Mary of Nazareth (10 page)

         

L
ATER,
once night had fallen and the women and children were asleep, they gathered around a lamp, and Barabbas, in a low voice, revealed his great plan to Yossef. The time had come to start a rebellion that would sweep through Galilee and the whole of Israel, overthrow the ignominious rule of Herod, and free the country from the Roman yoke.

“Isn't that going a bit far?” Yossef breathed, his eyes wide.

“If what you say about Herod is right, then there's no better time than right now.”

“Herod is certainly weak. But not as weak as that.”

“If the whole country rises against him, who will support him? Not even the mercenaries—they'll be afraid they won't get paid.”

Joachim entered the conversation. “It's a mad idea. As mad as Barabbas himself. But that's how he saved me from the cross. I think this is worth discussing with the people who hate Herod and the Sadducees as much as we do: the Zealots, the Essenes, and some of the Pharisees. There are wise men among them who'll be prepared to listen to us. If we can persuade them to bring their followers into the rebellion…”

“When the people see they've joined us,” Barabbas said enthusiastically, “they'll know it's time to start fighting.”

Yossef did not contradict them. He did not doubt either their determination or their courage. Like Joachim and Barabbas, he was convinced that passively enduring Herod's madness led only to more suffering.

“If you want to call a meeting of all these people, we can hold it here,” he said. “It's not all that risky. We're quite a distance from Nazareth, and the Romans have never suspected me of anything. The people you invite will be perfectly safe. There are plenty of roundabout ways to get here. They won't even have to come through Nazareth.”

Barabbas and Joachim thanked him. The real difficulty was to find men they could trust. Men of wisdom, but also men with their hearts in the right place, who had power over others. Men who were not violent by nature, but were prepared to fight. Such men were rare.

In the course of the discussion, Joachim and Yossef kept coming back to the same names. Among the Essenes, they narrowed their choice down to two men whose reputation for independence and opposition to the Temple in Jerusalem was well known: Joseph of Arimathea, surely the wisest of all the Essenes, and Giora of Gamala, who led a rebel movement based in the desert near the Dead Sea. Joachim also mentioned the name of a Zealot from Galilee whom he knew and trusted.

Barabbas grimaced, highly suspicious of men of religion. “They're even more fanatical than the Essenes.”

“But they fight the Romans whenever they get the opportunity.”

“They're so inflexible, the villagers are scared of them! I've heard they sometimes beat those who don't pray when they tell them to. If we have these people with us, we're never going to convince the doubters.”

“We won't do it without them either. I don't believe this story of them beating peasants. The Zealots are harsh and austere, it's true, but they're brave, and they're not afraid to die fighting the mercenaries and the Romans.”

“All they want is to impose their own idea of God,” Barabbas insisted, raising his voice. “That's why they fight, not to help the hungry or spare them further humiliation by Herod.”

“That's also why we need to convince them. I know at least two who are good men: Eleazar of Jotapata and Levi the Sicarion, from Magdala. They fight, but they're also good listeners, who respect other people's opinions….”

Reluctantly, Barabbas agreed to approach the Zealots. But the argument became heated again when they touched on the subject of Nicodemus. He was the only Pharisee in the Sanhedrin who had ever shown any compassion toward the people of Galilee. Joachim was in favor of his coming, Barabbas was strongly opposed to it, and Yossef was undecided.

“How could you possibly ask a member of the Sanhedrin for help?” Barabbas cried. “They're all corrupt! You, of all people, should know that! Didn't you stick a spear into one of their tax collectors?”

“One thing has nothing to do with the other!” Joachim retorted in annoyance. “Nicodemus is against the Sadducees who bleed us dry at every opportunity. He's always responded to our grievances. Many's the time he's come to one of our synagogues to hear us.”

“So what? That's hardly a great achievement. He comes, yawns through it all, and then goes back to his life of luxury in Jerusalem….”

“I tell you, he's different.”

“Why? Open your eyes, Joachim: They're all the same! Cowards, in the pay of Herod, that's what they are. If your Nicodemus wasn't a coward, he wouldn't still be sitting in the Sanhedrin. As soon as he finds out we're planning a rebellion, he'll denounce us—”

“Not Nicodemus. He argued with Ananias, the high priest, in the middle of a meeting in the Temple. Herod wanted to throw him in prison—”

“But he didn't get thrown in prison, did he? He didn't get hung on a cross like you! You can be sure he bowed his head and asked forgiveness…I tell you, he'll betray us! We don't need him!”

