The Book of Longings(66)

I said, “If Father is writing to his brother about such things as this . . . is he unwell?”

“According to Lavi, he suffers with a cough and sometimes sleeps sitting up in order to breathe. He no longer travels, but otherwise carries out his duties.”

Father’s face, too, was nearly lost to me.



* * *



? ? ?

JESUS MET US, holding the tool for rolling the roof thatch. He’d been fortifying the surface before the fall rains. I wiped a splotch of mud from his chin.

“Meet my brother, Judas,” I said. “He came to tell me my mother has died.”

Jesus placed his arm about my shoulders and gave me a tender look. “I’m sorry, Ana.”

“I can find no tears,” I told him.

The three of us sat on mats in the courtyard and spoke not of Judas’s zealotry, but of common things—Jesus’s work on the synagogue in Magdala, the childhood Judas and I had shared—and finally of Mother. She’d cut her hand on a powder box, leaving a wound that filled with poison. It was left to Shipra to see her buried. Even then, I sat dry-eyed.

When the light began to leach away, Jesus led Judas to the ladder that went to the roof. I followed, but Jesus said quietly, “Would you leave us to talk awhile?”

“Why shouldn’t I come up, too?”

“Don’t be offended, Little Thunder. We only want to speak as one man to another.”

His stomach rumbled, and he laughed. “Perhaps you could hurry my mother and Salome to prepare some food.”

He’d meant no slight, but I felt slighted nonetheless. He’d banished me. I couldn’t recall it ever happening before.

Not long before this, four strangers smelling of fish had accompanied Jesus home and we women had had to serve them supper, too. I’d not asked to join in the men’s conversation, but I’d watched as they huddled beneath the olive tree and spoke intently until dark. When they departed, I asked Jesus, “Who were those men?”

“Friends,” he said. “Fishermen from Capernaum. It was their boat I was on when you gave birth to Susanna. They’re on their way to barter in Sepphoris.”

“What were you talking about for so long? Surely not fish.”

“We spoke of God and his kingdom,” he replied.

That same night, Mary, who must have overheard them while serving their supper, muttered to me and Salome, “These days my son speaks of nothing but God’s kingdom.”

“They talk about him in the village,” Salome added. “They say he speaks with tax collectors and lepers.” She looked at me and lowered her eyes. “And harlots.”

I said, “He believes they have a place in God’s kingdom, that’s all.”

“It’s said he confronted Menachem,” she said. “The one who came to our gate. Jesus admonished him for condemning the poor who carry wood on the Sabbath. He proclaimed his heart to be a sepulchre!”

Mary set down a bowl of wine-soaked bread with a thwack on the oven stone. “You must speak to him, Ana. I fear he will find trouble.”

I feared he would not just find trouble, but make trouble. Associating with harlots, lepers, and tax collectors would stir up more rejection, but so what? I wasn’t bothered that he befriended them. No, it was this new habit he had of speaking out against the authorities that worried me.

Now, as I watched Jesus and Judas climb the rungs, the same ominous feeling I’d had that night returned to me. I slipped to the side of the house, where I was unlikely to be seen, and there beneath the stick canopy over the workshop, I waited for their conversation to dribble down to me. His stomach would have to rumble awhile longer.

Judas was speaking of his Zealot exploits. “Two weeks ago in Caesarea we tore down the Roman emblems and defaced a statue of the emperor that stands outside their temple to Apollo. We could find no way to desecrate the temple itself—it was heavily guarded—but we stirred up a mob that cast stones at the soldiers. We’re usually not so brazen. More often we look for small contingents of soldiers on the road, where they’re easily attacked. Or we rob the rich as they travel in the countryside. What we don’t need of their coins, we give to villagers to pay their taxes.”

Jesus’s back must’ve been turned to me, for his voice was faint. “I, too, believe the time has arrived to be rid of Rome, but God’s kingdom won’t come by the sword.”

“Until the Messiah comes, the sword is all we’ve got,” Judas argued. “My men and I will use our swords tomorrow to make off with a portion of grain and wine en route to Antipas’s warehouse in Tiberias. I have a worthy source at the palace there who has informed me . . .” The rest of his words faded.

Hoping to hear them better, I edged around the house and pressed myself into the shadows, where I listened to Judas recount the splendors of Tiberias—a vast palace on a hill decorated with graven images, a Roman stadium, a shining colonnade that ran from the Sea of Galilee all the way to the hillside. Then Judas said my name, causing me to stiffen to attention. “I’ve told Ana her father isn’t well. He will die soon, but he’s as treacherous as ever. I asked to speak to you without her presence because I’ve learned news that will disturb her. She might be compelled to . . . well, who knows how she’ll respond? My sister is impetuous and too fearless for her own good.” Judas chuckled. “But perhaps you’ve learned that for yourself.”