22

MY FIRST YEAR in the Promised Land came to an end as it had commenced: with the opening of the New Year for Israel.

Herod Archelaus and the Roman soldiers from Syria had made peace in Judea—at least enough peace—for us to pass through the land of Herod Archelaus, through the Jordan Valley, and up into the hill country to Jerusalem for the Feast of Passover.

To myself I was an older child since that sorrowful and frightening journey on the very same path to Nazareth. I knew many new words to think in my head about what I’d seen. And I loved it when we were in the open country. I loved the smiling and the laughter. And I loved the bathing in the Jordan River again.

Many other villagers had joined the men of our family, many wives had come along, and a great flock of young maidens under the eye of fathers and mothers, and all of my new friends from the village, most of them my kindred, and some not.

The little rains had been good this year, everyone said, and for a long time the land was green.

Old Sarah made the journey with us and she rode the back of the donkey, and it was good to have her. We crowded around her. My mother came also, but Aunt Esther and Aunt Salome stayed behind to tend to the little ones and Little Salome remained with them.

Bruria, our refugee, came with us, and so did the Greek slave girl, Riba, with her newborn in a sling, tending to everyone.

Now I should say one reason that Joseph brought Bruria was in the hope that when we passed the site of her farm Bruria would want to reclaim it. Bruria had many of her papers, which had been recovered from the burnt place, and surely, said Joseph, there were people there who knew it was her property.

But Bruria had no desire to do this. She wanted nothing. She worked as a woman in sleep, helping but wanting nothing for herself. And Joseph told us apart from her that we must never judge her or be unkind to her. If she wanted to remain with us forever, she could. We had all been strangers once in the Land of Egypt.

No one minded at all, and my mother said so. Riba was a joy to the women, said my aunt Salome. She was modest as a Jewish woman, and clean and helpful, and did as we all did in everything.

We had come to love Riba and Bruria. And when Bruria passed the site of her old farm and did not care, we were sad for her. That was her land and she ought to have it.

Now with us too on the road came the Pharisees, all in a group with their beasts for the women and the old men to ride, and their household. And there were other households from Nazareth as well, and from many other villages who joined the procession.

Our kindred from Capernaum, the fishermen and their wives and sons met us too—these were Zebedee, the beloved cousin of my mother, and his wife, Mary Alexandra who was my mother’s cousin too, and both distantly cousins of Joseph, and many others, some of whom I remembered, some not.

Soon there was no end of people on the road, talking and singing the Psalms as we’d done that first day in Jerusalem so long ago. We sang those sweetest Psalms called the Psalms of Praise.

When we started to climb up from the Jordan towards the Holy City, through the steep mountains, I felt the old fear. I wanted my mother and I didn’t want anyone to know it. It had been a long time since I’d had the bad dreams, but they came back. I slept close to Old Sarah when I could, and if I woke up crying, her voice would make the dream go away. I knew that James woke up at these times, and I didn’t want for him to know this. I wanted to be strong, and with the men now.

It was not a hard journey; it was good to see the villages being rebuilt which had suffered fire; the city of Jericho was being rebuilt and all around it the beautiful date palms and the great forests of balsam were doing well.

Now the balsam was a tree that grew nowhere else in the world but here, and its perfume sold for a great deal, and the Romans were a big market for it.

The sun was shining on all this when I saw it this time, and before Jericho had been a city of the night in flames and made me cry in terror. Of course we had to see the foundations of the new palace and how the carpenters were proceeding. My uncles inspected everything from the piles of masonry on the site to the framing and the clearing of the land for the new rooms that would be built for Archelaus.

Now right after Jericho we came to the village where we’d left our cousin Elizabeth and Little John.

My mother was troubled as we approached, and so were Zebedee and his wife. It had been a long time since anyone had received a letter from Elizabeth.

When we arrived, we found the little house where we’d stayed shuttered and vacant. I thought my mother was going to suffer a terrible blow, and it did come but not as bad as I had feared.

