AT LAST WE’D REACHED THE TOP of the hill.
Only a great valley spread out in front of us, and what a sight of olive trees and blowing fields it was. It seemed a glad land.
But the great devil, the fire, was burning again, big and far away, and the smoke went up to Heaven, to the white clouds. My teeth chattered. The fear came up in me, and I pushed it back down.
“It’s Sepphoris,” my mother cried, and so did the other women. The men cried out the same. And our prayers went up, as we looked but didn’t move.
“But where is Nazareth?” Little Salome cried. “Is it burning too?”
“No,” said my mother. My mother bent down and she pointed.
“There is Nazareth,” she said, and I followed her pointing to see a village laid out on a hill. White houses, some on top of others, and the trees very thick and to the right and the left other soft slopes and gentle valleys, and far beyond other villages scarcely visible under the brightness of the sky. Beyond was the great fire.
“Well, what do we do?” asked Cleopas. “We hide in the hills because Sepphoris is gone up, or we go home? I say we go home!”
“Don’t be so hasty,” said Joseph. “Perhaps we should remain here. I don’t know.”
“What, from you?” asked his brother Alphaeus. “I thought you knew the Lord would take care of us, and now we’re less than an hour from home. If those thieves come riding this way, I’d rather be hiding under the house in Nazareth than up in these hills.”
“We have tunnels?” I asked quickly, not meaning to interrupt the men.
“Yes, we have tunnels. Everyone in Nazareth has tunnels. We all have them. They’re old and need to be repaired but they are there. And these murdering bandits are everywhere we go.”
“It’s Judas bar Ezekias,” said Uncle Alphaeus. “He’s probably finished with Sepphoris and on the move.”
Bruria began to cry for her son, and Riba with her. And my mother to say hopeful things.
Joseph thought this over and then he said:
“Yes, the Lord will take care of us, you’re right. And we’ll go. I don’t see anything bad happening in Nazareth, and nothing between here and there.”
We followed the road down into the soft valley, soon passing between groves of fruit trees and even bigger stands of olive trees, and past the best fields I’d ever seen. We walked slowly as ever and we children were not allowed to run ahead.
I was so eager to see Nazareth and so filled with happiness at the land around us that I wanted to sing, but no one was singing. I sang in my heart. “Praise the Lord, who covered the Heavens with clouds, who prepared the rain for the Earth, who made the grass to grow upon the mountains.”
The road was rocky and uneven, but the wind was gentle. I saw trees full of flowers, and little towers way back away on the small rises, but there was no one in the fields.
There was no one anywhere.
And there were no sheep grazing, and no cattle.
Joseph said for us to walk faster, and we did our best to hurry, but it wasn’t easy with my aunt Mary, who was now sick, as though the woes had passed from Cleopas to her. We pulled at the donkeys, and took turns carrying Little Symeon, who fussed and cried for his mother, no matter what we did.
Finally we were climbing the slope to Nazareth! I begged to run ahead, and so did James in the same voice, but Joseph said no.
In Nazareth, we found an empty town.
One great lane leading uphill with little lanes that went off one side and the other, and white houses, some with two and three stories, and many with open courtyards, and all lying quiet and empty as if no one lived there at all.
“Let’s hurry,” said Joseph, and his face was dark.
“But what’s happening up there to make everyone hide like this!” Cleopas said in a low voice.
“Don’t talk. Come,” said Alphaeus.
“Where are they hiding?” Little Salome asked.
“In the tunnels, they have to be in the tunnels,” said my cousin Silas. His father told him to be quiet.
“Let me go up on the highest roof,” said James. “Let me look.”
“Go on,” said Joseph, “but keep low, don’t let anyone see you, and come right back to us.”
“May I go with him?” I begged. But the answer was no.
Silas and Levi were sticking out their lips that they couldn’t go with James.
Joseph led us faster and faster up the hill.
He brought us to a stop in the main lane maybe halfway up the rise. And I knew we were home.
It was a big house, far bigger than I had ever dreamed it could be, and very old and tired. It needed plaster everywhere, and even sweeping, and the wood I could see that held the vines was rotting away. But it was a house for many families, as we’d been told, with an open stable in its great courtyard, and three stories. And its rooms came out on either side of the big courtyard with a large roof hanging over all around for shade, and with many dusty old wooden doors. In the courtyard was the biggest fig tree I’d ever seen.
