by Tracy Groot
But Simon didn’t seem to hear. The hand with the fig lowered. He was remembering again, the same look on his face as when he complained about the stone chips Nathanael had forgotten to clean up. Nathanael rolled his eyes. Simon’s reluctance to speak was nearly as annoying as—
“We talked to so many. I was purely sick of it by the time we got to Decapolis. Sick of trying to figure out who was exaggerating and who was not. And who was outright lying—we had seen that too. But when we met Kardus . . .”
Nobody dared prompt him. He wasn’t acting his petulant self. He even spoke quietly.
“It did not take us long to find him. That was the problem with some of the reports. We would try to track someone down, only to find that that person was now among those who followed Jesus. Not always, but much of the time. This Kardus was not far from where Jesus had first found him.” Simon broke off to reach for his cup of watered wine. He stared into his cup between sips.
Nathanael glanced at the others. Jorah sat on a carpet at the foot of her mother, who sat in a tripod chair. Each of them had a basket of work, Jorah a mending basket and Mary a basket of wool to clean. Jorah’s sat in her lap untouched, and Mary’s fingers absently worked the tufts of wool through an iron-toothed comb. James was on the low couch next to Simon, perhaps not aware of the fact that he was rubbing his hand over his stomach—probably ate too much—and Judas sat next to Nathanael on the other low couch against the stone wall, eyes as intent on Simon as the rest. Sunlight sneaked through a gap in the awning and made a golden arc on Judas’ shoulder.
Nathanael did not want to waste his time with Simon’s slowness to speak. He gazed about the courtyard and put his thoughts to other things.
Here in the courtyard the awning stretched over the entire area from stone wall to stone wall. Only at either end was the courtyard open to the sky, where Mary had her oven in the corner, and at the opposite side where the smallyard met the sleeping rooms and the workroom. Spring rains were slowing down. Soon the heavy awnings for winter rains would be replaced with the lighter summertime awnings to protect against the sun.
Nathanael would have a place like this someday. His mother lived in the city, one of the nastier parts of Caesarea, in the middle of a row of houses that shared a common courtyard. Here, there was serenity, not the ruckus of two dozen children, not four different ovens with a passel of chattering women making meals.
Annika’s place was even worse. Ten or twelve homes bordered a common courtyard, with double that number in families. Many families lived in the upper rooms, either renters or relations of the house owner. James and his family did not know how good they had it. To enjoy a meal in peace, to be able to breathe and think. To be able to step outside and not smell the stink of the refuse pit or hear the argument of the couple next door.
Annika loved living in the city; Nathanael, he would live in a place like this if he ever got himself a wife. Might even take up carpentry; he wasn’t half bad at it. He glanced down at his palms and traced his fingertips over newly forming calluses.
His gaze drifted to Simon, whom he realized still wasn’t speaking.
“Simon?” his mother said softly.
“I was afraid.”
Simon was staring into his cup, then noticed the silence. “Don’t look at me like that,” he said with a return to his former sourness. “Any one of you would have been afraid.”
Nathanael could not stop his own smirk. Simon did not know him very well.
“But why were you afraid?” Jorah asked. “There was nothing to be afraid of, because Jesus cast the demons out of him.”
“That’s why I was afraid.”
It made no sense to Nathanael, but from the looks on the other faces, it made perfect, if disquieting, sense to them.
Just when Nathanael wanted to hear more—surely there was more—suddenly no one expected anything else from Simon. Nathanael looked from face to face . . . this was ridiculous! What made the man act so strange? Didn’t anyone else want to know? Or did the troubled faces mean they already knew?
Nathanael frowned. Surely this Kardus, this demon man, wasn’t the same man his mother used to scare him into doing chores when he was a child. . . . Nathanael, fetch that water, or I swear I’ll feed you to the madman in the tombs. Of course, the madman was on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, so the stories went, but even miles away in Caesarea his reputation had children wide-eyed with fascinated fear. The tales the children alone could conjure were enough to prompt them to obedience.
