My mother was very pleased.
We had good wine with supper that night, and by the light of the lamps, Joseph read us one of the Greek stories we loved, from the scrolls we'd brought back from Alexandria, The Tale of Tobit.
Now everyone gathered round for this story, even the women, because we all enjoyed so much to hear of the angel coming to Tobias, the son of Tobit, and this angel, "in disguise," telling Tobias of cures he might work with the innards of the fish that tried to swallow his foot, and of how he must marry the young girl Sarah, daughter of Raguel, and of Tobias answering that wasn't it true that Sarah had had seven husbands already and each of them killed on the wedding night by a demon?
We roared with laughter as Joseph read this part in Tobias' innocent voice. And then Joseph became the angel Raphael again, "Now you listen to me and don't you worry about this demon!" On Joseph read in the voice of the angel, that Tobias would be wed to Sarah that very night and all he had to do was put the liver and heart of the dead fish on the fire in the wedding chamber and the smell would drive off the demon forever! "And who else do you think such a smell would drive off!" Cleopas asked. Even my mother was laughing.
Joseph went on as the helpful angel Raphael, his words in a rush. "Now before you get into your bed, stand and pray, asking that safety and mercy be granted you. Don't be afraid, the girl's set apart for you from before the beginning of the world, you'll save her, she'll go with you, I assume you'll have children and they will be brothers and sisters, and say no more to it." Again we were laughing so hard we could hardly keep from crying.
"That's the way it goes," said my aunt Esther, and all of them broke into laughing again looking at one another.
"Say no more to it!" cried my aunt Salome, and again they were all laughing as if they the mothers knew far more how funny it was even than we did.
"And an angel should know!" cried my aunt Esther.
They all went quiet. All the laughter stopped.
I saw they were looking at my mother and then looking away at each other.
My mother was looking off at nothing, and then she smiled. She laughed. She shook her head, and laughed, and they all broke into laughing again.
There were many funny parts in the story and we knew them all. From the stench of the fish, the demon fled, the angel bound him, Tobias loved Sarah, his father-in-law wouldn't let him go home he loved him so much, and the wedding feast went on for over fourteen days, and when he finally did go home, yes, he cured his father's blindness with the medicine of the fish who'd tried to swallow his foot, and another wedding feast went on for more days and everyone was happy. Then came the more serious part of the story, the long and beautiful prayers of Tobit, which we all knew in Greek and recited in Greek.
When we came to the end of the prayer, Joseph, who was leading us, spoke the words more slowly, as they had a meaning for us now that they hadn't had for us in Egypt.
" 'Jerusalem, our holy city, the Lord has scourged you for works of your hands, but He will have mercy on the children of the Righteous. Praise the Lord for He is Good, and bless the King of the ages, so that He will again pitch His tent in your midst...' "
We were sad thinking of the fighting going on. And as the prayer went on, I made the memories of the fighting go away; I saw the Temple as it had been before I knew that men were going to fight with each other.
I saw the huge walls, and the hundreds of people gathered there to pray, crowding through the baths, through the tunnels into the Court of the Gentiles. I heard people crying out the Psalms.
We prayed now as Joseph led us:
" 'A great light will shine to all the ends of the Earth, and many nations will come to you from afar, the peoples of all the Earth, to dwell near to the name of the Lord, bearing in their hands gifts for the King of Heaven...' "
I saw the light in my mind, and I grew sleepy in a beautiful soft sleep in which I could hear the words of the prayer as I lay on my mat, with my arm crooked under my head. " 'And they will call you The Chosen One through all ages forever.' "
And so it seemed the pestilence had left our house. Death had left it. Uncleanness had left it. And tears had left it. And though my dream of the strange creature with the wings and the beautiful eyes troubled me, and though it troubled me worse that I felt I could tell no one about it, I soon put the dream out of my mind as I put aside the picture of the Temple full of blood. And life began again. I was happy I knew it, because I had known what unhappiness was, and what fear was, and illness and sorrow, and these things were gone now.
Chapter 20
As soon as my mother said that I could, I bathed in the mikvah which was very cold now, with the water so high it went over my head, and I put on freshly washed clothes, and I went up the hill to the house of the great Rabbi, Berekhaiah. The servants told me he was at the synagogue so I went there, careful to wash my hands in the stream for the sake of anyone who didn't know I had bathed before coming.
I went in and sat down on the edge of the assembly, surprised to see so many there on this day of the week, but I soon saw they were all listening not to the Rabbis but to a man who had come to tell of events in Jerusalem. He was a Pharisee and dressed in the finest clothes, with plenty of white hairs beneath his shawl.
My brother James was there, and so was Joseph, and Cleopas. My older cousins were there.
Rabbi Berekhaiah smiled when he saw me and gestured for me to sit still as the man went on talking.
The man was speaking in Greek, and from time to time he stopped and spoke in our tongue.
He was in the middle of his story:
"This Sabinus, this procurator of the Romans, he had his men surround the Temple, and the Jews took to the roofs of the colonnades. They threw stones at the Romans. The arrows went like that through the air. And the Roman arrows couldn't reach the Jews because of their position. But this godless man, Sabinus, this man whose sole intent was, in everything he did, to find the treasure of the King in the King's absence, this greedy man, he set fire in secret to the colonnades, the very colonnades of the Temple with their gold work in wax, and the Jews were caught by the flames. The fire exploded as if from a mountain. The pitch in the roof of the Temple caught fire; the columns themselves were burning. And the gold was destroyed in the flames. And the men on the roofs were destroyed. How can we count the number of the dead?"
I felt my fear come back. Though it was warm, I felt cold as he went on.
"...and the Romans, they went right through the flames to steal the treasures of the Lord before the eyes of those who watched helpless. They ran through the Great Courtyard right into the storehouses to steal in their greed, and they stole from the house of the Lord."