Distant kindred there soon came to tell us that Elizabeth, wife of Zechariah the priest, had suffered a fall only a month before, and she’d been taken up to Bethany near Jerusalem. She could no longer speak, they told us, or move very much, and Little John had gone on to live with the Essenes in the desert. Several of the Essenes had come to take him out with them to a place near the edge of the mountains just above the Dead Sea.

Finally we had come up through the long winding mountain passes, to the Mount of Olives, from which we could see, over the Kidron Valley, the Holy City lying before us. There rose the white walls of the Temple, with its great trimmings of gold, and all the little houses spilling up and down the hills around it.

Everyone cried for joy and gave thanks at the sight of it. But the fear got a grip on me, and I didn’t tell anyone. Joseph lifted me up but I was too big now to be on his shoulders. Some of the children were trying to squeeze to the front of the crowd. I didn’t want to go.

Fear rose in me like a sickness in my throat, from which I couldn’t escape. It didn’t matter that there was the sun in the sky. I didn’t see it. I didn’t see anything but darkness. I think Old Sarah knew because she drew me close to her. I loved the smell of her wool robe, and the soft touch of her hand.

After the prayers were offered, people began to point out where the colonnades had been burned, and where there was rebuilding. There was much pointing and trying to determine things.

“And you can be sure the carpenters and the stonemasons are happy,” said my uncle Cleopas bitterly. “They burn it, we rebuild it.” We laughed at the truth of that, but James gave Cleopas a sharp look as though he didn’t want him to say this. My uncle Alphaeus spoke up, “Well, the carpenters and the stonemasons of Jerusalem are always happy. They’ve been working on the Temple since they were born, most of them!”

“They’ll never finish,” said Cleopas. “And why should they? We have kings with blood on their hands and in their guilt they build the great Temple as if this will make them righteous in the eyes of the Lord. Well, let them do it. Let them offer their sacrifices, the Prophets have spoken on their sacrifices—.”

“That’s enough talk against them,” said Alphaeus. “We’re going down into the city.”

“And the Prophets have said it,” Joseph added quietly with a smile.

Cleopas said under his breath the words of the Prophet, “ ‘Yea, I am the Lord and I do not change.’ ”

And more and more they talked of how this was the biggest Temple in all the world. But these things I heard through the fear I felt, remembering the bodies everywhere, and more than that a great terrible misery, a misery that said, you will know nothing but misery. This will never go away.

Again, I was lifted, this time by my uncle Alphaeus.

I looked at the Temple, fighting the fear, looking at its great size, and how the city appeared to grow up around it and hold on to it. The city was part of it. The city was nothing without it. There were no other temples in Jerusalem but the Temple. And the great glory of the Temple did seem beautiful—white and shining and full of gold—unspoilt—at least at this distance.

There were other big buildings, yes. Uncle Cleopas pointed out to me the great palace of Herod, and the fortress, the Antonio, which was right beside the Temple, and always full of soldiers. But these were nothing. The Temple was Jerusalem. I saw it. And the sunlight was shining, and the fear, the memories, the darkness, went away.

Now my mother wanted to go down into Bethany which was only a short distance from where we were, so that she could see to her cousin Elizabeth. But the kindred wanted to go down first into Jerusalem and find the place where we would stay. And so we went.

People were packed together, moving more and more tightly, and coming to stops when no one could move at all, and we all sang to keep up our spirits.

When at last we reached the city, it was very hard for us to get through the gates, the crowds were so thick, and all of us little ones were tired by that time. Some of the children were crying. Some had fallen asleep in their mothers’ arms. I was far too old now, I thought, to ask anyone to carry me. And so I could not see where we were going or what we were doing.

Before we were very far inside the city, word reached us that all the synagogues were full, and that the houses had taken in all of the pilgrims that they could take, and Joseph decided we would go back out to Bethany where we had kindred near whom we could camp.

We had thought to come before so many people. We had hoped to have the rites of purification in the Temple, the same rite which we’d had in the village, yes, with the ashes and the living water, and the two sprinklings, but we had wanted it again in the Temple.

Now it was clear to us that too many other people had come for the same reasons, and the Feast had drawn all the world to it.

