The Book of Longings(50)

Across the compound, Judith stepped from her doorway and wrinkled her nose. “Have you burned the bread again, Ana?” She glanced sideways at Jesus.

“How do you know it was I who did so and not my motherin-law?” I asked.

“I know the same way I know it was your goat who ate my cloth and not the chickens.” Of course, she would bring that up. I’d let Delilah roam free in the compound and she’d eaten Judith’s precious cloth. You would think I’d put the cloth on a plate and fed it to her.

In a perfectly timed moment, Delilah emitted a forlorn bleat, and Jesus broke into laughter. “She overheard you, Judith, and wishes to be forgiven.”

Judith huffed away, her baby, Sarah, tied onto her back. The child had been born seven months ago and already Judith was pregnant again. I felt a wave of pity for her.

Mary was removing the small loaves from the oven, tossing them into a basket. “I’ll pack these for your journey,” she said to Jesus.

He would leave tomorrow as a journeyman, traveling from village to village as a stonemason and woodworker. The theater in Sepphoris was finished and jobs there had disappeared as Herod Antipas erected a new capital to the north, named Tiberias for the Roman emperor. Jesus could’ve found employment there, of course, but Antipas had stupidly, wantonly built the city atop a cemetery, and only those who cared little for the purity laws would work there. My husband was an outspoken critic of the purity laws, probably too outspoken for his own good, but I think he’d been relieved to have a reason not to be part of the tetrarch’s ambitions.

I slid my arm about Jesus’s waist as if to tether him. “Not only will Delilah and I remain unforgiven, but my husband is leaving with all our bread,” I said, making an effort to disguise my sadness. “I wish you didn’t have to go.”

“If I had my way, I would stay, but there’s little work for me in Nazareth, you know that.”

“Don’t people in Nazareth need plows and yokes and roof beams?”

“Jobs here will go more readily to James and Simon than to me. I’ll try not to remain away too long. I’ll go first to Japha and if I find no work there, I’ll go on to Exaloth and Dabira.”

Japha. It was the village Tabitha had been banished to. A year and a half had passed since I’d seen her, but she was not gone from my thoughts. I’d told Jesus about her, holding nothing back. I’d even sung some of her songs for him.

“When you’re in Japha, would you seek word of Tabitha for me?” I asked.

He hesitated only slightly. “I’ll inquire about her, Ana, but the news, if there is any, may not be what you hope to hear.”

I scarcely heard him. Her song about the blind girls was playing unbidden in my head.



* * *



? ? ?

IN THE AFTERNOON I found Jesus mixing mud-brick mortar to repair the crumbling stone in the compound wall, mud to his elbows, and I couldn’t bear to keep my secret from him any longer. I handed him a cup of water. I said, “Do you remember when you told me some men possessed an inner knowledge that caused them to leave their families and go out as prophets and preachers?”

He looked at me bemused, squinting through the sunlight.

“You thought that you yourself might even be among them,” I continued. “Well, I, too, have my own knowing inside . . . that I’m not meant for motherhood, but for something else.”

Such an impossible thing to explain.

“You’re talking about the prayer in your bowl. The stories you’ve written.”

“Yes.” I took his hands in mine, even though they were caked. “What if my words could, like men’s, prophesy or preach? Would that not be worth the sacrifice?”

I was so young, sixteen then, and exorbitantly hopeful. I still believed I would not have long to wait. Some miracle would intervene. The sky would part. God would rain down papyri.

I studied his face. I saw regret, uncertainty. Not to have children was considered a great misfortune, a thing worse than death. I thought suddenly of the law that permitted a man to divorce his childless wife after ten years, but unlike my mother, I didn’t fear that possibility. Jesus would never countenance such a law. My fear lay in disappointing him.

“But do you need to make this sacrifice now?” he said. “There’s time. Your writing will be there for you one day.”

I understood more clearly—when he said one day, he meant one faraway day.

“I do not want children,” I whispered.

This was my deeper secret, but I’d never spoken it aloud. Good women had babies. Good women wanted babies. It was pressed upon every girl precisely what good women did and did not do. We lugged those dictates around like temple stones. A good woman was modest. She was quiet. She covered her head when she went out. She didn’t speak with men. She tended her domestic tasks. She obeyed and served her husband. She was faithful to him. Above all, she gave him children. Better yet, sons.

I waited for Jesus to respond, but he dipped his trowel in the mortar and smoothed it over the stones. Had he ever prodded me to be a good woman? Not once.

I waited several moments and when he didn’t speak, I turned to leave.

“Do you wish, then, to bed apart?” he asked.

“No, oh no. But I do wish to use the midwife’s herbs. I . . . already take them.”