No sooner had Ezra left his father’s house than he was obliged to pass the circle of children who were playing Wedding and Funeral in the street. It was a very large circle by this time, for more than twenty children had joined the game, and it covered the narrow street from one side to the other. Ezra realized at once that he couldn’t pass the circle at all. He’d have to walk right through the middle of it to get to the place where he thought Shub must be sitting with his harp. That was the base of a narrow flight of stone steps that connected Ezra’s street with Mishneh Street up the hill.

Ezra stopped, straightened his leather headband, and sighed. Kids, he thought. He would have preferred to avoid any contact with the neighborhood children this morning.

“Ezra!” shouted a round-faced little boy in a black-and-white-striped tunic. “Hey, it’s Ezra! Come on, Ezra. Play with us.”

Oh, great! thought Ezra. “Forget it, Jonathan,” he yelled.

“Play us something, Gershom,” called a petite girl in a brown robe.

Immediately an older boy in sheepskin began to play a tune on his wooden flute. It was a slow, sad air, set in a minor key and filled with the haunting, empty spaces of the Judean wilderness beyond the city walls.

“Funeral!” shouted a dark-haired girl, jumping up and clapping her hands with excitement. At once the smile on her face gave way to a grim and piteous frown. She covered her head with a black shawl and began to parade around the edge of the circle with heavy, weary steps, wringing her hands and wailing as she went. The music droned on, and one by one the other children got to their feet and followed her example.

Ezra stood with folded arms, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. This is ridiculous, he thought. I’ve got no time for kids’ games today!

“Come on, Ezra,” called the little girl in the brown robe. “Funeral! Funeral! Come on.”

Ignoring her, Ezra shoved his way past several of the “mourners” and started across the circle. But just as he got to the center of the open space, the tune changed, suddenly jumping to a higher key, dropping its sad halftones, and shifting into a happy, bouncing dance rhythm. Most of the children caught the change immediately. The girls threw off their veils and began to spin and twirl on their toes. The boys lifted their hands into the air and hopped up and down.

“Wedding!” yelled several voices at once. “Wedding! Wedding!”

“You’re out!” shouted the small boy in the black-and-white tunic, pointing at a pudgy, curly-headed girl who was still moving very slowly and had neglected to remove the shawl from her head. “You’re out! Wedding! The funeral’s over. You too, Ezra. You’re out!”

Give me a break, thought Ezra in disgust. “Get out of my way,” he snorted, glaring down at the boy and shoving him roughly aside. “I’ve got better things to do.” Then he broke through the other side of the circle and took off running up the street.

He hadn’t gone far —only a hundred paces or so to a narrow spot where the canyonlike street curved to the right —when another sound stopped him short. It was a sound that chilled him to the bone and made his hair stand on end, in spite of the bright morning light that streamed down over the tiled and wattled roofs of the houses. It was the sound of a voice. The voice of an old woman.

It was Old Hephzibah’s voice.

“Alms! Alms!” cried white-haired Old Hephzibah from her seat on the stony gray doorstep of a house just beyond the bend in the street. Her arm was still in a sling of dirty brown wool, and she sat leaning on the end of a crooked walking staff of gnarled olivewood. “Alms for a poor old woman who can no longer work to support herself.”

Ezra stood paralyzed. This can’t be happening. It’s like I can’t get away from the old witch! A cold sweat broke out on his forehead. His hands and knees began to shake. He wasn’t scared, he told himself. What was there to be scared of? But he was concerned about the success of his new strategy. He couldn’t let her see him. It would spoil everything.

“Alms! Alms! Alms for a poor old widow with a broken arm!”

He had to get past her somehow. He had to link up with Shub and explain his plan for that night and get him to communicate it to Hezekiah. He looked around for some way of escape. The house on his right had an outdoor stairway. That’s it! he thought.

Without a moment’s hesitation, he turned and ran. Up the steps he dashed as if pursued by Death itself. Gaining the roof of the house, he rushed across to the low parapet at the other side, and from there he vaulted to the roof of the next house. Lucky the houses are built so close together here, he thought as he made his way across that roof as well and repeated the process.