In such a crowd it was to be expected that people broke into arguments, and some even shouted at others, and when this happened, my teeth chattered. But as far as I could see, there was no fighting. High on the walls, the soldiers walked, and I tried not to look at them. My legs ached and I was hungry. But I knew it was the same for everyone else.

After the long struggle uphill away from the city and to the village, I was so tired I wanted to save all my joy and thanks for being near Jerusalem for tomorrow.

It was still daylight, but getting on towards dark. People were camped everywhere. And my mother and father took me by the hand and we went to see to Elizabeth right away.

It was a big house, a rich house, with fine pavers and painted walls, and rich curtains over the doors, and a young man received us who had a fine manner about him that marked him at once as rich. He was dressed completely in white linen and he wore fine tooled sandals. His black hair and his beard were shining with perfumed oil. He had a bright face, and he welcomed us with his arms out.

“This is your cousin Joseph,” my mother said immediately. “Your cousin Joseph is a priest, and his father Caiaphas is a priest, and his father before him was a priest. Here is our son, Jesus.” She laid her hand on my shoulder. “We come to find our cousin Elizabeth of Zechariah. We’ve been told she’s not well, and is being kept here by your goodness and we’re grateful for that.”

“Elizabeth is my cousin, just as you are,” said the young man in a soft voice. He had quick dark eyes, and he smiled at me in an open way that made me feel at ease. “You come into the house, please. I’d offer you a place to sleep here, but you see, we have people everywhere. The house is overflowing.… ”

“Oh, no, we’re not looking for that,” Joseph said quickly to him, “only to see Elizabeth. And if we can camp outside. There, you see, there’s quite a tribe of us from Nazareth and Capernaum and Cana.”

“You’re most welcome,” he said. He beckoned for us to follow him. “You’ll find Elizabeth peaceful but silent. I don’t know whether or not she will know you. Don’t hope for that.”

I knew we were tracking the dust of the road through this house, but there was nothing to be done about it. There were pilgrims everywhere, on their blankets in every room, and people running here and there with jugs, and plenty of dust already. So all we could do was go on.

We came into a room that was as crowded as the others, but it had big latticed windows and the late sunlight was pouring in, and the air was nice and warm. Our cousin took us to a corner, where on a raised bed, propped on clean pillows, there lay Elizabeth, very wrapped up in white wool, with her eyes towards the window, and I think she was looking at the movement of the green leaves.

Out of respect, it seemed, people grew quiet, and our cousin bent down to her, and held her arm.

“Wife of Zechariah,” he said gently, “there are kindred here to see you.”

It was no good.

My mother bent low and kissed her and spoke to her, but there was no answer.

She lay still looking out the window. She looked far older than she had been last year. Her hands were tight and twisted at the wrists, so that they pointed sharply downwards. She looked as old as our beloved Sarah. Like a withered flower ready to drop from the vine.

My mother turned to Joseph and cried against him, and our cousin Joseph shook his head, and said that everything was being done that could be done.

“She doesn’t suffer, you see,” he said. “She’s dreaming.”

My mother couldn’t stop crying, so I went out with her while Joseph talked with our cousin who went over the ancestors and how they were connected, the familiar talk of the families and marriages, and my mother and I went out into the last of the afternoon light.

We found the uncles and Old Sarah gathered on the blankets, in a good campsite near the edge of the crowd of pilgrims, and not far from the well.

Several of the kindred from the house came out to us and offered us food and drink, and our cousin Joseph was with them. They were all in linen, all well spoken, and treated us kindly, more kindly maybe than they would have treated people like themselves.

The eldest of them, the father of Joseph, named Caiaphas, spoke to us and told us that we were near enough to Jerusalem that we could eat the Passover here. We must not worry that we weren’t within the walls. What were the walls? We had come to Jerusalem and we were at Jerusalem and we would see the lights of the city as soon as it was dark.

The women came out and they offered us blankets, but we had our own.

Then Old Sarah and the uncles went in to see Elizabeth before it was too late. James went with them and came back.

When we were all gathered, and the rich cousins had gone down to Jerusalem for their duties in the Temple in the morning, Old Sarah said that she liked young Joseph bar Caiaphas, that he was a fine man.

