The Book of Longings(27)

Had Nathaniel just put forth a threat to end the betrothal? Oh, Judas, how clever you are. Of course, Antipas would not tolerate Father’s son waging these attacks. It would drive a wedge between them, making it impossible for Father to hold up his end of the bargain!

“Judas is no son to me,” Father said. “He’s not of my flesh, but adopted from my wife’s family. From this day, he is anathema to me. He is a stranger. If I must, I will declare it before Antipas himself.”

I couldn’t bring myself to look at Mother.

“I will see him punished,” he went on. “There are rumors that Simon and his men hide in Arbel Gorge. I will dispatch soldiers to scavenge every cleft and turn over every rock.”

Standing beside Nathaniel, the worker who’d brought in the branch shifted nervously. Let him be the spy Judas spoke of. Let him warn my brother.

Father had done a good job of pacifying Nathaniel. Too good, I feared.

After he departed, Father withdrew to his study and Mother dragged me into her room and closed the door. “Why would Judas commit this atrocious act?” she cried. “Why would he call out his name? Didn’t he know doing so would antagonize Antipas against your father? Did he mean to punish Matthias at the risk of his own life?”

I said nothing, hoping she would spew her shock and alarm and be done with it.

“Have you spoken to Judas? Did you put him up to this?”

“No,” I said, too quickly. I had an outstanding talent for committing deceit, but none for hiding it.

She slapped me hard across my cheek. “Matthias should never have let you leave the house. There will be no more walking the hillsides with Lavi. You will remain at home until the betrothal ceremony.”

“If there’s a ceremony,” I said. And she lifted her hand and struck my other cheek.





xxii.


That evening, as the day spilled the last of its pale lights over the valley, Yaltha and I took once more to the roof. On my cheeks were the rouged imprints of my mother’s hand. Yaltha brushed her fingertip over them. She said, “Did Judas tell you he intended to burn Nathaniel’s grove? Did you know?”

“He swore to do his part to end my betrothal, but I didn’t think he would go so far as this.” I lowered my voice. “I’m glad he did.”

The first chill of the season had arrived. Her shoulders were hunched up like bird wings. She drew her scarf around them. “Tell me, how does destroying Nathaniel’s dates help your cause?”

When I described the bargain between Father and Nathaniel, she said, “I see. By causing your father to lose favor with Antipas, Judas wagers Nathaniel will end the agreement. Yes, it’s cunning.”

For the first time, I tasted hope on the back of my tongue. Then I swallowed and it was gone. I thought of the prayer in my bowl, of my face inside the tiny sun. I’d cleaved to them as things that might somehow save me and yet doubts repeatedly consumed them.

Frantic for reassurance, I told her about the vision I’d had of my face. “Do you believe it’s a sign I’ll avoid this marriage and realize my hopes?” I waited. The moon shone bright. The rooftop, the sky, and the houses nestled tightly across the city seemed made of glass.

“How can we know the ways of God?” she answered. Her skepticism showed not only in the evasiveness of her words, but in the way her mouth twitched with words she didn’t say.

I persisted. “But a vision such as this can’t mean I’m fated to disappear into Nathaniel’s house to live out my days in misery. It must be a promise of some kind.”

She turned the force of her eyes on me. I watched them gather into small brown cruxes. “Your vision means what you want it to mean. It will mean what you make it to mean.”

I stared at her, baffled, perturbed. “Why would God send me a vision if it has no meaning other than what I give to it?”

“What if the point of his sending it is to make you search yourself for the answer?”

Such uncertainty, such unpredictability. “But . . . Aunt.” It was all my lips could manage.

Could we know the ways of God or not? Did he possess an intention for us, his people, as our religion believed, or was it up to us to invent meaning for ourselves? Perhaps nothing was as I’d thought.

Overhead, the black magnitude, the shining, breakable world. Yaltha had made a crack in my certainty about God and his workings. I felt it give way and a crevasse open.





xxiii.


When there were two ivory chips remaining on my reckoning cloth, Lavi and I slipped from the house, despite Mother’s decree, and made our way to the cave where I’d buried my possessions. The sky was in a sunken mood—grayed and heavy and wind-struck. Lavi had pled with me not to venture out. But knowing he put large measure in dreams and omens, I’d told him I’d dreamed a hyena dug up my belongings and I was compelled to go to the cave and reassure myself they were still safely concealed. It was a shameless fabrication. It was true I worried about my writings and my bowl, but that was not the reason for my lie. I hoped to find Jesus.

Arriving at the same hour that I’d found him praying before, I wandered about the little clearing, peering over the outcrops of rock, then searching the cave. There was no trace of him.

After making a display of inspecting my burial spot, I stood with Lavi just inside the cave, studying the heavens. The sun had tunneled so far into the clouds, the world had blackened.