"Silence!" said James. He was still shaking from all that had gone before, but he collected himself, and looked to me. "Yeshua, will you lead us in prayer that the Lord will close up the windows of Heaven now, if it's His will?"
"Get on with it!" declared Jason.
"Be still," said the Rabbi. "Yeshua, pray."
I bowed my head. I put them all far from my mind. I cleared my mind of anything that could stand between me and the words I spoke; I put my heart and my breath into them.
"Merciful Lord, Creator of all good things," I said, "who saved us this day from spilling innocent - ."
"Yeshua! Just pray for it to stop!" Jason cried. "Otherwise every member of this family might as well grab hammer and nails and wood and start building an ark outside because we will all need it!"
Cleopas dissolved into irresistible laughter. The women were muffling their smiles. The children stared aghast.
"May I continue?"
"Pray do before every house melts to ruin," said Jason.
"Lord in Heaven, if it is Your will, bring this rain to an end."
The rain stopped.
The pummeling of the roof stopped. The gusting clatter against the shutters stopped. The high whistling sound of the rain hitting the flags outside was gone.
The room was wrapped in uneasy silence. And there came the gurgling of the water running still in the gutters, finding its way down the many pipes, dripping and splashing from the overhangs.
A coolness came over me, a prickling sensation, as if my skin were doubly alive. I felt an emptiness, and then a gradual replenishing of whatever had gone out of me. I sighed, and once again my vision was moist and blurred.
I heard the Rabbi intoning the psalm of thanks. I said the words along with him.
When he had reached the last word, I took up another in the sacred tongue:
" 'Let the sea and what fills it resound,' " I said, " 'and the world and those who dwell in it. Let the rivers clap their hands, the mountains cry out with them in joy, before the Lord who comes, who comes to govern the earth, to govern the world with justice and the peoples with fairness.' "
They said it along with me.
I was dizzy now and so tired that I could have dropped where I was. I turned and reached for the wall, and slowly sat down to the left of the brazier. Joseph sat watching as before.
Finally I looked up. All stood quiet, including the littlest children in the room. The Rabbi was peering down at me gently and wistfully and Jason was marveling.
Then Jason snapped to wakefulness and said with a bow,
"Thank you, Yeshua."
The Rabbi added his thanks, and so did the others present, one by one.
Then Jason pointed.
"Ah, what is that!" He stared at the gold chest. His eyes moved over the scattered coins that glinted in the dimness.
He gasped with amazement. "So that's the treasure," he said. "Why, I never really believed it."
"Come, let's go," said the Rabbi, pushing him towards the door. "A good night to you, blessed children, and blessings on all under this roof, and again, we thank you."
Back and forth came the polite whispers, offers of wine, the inevitable demurring, the door opening and closing. The silence. I fell over on my side, my arm for a pillow, and I closed my eyes.
Someone picked up the coins, and put them back in their case. That much I heard. Soft shuffling steps. And then I was drifting downwards, into a safe place, a place where I could be for a little while alone, no matter how many were gathered around me.
Chapter Seventeen
THE LAND WAS WASHED CLEAN. The creek was brimming and the fields had soaked up the rain and were soon fit for plowing, with time still for a bountiful harvest. The dust no longer choked the living grass and the ancient trees, and the roads though soft and spongy on the first day were by the second quite fine, and all over the unplanted hills there sprang up the inevitable, faithful wildflowers.
Every cistern, mikvah, jug, pitcher, bucket, and barrel in Nazareth and the surrounding towns had been filled with water. And the town bustled with those washing clothing in luxury and gladness. The women went to work with renewed passion in the kitchen gardens.
Of course legend told of many a holy man who could make rain come, and make rain stop, if only he appealed to the Lord, the most famous of which was probably Honi, the Circle Drawer, a Galilean of generations past, but there had been many another.
And so people rushed up to me as I went in and out, not to say, Ah, what a miracle, Yeshua, but rather "Why didn't you pray for the rain to come sooner?" or "Yeshua, we knew if only you would pray, but the question is why did you wait so long," and so forth and so on.
Some of this was said in jesting, most in very bold goodwill. But some made these remarks with a sneer, and in my hearing there was plenty of murmuring, at work and in Nazareth, of "Had it been any other man in that grove!" and "Well, you know it was Yeshua, of course, nothing happened."
The family was all astir with the work that needed to be done, and even Silent Hannah was pressed to leave the village for the first time since her arrival years before, and go with my aunts and my mother into Sepphoris, there to get the finest sheer linen for Avigail's tunic, and robes and veils, and to find those who sell or sew the most intricate of gold-threaded needlework.
As we worked on our various jobs in Sepphoris, I found every reason I could to assist James, and he took the little kindnesses from me graciously. I put my arm around him whenever I could, and he turned and did this with me; and our brothers saw these embraces, and heard the easy words, and so did the women at home. Indeed his wife, Mara, said that he seemed something of a new man and she wished I'd dressed him down a long time ago. But that she didn't say to me. I heard it from my aunt Esther in a whisper.
Of course James asked at some point, because he thought it best, should someone send for the midwife again to put the mind of Reuben of Cana at rest? I thought my aunts would destroy him with their bare hands.
"And how many midwives can wander in that virgin territory," demanded my aunt Esther, "before they break down the very door they're seeking to find intact, do you think?"
And that was the end of that subject.
Avigail I never saw. She was deeply secluded with Old Bruria in rooms to which only the women went, but three letters had come for her from Reuben bar Daniel bar Hananel of Cana, and she'd read them out to all assembled and written her replies in her own hand, gentle and sweet sentiments, and these letters I myself took for her to Cana.