It was a bent fig tree, a fig tree with twisted branches, and its branches reached all over the worn old stones of the courtyard to make a living roof of new spring leaves, very green.
There were benches under the tree. And the vines grew on the rotted wood frames above the low wall at the street making a gateway.
And it was the most beautiful house I had ever beheld.
After the crowded Street of the Carpenters, after the rooms in which women and men slept on either side bundled up with babies crying, it was a palace to me, this house.
Yes, it had a mud roof, and I could see the old branches that had been laid over it, and I could see the water stains on the walls, and holes in which the pigeons were nesting and cooing—the only living things in this town—and the stones of the courtyard were worn. Inside, we would probably find mud floors. We had had mud floors in Alexandria. I didn’t even think about it.
I thought about the whole family in this house. I thought about the fig tree, and the glory of the vines with their peeping white flowers. I sang a secret song of thanksgiving to the Lord.
Where was the room in which the angel came to my mother? Where? I had to know.
Now all these happy thoughts were crowded in an instant in me.
Then a sound came, a sound so frightening to me that it wiped out everything else. Horses. Horses coming up the lanes of the village. Rattling and scratching and the sound of men calling in Greek words I couldn’t make out.
Joseph stared one way and then the other.
Cleopas whispered a prayer, and told Mary to get everyone inside.
But before she could move, the voice came again, and now we could all hear it, and it was saying in Greek for everyone to come out of their houses now. My aunt stood still as if she’d turned to stone. Even the little ones were quiet.
From up the hill and down came the riders. We went into the courtyard. We had to go, to get out of their way. But that’s as far as we went.
They were Roman soldiers in full armor, the riders, their brows covered by their helmets, and they carried spears.
Now, I’d seen Roman soldiers in Alexandria everywhere all my life, coming in and going out, and in processions, and with their wives in the Jewish quarter. Why, even my aunt Mary, the Egyptian, wife of Cleopas, who was standing here with us, was the daughter of a Jewish Roman soldier, and her uncles were Roman soldiers.
But these men were not like any I’d ever seen. These men were in a sweat and covered in dust, and looking from their right and to their left with hard eyes.
There were four of them, two waiting for the other two who were coming down the slope and all four met before our courtyard, and one of them shouted for us to stand where we were.
They pulled up their horses, but the horses were dancing and wet and foaming, and they wouldn’t stop going back and forth, and kicking up the dust. They were too big for the street.
“Well, look at this,” said one of the men in Greek, “it seems you’re the only people that live in Nazareth. You have this whole town for yourselves. And we have the entire population gathered in one courtyard. Isn’t that good for us!”
No one said a word. Joseph’s grip on my shoulder almost hurt. No one moved.
Then another soldier who waved for the other to be quiet moved forward as best he could on his restless horse.
“What do you have to say for yourselves?” he asked.
The other soldier called out, “Is there some reason we shouldn’t crucify you with all the rest of the rabble down the road?”
Still no one spoke. Then in a soft voice, Joseph began.
“My lord,” he said in Greek, “we’ve only just come from Alexandria, to find our home here. We know nothing of what goes on here. We’ve just arrived, and found the village empty as you see.” He pointed to the donkeys with their baskets and blankets and bundles. “We’re covered with the dust of the road, my lord. We’re at your service.”
This long answer surprised the soldiers, and the leader, the one who was doing all the talking, made his dancing horse come close to us, the horse moving into the courtyard, making our donkeys shy back. He looked at all of us, and our bundles, and the woman huddled together and the little ones.
But before he could speak, the other soldier said:
“Why don’t we take two and leave the rest? We don’t have time to raid every house in the village. Pick out two of them and let’s go.”
My aunt screamed and so did my mother, though they tried to cover their screams. At once Little Salome started crying. Little Symeon began to howl, but I’m not sure he knew why. I could hear my aunt Esther murmuring in Greek, but I couldn’t make out the words.
