He went on.
"I believed her," he said. "I am her brother, am I not? She was thirteen, betrothed to Joseph, and I tell you, she was never out of the sight of us outside of our house, never could there have been any chance of anyone being with her, you know what I'm saying to you, I mean a man. There was no chance, and I am her brother. Remember, I told you. I believed her." He lay back a little on the clothes bundled behind him. "A virgin child, a child in the service of the Temple of Jerusalem, to weave the great veil, with the other chosen ones, and then home under our eyes."
He shivered. He looked at her. His eyes stayed on her. She turned away, and then moved away. But not very far. She stayed there with her back to us, close to our cousin Elizabeth.
Elizabeth was watching Cleopas, and watching me. I didn't know whether she heard him or not.
I didn't move. I looked down at Cleopas. His chest rose and fell with each rattling breath and again he shivered.
My mind was working, collecting every bit of knowledge I had ever learned that could help me make sense of what he had said. It was the mind of a child who had grown up sleeping in a room with men and women in that same room and in other rooms open to it, and sleeping in the open courtyard with the men and women in the heat of summer, and living always close with them, and hearing and seeing many things. My mind was working and working. But I couldn't make sense of all he'd said.
"You remember, what I said to you, that I believed!" he said.
"But you're not really sure, are you?" I whispered.
His eyes opened wide and a new expression came over him, as if he was waking from his fever.
"And Joseph isn't either, is he?" I asked in the same whisper. "And that is why he never lies beside her."
My words had come ahead of my thoughts. I was as surprised as he was by what I'd said. I felt chilled all over. Prickly all over. But I didn't try to change what I'd said.
He rose up on his elbow, and his face was close to mine.
"Turn it around," he said. He struggled for breath. "He never touches her because he does believe. Don't you see? How could he touch her after such a thing?" He smiled, and then he laughed in that low laugh of his, but no one else heard it. "And you?" he went on. "Must you grow up before you fulfill the prophesies? Yes, you must. And must you be a child first before you are a man? Yes. How else?" His eyes changed as if he stopped seeing things in front of him. Again he struggled for breath. "So it was with King David. Anointed, and then sent back to the flocks, a shepherd boy, wasn't it? Until such time as Saul sent for him. Until such time as the Lord God sent for him! Don't you see, that's what confounds them all! That you must grow up like any other child! And half the time they don't know what to do with you! And yes, I am sure! And have always been sure!"
He fell back again, tired, unable to go on, but his eyes never left me. He smiled and I heard his laughter.
"Why do you laugh?" I asked.
He shrugged. "I am still amused," he answered. "Yes, amused. Did I see an angel? No, I did not. Maybe if I had, I wouldn't laugh, but then maybe again I would laugh all the more. My laughter is the way I speak, don't you think? Remember that. Ah, listen to them down in the streets. Over there, over here. They want justice. Vengeance. Did you hear all that? Herod did this. Herod did that. They've stoned Archelaus's soldiers! What does it matter to me now? I would like to breathe without it hurting me for one quarter of an hour!"
His hand came up, groping for me. He touched the back of my head, and I bent down and kissed his wet cheek.
Make this pain go away.
He drew in his breath, and then he appeared to drift and to sleep, and his chest began to rise and fall slowly and easily. I placed my hand on his chest and felt his heart. Strength for this little while. What harm is there in it?
When I moved away, I wanted to go to the edge of the roof. I wanted to cry. What had I done? Maybe nothing. But I didn't think it was nothing. And the things he'd said to me - what did they mean? How was I to understand these things?
I wanted the answers to questions, yes, but these words only made more questions, and my head hurt. I was afraid.
I sat down and leaned against the low wall. I could barely see over it now. With all the families huddled so near, and so many backs to me and so much chatter and soft singing to children, I thought I was hidden.
It was dark now and there was torchlight all over the city, and loud happy cries, and plenty of music. Cooking fires still, or maybe fires for warmth as it was a little colder. I was a little colder. I wanted to see what was going on below. Then I didn't. I didn't care.
An angel had come to my mother, an angel. I was not Joseph's son.
My aunt Mary caught me by surprise. She pulled me hard around to look at her. She was crouching over me. Her face was full of glittering tears, and her voice was thick:
"Can you cure him!" she asked.
I was so surprised I didn't know what to say to her.
My mother came down upon us and tried to pull her away. They stood over me, their robes brushing my face. Words were whispered. Angry words.
"You can't ask this of him!" my mother whispered. "He's a little child and you know it!"
Aunt Mary sobbed.
What could I say to my aunt Mary? "I don't know!" I said. "I don't know!" I said again.
Now I did cry. I drew my knees up and I crouched even closer to the wall. I wiped at my tears.
They went away.
The families close to us were settled down, the women having gotten the little ones to sleep. Down below a man played the pipe and another man sang. The sound was clear for a moment, and then gone in the hush.
I couldn't see the stars for the mist. But the sight of all the torches of the city, tumbling uphill and downhill, and above all, the Temple rising like a mountain with its great fluttering torches drove every other thought from my mind.
A good feeling came over me, that in the Temple I would pray to understand all these words - not only what my uncle had said to me, but all the other things I had heard.
My mother came back.
There was just room near the wall by me for my mother to kneel down and then to sink back on her heels.
The torchlight hit her face as she looked towards the Temple.
"Listen to me," she said.
"I am," I answered. I answered in Greek without thinking.
"What I have to say to you should have waited," she said. She spoke Greek as well.
With the noise in the streets, with the low nighttime talk on the roof, I could still hear her.
"But it can't wait now," she said. "My brother has seen to that. Would that he could suffer in silence. But it's never been his way to do anything in silence. So I say it. And you listen. Don't ask questions of me. Do as Joseph told you in that regard. But listen to what I say."