“No, of course not!” Joachim said, really angry now. “You don't need anyone! You can stir the people to rebellion all over the country without any support at all in Jerusalem or the Sanhedrin! If that's the case, go ahead. Why wait? Go ahead….”

“Don't we just have to be a little careful?” Yossef said, in a placatory voice. “We could talk to Nicodemus without telling him what we're really thinking.”

“For what purpose?” Barabbas replied obstinately. “To make sure that he's a coward like all the Pharisees?”

Joachim exploded. “What's the point of continuing with this discussion? You're talking like a child!”

The quarrel lasted awhile longer. At last Barabbas yielded, but his foul mood lasted the rest of the evening.

They still had to write and send the letters of invitation. Joachim got down to the task of writing, while Obadiah and his gang of
am ha'aretz
divided into groups of two or three, ready to scatter throughout the land.

“Aren't we giving them too much responsibility?” Yossef asked.

“Not at all!” Barabbas said, still irritable. “It's obvious you don't know them. They're more resourceful than monkeys. They could deliver messages all the way to the Negev, if they had to.”

Yossef nodded, anxious not to needle Barabbas any farther. It was not until later, after a good meal, that he expressed his doubts.

“Here we are, stuck here on this hillside in Galilee,” he said, broaching the subject cautiously. “I find it hard to believe that the three of us could start an uprising that would stir up the whole of Israel.”

“I'm pleased to hear you say that!” Joachim cried, a hint of mockery in his voice. “I'd have doubted your intelligence if you hadn't. That's really the question: Do we have to embrace Barabbas's madness in order to counter Herod's madness?”

Barabbas glared at them, refusing to enter into the spirit of the joke. “Miriam is cleverer and braver than you carpenters,” he said acidly. “She says I'm right. ‘We are the ones who decide if we are powerless before the king. To think that his mercenaries are always stronger than us is to give him a good reason to despise us.' That's what she says.”

“My daughter speaks well, I'll grant you that. I sometimes think she could persuade a stone to fly. But is she any less mad than you are, Barabbas? God alone knows.” Joachim was smiling, affection softening his features.

Barabbas relaxed. “It may simply be that you're too old for rebellion!” he said, patting Joachim on the shoulder.

“It can't do any harm to gather the opinions of a few wise men,” Yosef ventured.

“Nonsense! Who's ever seen a rebellion of ‘wise men,' as you call them? It's people like me you should invite here. Thieves and scoundrels who aren't afraid to risk everything!”

T
HE
next day at dawn, armed with the letters and a thousand pieces of advice from Barabbas, Obadiah and his comrades left Yossef's house.

Before leaving, Obadiah made Joachim promise that on his return he would finish telling him the story of Abraham and Sarah or the even more wonderful story of Moses and Zipporah. Joachim promised, a lot more moved by Obadiah than he admitted.

His hand resting affectionately on the back of the boy's neck, he walked along with him a little way. They parted at the edge of the forest. Obadiah said he would cut across it to gain time.

“Take good care of yourself, Joachim!” he said, making a comical face. “I don't want to find out I took you down from the cross for nothing. Take care of your daughter, too. One of these days, I may well ask you for her hand in marriage.”

Joachim felt himself blushing. Obadiah was already running off through the bracken, his roguish laughter echoing among the trees. After he had gone, Joachim stood for a moment deep in thought.

Obadiah's provocative words came back to him. He saw himself in the synagogue in Nazareth, a few years earlier. It was one of those days when the rabbi had thundered at the top of his voice. For some reason, he had been inveighing against the
am ha'aretz.
They had to be cut in half, he said, just like fish. Getting carried away, he had raised a finger to heaven and cried into his beard, “A Jew must not marry an
am ha'aretz
girl! And we certainly can't let this rabble touch our daughters! They have no consciences, and to claim that they're men is ridiculous!”

Remembering these words now, surrounded by trees and under-growth, Joachim felt ashamed, soiled even.