“They’re descendants of Zadok, and that’s what matters,” said Cleopas. “Not much else.”

“Why are they rich?” I asked.

Everyone laughed.

“They’re rich from the hides of the sacrifices which are theirs by right,” said Joseph. He wasn’t laughing. “And they come from rich families.”

“Yes, and what else?” asked Cleopas.

“People never say good things of the rich,” said Old Sarah.

“Do you have good things to say of them, old woman?” Cleopas asked.

“Ah, so I can speak in the assembly of the wise!” she answered. There was more laughter. “Yes, I have more to say. Who do you think would listen to them if they weren’t rich?”

“There are plenty of poor priests,” Cleopas said. “You know that as well as I do. The priests of our village are poor. Zechariah was poor.”

“No, he was not poor,” said Old Sarah. “He wasn’t rich, no. But he was never poor. And yes, there are many who work with their hands, and they have to. And they go before the Lord, yes. But at the very top, those who protect the Temple? Who can do it but men whom other men fear?”

“Does it matter who they are?” asked Alphaeus, “as long as they perform their duties, as long as they don’t defile the Sanctuary, as long as they take the sacrifices from our hands?”

“No, it doesn’t matter,” said Cleopas. “Old Herod chose Joazer as High Priest because that’s who he wanted. And now Archelaus wants a different man. How long has it been since Israel chose the High Priest? How long has it been since the Lord chose the High Priest?”

I raised my hand just as I would at school, and my uncle Cleopas turned to me.

“How do the people know,” I asked, “that the priests do what the priests must do?”

“Everyone watches,” said Joseph. “The other priests watch, the Levites watch, the scribes watch, the Pharisees watch.”

“Oh, yes, the Pharisees watch!” said Cleopas.

And we did have a laugh at that. We loved our Pharisee Rabbi Jacimus. But he did watch all the rules.

“And you, James?” Cleopas asked. “You have no question?”

For the first time I saw that James was deep in his thoughts. He looked up and his face was dark.

“Old Herod murdered the High Priest once,” he said in a low voice. He sounded like one of the men. “He murdered Aristobulos because he was beautiful when he went before the people, isn’t that so?”

The men nodded, and Cleopas said, “That is so.” He repeated the words. “He had him drowned on account of it, and everyone knew it. All because Aristobulos had gone before the people in his vestments and people had loved him.”

James looked away.

“What kind of talk is this!” said Joseph. “We’ve come to the House of the Lord to offer sacrifice. We’ve come to be purified. We’ve come to eat the Passover. Let’s put this talk out of our minds.”

“Yes, let’s put it away,” said Old Sarah. “I say Joseph Caiaphas is a fine young man. And when he marries the daughter of Annas, he’ll be closer to those in power.”

My aunts, and Alexandra, agreed with this.

Cleopas was amazed.

“We haven’t been here two hours and you women know who Joseph Caiaphas is going to marry! How do you find out these things!”

“Everyone knows this,” said Salome. “If you weren’t so busy quoting the Prophets, you’d know it too.”

“Who knows?” asked Old Sarah. “Perhaps Joseph Caiaphas may be High Priest someday?”

I knew why she said it even though he was very young. He had a way about him, a way of moving and talking, an ease with everyone, a gentleness, and when he had greeted us he had cared about us, even though we were not rich, and behind his black eyes going on, there was a strong soul.

But now all my uncles and aunts were disputing on this, particularly the men, telling the women to be quiet, and they knew nothing about it, and some were insisting it hadn’t happened yet, but all knew that Archelaus could change the High Priest any time he chose.

“Have you become a prophet, Sarah,” asked Cleopas, “that you know this man will be High Priest?”

“Perhaps,” she answered. “I know he’d be good as High Priest. He’s clever and he’s pious. He’s our kindred. He … he touches my heart.”

“Ah, well, give him time,” said Cleopas. “And may our cousins who’ve received us here be blessed for their generosity.”

Cleopas turned to Joseph, who was saying nothing.