“This isn’t the same man who lived in the tombs, is it?” Nathanael asked doubtfully. Nobody answered him. Somebody sighed.
He shook his head incredulously. The famous madman of his childhood? The man was a legend—their brother ended a legend.
“Mothers everywhere will need a different reason to get their children to do chores,” he muttered.
“Shimron will have to come up with new jokes,” Judas put in. “Remember what he told the man who had crossed from Kursi to Capernaum? The traveler said, ‘Has anyone ever heard the commotion from the tombs near Kursi? Such awful screams and groaning.’ And Shimron replied, ‘Of course. The man did not pay his Temple tax.’”
Nathanael laughed with the rest, and if theirs faded faster, at least it was laughter.
“Why didn’t you tell me about Raziel?”
Joses stood in the smallyard, holding the curtain flap aside, breathing hard. The tinge of red in his dark beard matched the ruddy color in his face. He still wore his prayer shawl from the midday prayers, fallen down to his shoulders.
Simon sat up. “What is this?”
Joses glowered at the brothers. “It should have been the first thing you told us! What were you thinking, not to tell us right away?” The awning did not stretch over the smallyard. Sunlight made the prayer shawl glow next to the shade. Joses looked like an angry religious fanatic.
“How did you hear about Raziel?” James asked.
Simon stared at them. “Raziel? The Zealot?”
“Abigail told me,” Joses fumed. “Seems he paid the shop a visit this morning.”
“He what?” Simon exploded.
“I told Abigail, when we went to the well,” Jorah said, chin lifted. “She is family. She had a right to know.”
Judas turned on her angrily. “Who else did you tell?”
“Do you think I am stupid?” she snapped back.
“Why didn’t you tell us right away?” Joses demanded.
“We were going to tell you. It only happened this morning,” Judas muttered. “It didn’t seem right, just when you came home.”
“If I had been allowed to stay, it would have been the first thing we discussed,” Jorah declared, folding her arms.
Simon rose from the couch, glaring at James. “Raziel the Zealot was here, and just now we find out?”
“He was here very early, and not for long,” James said. “Nathanael escorted him back to Annika’s.”
“Annika’s?” Joses groaned.
Simon’s glare came to rest on Nathanael, and he rose to meet it.
“You do not have anything to worry about,” Nathanael said evenly, looking from Simon to Joses. “He came to Annika’s under the cover of darkness last night, and he will leave in the same fashion tonight.”
But the mother was shaking her head, face fixed with either worry or . . . “No, he will not be leaving tonight.”
“But—”
“Sabbath, Nathanael. Raziel cannot leave because in a few hours Sabbath begins.”
Nathanael watched the reactions. A hissing intake of breath from Jorah, a groan from James, an expletive from Judas that earned only a murmur from his bleak-faced mother. And a cold glower from Simon, shared with Joses.
Their reactions were confusing enough, and to top it all, Nathanael could not help but feel an odd sense of responsibility. The Zealot stayed at Annika’s, after all. He had slept in the same room, on a pallet rolled out beside Nathanael’s bed. “I will make sure he leav
es, Sabbath or no,” he began to assure them.
“It is forbidden, apprentice.” Simon scowled at him. “Did we hire a Gentile?”
“No. You hired an am ha-aretz.” He might get a fist in the face yet.
Simon looked him up and down. “What’s the difference?”
“I am as Jewish as you are, whether you like it or not, you—”
“Travel is forbidden on Sabbath, Nathanael,” Jorah broke in.
“But surely in this case—”
“It is forbidden,” Mary said quietly.
Nathanael tried to take it in, tried to make sense of it. He stared at each of them, one by one. “Let’s make sure we’re talking about the same thing: Raziel brings an immediate threat to your household—and owing to his reputation, Rome could think you and he are up to something like, oh, an insurrection. And you allow him to remain in Nazareth one more second because of custom?”
“It is more than custom . . . it is law,” Joses said wearily from the passageway.
“Whose law?”
“Our law,” Simon stated scornfully, as though Nathanael should know. “Jewish law.”
