the way home from the late-winter trip to Gaza, back when Jesus and James did much of the trading.

  He had not taken a journey since the last one with Jesus, three and a half years ago. James could not even remember the last time he had walked their own land, one terrace up from Eli’s. Simon had taken over the planting and weeding, and in the late spring and summer, the watering. And Jude went on the trips alone, or with Joses. James stayed here, under the sky within these four walls.

  “Somebody has to stay,” he whispered to himself.

  “James, are you coming?”

  “Yes.” He cleared his throat. “Yes, I’m coming.”

  He tossed the crooked olive piece back into the carving box, set the box on the floor, and shoved it into the corner. He set his mallet on the pegs, then went to the corner bench, where he replaced the gouge adze on the empty peg just so, then adjusted it. He stepped back to look, because he would not see it this way again. Then he saw the tiny, tilted boat on the corner of the shelf.

  On sudden furious impulse, he lunged for the toy. He ran out the doorway, stumbling as he went. He reared back and whipped the little boat as far as he could. It sailed long in the air, then bounced and skittered down the slope.

  2

  “HEAR, O ISRAEL, Adonai is your God. Adonai is one.”

  Gentle morning light suffused the workroom. James liked prayers here. The room had serenity at this time in the morning, so still and silent. The feeling nearly matched that of the synagogue. One step short of holy.

  “You shall love Adonai your God with all your heart, with all your soul . . .”

  The latest edict from Temple Jerusalem was not so bad: Anyone who held with the teachings of Jesus the Nazarene was to be banned from synagogue. The brothers decided not to go out of respect for Mother. Who cared what their absence implied? James did not care what the synagogue leaders thought anymore. He could never persuade them otherwise.

  “. . . with all your might. Take to heart these instructions, which I charge you this day. Impress them upon your children. . . .”

  Keturah’s face flashed unbidden in his mind.

  “Recite them when you stay at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign upon your hand. . . .”

  Annika had reported a thing his brother had said. He had criticized some of the Pharisees who wore their tefillin past the morning prayers. Had he stopped wearing his own for the morning prayers? Could he have gone so far?

  “. . . and let them serve as a symbol upon your forehead. Inscribe them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

  With deliberate reverence, James slowly unwound the leather straps from his hand and forehead. He brushed his fingers on the leather packets attached to each strap. Father had copied the words from the synagogue Torah onto parchment years ago and slipped them into new leather packets.

  If James said more prayers, if he did more pious deeds . . . would God hear and see, and maybe cred
it the excess to the account of Jesus?

  Hear me, Adonai. Let the beat of my heart pray, because I cannot anymore. Help me, Adonai, I cannot.

  James folded the tefillin and placed them in the willow basket on Father’s workbench. He could not pray any more for Jesus. These three years, had he not prayed with every rhythm of his life? Hammer blows became protect him, protect him, protect him. Metallic chinks with the stone chisel became help him, help him, help him. And sometimes only the rhythm of his breath did the praying. He needs you. Have mercy. He needs you. Have mercy. Fear did the praying these days.

  He found himself looking at the money box on the shelf above Father’s bench, and he went to pick it up. Heavy as ever, though not for what it contained. The wood had to be ebony heartwood, a heavy wood indeed. James grimaced. Only a handful of coins, some silver, mostly copper, rattled in the box. He hoped Joses and Simon were able to sell the oak benches in Gaza. The man who had ordered them months ago had never returned to the shop. Simon’s scrollwork, for which he was famous in Galilee, adorned the edges and supports of the benches. The man had wanted a replica set of benches Simon had done for a Greek family in Sepphoris. He had swept into the shop, placed his grandiose order, and never returned.

  “Served us right,” James muttered. They had been too easily impressed. They had taken on the job as they always had, on word alone. Long ago Jude had suggested they begin the practice of receiving half the payment in advance of the project. Of course, this idea came after Father died, and Jesus did not say much about it. Too bad. Half the amount Simon deserved would have been rattling in the money box by now.

  He replaced the box and rubbed the back of his neck as he considered straightening the mess on Father’s bench. Try as James could to keep it neat, it had become the catchall spot since it was the bench closest to the passageway to the home.

  Sometimes tools or a current project would migrate to the courtyard—Mother and Jorah, especially Jorah, worked to make sure business stayed on the business side. Instead of scolding, Jorah would switch aside the curtain and stand until her presence was known; then she would stretch out her arm, holding the offending tool with the very end of her fingertips, and deliberately drop the tool onto Father’s old workbench. She would ignore any shouts from the brothers—especially from Jude, who railed at her for being so careless with valuable tools—and lift her chin and whirl away.

  When Jorah was old enough to begin keeping house with Mother, she had many ideas for doing things differently from the way Mother did them. “But Jerusha’s mother puts the pots like this, so they can drain better.” “I think we should eat our bread after we eat the vegetables; I hear it is better for the body.”

  Mother treated her revolutionary ideas with calm assurances: “Jorah, soon you will marry, and you will be able to run your household with all Jerusha’s mother’s ideas that you want.”

  But the marriage never came. Father died suddenly, while drawing water for the terrace. The dust had not yet settled from that aching loss when, almost one year to the day, Jesus decided to walk away.

  Jorah was now seventeen. Devorah had already married and moved with her husband to Bethany in Judea. Most of Jorah’s friends were having their second and third babies. He did not hear her speak of marriage often, which was rare with a girl as opinionated as Jorah, but he could only imagine the humiliation she had to endure among her friends.

  Humiliation upon humiliation, for all of them.

  “I saw Jorah at the well. She tells me we got another apprentice.”

  James jumped and angrily whirled on Judas, who came into the workroom with a large bag slung over his shoulder.

