"And they prayed unto the Lord, in fear of him, but what did they do?"
"They threw Jonah into the sea!"
Joseph grew grave, and narrowed his eyes.
"And the men feared the Lord and they sacrificed to him, and down in the depths of the sea, the Lord had made a great fish to - "
"Swallow up Jonah!" we cried.
"And he was three days and three nights in the belly of the whale!"
We grew quiet. And all together, as Joseph led us, we repeated Jonah's prayer to the Lord to save him, as we all knew it, in our tongue, as well as we knew it in Greek, and even the men were saying it with us and the women,
"...I went down deep to the very bottoms of the mountains; the earth like a prison enclosed me. Yet you have brought up my life from corruption. O Lord my God."
I closed my eyes as we said it,
"When my soul was weak I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, into your holy Temple..."
I thought of the Temple. I thought not of the crowds inside it and the man dying on the spear, but of the great mass of shining limestone in the sun, with all its gold, and the songs of the faithful rising as if they were waves lapping as I'd seen the waves of the sea lapping over over and over as our ship drifted at anchor, waves without end...
I was so deep in my thoughts, so deep in remembering the water lapping at the boat, and remembering the singing rising and falling, that when I looked up they had all gone on with the tale.
Jonah did now as the Lord commanded him. He went to "that great city of Nineveh," and he cried out: "Forty days and the city of Nineveh shall be destroyed!"
"All the people believed in the Lord!" said Joseph, raising his eyebrows. "They fasted, they put on sackcloth from the greatest among them to the least. Even the King stood up from his throne and covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in ashes!"
He put out his hands as if to say: Behold.
"The King!" he repeated and we nodded. "And a proclamation went out that no one, not man nor beast, herd or flock, must even taste a morsel, or drink a drop of water. And all of them, man and beast, were to be covered in sackcloth, and cry out to the Lord."
He stopped. He drew himself up. "Who can know if the Lord will turn and repent of his anger?"
He opened his hands for us to answer:
"And the Lord did repent of his anger," we said all together, "and Nineveh found grace with the Lord!"
Joseph waited, then he asked:
"But who was unhappy? Who was angry? Who stomped out of the city gates in a fit of temper!"
"Jonah!" we cried.
" 'Was this not the very thing I knew would happen?' " cried Jonah. " 'When I was in my own country! Was this not why I ran away on a ship to Tarshish?' "
As we laughed, Joseph held up his finger as he always did for patience, and softly he went on in the voice of the Prophet. " 'I knew that you were a gracious God, merciful, and slow to anger, of great kindness, and repenting of anger, did I not?' "
We all nodded.
" 'Now!' " Joseph went on as Jonah drawing himself up with great pride, " 'take my life, take it from me!' " He threw up his hands. " 'For it's better that I die than to live!' "
Laughter all around.
"Right by the gates of Nineveh, Jonah sat down. He was so tired and so angry that he sat right there. And made himself a booth with what he could and sat under it in the shade, just thinking, what may happen, what may happen yet...
"And the Lord had a design. The Lord made a great vine to grow up out of the ground and over Jonah so that it sheltered him as he sat there with his lip jutting out, and the shade of that vine made him very content.
"And so the night passed and the Prophet slept under that vine ...and who knows? Perhaps the desert winds weren't too cold under that vine. What do you think?
"But before the morning came, the Lord made a worm, yes, an evil worm that ate the vine and the vine withered away."
He paused. He lifted his finger. "And the sun rose, and the Lord did make a strong wind, yes, we know it, a strong wind to blow against Jonah, and the sun beat down on his head.
"He fainted!" Joseph slapped his legs and nodded. "The Prophet fainted in the heat and the wind. And what did he say?"
We laughed but we waited for Joseph to throw up his hands and cry out in the voice of Jonah, "I want to die, Lord. It is better for me to die than to live!"
We all laughed easily, and Joseph waited for a moment and then he grew solemn yet smiling still and he spoke in the gentle voice of the Lord. " 'Do you do well to be so angry over the death of a vine?'
" 'Yes, Lord, I do well to be angry, even unto death!'
"Then the Lord said, 'So you had pity on a vine, did you, a vine which you did not plant, a vine which you did not labor over, a vine which came up in a night and was gone in a night. And should I not spare Nineveh, that great city, sixty thousand people, and cattle without number, and all those people who don't even know their left hand from their right!' "
We all smiled and we all nodded, and we all felt it as we always did, and the laughter warmed us as it always did.
After that, Cleopas read a little to us from The Book of Samuel in the story of David of which we never tired.
Some time late while the men were talking, disputing about the Law and about the Prophets, going back and forth over points I couldn't follow, I went to sleep. We all slept there in our clothes by the lamp as the lamp burned on.
When morning came it was still the Sabbath and would be until sundown.
And after everyone had eaten of the bread prepared before by hand, Old Sarah spoke up.
She was pushed back against the wall on a nest of pillows, and we hadn't heard a word from her all night.
Now she said,
"Is there no synagogue in this town now? Has it burned to the ground without my knowing it?"
No one spoke.
"Ah, so it's fallen down, has it?" she said.
No one spoke. I had not seen a synagogue. Yes, there was a synagogue but I didn't know where it was.
"Answer me, my nephew!" Old Sarah said. "Or have I lost my wits as well as my patience?"
"It's there," said Joseph.
"Then take these children to it," she said. "And I will go as well."
Joseph said nothing.
I had never heard a woman speak this way to a man before, but this was a woman with a great many gray hairs. This was Old Sarah.
Joseph looked at her. She looked at Joseph. She lifted her chin.
Joseph stood up and gestured for us to do the same.