“A Jew may not travel more than two thousand paces on Sabbath. That is the length of a Sabbath day’s journey,” Joses explained.
“He knew this,” James growled from the couch, his tone low and feral. “Raziel knew the danger.”
Nathanael felt a flash of anger, at many things at once. Customs and—he shook his head in pure disbelief. He wished he had a chance to tell this Jesus what an uproar he had caused. If Nathanael had brothers and sisters of his own, would they have felt as strongly about him as these people felt about their precious Jesus? He wished he could catch up with the man just to tell him how lucky he was.
“How about if I set this Raziel on your donkey and lead him out of the city myself?” Nathanael reasoned. “He would just be sitting, not traveling—exactly. It’s all the donkey. And if that’s not enough, you can tell God it’s my fault.”
It was a perfect solution, but nobody seemed eager for it.
“Remember what Father used to say?” Judas muttered. “‘The rules for the Sabbath are like mountains hanging by a hair, for Scripture is scanty and the rules are many.’”
Surprisingly, Mary chuckled at that. “He learned that from his friend Saul.” She glanced at Nathanael. “Saul was a Sadducee. The Sadducees do not hold much with the oral traditions.”
“But that sounds like an oral tradition,” Nathanael pointed out with a small shrug.
Mary surprised him again by another soft laugh. Then she stood and set her basket aside. She smoothed down her tunic, then clasped her hands in front and raised her face. She gave a small sigh, then said, “Children, I am leaving.”
Dead silence. Nathanael saw Jorah’s fists, tight and white in her lap, and he watched the expression on James’ face harden to cold stone. But Mary . . . he blinked, and his breath caught.
What was this face? What was this look? Did all mothers look like this for their children? He watched in wonder. Those eyes, stricken, yet filled with . . . had his own mother ever once looked this way? If she had ever looked like this for him, even once, he could forgive her anything. God his witness, he could.
“It must be hard for you,” Nathanael said suddenly to Mary. “Jesus needs you. These here need you.”
She turned eyes filled with misery upon him. “Yes,” she whispered.
James’ voice splashed cold and wet. “So, Mother. Tell us . . . when are you leaving?” He put his feet on the little table and folded his hands over his stomach. He settled his insolent look on his mother. “Anytime soon?”
Nathanael’s fingers slowly clenched.
“Two days,” Mary still whispered, brushing at a tear. “Eli is taking me.”
James nodded, his jaw thrust to one side as though considering which tool to use for a job. Nathanael held his breath. So help me, James, say the wrong thing to her and I will—
“Why not leave now if you want to leave us so badly?” James drawled. “Leave with Raziel tomorrow morning. He brought you the scarf, after all. Perhaps he tires of his wife. Maybe he is looking for another.”
The shouting commotion raised by the brothers and the sister was enough to billow the awning, and that was commendable, but only Nathanael strode to James at the couch and lifted him from it by a fistful of tunic. He pulled James’ face into his own, noted the surprise in the dark-brown eyes, and dragged him over to the dye pots in the corner of the courtyard. Purple, with the sodden hyacinths? Or yellow, with the bobbing rounds of onion? He chose purple.
Before James could guess what was coming, Nathanael swung him facedown into the pot of purple and dropped his knee between James’ shoulder blades to hold him there. James’ frantic struggles sloshed the water and threatened to tip the pot, but Nathanael held him fast. He gave it a three-count, vaguely wondering why the family were not pulling him off, then yanked James up. He thrashed blindly to grab Nathanael, coughing, sputtering, choking in air as well as chunks of hyacinth, which made him cough harder. Nathanael swung him into the water again, gave it another three-count, and hauled him up in a shower of purple. Then he dragged him to the center of the courtyard to Mary.
He allowed James to bend double, coughing and snorting, spitting out flower clumps.
At last the coughing stopped, and James held his position, bent with hands braced on his knees, gulping air, dripping purple. True, it was not as deep a purple as Nathanael had hoped—he had not steeped him long enough—but he knew the top half of James’ undyed tunic would dry at least to a light lavender. Nathanael’s mother often dyed her own fabric. He picked hyacinths with her every year.