“What do you think?” Cleopas asked Joseph. Joseph looked up, smiled, and rolled his eyes to make a playful show of thinking when he wasn’t thinking, and then he said, “Joseph Caiaphas is a tall man. A very tall man. And he stands up tall, and he had long hands that move like birds flying slowly. And he’s married to the daughter of Annas, our cousin, who is cousin to the House of Boethus. Yes, he’ll be High Priest.”

We all laughed. Even Old Sarah laughed.

I started to get up.

The fear was gone from me but I didn’t know it then.

The full supper was ready and it was a good meal.

The House of Caiaphas brought us a thick porridge of lentils with lots of spice in it. And there was a paste of delicious salty olives in oil, and then sweet dates, which we seldom had at home, and lots of them. And as always there were cakes of dried figs but these were very rich and good. The bread was light and warm from the oven.

The wife of Caiaphas, the mother of Joseph Caiaphas, stood in the doorway of her house to see to the serving of the wine herself, her veils very proper, concealing all her hair, with only a little of her face peeping out. We could see her in the torchlight. She waved a greeting to everyone, and then went inside.

We talked of the Temple, our purification, and the Feast itself—the bitter herbs, the unleavened bread and the roast lamb, and all the prayers we would say. The men went over this so that we boys would understand, but the Rabbis in school had done the same, and we did know what to expect and what to do.

And we were eager for it because last year in the middle of the fighting and fear we’d not kept the Feast at all and we wanted to appear before the Lord this time as the Law required of us.

Now I must say that James was almost finished with school. He was thirteen years old now, and a man before the Lord. And Silas and Levi who were older than that didn’t go to school anymore. They had both been very slow. The Rabbi didn’t want them to leave but they begged off on account of work, which they wanted to do. So as we went over the rules of the Feast, I think they were glad of it.

As we were finishing our supper, some of the boys of the camps came up to meet with us. They were friendly enough. But I thought of my cousin John bar Zechariah who’d gone off with the Essenes. I wondered if he was content.

He was far away in the desert, they’d said, and how often I thought did he see his mother? Maybe she would have known her own son? But why think such things? Those old puzzling words came back, that he had been foretold. My mother had gone to them when she’d known I was to be born. I wanted so badly to see John. And when would I ever be able to do that?

Everybody knew the Essenes didn’t come for the Feast. Essenes kept themselves apart in a life more strict even than Pharisees. Essenes dreamed of a renewed Temple. I’d seen a group of Essenes once in Sepphoris, all of them in their white garments. They were a people apart. They believed themselves to be the true Israel.

Finally I left the boys, even though I wanted to play, and I found Joseph. It was getting dark, and the city below was full of light. The lights of the Temple were great and beautiful. But I couldn’t search the whole town and all the camps, and I couldn’t even find my uncle Cleopas.

Joseph was looking at the city, and maybe he was listening to the music because there was music, and the beating of cymbals from somewhere close. He was sipping a bit of wine from a cup, and no one was near him for the moment.

I asked him right away,

“Will we ever see our cousin John again?”

“Who knows?” he asked. “The Essenes are beyond the Dead Sea, at the foot of the mountains.”

“Do you believe they are good people?”

“They’re Children of Abraham like the rest of us,” he said. “A man could do worse than be an Essene.” He waited a moment, then went on. “This is a way it is with Jews. You know that in our own village we have men who don’t believe in the Resurrection on the Last Day. And we have Pharisees. And the Essenes, they believe in many things with their whole hearts, and they try very hard to please the Lord.”

I nodded.

Now I knew that everyone in our village wanted to go to the Temple, and the keeping of every Feast in the right way was important to them. But I didn’t say this. I didn’t say it because there seemed truth in what he said, and I didn’t have any more questions.

I was full of sadness. My mother loved her cousin so much. I could see them in my mind, the two women hugging each other when last we’d been together. And I had been so curious to talk to my cousin. There had been a seriousness in my cousin—that was the word, I found it at last—a seriousness, that drew me.

The other boys in the camp were very friendly, and the sons of the priests spoke well and said good things, but I didn’t want to be with others.

I left Joseph. I was forbidden to ask him all the things that weighed down my heart. Forbidden.

I lay down on my mat, and wanted to sleep even though the sky was just filling with stars.