At the fifth house he found another outdoor stairway and descended to the street just at the spot where the lane of narrow stairs climbed the hill to Mishneh Street. Shub was right where he had expected to find him, sitting on the first step. Ezra breathed a sigh of relief as he ran over to greet his friend.

“Shub!” he called. But Shub didn’t hear him. There he sat, lost to the world, his precious kinnor cradled in the crook of his left arm. The fingers of his right hand flew back and forth over the ten gut strings, plucking out a stream of chords and bright single notes. It was clear that Shub was deaf to everything but his own music. His head was back, his eyes closed, his thick black hair flying in every conceivable direction as he swayed in time to the melody. Then, as Ezra watched, Shub opened his mouth and began to sing:

I will sing for the one I love

a song about his vineyard:

My loved one had a vineyard

on a fertile hillside.

He dug it up and cleared it of stones

and planted it with the choicest vines.

He built a watchtower in it

and cut out a winepress as well.

Then he looked for a crop of good grapes,

but it yielded only bad fruit.

Ezra was entranced. He was no expert when it came to music, but somehow he felt that he’d never heard anything quite so lovely in all his life. The melody gripped him and held him. It was strong and sweet, distant and sad.

Now I will tell you

what I am going to do to my vineyard:

I will take away its hedge,

and it will be destroyed;

I will break down its wall,

and it will be trampled.

I will make it a wasteland.

Ezra had never heard Shub sing before —poor, clumsy Shub. He had always known that Shub played the kinnor, but . . . such music! He rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t believe that these sounds were coming from his friend’s fingers and mouth.

The vineyard of the Lord Almighty

is the house of Israel,

and the men of Judah

are the garden of his delight.

And he looked for justice,

but saw bloodshed;

for righteousness,

but heard cries of distress.

The song ended as abruptly as it had begun. Shub let his right hand drop to his side. His chin fell onto his chest, and he sat there for a moment, eyes closed. Stealthily, quietly, Ezra approached and laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Wedding!” said Ezra with a loud laugh.

Shub started violently and opened his eyes. Then, recognizing Ezra, he relaxed and smiled. “Actually,” he said, “I’d say it’s more funeral-like.”

“But it’s a love song —right?”

“Yes. About a lost love. It’s a very sad song, really.”

“Where’d you learn it? Is it yours?”

“Oh no!” said Shub with a little self-deprecating laugh. “My father wrote it.”

Your father? thought Ezra. He pictured the towering, daunting figure of Isaiah, the stern face framed in curling side locks and a flowing, gray-streaked beard. That stuffy old goat writes songs like that?

“Well,” Ezra said, straightening his headband and clearing his throat, “it was pretty good. Not bad at all, really.”

“Thanks,” said Shub, his cheeks coloring slightly.

“Yeah. But that’s not why I came.”

“Why, then?”

“Shub, your father knows about these things. Where do we go to find a . . . Molech festival?”

“Molech? Are you crazy?”

“No. This is important, Shub! I want you and Hezekiah and my father —especially my father —to see. We went to the high place last night, and nothing bad happened. We can go to the altar of Molech too. That’ll really show ’em!”

“But Ezra, do you know what happens there?”

Ezra laughed. “Oh, sure. My father tried to scare me with all those stories. Now, do you know how to get there?”

“Well,” Shub answered slowly, leaning his cheek against the curve of his harp and caressing the strings, “I’ve heard that it’s outside the city. In the Hinnom Valley. South . . . through the Potsherd Gate, on a little rise of hilly ground under a big terebinth tree.”

“Good. You get Hezekiah and meet me right here after dark. Bring your kinnor and be ready for a really good time!”

“But Ezra, I —”

“Listen, Shub. Are you my friend or not?”

“Of course I am.”

“And are you as sick as I am of all this Remnant stuff —this business of keeping up our fathers’ reputations at the expense of our own lives?”

“Well, sure. You know I am.”

“All right, then. Bring Hezekiah. You’ll see. They’ll all see! Nothing bad will happen. And then they won’t be able to say another word about it. Ever.”