"I am," I said again.
"You're not the child of an angel," she said.
I nodded.
She turned towards me. The torchlight was in her eyes.
I said nothing.
"The angel said to me - that the power of the Lord would come over me," she said. "And so the shadow of the Lord came over me - I felt it - and then in time came the stirring of life inside me, and it was you."
I said nothing.
She looked down.
The noise of the city was gone. The torchlight made her look beautiful to me. Beautiful perhaps as Sarah looked to Pharaoh, beautiful as Rachel to Jacob. My mother was beautiful. Modest, but beautiful, no matter how many veils she wore to hide it, no matter how she bowed her head or blushed.
I wanted to be in her lap, in her arms, but I didn't move. It wasn't right to move or say a word.
"And so it happened," she said, looking up again. "I have never been with a man, not then, not now, nor will I ever. I am consecrated to the Lord."
I nodded.
"You can't understand this ...can you?" she asked. "You can't follow what I'm trying to tell you."
"I do follow," I said. "I do see." Joseph wasn't my father, yes, I knew. I had never called Joseph Father. Yes, he was my father according to the Law, and married to my mother, but he wasn't my father. And she was so like a girl always, and the other women like her older sisters, I knew, yes, I knew. "Anything is possible with the Lord," I said. "The Lord made Adam from the dust. Adam didn't even have a mother. The Lord can make a child with no father." I shrugged.
She shook her head. She wasn't like a girl now, but not like a woman either. She was soft and almost sad. When she spoke again, she didn't sound like herself.
"No matter what anyone ever says to you in Nazareth," she said, "remember what's been said tonight."
"People will say things ...?"
She closed her eyes.
"This is why you didn't want to go back there ...to Nazareth?" I asked.
She gave a deep breath. She put her hand over her mouth. She was amazed. She took a deep breath, and she was gentle:
"You haven't understood what I've said to you!" she whispered. She was hurt. I thought she might cry.
"No, Mamma, I do see, I understand," I said at once. I didn't want her to be hurt. "The Lord can do anything."
She was disappointed, but then she looked at me and for my sake, she smiled.
"Mamma," I said. I reached out for her.
My head was pounding with thoughts. The sparrows, Eleazer dead in the street and rising living from the mat, too many other things, things slipping away in my mind, and my mind too full. And all Cleopas' words and what were they? You must grow up like any other child or was it Little David back to the flock until they called him? Don't let her be sad.
"I see. I know," I said to her. I smiled a little smile I never gave to anyone but to her if it was giving. More a little sign than a giving. She had her smile for me. A little thing.
And now, she shook off everything that had gone before, and she reached out for me.
I went up on my knees, and she did too, and she held me tight to her.
"It's enough for now," she said. "It's enough for you to have my word," she whispered in my ear.
After a while, I got up with her and we went back to the family.
I lay down on my bed of bundles, and she covered me, and under the stars, with the city singing, and Cleopas singing, I went sound asleep.
After all, it was the farthest place to which I could go.
Chapter 5
In the morning, we found the streets almost too crowded for us to move, but move we did, all of us, even the babies in the arms of the mothers, to the Temple.
Cleopas was rested, and a little better, though very weak still and needing to be helped along the way.
I rode on Joseph's shoulders, and Little Salome on Uncle Alphaeus, and we managed to hold hands, and to see wonderfully as the whole people carried us round the crooked lanes and under archways, until we came to the great open space before the huge stairs and the rising golden walls of the Temple.
There we parted, the women and babies away from the men, moving slowly into the ritual baths, to bathe thoroughly before we would enter the Temple walls.
Now this was not the sprinkling and cleansing for Passover. That had to be done in three stages, starting with the first sprinkling of the men within the Temple today.
This was an overall cleansing that we would do because of our long journey from Egypt, and one that would prepare us to enter into the precincts of the Temple itself. And it was one which our families wanted, and the baths were there, and so we did it though it was not required in the Law.
It took us a long time. The water was cold, and we were glad when we had our clothes on again and we could go back out into the light and rejoin the women, and Little Salome and I could see each other and link hands again.
It seemed the crowds were growing, though how even more people could fit into this space I didn't know. People were chanting the Psalms in Hebrew. And some were praying with their eyes half closed. And others were merely talking to each other. And children were crying naturally as they always will do.
Once more Joseph put me on his shoulders. And, nearly blinded by the light flashing off the Temple walls, we started the climb up the stairs.
Now as we went up step by step everyone was as overcome by the size of the Temple as I was, and the whole crowd seemed to be praying out loud even if the words they were saying were not prayers.
It seemed impossible that men could have built walls of this height, let alone decorated them with marble of such pure whiteness, and the voices were echoing off the walls, but as we reached the top and pressed slowly to get through the gates, I could see there were soldiers in the square below and some of them were on horseback.
They weren't Roman soldiers; I didn't know what they were. But the crowd didn't like them. I could see even at this great distance that people were raising fists to them, and the horses were dancing as horses do and I thought I saw stones flying through the air.
I could hardly bear the slow pace of waiting. I think I wanted Joseph to push harder for us to get through the gate. He gave way so easily. And we did all have to keep together, and that included now Zebedee and his people, and also Elizabeth and Little John, and cousins whose names I didn't remember.
At last we entered the gates, and to my surprise found ourselves in a huge tunnel. I could barely see the beautiful decorations all around us. The prayers of the people echoed off the roof and the walls. I joined in the prayers, but mostly I just looked around myself, and felt the breath taken out of me again, just as surely as when Eleazer had kicked me hard and I couldn't breathe.