James slowly straightened. His beard dripped. His eyelashes dripped. His hair, like a black sodden sponge, sent tiny streams of dark water down his neck. Wet bits of hyacinth clung to his beard, and some spotted his cheeks. One clump sagged from his eyebrow. He slowly reached to brush it away, eyes ever on his mother. And as Nathanael watched the two regard one another, a strange tightness gripped his chest.
The mother’s tears dripped down to wet her clothing. Her son, Nathanael could see, tried to keep the tears in his eyes from falling.
“Mother . . .”
“It’s all right, Son,” Mary replied in a whisper. She reached and brushed flowers from his cheek.
“I am so sorry, Mother.”
“It’s all right.”
Nathanael slowly backed away. He brushed past Joses in the smallyard, who gave him an unreadable look as he passed. Nathanael hunched his shoulders up, an old belligerent habit he had had since he was small, and stalked through the curtained passage. They would let him go for this. And what reason would he give Annika for coming home so early?
He paused in the doorway and gazed past the slope at the mountainous hills of Nazareth. In Caesarea, they had more culture. They had the Great Stadium and Herod’s harbor. Nathanael’s tunic was more fashionable than those of these poor rustics. Nobody here wore the thin leather straps about the head as they did in Caesarea.
His fingers were on something smooth. The mezuzah. He ran his fingertips over it; he pressed his palm flat against it. His fingers curled around it as if to dig it from the stone. He pushed off from the doorway and started for the back ridge to Annika’s. He broke into a trot, then hard and furious into a run.
7
HALF HIS TUNIC clung wetly to him, and the other half was streaked and spotted with damp purple. He shook his head to one side to loosen water in his ear. Simon stepped back at the ensuing spatter of drops.
It was Simon who finally broke the silence in the courtyard. “What are you going to do, James?”
James looked down and picked bits of hyacinth from his shoulders. He fingered his beard and removed anything he found. Stems, pieces of bark. Fortunately he wore his beard short, in the Roman style.
“I am going to change my clothing.” Unfortunately his other tunic was soiled. Washday was the day after Sabbath.
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Jorah came close to examine the new color. She fingered the wet fabric. “James, I could dye the rest of this.”
“I was not talking about your clothing,” Simon stated. “What are you going to do with your apprentice?”
“You think I am going to wear lavender?” James asked Jorah. “I will donate this to Annika’s poor box first.”
“I could finish the rest in the purple, then soak it in the yellow. Then it will turn to a sort of—” Jorah cocked her head to the side—“dullish brown. Maybe gray. What do you think, Mother?”
Mary murmured something in agreement. She, too, fingered the fabric and sent a swift glance to James’ face. James cracked a tiny smile that only she could see.
Simon waited, but James did not answer. Ideas were plentiful, of course, especially when his face was pressed at the bottom of the pot. He touched his nose and wondered if it was bruised. Why did this dunking not ignite the rage? Strangely, his stomach was peaceful, as if filled with warm milk.
“I do not know what I will do with Nathanael,” James answered. “I will think on it.” As he shook out his tunic, he quietly asked his mother, “Where are you going? Where will you stay?”
Mother went to the basket of soiled laundry against the wall near the smallyard. She rummaged through it until she came up with James’ other tunic, wadded and rumpled. She shook it out and brought it to him—holding it away from her, with her nose wrinkled.
“I would not wear this around Keturah,” she commented with a small smile.
James felt his jaw come down. “What . . .”
“Oh, James, don’t be ridiculous,” Jorah chided as she fussed about, picking flowers from his tunic. “Everybody knows.”
“Knows what?” Simon and James demanded at the same time. James felt his face grow warm. Fortunately, neither Mother nor Jorah replied. But they did trade a look with each other. He grimaced and all but snatched the tunic from Mother. He ducked into the storage room at the back of the courtyard, pulled off the wet tunic, and tossed it out near the pots. He struggled his wet body into the dry—he wrinkled his own nose—and smelly tunic, then joined the others.
