Cleopas began to whisper in Hebrew. I could not make it out, what he said. The other men were whispering too.
The women were all talking in such low voices they might have been praying.
I prayed too.
I couldn't think of the poor girl, down there where the house was burnt. I prayed for her without thinking about her. And somehow I went to sleep.
Chapter 11
When i woke up, I saw the blue sky and the trees before I said anything.
Nazareth in this land - of trees and fields.
I stood up, said the morning prayers with my arms outstretched.
"Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is One,
"And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might."
I was happy.
Then I remembered the night.
They were just coming back from the woman's house, or so the women told me. The woman was with us, and here also came the maidservant, not dead, and with her proper veil and tunic and robe, who was crying and in the arms of Cleopas who brought her up the slope.
The woman cried out and ran to her.
The men had bundles of belongings from the house below. And a heifer also they brought up, a big slow-walking heifer with frightened eyes which they led with a rope.
They spoke Greek together, the maid and the woman, and hugged each other. When the woman talked to the other women, she spoke our tongue. The women crowded around these two newcomers and hugged them and comforted them and kissed them.
Bruria was the name of this woman, and the servant, Riba, was like a daughter to Bruria. And Bruria was offering prayers of thanks that Riba had been spared.
Finally we joined the crowd of people on the road and headed towards Nazareth.
I learned from the talk that the bandits had taken everything that Bruria had - fine silks and plate, grain, wineskins, and whatever they could carry, and burnt out the whole place. Not even the olive groves were left unburnt. But they hadn't found what was hidden in the tunnel under the house. So Bruria had her gold now with her, all that had been left to her by her husband. And Riba had hidden in the tunnel, which the bandits didn't find.
As we walked on towards Nazareth, I learned they would now be with us, these two.
There was more news on the road, too.
Not only Jericho had been burnt but another palace of Herod, the palace at Amathace. And the Romans could not stop the Arabians from their rampaging. They were burning village after village.
But the men of last night's attack had been common drunkards, said Bruria, and so did Riba, who had barely made it to the tunnel alive, and both women were crying as we walked on.
A tunnel under a house. I had never seen a tunnel under a house.
"There is no King, there is no peace," said Bruria, who was the daughter of Hezekiah, son of Caleb, and she told off all the names of her family going back, and the names of her husband's family.
Even the men listened to her. There were nods and murmurs at this name and that name. The men didn't look at her, or at the maidservant, but they walked close to the women, and they were quiet, and they listened.
"Judas bar Ezekias - he's the rebel," the woman said. "Old Herod had him in prison. But he didn't execute him, which he should have done. Now he's stirring up the young men. He's set up court in Sepphoris. He's raided the armory there. He rules from there, but the Romans are already on the march from Syria. I weep for Sepphoris. All those who don't want to die should flee from Sepphoris."
Now I knew the name of the city, Sepphoris. I knew that was where my mother had been born, that her father Joachim had been a scribe, and his wife, Anna, my grandmother, had been born there, too. They had come to Nazareth only when my mother had been betrothed to Joseph, who with his brothers lived in the house of Old Sarah and Old Justus, who were kindred of my mother and Joachim and Anna, as well as Joseph, too. Part of the house had been given over to Joachim and Anna and my mother, as it was a big house which had in it many rooms for families to live on one large courtyard, and it was there that they lived until they went to Bethlehem where I was born.
When I thought about it, it came clear to me that I didn't know parts of the story. I did know that Joseph and my mother had been married in Bethany, in the house of Elizabeth and Zechariah, and that house was near to Jerusalem. But Elizabeth and her son John didn't live there now.
No, they had gone into hiding, as my cousin Elizabeth had told us.
And when I thought of this, all the questions came back to me.
But I was too eager to see Nazareth to think of all this just now. It hurt too much to think of all this. And the land around me was so beautiful. I knew that word from the Psalms and when I looked at this land I knew what the word meant.
Old Sarah and Old Justus were waiting in Nazareth. We'd written to them. We'd told them we were coming home. Old Sarah was the aunt of my grandmother Anna. And the aunt of one of Joseph's people, but I couldn't trace it all back.
The land was greener and greener as we moved on. And when there came a light rain we didn't even stop.
We'd listened to her letters many times, and she thought to name all of the children when she wrote to us, and she knew by now we were coming home.
The men were not talking much, but Bruria and Riba talked on and on, and the men listened, or so I thought. Finally Bruria said she would confess her worst sorrow. She couldn't keep it inside. Bruria's son had run off to join the rebels in Sepphoris! His name was Caleb, and Caleb might as well be dead, said Bruria. She had no hope of seeing him again.
The men said nothing. They only nodded.
"Who would bother with Nazareth?" Cleopas said under his breath.
"It will be good," said Joseph. "I know it."
And the sun moved high in the sky. And the clouds were clean and like the sails of ships, and there were women in the fields.
We'd been walking up and up into the hills for a long time when we came to a small village that was broken down and empty. The grass was high. The roofs had fallen in. People had gone from here a long time ago. Nothing was burnt. Most of the people on the road walked on.
But all our kindred stopped here.
Cleopas and Joseph led us past the broken buildings.
We found a small spring coming out of the rock, and water filling a big basin surrounded by heavy, leafy trees. It was a beautiful thing to behold.
We made a camp, and my mother said we'd stay the night and go on to Nazareth in the morning.
The men went alone to the spring to bathe, and the women brought fresh robes for them. We waited. Then the women took all of us little ones, and we bathed and dressed the same. The women had a tunic and robe, each, for Bruria and Riba.