  “I hate it when you do that.”

  “Good morning to you too.”

  “Why do you do that when you know I hate it?”

  Judas shrugged and unshouldered the bag. “I don’t do it on purpose. And my trip to Capernaum was splendid, thanks.”

  “Liar, on both counts,” James muttered, but he went to Judas as he knelt to take the things out of the sack.

  Judas held each item to the morning light before handing it to James. First came a new mallet, or rather a used one, very heavy. James tested the weight, knowing it would go to Simon, who was a fool for any size mallet for his carving projects. He set it aside and took another tool from Jude. He raised his eyebrows as he examined this one. Use the tool on one side and it was a mallet; turn it around and it was a hatchet.

  “This is a handy thing,” he murmured, turning it over in his hands. “By the way—welcome back.”

  “Got that from Shimron. Thought you would like it. We will see more of it, according to him. Causing quite a stir.”

  “Where is it from?” James tapped a stool with it. “Has a strange balance. Feels awkward.”

  “Shimron claims he invented it. Says he gave the idea to a smith in Decapolis.”

  James snorted. “Ha.”

  “Same old Shimron.”

  Judas pulled out two more mallets, a straight gouge, a sheepsfoot carving knife, and a chisel. He unwrapped a thick packet of four- and five-inch nails, most of them rust-filmed but straight. He handed them to James, then tossed the carrying sack onto Father’s bench and brought the tools to Simon’s bench to sort them.

  Judas ben Joseph was the youngest of the brothers and the thinnest, with a wiry work-hardened frame and a face with smoothed hollows. He had the same deep-purple puffiness below his eyes as Mother, making the line of his nose white in comparison. And though Jude was the youngest brother, already his hair was beginning to shrink from his forehead. James put a hand to his own forehead. He was the only one of the brothers with hair not yet retreating. Perhaps he would escape this family trait.

  At Simon’s bench, Jude took a mallet and a chisel and began to tap holes for another tool rack next to the one on the wall already filled.

  “Simon and Joses back?” he asked.

  “No.”

  Jude’s mallet hesitated only a moment. “They should have returned before I left. I’ve been gone a week.”

  James sifted through the nails from the packet, trying to ignore the simmer in his stomach. Some days the pain was dormant. Other days it cramped and twisted, especially when thoughts of . . .

  Softly he asked, “How did it go in Capernaum?”

  Judas stopped the mallet halfway to the nail. He held the pose, then lowered the mallet and let it rest on the bench. “They tell me he is in Judea now. Northern Judea, they think.”

  James licked his lips. “What’s the news?”

  Judas sighed deeply and dropped the chisel and mallet onto the bench. He rubbed his face with both hands, and when he drew them away the hollows of his cheeks were deeper than ever.

  “Rome is watching. Looks as if he has enemies on both sides now.”

  James dug his fingers into his stomach, but pain on the outside did not lessen the pain on the inside. “What is happening?”

  “They have been in the crowds. They are asking questions.”

  God of Israel . . . “What questions?”

  Judas drew a breath. “Somehow they know he used to trade with Shimron. They came and questioned Shimron. They wanted to know if Jesus is associated with a man named Raziel from Kerioth.”

  The stool tumbled backward as James sprang from it with a curse. The curse came as much from the flash of fire in his belly as from the name of Raziel.

  “Him again! He is all I ever hear of these days! Those stupid fool Zealots!” James paced the workroom, hardly knowing where he walked. Punctuated with language to make a centurion blush, he told Judas of the incident with Avi and his friend a week before. He waited, breathing hard, for Jude’s response, sure to be an indignant one. But Judas merely regarded him with strangely saddened eyes. James became aware of the direction of Jude’s eyes; he glanced down and saw that his own fist clutched his stomach. He jerked his hand away.

  “It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” Judas said.

  “I can manage,” James
replied tightly. “What are we supposed to do now, Judas? Rome, asking questions? That’s the last thing we need!” He turned away from Jude, scrubbing the back of his head with both hands. “Where are Joses and Simon?”

  “Maybe you should see Jesus about those pains.”

  “That isn’t funny anymore, Judas.”

  The brothers used to joke like that in the beginning, when the reports first came filtering in. A brother would bang his thumb with a hammer, and one of them would call out, “Another job for Jesus!” Or one would wrap a belt around his eyes and stagger about the shop, hollering, “Have pity on a poor blind man! Lead me to Jesus!” It was great fun, until Mother put an end to it.

  “I am not sure I am joking.”

  James froze in front of the fire pit. His mouth tasted of the ashes his eyes saw. “What am I—how am I supposed to answer that, Jude?”

  “It is not what you think,” Judas muttered. “It’s just . . . you spend a week in Capernaum, you hear things. He does not stay in the house he used to anymore—he moves around too much—but the way they carry on in Capernaum, you would have thought he threw the stars into the heavens.”

  “What does Shimron think of him?”

  “Shimron . . . believes.”

  “God of Israel,” James groaned.

  “James!” Judas hissed. “This has got to stop! This language of yours.”

  “Of course, it is only Shimron. He would believe pigs could fly.”

  “What goes on inside of you that such talk comes out?”

  James spun around to glare at him. “What do you think? Our brother is heading for an appointment with a headsman or a cross! He will end up like one of those thousands on the roads, stuck up on a God-cursed Roman cross with ‘Rebellion’ written over his head. The Romans are getting wise. Finally, they say, ‘What is this? A huge crowd and a single man who holds them spellbound?’ God of Israel, what do you think goes on inside me, Judas? The same that goes on inside of you: R-E-B-E-L-L-I-O-N, in bright-red blood.”