The priests were so thick around the altar I couldn't see what they did, but only now and then see the splashes of blood high and low. The hands of the priests were covered in blood. Their beautiful linen robes were splashed with blood. A great fire burned on the altar. And the smell of roasting meat was strong beyond words. I smelled it with every breath that I took.
Though Joseph pointed to the altar of incense and I saw that too, I couldn't smell the incense.
"Look, the singers, do you see them?" asked Cleopas, bending down close to my ear.
"Yes," I said. "James, look." I made them out through the goings and comings of the priests.
They were on the steps going up to the Inner Sanctuary, a great number, bearded men with long locks, all with scrolls in their hands, and I saw the lyres from which came the delicate sounds I hadn't picked out from the great blended beauty of their music.
Their singing grew louder in my ears when I saw them. It was so beautiful I felt myself floating with it. It drowned out the sounds of the crowd completely.
All my troubles went away as I stood here, as I prayed, my words becoming no words - only worship of the Lord who had created all things as I listened to the music and looked on all that was happening.
Lord. Lord, whoever I am, whatever I am, whatever I am meant to be, I am part of this, this world that is all of a flowing wonder - like this music. And you are with us. You are here. You have pitched your tent here, among us. This music is your song. This is your house.
I started to cry, but it was quiet. Nobody saw it.
James closed his eyes in prayer as he held the two birds, waiting for the priest to come. There were so many priests I couldn't count them. They received the lambs that bleated and the goats that cried until the last moment. The blood was caught in basins according to the Law. Then taken to be dashed on the stones of the altar.
"Now, you know," said Cleopas to us in a clear whisper, "this is not the Altar of the Presence. The Altar of the Presence. That's up, past the singers, in the Sanctuary, and beyond the great veil. And these things you'll never see. Your mother was among those who wove those veils, two a year. Ah, it was such gorgeous embroidery. Only the High Priest goes into the Holy of Holies. And when he enters, it is filled with a cloud of incense."
I thought of Joseph Caiaphas. I pictured him in my mind entering that sacred place. Then I thought of the young Aristobulos, the high priest whom Old Herod had murdered. If only the magi had not told Herod...
My mother's words came back to me. "You are not the son of an angel." What a little boy I'd been when she said that to me. I hadn't thought of those words since the night she spoke them to me on the roof here in Jerusalem. I hadn't let myself think of them. But I did now, and all the strange pictures which James had painted for me in his tale were fired in my mind with color.
But I didn't want these thoughts, these fragments of something that I couldn't complete.
I wanted the peace and happiness that I'd felt only moments ago. And it did come back to me.
Such a peace and happiness took hold of me that I was scarcely a boy standing there among others. I was my soul, my mind, as if it could grow beyond the size of my body, as if it could move outward from me, carried on the waves of music, as if I had no weight or size and in this way, in this moment, I could go into the Holy of Holies, and I did, passing through gate, and wall, and veil, and moving yet even farther outward. They called you Christos Kyrios. Christ the Lord.
Lord, tell me who I am. Tell me what I am to do.
The sound of crying brought me back to myself. A little sound amid the music and the Hebrew prayers whispered all around.
James cried. He was shaking.
I looked once more at the great stone altar of sacrifice, and the priests dashing the blood against the stones. The blood belonged to the Lord. It belonged to the Lord when it was in the animal, and it belonged to the Lord now. The blood was the life of the animal. Never could an Israelite eat blood. The stones of the altar were drenched in blood.
It was a dark and beautiful thing like the music rising, and the prayers spoken everywhere in Hebrew. Even the priests going back and forth seemed like the movement of a dance.
No, I'm not a child anymore. I'm not.
I thought of the men killed on that day last year. I thought of the men burned in the rebellion within this very Temple. I thought of blood on the stones of this Temple. Blood. And blood.
James held the two birds tightly as they tried to escape from his hands, his fingers a cage around them.
"I confess my sins," he whispered in Hebrew. "That I am guilty of envy, of spite."
He choked back his crying. At thirteen he was a man crying. I didn't know that anyone else but me knew he was crying. Then I saw Joseph's hand pressing his shoulder, rubbing it, and comforting him. Joseph kissed his cheek. Joseph loved James. He loved him so much. He loved me. He loved each person in a different way.
James held the birds, and he bowed his head as the priest came down the line towards us.
" 'For a child has been born to us,' " James recited from Isaiah, " 'a son is given us, and dominion shall rest on his shoulders.' " He tried to stop his tears. He went on, " 'And the name he has been given is Wonder-Counsellor, Mighty God, Eternal-Father, Prince of Peace.' "
I turned and looked at James. Why this prayer?
"May the Lord forgive me my envy. May the Lord forgive my sins, and may I be cleansed. Let me not be afraid. Let me understand. I repent of all."
The priest was suddenly standing tall in front of us, and the blood spatters were on his beard and on his face. But he was beautiful in his white linen and his miter. The Levite stood beside him. The priest held the golden basin. With very narrow eyes he looked at James, and James nodded and gave over to him the two birds.
"This is an offering for sin," said James.
I was pushed forward and bent over to see, but the priest was soon lost among the other priests and I couldn't see what they did at the altar. I knew from the Scriptures what they did. They would wring the neck of one bird and pour out its blood. That was the sin offering. And the body of the second bird would be burnt.
We were not there very long.
It was finished. Paid in full.
We made our way back, pushing and almost shoving, and soon into the mob of the Court of the Gentiles. This time we walked not in the very middle of everything but along the colonnade called Solomon's Portico.
Teachers sat back under the porch, with many young men gathered around them. Women stopped to listen as well. I heard one teaching in Aramaic and the next one who had a very large crowd was answering a question in Greek for one of a great gathering.