Could it be that the
am ha'aretz,
these paupers so despised by the doctors of the Law, were merely the victims of the age-old contempt of the rich for the poor, which even the Lord had not managed to eradicate from the hearts of men?

Nevertheless, Obadiah was the best of young men. That much was obvious. A valiant little fellow, eager to learn and affectionate to anyone who took an interest in him. Wouldn't any father dream of having such a son?

All at once, Joachim wondered if sending him as an ambassador to the haughty Essene Giora, who was constantly preaching purity, was such a good idea. In truth, neither Barabbas nor he himself had thought about that. It could well compromise the meeting before it even took place.

Nevertheless, thinking about it on his way back to Yossef's house, Joachim decided to trust in the supreme wisdom of the Almighty, to keep his worries to himself, and not to aggravate Barabbas's touchiness and impatience.

CHAPTER 6

F
OR
some weeks, they forgot the drama that had brought them together and the battle that awaited them. The days passed, gentle and calm, full of deceptive little joys, like the lull before a storm.

Miriam looked after the children. Finally able to take the rest she needed, Halva regained her color, her dizzy spells became less frequent, and, every day, her laughter rang out in the shade of the great plane trees.

Joachim spent all his time in Yossef's workshop, running his hands over the tools, lifting the shavings to his nostrils, stroking the smooth wood with the same sense of wonder as he had felt in his youth, experiencing his first amorous caresses.

Discreetly informed by Hannah, Lysanias came running to see them, babbling with happiness, blessing Miriam and kissing her forehead. He brought good news of old Houlda. She no longer felt any pain from the blows she had received and had recovered all her old energy—and her bad temper, too.

“She treats me like her husband,” he chuckled delightedly. “As badly as if we'd lived together for years.”

He missed the communal life of the workshop so much that he immediately started working with Yossef and Joachim. In a few weeks, the three of them managed to do four months' work.

Every evening, putting away his tools as he had done so often before, Lysanias would declare with satisfaction, “Well, we certainly got a lot done today.”

One day, Yossef, who usually responded with a grateful smile before inviting everyone to sit down to the evening meal, said, “This can't continue. I pay Lysanias what's due to him, but you, Joachim, won't accept any wages. It's unfair. I'm only getting all these orders because your workshop is closed. I feel ashamed. We have to come to an arrangement.”

Joachim laughed heartily. “Nonsense! Board and lodgings, the pleasure of friendship, a quiet life…that's our arrangement, Yossef, and it's enough for me. Don't worry, my friend. I haven't forgotten that you're taking a big risk, having Miriam and me here.”

“Miriam's another one! She works as hard as a handmaid!”

“Not at all! She's taking the strain off your wife. Pay Lysanias what he deserves, Yossef, but don't have any qualms about me. The happiness of working with you is all I need. God alone knows when I'll be able to go back to my own workshop, and nothing gives me greater satisfaction than being able to keep myself busy in yours.”

Yossef protested. This was no laughing matter. Joachim wasn't being sensible. He ought to be thinking about the future. He had Miriam and Hannah to provide for.

“From now on, whether you like it or not, every time an order is paid for, I'll put some money aside for you.”

Lysanias interrupted the conversation. “What you should do, Yossef, is give your customers a specific time limit, and then go over it. Otherwise, they're going to think you've made a pact with demons to be able to work so fast!”

Only Barabbas remained in somber mood. Impatient, always on the alert, he was still convinced that the mercenaries would swoop on Nazareth to take revenge for Joachim's escape. The fact that they hadn't so far done so unsettled him, and he feared they were planning something. In order not to be taken by surprise, he decided to become a shepherd.

From morning to evening, wrapped in an old tunic as brown as the earth, he would go out onto the slopes of wild grass around the house, surrounded by the sheep that Yossef had managed to hide from the greed of the tax collectors. He would get far enough away to keep an eye on the comings and goings around the village. He found this freedom, these long walks over the fragrant hills in the late spring heat, so exhilarating that more than once he slept in the open air.

His impatience, his eagerness to do battle with the mercenaries, made him less vigilant, and he did not even notice when Obadiah returned, as unobtrusive as a shadow.

         

I
T
was nearly nightfall. Miriam had told the children a last story and kissed them good night. Halva was already asleep. From the workshop behind the house, bursts of merry chatter could be heard. Joachim, Lysanias, and Yossef really enjoyed working together, Miriam thought. Soon they would be sitting around the table, as greedy for words as for food.

