21

SABBATH

Is it how you want to remember him? Tobias had called out. The words had halted James’ steps to Jerusalem.

From a back room, he heard the small cry of Devorah’s new baby and the rustle of Devorah’s tending. It was still night. Unless the others lay awake on their beds, only James and Devorah and the baby were awake.

There would be no more cobblestones.

He rolled to face the wall. At his feet he could see Judas. Simon was on the other side of the workroom. Nathanael had been taken to the home of the physician in Bethany, and Jorah would not leave him. Joab had disappeared. He could not remember the last time he saw the lad. He had taken the lamb with him. Such a small thing to notice.

He noticed other things. The way Joses would not let his children go when he came in from Jerusalem. The way Devorah held her baby close, the way Matthias tended Devorah.

Mother was not among those returning from Jerusalem. Joses told of the last heart-tearing thing Jesus had said regarding the family. From the very cross on which he died, he commended their own mother to the hands of a disciple. Joses had to watch, broken and helpless, as Mother was led away by strangers. He had followed behind until he knew where they took her, to the home of one called John Mark.

A fearful quiet had descended upon the village, as surreal as the three-hour darkness from the sun. Animals were still; the wind had stopped. For hours, everyone in the village stayed by the city gates, silently awaiting word from Jerusalem. Travelers dragging their steps began to straggle in. Nobody went to their homes until Sabbath duty demanded they leave to light the candles and cruses.

The quiet followed the family into the home of Devorah and Matthias, a quiet broken only by whispering or when one was suddenly seized with weeping, an act as capricious as the wind. It seized James last night when he helped Matthias fill the Sabbath cruses with oil, and it seized him once when Devorah had unexpectedly placed her babe in his arms. He could only hold the little boy a moment before he had to hand him back and stumble out of the home into the evening.

There were no Sabbath prayers at its beginning, when the sun had set. And nobody could go to be with Mother —Jerusalem was too far away. From Bethany it was nearly twice the distance allowed for a Sabbath day’s journey. He could not go to Mother or . . . Jesus until tomorrow. There would be spices to gather. A burial cloth to purchase.

Devorah had the baby, and Joses had his wife and children. James wanted the box. He searched through the cart after they delivered Nathanael to the doctor. He traced their steps back. It was gone. Perhaps the lamb wasn’t the only thing Joab had disappeared with.

“Are you awake?” Judas murmured.

“I’m not sure I slept,” James said.

“Me neither.”

James pushed himself to a sitting position, settling against the wall. After a moment, Judas did the same.

The last time they had been in Devorah’s home together was last Passover. Not much had changed in Matthias’ workroom. James studied the tools on the shelf above the two benches until tears blurred them from his sight.

“What happens now?” Judas asked dully.

“We go back to Nazareth,” Simon answered from the other side of the room, his back to them.

A tap came at the door. James whisked his arm over his face, and he and Judas exchanged looks. Simon twisted to look. Jude got up to answer it.

Joses stood in the doorway. The sight of him at the door brought the cursed capriciousness. James hung his head and allowed the tears to drip. Joses came in and closed the door softly behind him, then went to where Simon sat against the opposite wall. He settled beside him, drawing up his knees.

Presently Judas murmured with a sad half smile, “Just like back home.”

And so it was. The brothers in the workroom, together to take the news of the land. The brothers together for another family crisis. It was what James needed more than the box, what made him cry when he saw Joses.

He wiped his nose and said, “Good to see you, Joses.”

Joses nodded. By the look of his face, he had not slept either. It was slightly swollen and more exhausted than James ever remembered. The reddish tinge of his beard and his hair made his face white.

“How are Ben and Hepsi?” Simon softly asked.

“I haven’t told them. Not yet. Hepsi keeps asking why I’m so sad.” He pressed his lips and looked down.

Joses was there. The only brother to . . .

James asked what he dreaded most. “How is Mother?”

Tears now seeped from Joses’ eyes, and he didn’t bother to wipe them away. “You would have to ask John that. She stays in his home.”

“Who is John?” Simon asked dully.

“Not one of us,” Joses whispered. At length, he wiped his face and said, “What happened to the apprentice?”

As Jude quietly told the story, images of meeting Joses at the gate yesterday when he returned from Jerusalem flickered in James’ mind. He had walked with another, whose arm was tight about him, supporting. James didn’t know who it was, only that the kindness of it made James weep afresh. At the sight of his brothers waiting at the gate, Joses had stopped short, then dropped his head and wept as well. They ran to him.

“Who was the fellow you came in with last night?” James asked when Jude had finished.

Joses looked at James. “What do you mean?”

“The man who walked with you from Jerusalem.”

Joses glanced first at Simon, then at Judas. “I came alone.”

James blinked. But . . . of course. It must have been awful for him. What had Joses endured? He had not spoken of it. “You came to Bethany with a man who had an arm around you,” James said quietly. “It’s all right, Joses. It doesn’t matter.”

But Joses was not the only one looking at James. Simon fixed him with a strange gaze, and Jude was looking at him too.

“Joses came alone, James,” Simon said.

“He came alone,” Judas said quietly.

James stared. He was sure . . . He gave a rueful chuckle. “I could say I had too much sun yesterday, but . . .”

