The others followed me.
When I stepped outside the door, there was a young man staring at me anxiously. He was vigorous and covered with dust from his work, but with ink stains on his fingers.
"They're talking of you," he said, "up and down the shore. They're saying John the Baptist pointed to you."
"Yours is a Greek name, Philip," I said. "I like your name. I like all I see in you. Come and follow me."
This gave him a violent start. He reached for my hand but waited for me to give him leave to take it.
"Let me call my friend who's here in the city with me."
I stopped for a moment. I saw his friend in my mind's eye. I knew this was Nathanael of Cana, the student of Hananel I'd seen in Hananel's house when I went to talk to him. In a nearby yard, behind whitewashed walls, the young man was packing his parchments and scrolls and clothing for the journey home to Cana. He'd been all this time working near the sea, and now and then peering at the Baptist from afar. His mind was heavy with worries; he thought this trip home a nuisance, yet he couldn't miss the wedding. He had no expectation that Philip was rushing towards him as he wrestled with his wares and his cares.
I went on down the road, marveling at the numbers who were following us, and the children coming to peer up at us, and the adults who struggled to control them, though they whispered to each other and pointed. I heard my name. Over and over again, they spoke my name.
Nathanael of Cana caught up with us right before we came to the busy road, just opposite the toll post, where the bustle of travelers slowed and gathered in a knot.
There was now a large shuffling idle crowd around us. People moved in to glance at me, and say, yes, that is the man they saw at the river, or yes, that is the man who brought the devils out of Mary of Magdala. Others said, no, it was not. Some declared the Baptist was about to be arrested for the crowds he was drawing, and others insisted it was because the Baptist had angered the King.
I stopped and bowed my head. I could hear every word spoken, I could hear all words spoken, I could hear the words just about to break from parted lips. I let this fall into silence, into the sweet wind rising off the distant sparkling sea.
Only the proximate sounds returned - Simon Peter was declaring that I had cured his mother-in-law by the mere touch of her hand.
I turned my face to the moist breeze. It was lovely and light and filled with the airy scent of the water. My parched body was drinking the water from the very air. I was so hungry.
Far behind us, I knew that Philip and Nathanael were in some sort of argument, and once more I let myself hear what others right beside me could not hear. Nathanael was unwilling, and refused to be moved along against his inclinations. "From Nazareth?" he said. "The Messiah. You expect me to believe this? Philip, I live a stone's throw from Nazareth. You're telling me the Messiah is from Nazareth? What good could come from Nazareth! Man, you are saying impossible things."
My cousin John had turned back to join them.
"No, but truly, he is," declared my young cousin. He was so fervent, so filled with awe, as if he still stood bathed in the miracle of the river, bathed in the Spirit that had visited the waters at the moment the sky had opened. "He is the one, I tell you. I saw it when he was baptized. And the Baptist said, the Baptist himself spoke these words . . ."
I stopped listening. I let the wind swallow their dispute. I looked at the distant gleaming horizon in which the pale hills merged with the blue of the Heavens, and the clouds were borne along as if they themselves were the sails of ships.
Nathanael had come up to me, warily, eyeing me as I nodded to him, and as we fell in stride with one another.
"Ah, nothing good can come from Nazareth?" I asked.
He blushed.
I laughed.
"Here is an Israelite in whom there's no Jacob," I said. I meant by that he had no guile. He had said what was on his mind without cleverness. He'd spoken from his heart. I laughed again lightly.
We moved into the sluggish crowds on the road.
"How do you know me?" Nathanael asked.
"Ah, well, I could tell you I know you from the house of Hananel where you lately saw me, the carpenter."
This astonished him. He couldn't believe I was that very man. He could scarcely remember that very man, except that because of that man's visit, he'd written a great many letters for Hananel. Slowly these thoughts connected for him, the frail and common carpenter who'd come that day, and now he stared at me, at my eyes, particularly my eyes.
"But let me tell you more truly how I know you," I said. "I saw you just now under the fig tree, alone, and cross, and murmuring to yourself, stacking your unwieldy books and bundles for tomorrow's journey, so perfectly annoyed that you have to be going home for the wedding of Reuben and Avigail when you felt certain that something better, something more important, was likely to happen to you, here, near the sea."
He was shocked. He was for a moment frightened. John, Andrew, James, and Philip made a little circle around him. Peter stood apart. They all watched him uneasily. I could only laugh again under my breath.
"Do I not know you?" I asked.
"Rabbi, you are the Son of God," Nathanael whispered. "You are the King of Israel."
"Because I saw you in my mind's eye, beneath the tree, fretting about so many bundles to take to the wedding?" I thought for a moment, then trusting my mind and my words, I said, "Amen, amen. You too will see the sky opened as John saw it. Only you will not see a dove when you see it opened. You'll see the angels of the Lord on High coming and going on the Son of Man."
I touched my chest with my hand.
He was awestruck. So were the others, but they were caught in a collective fascination, an ever-increasing wonder.
We had reached the toll post.
There sat the rich toll collector whom I'd seen in the river, the man so well described to me as the one who'd taken my beloved Joseph up and away from the bank, the one who'd taken Joseph's body home to Nazareth for burial.
I came up to him. Those waiting to confer with him stood back. Soon the crowd was too large and too pressing, and filled with more than casual rumblings. Horsemen, donkeys laden with goods, carts filled with baskets and baskets of fish - all these waited and people began to fuss that they had to wait.
My new disciples clustered around me.
The toll collector scribbled in his book, his teeth set, lips slightly tensing with the strokes of his pen. Finally, ripping himself unwillingly from his calculations for the shadow at his elbow that would not leave, he looked up and saw me.