I was so scared I couldn’t breathe. They had said “crucify,” and I knew what crucifixion was. I’d seen crucifixion outside Alexandria, though only with quick looks because we wanted never, never to stare at a crucified man. Nailed to a cross, stripped of all clothes and miserably naked as he died, a crucified man was a terrible shameful sight.
I was also in terror because I knew the men were in complete dread.
The leader didn’t answer.
The other said, “That’ll teach the village a lesson, two, and let the others go.”
“My lord,” said Joseph very slowly, “is there anything that we might do to show you we’re not guilty here, that we’ve only just returned from Egypt? We’re simple, my lord. We keep to our law and your law. We always have.” He showed no fear at all, and none of the men showed fear. But I knew they were in dread. I could feel it as I could feel the air around me. My teeth began to chatter. I knew if I cried I would sob. I couldn’t cry. Not now.
The women were shaking and crying so softly it could almost not be heard.
“No, these men have nothing to do with this,” said the leader. “Let’s get on.”
“No, wait, we have to come back with somebody from this town,” said the other. “You can’t tell me this town didn’t support the rebels. We haven’t even searched these houses.”
“How can we search all these houses?” asked the leader. He looked us over. “You just said yourself we can’t search all these houses, now let’s go.”
“We take one, at least one, to set an example. I say, one.” This soldier moved up before the leader and began to look over the men.
The leader said nothing.
“I’ll go then,” said Cleopas. “Take me.”
The women in one voice cried out, my aunt Mary collapsing against my mother, and Bruria sinking to the ground in sobs. “It was for this moment that I was spared. I will die for the family.”
“No, take me if someone is to go,” said Joseph. “I will go with you. If one is to go, I will go. I don’t know what I’m accused of, but I’ll go.”
“No, I’ll go,” said Alphaeus. “If someone must go, let me be the ransom. Only tell me why I should die?”
“You will not,” said Cleopas. “Don’t you see, this is why I didn’t die in Jerusalem. This is the perfect moment. I’m to offer my life for the family now.”
“I will be the one,” said Simon, and he stepped forward. “The Lord doesn’t spare a man to die on the cross. Take me. I’ve always been the slow one, the late one. You know it, all of you know. I’m never good at anything. I’ll be good for something now. Let me have this moment to offer for my brothers and all my kindred now.”
“No, I tell you, I will be the one!” Cleopas said. “I’m going. I will be the one.”
At that, all the brothers began to shout at each other, even pushing gently at each other, and trying to get ahead of one another, each saying why he should die instead of the others, but I couldn’t make out all the words. Cleopas because he was sickly anyway, and Joseph because he was the head of the family, and Alphaeus because he left behind two strong sons, and on and on.
The soldiers, who said nothing in their amazement, suddenly broke into laughter.
And James came down from the roof, my brother James, twelve years old, remember, he dropped into the courtyard, and ran up and said that he wanted to be the one to go.
“I’ll go with you,” he said to the leader. “I’ve come home to the house of my father, and of his father, of his father, and his father, to die for this house.”
The soldiers laughed even more at that.
Joseph pulled James back and they all started fighting again, until the soldiers looked towards the house. One of them pointed. We all turned around.
Out of the house, our house, there came an old woman, a woman so old her skin looked like weathered wood, and in her hands she had a tray piled with cakes, and over her shoulder she carried a skin of wine. This had to be Old Sarah, we knew.
We children looked at her because the soldiers looked past the men at her. But the men were still fighting over who was to be crucified, and when she spoke we couldn’t hear her words.
“Stop it, all of you now,” shouted the leader. “Can’t you see the old woman wants to speak!”
Quiet.
Old Sarah came forward with quick steps almost to the gate.
“I would bow, my lords,” she said in Greek, “but I’m far too old for that. And you are young men. I’ve sweet cakes to offer you and the best wine from the vineyards of our kindred in the north. I know you’re weary and in a strange land.” Her Greek was as good as Joseph’s Greek. And she spoke like one who is used to telling tales.
“You’d feed an army that’s crucifying your own people?” asked the leader.
“My lord, I’d prepare for you the ambrosia of the gods on Mount Olympus,” she said, “and call up dancing girls and flute girls and fill golden goblets with nectar, if you would only spare these children of my father’s house.”
