The water had been cold, but everyone had laughed and had fun, and the clean clothes smelled good. They even smelled like Egypt.
"Why can't we go on to Nazareth?" I asked. "It's early in the day."
"The men want to rest," said my mother. "And it looks like rain again. If it rains we'll go into the old buildings. If not, we stay here."
The men were not themselves. I hadn't thought much about it until now. But they had been quiet all day.
With all the troubles, we changed every day. And we had to make do with what we found. But this time the men were different. Even Cleopas was quiet. He sat with his back to the bark of a tree, looking out over the hills, and he didn't seem to see the people passing down on the road, going on to Galilee. But when I looked to Joseph as I always did at such times, he was steady. He had taken out a little book to read, a bound book with cut pages, and he was whispering to himself. The letters in the book were Greek.
"What is it?" I asked him.
"Samuel," he answered. "About David," he said.
I listened as he read. David had been fighting, and he wanted a drink of water from the well of his enemies, and when the water was brought to him, David couldn't drink it, because men had put themselves in great danger to get the water. Men might have died in the getting of it for David.
Joseph got up after he was finished, and told Cleopas to come with him.
The women and the children were all gathered around Bruria and Riba, and they talked on and on of the many things that had happened in the country.
Joseph and Cleopas, and Alphaeus, and his two sons, and James - they all asked for Bruria to come and talk to them.
They went off towards a grove of trees that were moving in the wind in a way I liked to watch.
Their voices were small but I could hear some of it.
"No, but you lost your farm. No, but you ...And everything that you owned..."
"I tell you, you have a right..."
"It's ransom."
Ransom.
And the woman with her hands up, shaking her head, left them. "I will not!" she called out.
They all came back and lay down, and became quiet again. Joseph was thinking. He was worried. Then he became steady.
People passed on the road without even seeing us. Horsemen passed.
And after the meal, when everyone slept, I thought about the man in the darkness, the drunken man.
I knew they'd killed him. But I didn't say so to myself. I just knew it. And I knew why they'd killed him. I knew what he meant to do to the woman. And I knew that the men had washed and put on new garments according to the Law, and they wouldn't be clean until sundown. That's why they didn't go on to Nazareth on this day. They wanted to be clean to go home.
But could they ever be clean of such a thing? How to wash away the blood of a man, and what do you do with the money he had, the money he stole, the money soaked in blood?
Chapter 12
At last we'd reached the top of the hill.
Only a great valley spread out in front of us, and what a sight of olive trees and blowing fields it was. It seemed a glad land.
But the great devil, the fire, was burning again, big and far away, and the smoke went up to Heaven, to the white clouds. My teeth chattered. The fear came up in me, and I pushed it back down.
"It's Sepphoris," my mother cried, and so did the other women. The men cried out the same. And our prayers went up, as we looked but didn't move.
"But where is Nazareth?" Little Salome cried. "Is it burning too?"
"No," said my mother. My mother bent down and she pointed.
"There is Nazareth," she said, and I followed her pointing to see a village laid out on a hill. White houses, some on top of others, and the trees very thick and to the right and the left other soft slopes and gentle valleys, and far beyond other villages scarcely visible under the brightness of the sky. Beyond was the great fire.
"Well, what do we do?" asked Cleopas. "We hide in the hills because Sepphoris is gone up, or we go home? I say we go home!"
"Don't be so hasty," said Joseph. "Perhaps we should remain here. I don't know."
"What, from you?" asked his brother Alphaeus. "I thought you knew the Lord would take care of us, and now we're less than an hour from home. If those thieves come riding this way, I'd rather be hiding under the house in Nazareth than up in these hills."
"We have tunnels?" I asked quickly, not meaning to interrupt the men.
"Yes, we have tunnels. Everyone in Nazareth has tunnels. We all have them. They're old and need to be repaired but they are there. And these murdering bandits are everywhere we go."
"It's Judas bar Ezekias," said Uncle Alphaeus. "He's probably finished with Sepphoris and on the move."
Bruria began to cry for her son, and Riba with her. And my mother to say hopeful things.
Joseph thought this over and then he said:
"Yes, the Lord will take care of us, you're right. And we'll go. I don't see anything bad happening in Nazareth, and nothing between here and there."
We followed the road down into the soft valley, soon passing between groves of fruit trees and even bigger stands of olive trees, and past the best fields I'd ever seen. We walked slowly as ever and we children were not allowed to run ahead.
I was so eager to see Nazareth and so filled with happiness at the land around us that I wanted to sing, but no one was singing. I sang in my heart. "Praise the Lord, who covered the Heavens with clouds, who prepared the rain for the Earth, who made the grass to grow upon the mountains."
The road was rocky and uneven, but the wind was gentle. I saw trees full of flowers, and little towers way back away on the small rises, but there was no one in the fields.
There was no one anywhere.
And there were no sheep grazing, and no cattle.
Joseph said for us to walk faster, and we did our best to hurry, but it wasn't easy with my aunt Mary, who was now sick, as though the woes had passed from Cleopas to her. We pulled at the donkeys, and took turns carrying Little Symeon, who fussed and cried for his mother, no matter what we did.
Finally we were climbing the slope to Nazareth! I begged to run ahead, and so did James in the same voice, but Joseph said no.
In Nazareth, we found an empty town.
One great lane leading uphill with little lanes that went off one side and the other, and white houses, some with two and three stories, and many with open courtyards, and all lying quiet and empty as if no one lived there at all.
"Let's hurry," said Joseph, and his face was dark.
"But what's happening up there to make everyone hide like this!" Cleopas said in a low voice.