“We need to see how Nathanael is,” Judas murmured. “And Jorah.”

Jorah. How was Jorah taking it? She was at the home of the Bethany physician.

“Nathanael will not survive.” It came from Simon in a rough whisper. “We need to be with Jorah.”

“Did you speak with the doctor?” Joses asked.

But the capriciousness struck again, this time with Simon. His fists were white on his knees, and he began to tremble. Muscles twitched in his face as he worked furiously to stay controlled. His words fumbled first, then came in a low, teeth-bared growl. “I want —to know —about those scars of his,” he managed. He rubbed his face hard and gave a growling cough into his hands. “Tell me, James.”

“From his mother,” James said bleakly. “They were from his mother.” Simon’s face tightened. He nodded and rubbed his hand over his fist.

The tefillin. “Simon . . .” James began.

“Shut up, James,” he said.

“It meant so much to him.”

“Shut up!” A curse followed, and Simon dug at his eyes with the heel of his hand.

“It was because of the Temple, you know,” Joses murmured. Like everyone else, his eyes were stained red. He stared distantly as he spoke. “A few days ago he —overturned the money changers’ tables in the Temple compound. ‘Stop making my Father’s house a robber’s den. My Father’s house is a house of —’” His voice caught.

“Defiant to the end,” Judas murmured.

“Prayer,” Joses whispered, lips trembling. “‘My Father’s house is a house of prayer.’”

“‘My Father’s house,’” James mumbled. He frowned. Why did those words sound familiar?

“I remember too, James,” Joses said. He put his head back against the wall, letting tears stream down his face. James squinted at Joses. It was there but so vague.

Joses sniffed and wiped his nose. “Don’t you remember? Judas and Simon were too little. We were in —”

“The caravan,” James suddenly said.

“Yes. We left for home. And suddenly Mother and Father realized Jesus wasn’t with us.”

“Couldn’t find him anywhere,” James supplied wonderingly as the memory trickled back. “They were frantic.”

“Remember where we found him?”

“Back in Jerusalem, at the Temple.” He gave a hard chuckle. “Talking with the scribes and the leaders.”

Joses had a strange look. “Do you remember what he said to Mother and Father?” He pressed his lips together. “He said, ‘Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you know I had to be in . . . my Father’s house?’”

Quiet crept through the workroom. The weeping would come again; it would take one or more of them soon. For now, the sons of Joseph were together in quiet.

She was the doctor’s wife, and her name was Abishag. Abi, her husband called her. She was soft-spoken and kind, and busied herself in the little alcove of a kitchen, peeking in on Jorah now and then. Outside the pain, Jorah noticed Abi wiping her own eyes as she went about her work.

Abi wore a two-piece head covering. Fine white linen swirled snugly about her head and neck, concealing all but the oval of a droopy, aging face. The white linen was capped by heavy green cloth that fell away behind her back. Jorah had not seen a head covering like it. And she was not sure she had ever met anyone uglier. Great yellowed teeth jutted from Abi’s mouth, teeth like a horse’s. Sometimes she pulled her lip down to conceal them, but the lip would ride back up. She had a faint silver mustache and silver hairs on her chin.

The weeping came again, wringing from her another ounce of misery, and Jorah cried into her sodden, wadded head covering.

Abi came at the sound. She sat beside Jorah on the guest bed, patting her back and wiping her own eyes.

“There now, child,” she murmured. “My heart just —” She squeaked and covered her face with a cloth. She blew hard into it. Jorah jumped at the sound.

Horribly, the loud noise made Jorah giggle. Abi pulled the cloth from her face, and her wet eyes crinkled with an instant smile. “It’s nice to hear someone laugh at that again. I scared my own children with my blowing. A shofar blast, they called it.”

“Thank you for . . . the food . . . the bed . . .”

“A pleasure to me, child.”

Jorah twisted the damp cloth in her lap. “May I see him? He needs a familiar face.”

“The doctor is puzzling out if there is more he can do. He does not give up, not while there is breath. So far, the lad has breath.” Abi dabbed at her nose with her cloth. “There is a saying, child . . . ‘While I breathe, I hope.’ It’s the doctor’s own creed.”

“Nathanael’s hope died yesterday.”

Her own words were thin in her ears. Weeping did not accompany them —a strange thing because it was the first time she had spoken aloud about the death of Jesus. Her face felt thick and heavy, as she did on the inside.

Presently Jorah asked, “Do you know of Lazarus?”

Abi pulled her lip over the teeth and nodded. “The doctor tended him in his illness.”

“Did Jesus really . . . ?”

“Ask anyone in Bethany. Ask Lazarus. The doctor was there when he died.” The teeth came out as she smiled the crinkly smile, her eyes sparkling. “And four days later, I was there when he lived again.”

Jorah searched those eyes. “Then Abi, tell me why . . . why does he call a man from his grave . . . why did he do those things . . .” Her throat constricted, making her voice small. “And he made people happy . . . and then he —”

The weeping came, and Abi’s arms came around her.

“They all leave, Abi,” Jorah cried. “They all leave me.”

“Sweet child,” Abi murmured, rocking back and forth with Jorah. Abi took her crying cloth and pressed it to her face. She blew mightily into it, then wept along with Jorah.