The soldiers all broke into such laughter now it was as if they’d never laughed before. It wasn’t mean laughter, it never had been mean, and their faces were soft now and they did seem tired.
She went towards them and offered up her cakes, and they took the cakes, all four of the men, and the mean soldier, the soldier who wanted to take one of us, he took the skin of wine and drank.
“Better than nectar and ambrosia,” said the leader. “And you’re a kind woman. You make me think of my grandmother at home. If you tell me that none of these men are bandits, if you tell me they have nothing to do with the rebellion in Sepphoris, I’ll believe you, and tell me why there’s nobody else in this town.”
“These men are as they told you,” said the old woman. James took the empty tray from her, as the men ate their cakes. “They’ve been in Alexandria for seven years. They’re craftsmen who work in silver, wood, and stone. I have a letter from them telling me they were coming home. And this child, my niece, Mary, is the daughter of a Jewish Roman soldier stationed in Alexandria, and his father was in the campaigns in the north.”
My aunt Mary, who couldn’t stand up by herself any longer, and was being held up by the other women, nodded at this.
“Here, I carry the letter from these children, which came to me from Egypt only a month ago, and it by the Roman post. I’ll show it to you. You read it. It’s in Greek, written by the scribe of the Street of the Carpenters. You can see for yourself.”
She drew out a little packet of parchment, the very parchment my mother had sent her from Alexandria when I was with my mother.
“No, that’s all right,” said the soldier. “You know, we had to put this down, this rebellion, you do know that. And a good part of the city has gone up in flames. It’s no good for anyone when it’s like this. You don’t want it like this. Look at this village. Look at the farmland here. This is rich land, good land. Why this stupid rebellion? And now half the city burnt and the slave traders dragging away the women and children.”
One of the other soldiers was quietly scoffing, and the mean soldier held his peace. But the first soldier went on.
“These leaders have no chance to unite this country. Yet they’re putting on crowns and declaring themselves Kings. And the signals from Jerusalem tell us things are worse there. You know the better part of the army’s marching south to Jerusalem, don’t you?”
“Pray when death comes to any of us,” said the old woman, “that our souls be together in the bundle of life in the light of our Lord.”
The soldiers looked at her.
“And not in the bundle flung out, like the souls of those who do evil, as if from a sling,” she said.
“A good prayer,” said the leader.
“And wait till you taste the wine,” said the soldier who now gave him the wineskin.
The leader drank.
“Ah, that’s good,” he said, “that’s very good wine.”
“For the life of my family,” asked the old woman, “would I give you bad wine?”
They laughed again. They liked her.
The leader tried to give the skin back to the old woman, but she refused it.
“You take it with you,” she said. “What you have to do is a hard thing to do.”
“It is a hard thing to do,” said the soldier. “Battle’s one thing. Execution is another.”
A quiet came over everyone. The leader looked at us and at the old woman as if he was speaking but he wasn’t. Then he said: “I thank you, old woman, for your kindness. As for this village, let it be as it is.” He reined in his horse and turned to make his way out into the street.
All of us bowed.
The old woman spoke and the leader stopped to listen: “ ‘The Lord bless you, and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upon you; and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.’ ”
The leader looked at the old woman for a long time, as the horses danced and pawed at the dust, and then he nodded and smiled.
And they rode away.
As they had come, they went—with a lot of noise and clatter, and rattling. And then Nazareth was as empty and as quiet as before.
Nothing moved but all the little flowers and leaves on the green vines that grew around us. And the new leaves of the fig, so brightly green.
I could hear but the cooing of doves, and the soft song of other birds.
Joseph spoke in a low voice to James,
“What did you see from the rooftops?”
James said,
“Crosses and crosses, on both sides of the road out of Sepphoris. I couldn’t see the men, but I could see the crosses. I don’t know how many. Maybe fifty men crucified.”
“It’s over,” Joseph said, and everyone began to move and to talk at once.
The women crowded around the old woman and took her hands and showered her with kisses, and gestured for us to come and to kiss her hands.