All around me the men were disputing, some of them saying the High Priest was not the right man, that Herod Archelaus had been wrong to put him in place, and others that the High Priest was acceptable, and we had to have peace, no more rebellion.

Their angry back-and-forth voices frightened me.

I got up, left my mat, to walk off alone, out of the camp, and into the hillside under the stars. This was good to be away on the slope.

There were camps out there too but they were smaller—little gatherings covering the slopes and the fires giving off a little light while up above the moon shone very bright and beautiful over all, and I could see the stars broken and spread out in their fine patterns.

There was grass under my feet and it smelled sweet, and the air was not too cold now, and I was wondering if John saw these same stars tonight out in the desert.

James came up to me. He was crying.

“What’s the matter with you?” I said. I sat up. I got to my feet. I took his hand.

I’d never seen my older brother like this.

“I have to tell you,” he said, “I’m sorry. Sorry for the mean things I’ve said to you. Sorry for … being mean to you.”

“Mean to me? James, what are you saying?” No one could hear us. It was dark. No one noticed us.

“I can’t go into the Temple of the Lord tomorrow with this on my heart, that I’ve treated you so badly.”

“But it’s all right,” I said. I put my hands out to hold him, but he drew back. “James, you never hurt me!”

“I had no right to tell you about the magi coming to Bethlehem.”

“But I wanted you to,” I said. “I wanted to know what happened when I was born. I want to know everything. James, if only you would tell me everything that happened—.”

“I didn’t do it because you wanted it. I did it to be strong over you!” he whispered. “I did it to know something that you didn’t know!”

I knew this was the truth. It was the hard truth. It was just the kind of hard truth that James always said.

“But you told me what I wanted to know,” I said. “It was good for me. I wanted it,” I said.

He shook his head. He tears got worse. This was the sound of a man crying.

“James, you’re sad about nothing. I’m telling you. I love you, my brother. Don’t suffer for this.”

“I have to tell you,” he said in the same whisper, as if he needed to whisper. There was no one here but the two of us on the slope.

“I’ve hated you ever since you were born,” he said. “I hated you before you were born. I hated you for coming!”

My face burned. I felt my skin all over.

I’d never heard anyone say something like this. It took me a moment and then I said:

“It doesn’t hurt me.”

He didn’t answer.

“I didn’t know,” I said. “That’s not right. I think I knew but I knew it would pass. I didn’t think about it if I knew it.”

“Listen to your own words,” he said. He sounded so sad.

“What am I saying?”

“You’re wiser than your years,” he said, he who stood so tall at thirteen, a man. “You have a different face than you had when we left Egypt. You had a boy’s face then, and your eyes were like your mother’s eyes.”

I knew what he meant. My mother always looked like a child. What I hadn’t known was that I was any different.

I didn’t know what to say to him.

“I’m sorry for hating you,” he said. “Truly sorry. And I mean to love you and be loyal to you always.”

I nodded. “I love you as well, my brother,” I said.

Quiet.

He stood there wiping his tears.

“Will you let me put my arms around you?” I asked.

He nodded, and we held each other. And I hugged him tight and could feel him trembling. That was how bad he felt.

I drew back slowly. He didn’t turn or go away.

“James,” I said. “Why did you hate me?”

He shook his head. “Too many reasons,” he said. “And I can’t tell you all of it. Someday you’ll learn.”

“No, James, tell me now. I have to know. I’m begging you. Tell me.”

He thought for a long time.

“I’m not the one to tell you the things that happened.”

“But who is to tell me?” I asked. “James, tell me what made you hate me. Tell me that much. What was it?”

He looked at me and it seemed his face was full of hate. Or maybe it was just unhappiness. In the dark his eyes were burning.

“I’ll tell you why I must love you,” he said. “The angels came when you were born. That’s why I have to love you!” He started to cry again.

“You mean the angel who came to my mother,” I said.