Their discussions could last for hours when Barabbas was present. But she was unable to take them seriously.

“They're just like children,” she would say to Halva. “They want to remake the world the Almighty has created.”

And they would both laugh in secret at the men's pride.

Still amused at this thought, Miriam went through into the main room of the house. It was already dark. She could smell the fragrance of a lime tree, carried on the evening breeze.

She went to look for the lamps and a jar of oil to fill them. On her return, she thought she sensed a presence behind her. She looked around, peering into the gloom. But there was no one here. No figure stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the reddening sky.

She got back to work. But when she struck a light, a hand took the stone from her. She cried out and stepped back, dropping the tinder wick.

“It's me, Obadiah,” a whisper came. “No need to be afraid!”

“Obadiah! What an idiot! You scared me, creeping around like a thief!”

She laughed and drew him to her. He abandoned himself to her embrace, quivering with pleasure, then broke free, overcome with emotion.

“I didn't mean to frighten you!” he said, lighting the tinder. “It was nice to look at you, after all this time. I'm really pleased to see you.”

The flames grew, dispersing the shadows. Miriam sensed how embarrassed Obadiah was after the admission he had just made. With a maternal gesture, she ruffled his unkempt hair.

“I'm pleased to see you, too, Obadiah…. Did you come back alone?”

“No.” He pointed nonchalantly at Yossef's workshop with his thumb. “They're there. The two Essene wise men, as your father calls them. The one from Damascus, no problem. He may really be a wise man. But the other one, Giora of Gamala, is a madman. He didn't even want to see me, let alone hear what I had to say and take Joachim's letter! I was white with dust by the time I got to Gamala, and my tongue was hanging out. You'd think they'd have given me a few drops of water, wouldn't you? Not a bit of it.” He growled in disgust. “My friends wanted to leave again, because there was a big market where we could get something to eat and ply our trade.”

Miriam raised an accusing eyebrow. “You mean steal?”

Obadiah grinned magnanimously. “After such a long journey and a welcome like that, we had to amuse ourselves. But I didn't go. I found a way to get Joachim's message to the old man.”

His face lit up with pride, softening the strangeness of his features. His dark eyes glowed like coals.

“For three day and three nights,” he said, “I didn't move from outside that farmhouse or whatever it is, where he lives with his followers. All of them in the same white tunics, beards so long they could walk on them. Always looking furious, as if they were going to cut you in pieces. Always washing themselves and praying. Constantly praying! I've never seen people pray so much. But for those three days, they kept seeing me, which really got on their nerves. Then on the fourth day, surprise! I wasn't there. No more
am ha'aretz
to sully their eyes. They ran to tell Giora the good news. But that night, another surprise! When Giora walks into his bedchamber, what does he see? Me, sitting on his bed! You should have seen the way he jumped, heard the way he screamed, that wise old Essene….”

Obadiah laughed heartily at the memory.

“You should have heard him, waking up the whole pack of them. And me, sitting there as calm as anything while they all shouted at me. I had to wait for them to tire themselves out before I could tell them why I was there. Then the old man took another two or three days to make up his mind. Anyway, here we are. It took time to get back because we had to stop twenty times a day for prayers…. If we're going to have Giora with us for this rebellion, it won't be fun, I can tell you.”

When Miriam finally met Giora, she realized that Obadiah had been telling the truth. She, too, was very struck by his appearance and character.

He was so small and had such a long beard that it was impossible to guess his age. He looked frail, but he possessed enormous energy. His voice was shaky but solemn, and he underlined every one of his sentences with a sharp movement of his hands. If he caught your eye, he wouldn't let go of you, forcing you in the end to look down as if to shield yourself from a blinding light.

The evening that he arrived, he demanded that neither she nor Halva nor Obadiah share his meal. That would have been impure, he explained: Women and children were by nature bearers of weakness and infidelity. Only Yossef and Joachim could break bread at his table—apart from the other newcomer, of course. This other man's name was Joseph of Arimathea, and he had come all the way from Damascus, where he, too, led a community of Essenes. But even though he wore the same immaculately white tunic as Giora, he was quite different.