“This is Old Sarah,” said my mother. “This is the sister of my mother’s mother. All of you come here to Old Sarah,” she said to us children. “Come and let me present you to Old Sarah.”
Her robes were dusty but soft, and her hands small and wrinkled like her face. Her eyes were under hoods of wrinkles. But they were bright.
“Jesus bar Joseph,” she said. “And my James, and here, let me take my place under the tree, you come, you children, come here, all of you, I want to see everyone, and here, you put that baby in my arms.”
All my life I’d heard of Old Sarah. All my life we’d read letters from Old Sarah. Old Sarah was the place where my father’s family and my mother’s family were joined. I couldn’t remember all those links, no matter how often they were told to me. But I knew the truth of it, nonetheless.
And so we gathered under the fig tree, and I sat at Old Sarah’s feet. The place was a place of shade and of sunlight. The air was fresh and almost warm.
The old stones were so worn that they showed hardly any of the marks of the mason’s tools anymore, and they were big stones. I loved the vines with their white flowers fluttering in the breeze. There was space here and a softness to things, or so it seemed to me, that there hadn’t been in Alexandria.
The men went to tend to the beasts. The older boys were taking the bundles into the house. I wanted to be with the men and help them, but I wanted to hear Old Sarah too.
My mother held Little Judas in her lap, as she told Old Sarah the story of Bruria and her slave woman, Riba, and they, Bruria and Riba, said they would be our servants forever and this very day they would prepare the meal for us, with their hands, and they would wait on everyone, if only we told them what they could use and where it was. There was talk all around me.
As for the rest of Nazareth, people were hiding in the tunnels under their houses, said Old Sarah, and some had fled to caves in the hills.
“I’m too old to be crawling in a tunnel,” said Old Sarah, “and they never kill old people. And let us pray they don’t come back.”
“There are thousands of them,” said James, the one who had seen them from the rooftops.
“May I go up on the roof and see them?” I asked my mother.
“You go in to see Old Justus,” said Old Sarah. “Old Justus is in bed, and can’t move.”
At once, we went into the house, Little Salome, James and I, and my two cousins of Alphaeus. We went through four rooms in a row before we found him. His bed was up off the floor, and there was a lamp burning there that gave off a perfume. Joseph was already with him, seated on a wooden stool by the bed.
Old Justus raised his hand, and tried to sit up on his bed but he couldn’t. Joseph said our names to the old man but he only looked at me. Then he lay back on his bed, and I saw that he couldn’t speak. He closed his eyes.
Old Justus we’d spoken of, yes, but he himself never wrote. He was older even than Old Sarah. He was her uncle. And kin to Joseph and to my mother, just as Old Sarah was. But again, how, I couldn’t have told out as my mother could, as if it were a psalm.
Now there was the smell of food in the house—fresh baked bread and a meat pottage on the brazier. These things Old Sarah had prepared.
Even though it was bright sunlight, the men made us all go into the house. They closed up the doors, even the doors to the stable where the animals were—our beasts were the only ones—and the lamps were lighted, and we sat in the shadows. It was warm. I didn’t mind it. The rugs were thick and soft, and the supper was my whole thought.
Oh, I wanted with all my heart to see the fields around, and the trees, and to run up and down the street, and see the people of the town, but all that would wait until the terrible troubles were gone.
Here we were safe together, and the women were busy, and the men were playing with the little ones, and the fire in the brazier had a pretty glow.
The women brought out dried figs, raisins in honey, and sweet dates, and spiced olives, and other fine things, which we’d brought all the way from Egypt in our bundles, and that with the thick meat pottage, full of lentils and lamb, true lamb, and the fresh bread, was a feast.
Joseph blessed the cups of wine as we drank, and we repeated the blessings:
“Oh Lord of the Universe, maker of vine from which we drink, maker of wheat for the bread we eat, we give you thanks that we are home safe at last, and keep us from evil, Amen.”
If there was anyone else in the town, we didn’t know it. Old Sarah said for us to have patience, and have faith in the Lord.
After the supper, Cleopas came to Aunt Sarah and took her in his arms, and kissed her hands, and she kissed his forehead.
“And what do you know,” he asked, “about gods and goddesses who drink nectar and eat ambrosia?” he asked her. There was a little laughter from the other men.