“No.” He shook his head. He smiled but it was a dark, bitter smile. “The angels came on the very night you were born. You know how it was, they told you. We were in the inn in Bethlehem, in the stable, with the beasts in the hay, all of us, it was the only place they had, and there were lots of people crowded in there that night. And your mother went through her pain in the back of the stable. She didn’t cry at all. Aunt Salome was there to help her, and they lifted you up for my father to see, and I saw you. You were crying, but only as little babies cry because they can’t talk. And they wrapped you up the way they wrap babies so they can’t wriggle or move and hurt themselves, in swaddling clothes, and you were put in the manger, right on the soft hay there for a bed. And your mother lay in Aunt Salome’s arms. And she began to cry for the first time, and it was terrible to hear her.

“My father went to her. She was all wrapped up and the rags from the birth had been taken away. He held her in his arms. ‘Why here in this place?’ she cried. ‘Have we done some wrong? Are we being punished for it? Why here in this place? How can this be right?’ That’s what she asked him. And he had no answer.

“Don’t you see? An angel had come to her and told of your birth, and here it had happened in a stable.”

“I see,” I said.

“It was terrible to hear her crying,” he repeated, “and my father had nothing to say to her. But the door opened, and the cold air came in, a blast of it, and everybody huddled and groaned for the door to be shut. But these men were there, and a boy with them and a lantern. These were men in sheepskins with their feet wrapped against the winter, and their staffs, and anyone could see they were shepherds.

“Now you know shepherds never leave their flocks, not in the middle of the night, not in the snow, but there they were, and the looks on their faces were enough to make anyone get up from their beds in the hay and stare at them, and everyone did. I did.

“It was as if the fire from the lantern was burning in their faces! Never have I seen faces like their faces!

“They went right to the manger where you were lying and they looked down at you; and they knelt down, and they touched their heads to the ground with their hands up.

“They cried out: ‘Glory to the Lord in the Highest; and peace on Earth, peace and goodwill to all!’

“Everyone was looking at them.

“Now your mother and my father said nothing but only looked at them; and the men climbed to their feet and they turned to the right and to the left telling everyone that an angel had come to them out in the field, in the snow where they’d been watching over their flocks. No one could have stopped them from their telling this, and now everyone lodged in the stable was gathered around.

“One of them cried out that the angel had said, ‘Don’t be afraid because I give you glad tidings of great joy; for today, to you, is born in the city of David a Savior: Christ the Lord!’ ”

He stopped.

His whole manner had changed.

He was no longer full of anger or tears.

His face had softened and his eyes were large.

“Christ the Lord,” he said. He was not smiling. But he was back in Bethlehem, in that moment, and he was with the shepherds, and his voice was low and full of quiet.

“Christos Kyrios,” he said in Greek. He and I had spoken Greek for most of my life. He went on in Greek. “They were so full of joy, those men. So elated. So full of conviction. No one could have doubted them. No one did.” Then he went quiet. He seemed to drift into his memory altogether.

I was unable to speak.

So this is what they kept from me. Yes, and I knew why they kept it from me. But now I knew it, and it meant I had to know all the rest. I had to know what the angel had said who had come to my mother. I had to know all of it. I had to know why and how I had the power to take and give life, and the power to stop rain and bring snow, if I even had it, if, and what was I to do. I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to know.

And it frightened me completely to think of what Cleopas had said, that I must be the one to explain things to them.

It was too much to keep in my mind. It was too much even to frame the questions that remained unanswered.

And my James, my brother, it seemed he was becoming small and far away, even as he stood there—he was becoming a frail thing. I felt for a moment as if I wasn’t part of this place, this grass, this slope, this mountainside above Jerusalem, the bits of music drifting towards us, the distant laughter, and yet it was so beautiful to me, all of it, and James, my brother, I loved him, I loved him and understood him and his sorrow with all my heart.

He began to speak again, his eyes moving as if he was seeing what he described.

“The shepherds, they said the Heavens had filled with angels. It was a host of angels in the Heavens. They threw up their arms as they said it, as if they were seeing the angels again. The angels sang: ‘Glory to the Lord in the Highest! And on Earth, peace and goodwill to all.’ ”

He bowed his head. He had stopped crying, but he looked spent and sad.