He was tall and well built, with a short beard, a bald head, kindly features, and a friendly manner. He was perfectly civil toward Obadiah. Miriam felt immediately drawn to him, if for no other reason than the serenity that emanated from him. His calm presence seemed, as if by magic, to temper Giora's aggressiveness.

All the same, the meal was somewhat out of the ordinary. Giora demanded absolute silence. When Joseph of Arimathea suggested that words could be tolerated while they were on their travels, he replied, his bread quivering, “Would you sully our Law?”

Joseph of Arimathea did not take offense, but yielded to his wishes. A strange silence filled the house. All that could be heard was the noise of the wooden spoons in the bowls and the chomping of jaws.

Disgusted, perhaps even somewhat alarmed, Obadiah grabbed a lump of buckwheat and some figs and went and ate them under the trees in the yard, surrounded by the nocturnal chirping of the crickets and the rustling of leaves.

Fortunately, the dinner did not go on for too long. Giora announced that Yossef and Joachim were to join him in a long prayer. Joseph of Arimathea, who was tired after his journey, skillfully managed to spare them this chore. He convinced Giora that praying in solitude would be more pleasing to the Lord.

         

T
HE
following day was no less full of surprises. At first light, Barabbas arrived, pushing his flock ahead of him. With him were three men covered in dust.

“I found them at nightfall, lost on the path,” Barabbas said to Joachim, with a hint of mockery.

Joachim smiled as he and Yossef greeted the newcomers. One of them, a stocky man with a dark complexion, had a large dagger thrust through the belt of his tunic. “I'm Levi the Sicarion,” he announced in a loud voice.

Behind him, Joachim recognized Jonathan of Capernaum. The young rabbi timidly bowed his head. The oldest of the three, Eleazar, the Zealot from Jotapata, rushed to Joachim and hugged him, babbling about how glad he was to see him alive and well.

“God is great not to have called you to him too early!” he cried in delight. “Blessed be the Lord!”

The other two men noisily echoed his words. Barabbas explained, with the same mocking tone as before, how he had discovered them in the forest, heading wearily away from Nazareth, in the direction of Samaria, for fear of finding mercenaries in the village.

“I let them sleep a few hours before we set off, guiding ourselves by the stars. Not bad training for future fighters.”

Joseph of Arimathea, drawn by the noise, appeared in the yard. His reputation for wisdom and great medical knowledge, and the renown of the Essenes of Damascus, preceded him, but none of the newcomers had ever had the opportunity to meet him.

Joachim introduced them. Joseph of Arimathea took their hands in his with a simplicity that put them immediately at their ease.

“Peace be with you,” he said to Levi, Eleazar, and Jonathan in turn. “And blessed be Joachim for having brought about this meeting.”

Yossef invited them to sit down around the big table beneath the plane trees. Then each man spoke at length, presenting his life story and detailing the misfortunes that had befallen his region, misfortunes for which, in each case, Herod was to blame.

Meanwhile, Halva and Miriam were busy laying the tables, putting out fruit, cups of curdled milk, and biscuits, which Obadiah, his cheeks red with the heat, had skillfully removed from the oven.

“I was apprenticed to a baker for half a year,” he said proudly to Halva when she expressed surprise at this dexterity. “I liked it a lot.”

“So why didn't you also become a baker?”

Obadiah's laugh was more mocking than bitter. “Have you ever seen an
am ha'aretz
as a baker?”

Miriam had heard this exchange. She looked at Halva. Neither could stop herself blushing. Halva was about to say something kind to Obadaiah, when the sound of raised of voices in the yard made her turn. Giora had come out and was standing before the newcomers, so stiff and tense that his small stature was forgotten.

“What's all this noise?” he exclaimed, gesticulating. “I can hear your voices from the other side of the house, and I can't study anymore!”

They all stared at him in surprise. Joseph of Arimathea stood up and went close enough to Giora for the physical difference between them to be particularly striking. He smiled. It was an amiable, amused, but curiously glacial smile. There was a strength in his features that would not easily be shaken, it seemed to Miriam.

“We were making so much noise, my dear Giora, to express our joy at being here together. These companions have just arrived here after a difficult trek through the forest. God guided them to our friend, who led them here by trusting in the stars.”