“Look in the boxes of scrolls when you have the time for it, curious one,” she said. “You think my father had no room there for Homer? Or for Plato? You think he never read to his children in the evening? Don’t think you know what I know.”
The other men came to Old Sarah one by one and kissed her hands and she received them.
It struck me that it was very late, their coming to her, and that none of them said a word of thanks to her for what she had done.
When my mother put me to bed in the room with the men, I asked her about this, how it was they didn’t offer their thanks. She frowned and shook her head and said in a whisper that I mustn’t speak of it. A woman had saved the lives of the men.
“But she has many gray hairs,” I said.
“She’s still a woman,” my mother said, “and they are men.”
In the night, I woke up crying.
For a time I didn’t know where we were. I couldn’t see anything. My mother was near me and so was my aunt Mary, and Bruria was talking to me. I came to know we were home. My teeth were chattering, but I wasn’t cold. James came up close to me and told me that the Romans had moved on. They’d left soldiers to keep guard on the crucified, and put down any last bit of rebellion, but most of them had moved on.
He sounded very sure and strong. He lay beside me with his arm over me.
I wished it was daylight. I felt my fear would go away if it was daylight. I began to cry again.
My mother softly sang to me: “It is the Lord who gives salvation even unto Kings, it is the Lord who delivered even David from the hateful sword; Let our sons grow as plants grow, and let our daughters be cornerstones, polished as if they were the cornerstones of the palace … happy is that people, whose God is the Lord.”
I drifted in dreams.
When daylight came I saw it under the door to the courtyard. The women were already up. I went out before anyone could stop me. The air was sweet and almost warm.
James came fast after me, and I ran up the ladder to the roof, and up the next ladder to the roof above that. We crawled to the edge and looked towards Sepphoris.
It was so far away that all I could see were the crosses, and it was as James had said. I couldn’t count them. People were moving around the crosses. Others were coming and going on the road as people do and I saw wagons, and donkeys. The fire was out, though there was still smoke streaming up to the sky, and there was plenty of the city that wasn’t burnt. But again it was hard to see.
To my right the houses of Nazareth went up the hill one against another, and to the left they went down. No one was on all the roofs we saw, but we could see mats and blankets here and there and all around the village the green fields and the forests of thick trees. So many trees.
When I came down, Joseph was waiting, and he took us both sternly by the shoulders and said, “Who told you that you could do this? Don’t you go up there again.”
We nodded. James blushed, and there passed between them a quick look, James ashamed, and Joseph forgiving him.
“It was my doing,” I said. “I ran up.”
“And you won’t do it again,” said Joseph, “because what if they come back?”
I nodded.
“What did you see?” Joseph asked.
“It’s quiet,” said James. “They’re finished. People are taking away the bodies of the dead. There are villages that were burnt.”
“I didn’t see the villages,” I said.
“They were out there, little places, near the city.”
Joseph shook his head, and took James with him to work.
Old Sarah sat, bundled up against the open air, under the old bones of the fig tree. The leaves were big and green. She was at her sewing, but mostly pulling out threads.
An old man came to the gate, nodded and moved on. Women passed with their baskets, and I heard children.
I stood listening, and I heard the cooing of the pigeons again, and I thought I could hear the leaves moving, and a woman singing.
“What are you dreaming?” asked Old Sarah.
In Alexandria there had been people—people everywhere, and always we were with each other, crowded and eating and working and playing and sleeping crowded together, and there had never been this … this quiet.
I wanted to sing. I thought of my uncle Cleopas and the way that he would sing all of a sudden. And I wanted to sing.
A little boy came to the entrance to the courtyard, and then another behind him, and I said to them,
“Come in.”
“Yes, you come in now, Toda, and you too, Mattai,” said Old Sarah. “This is my nephew, Jesus bar Joseph.”
At once Little Symeon came out from behind the curtain of the doorway, and so did Little Judas.
“I can run to the top of the hill faster than anyone,” said the boy Mattai.
Toda told him they had to get back to work.
“The market’s open again. Have you seen the market?” Toda asked.
“No, where is it?”
“You go,” said Old Sarah.
The town was coming back to life.