“Picture it,” he said in Greek. “The whole Heavens. And they’d seen this and come down into Bethlehem looking for the child in the manger as the angels had said to do.”

I waited.

“How could I hate you for this?” he asked.

“You were just a little boy—a little boy younger than I am now,” I said.

He shook his head.

“Don’t offer me your kindness,” he said. I could barely hear him. His head was down. “I don’t deserve your kindness. I am mean to you.”

“But you’re my older brother,” I said.

He lifted his tunic to wipe his tears.

“No,” he said. “I have hated you,” he said. “And it’s a sin.”

“Where did these men go, these shepherds who said these things?” I asked. “Where are they now? Who are they?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “They went out into the snow. They told everyone the same story. I don’t know where they went. I never saw them again. They went back to their flocks. They had to go back.” He looked at me. In the moonlight I could see he was better now. “But don’t you see, your mother was happy. A sign had been given. She went to sleep with you tucked near her.”

“And Joseph?”

“Call him Father.”

“And Father?”

“He was as he always is, listening, and saying nothing. And when all the people in the stable questioned him, he gave them no answers. The people came one by one and knelt down to look at you, and they prayed, and they went away, back into the corners and under their blankets. The next day we found a new lodging. Everyone in the town knew about this. People kept coming to the door, asking to see you. Old men came, hobbling on their sticks. The other boys in the town knew. But we weren’t going to stay there long, Joseph said. Only long enough for you to be circumcised and the sacrifice to be made at the Temple. And the magi from the East, they came to that house. If it hadn’t been for the magi going to Herod—.”

He stopped and turned.

“The magi going to Herod? What happened?”

But he couldn’t say any more.

It was Joseph walking slowly up the slope.

I knew him in the dark by his walk. He stopped a little way away.

“You’ve been gone too long,” he said. “Come back now. I don’t want you this far from the camp.”

He waited for us.

“I love you, my brother,” I said in Hebrew.

“I love you, my brother,” he said. “I will never hate you again. Never. I will never envy you. Envy is a terrible thing, a terrible sin. I will love you.”

Joseph walked ahead.

“I love you, my brother,” James said again, “and I love you, whoever you are.”

Whoever I am! Christ the Lord … had never told Herod.

He put his arm around me. And I put my arm around him.

Now I knew as we walked back that I could not let Joseph know that James had told me these things. Joseph would never have wanted it. Joseph’s way was to talk about nothing. Joseph’s way was to go from day to day.

But I had to know the rest of this story! And if my brother could hate me all these years for this, if the Rabbi could stop me at the door of the school over questions to do with who I was, I had to know!

Were these strange happenings the reason we had gone to Egypt? No, it couldn’t have been that way.

Even if the whole town of Bethlehem was talking about this, we could have gone to another town. We could have gone back to Nazareth. But what about the angel who appeared to my mother?

We had kindred here—in Bethany. And they weren’t all chief priests who were rich. Why, Elizabeth had been here. Why hadn’t we gone to her? But then Herod’s men had killed Zechariah! Had Zechariah died because of these stories! Stories of a child born who was Christ the Lord! Oh, if only I could remember more of what Elizabeth had told us on that terrible day last year, after the bandits had raided the village, about Zechariah being killed in the Temple.

Oh, how long would it be before I knew these things!

Later that night, as I lay on my blanket, I closed my eyes and prayed.

All the many lines of the Prophets drifted through my mind. I knew the Kings of Israel had been the Lord’s anointed, but they had not been heralded by angels. No, they had not been born of a woman who had never been with a man.

Finally I couldn’t think any longer. The struggle was too much.

I looked at the stars, and tried to see the hosts singing in the Heavens. I prayed for the angels to come to me as they would to anyone on the Earth.

A great sweetness came over me, a quiet in my heart. I thought to myself, All this World is the Temple of the Lord. All the Creation is his Temple.

And what we have built on the far hill is only a small place, a place through which we show our love for the Lord who has made everything. Father in Heaven, help me. When I slipped into sleep, a great song opened up, and when I woke, for a moment I didn’t know where I was, and the dream was like a veil of gold being pulled away from me.

I was all right. It was early morning. The stars were still there.