Hananel of Cana had been such a great Scribe. He'd spent his early years in the Temple; and he had been a judge for many years in different courts that convened to try cases from Capernaum to Sepphoris.
But he was too old now for such things, and he had long ago prepared for this day by building the largest and most beautiful house in Cana. It was large because it contained all his books, which numbered in the thousands. And it had once contained the rooms of his sons and daughters. But they'd gone to the grave long ago, leaving him alone in this world with occasional letters from a granddaughter who lived in Jerusalem and letters perhaps, no one knew, from a grandson who had stormed out of the house in a rage against its rules two years ago.
James and Little Joseph, Little Simon, Little Judas, and my cousins and nephews and I - we had built Hananel's house. And it had been one of the joys of those years, laying floors of gorgeous marble, and painting walls in rich colors of red or deep blue, and decorating them with borders of florets and twining ivy.
The house was sprawling, Greek in design, with an inner court surrounded by open rooms meant to provide the very finest setting for the company who came to see Hananel - the highborn of Galilee, the scholars from Alexandria, the Pharisees and Scribes from Babylon. And indeed the house had been filled with such people for many years, and it was a common thing to see these travelers on the road to visit Hananel, to bring him books, to sit in the gardens of the house or beneath its painted ceilings and talk to him about the goings-on of the world and about matters of the Law which men so loved to discuss when gathered together.
But as death had emptied the house, as the granddaughter in Jerusalem retired a widow and childless to live with her husband's people, the house grew quiet around the old man.
And so it stood, a monument to the way in which life might be lived, but was not lived, a shining fortress on the hill above the small gathering of houses that made up the town of Cana.
As I stood at the iron gate, a gate my brothers and I had put on its hinges, I looked out on the land that belonged to Hananel - for as far as I could see. And beyond that, I knew, surrounding the distant peak of Nazareth, were the lands of Shemayah.
A great many who lived in the surrounding towns worked these lands - these fields, these orchards, these vineyards. But the greatest pride of the two men was their olive groves. Everywhere I saw these groves and beside them the inevitable mikvah where the men bathed before the harvest because the oil from these olives had to be pure if it was to go to the Temple in Jerusalem, if it was to be sold to the pious Jews of Galilee, or Judea, or the many cities of the Empire.
Students now and then came to Hananel, but he was rumored not to be a patient teacher.
As I came into the house, I saw he was with one of those students now, a young man named Nathanael, who sat quite literally at the old man's feet in the grand room of the house at the far end of the courtyard. I scarcely knew the young man. I'd seen him now and then on the pilgrimages.
I had a look at them both from a distance as I sat in the foyer. A patient slave washed my feet, as I took a drink of water from a limestone cup and gratefully gave it back to him.
"Yeshua," said the slave under his breath. "He's in a rage today. I don't know why he sent for you, but be careful."
"He didn't send for me, my friend," I said. "Please go in and tell him I must speak to him. And I'll wait as long as I have to."
The slave wandered off, shaking his head, and I sat for a moment enjoying the warmth of the sun as it came through the high lattice above the door. The mosaic floor of the courtyard had been our finest work. I studied it now, and I looked slowly at the full, rich potted trees that surrounded the mirrorlike pond in the center.
No pagan nymphs or gods decorated these floors or walls, not for this devout Jew. Only the permissible designs, circles, curlicues, and lilies, which once we had so carefully laid out to decorate a perfect symmetry.
All this was open to the sky, the dusty rainless sky. It was open to the cold. But for a moment it was possible to forget the drought, to look at the shimmering sheet of water, or the fruit glistening on the trees, fresh with droplets from a slave's pitcher, and think that the world outside wasn't parched and dying. And that young men weren't still flowing, by the hundreds, into the distant city of Caesarea.
The sun had warmed the floors and the walls; the heat was sweet and I could feel it creeping over my hands and even my feet as I sat in the shadows.
Finally the young man Nathanael got up and went out, without noticing me. The gate shut with the usual chink.
I said a silent prayer and followed the slave through the small forest of well-watered figs and palms and into the grand library.
A stool had been set there for me, a simple folding stool of leather and polished wood, very fancy, and very comfortable.
I remained standing.
The old man sat at his desk, in a cross-legged Roman chair, his back to the lattice, amid silken pillows, and Babylonian rugs, scrolls heaped before him and bulging from the bookshelves all around him. The walls were bookshelves. His desk had ink and pens and bits and scraps of paper, and a wax tablet. And a stack of codices - those little parchment books with stitched bindings that the Romans called membrane.
The sunshine twinkled in the lattice. The palm fronds outside scratched against it.
The old man was now completely bald, and his eyes very pale, almost gray. He was very cold, though the brazier was heaped high, and the air was as warm as it was fragrant with the scent of cedar.
"Come closer," he said.
I did as he asked. I bowed.
"Yeshua bar Joseph," I said, "from Nazareth, to see you, my lord. I'm grateful that you've received me."
"What do you want!" he said. His voice had leapt out of him sharply with these words. "Well, say it!" he declared. "Tell me."
"On a matter concerning our kinsman, my lord," I said, "Shemayah bar Hyrcanus and his daughter, Avigail."
He sat back or, I should say, collapsed in his heap of wrappings. He looked away from me, then pulled the blankets up tighter around him.
"What news do you have from Caesarea!" he asked.
"None, my lord, that hasn't reached Cana. The Jews are assembled there. It's been many days now. Pilate does not come out to speak to the crowd. The crowd won't go away. That's the last I heard this morning before I left Nazareth."
"Nazareth," he whispered crossly, "where they stone children on the say-so of other children."
I bowed my head.
"Yeshua, sit down on that stool. Don't stand in front of me like a servant. You didn't come here to repair these floors, did you? You came on a matter of our families."