Read Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt Online
Authors: Anne Rice
Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt (4 page)
But what was that to passing before it now?
Heads were turned, and people were pointing, and finally Salome and I had a good view of it. It stood on its own little island—a great torch reaching the sky. And we passed it as if it was a holy thing, wondering and murmuring.
The ship moved on, and what had seemed slow now seemed very fast, and the sea was tossing up and down, and there were cries from some of the women.
People began to sing hymns. The land grew ever more distant. The lighthouse became small and then disappeared.
The crowd of those looking broke up, and for the first time I turned and saw the sight of the giant square sail filled with the wind and the sailors working the ropes, and the whole scene of the men at the tillers and all the families now huddled around their bundles, and I knew we had better get back to our own who were no doubt missing us.
People were singing louder and louder, and soon one hymn gripped the whole crowd, and Little Salome and I joined in, but the wind came scurrying to take the words away.
We had to pick our way through the families to find our own, but at last we did, and there were my mother and my aunts trying to sew as if their veils weren't being almost torn from their heads, and my aunt Mary saying that Uncle Cleopas was feverish and he himself curled up and sleeping beneath a blanket tucked tight and missing everything.
Joseph was just a little apart, seated on one of the few trunks we had with us, quiet as he always was, staring at the blue sky, and the mast above the sail where there was a topsail, but my uncle Alphaeus was deep into arguing with other passengers on board about trouble ahead in Jerusalem.
Now James was all ears for this, and I was soon listening to it too, though I didn't dare move too close for fear they'd leave off if they noticed me. They were shouting against the growing wind, standing together, in a little space, fighting to keep their mantles from being blown off, shifting this way and that as the boat moved uneasily over the water.
At last, I had to hear what they were saying, and moved away towards them. Little Salome wanted to come, but her mother snatched her back, and I made a motion for her to wait, trying to tell her I'd come back to her.
"I tell you it's dangerous," one of the men said in Greek. He was a tall man with very dark skin and richly dressed. "I wouldn't be going to Jerusalem if I were you. For me it's home, and my wife and children are there. I have to get there. But I tell you, it's no time for all these pilgrim ships to be sailing."
"I want to be there," said the other, his Greek just as easy, though he was a rougher man. "I want to see what happens. I was there when Herod burnt alive both Matthias and Judas, two of the finest scholars of the Law we ever had." He nodded to both my uncles. "I want justice from Herod Archelaus. I want the men who served his father in this to be punished. How Archelaus handles this will argue for everything else."
I was amazed. I'd heard many bad things about King Herod. I didn't know a thing about the new Herod, his son, who was Archelaus.
Well, what does he tell the people?" asked my uncle Alphaeus. "He must tell them something."
My uncle Cleopas, having roused himself from the company of the women, suddenly joined in. "He probably tells
whatever lies he has to," he said as if he knew all about it. "He has to wait for Caesar to say whether he'll be King. He can't rule without Caesar confirming his crown. Nothing he says means anything anyway." My uncle gave one of his mocking laughs.
I wondered what they thought of him.
"He tells everyone to be patient, naturally," said the first man in his good Greek. It flowed easily like Greek did from our Teacher, or from Philo. "And he waits for Caesar's confirmation, yes, and he tells the people to wait. But the crowds don't even listen to his messengers. The crowds don't want patience right now. They want action. They want vengeance. And they just might get it."
This puzzled me.
"You have to realize," said the rough man, the more angry man, "that Caesar didn't know all the evil that old Herod did. How can Caesar know everything that goes on in the Empire? I tell you there has to be a reckoning for the things he did."
"Yes," said the tall one, "but not in Jerusalem at Passover, not when pilgrims have come from all over the Empire."
"Why not?" said the other, "why not when the whole world is there? Why not when the news will carry to Caesar that Herod Archelaus is not master of those who insist upon justice for the blood of those who were murdered?"
"But why did Herod burn alive the two teachers of the Law?" I asked. I did it suddenly, surprising myself.
At once Joseph turned from his thinking, though he was far away, and he looked over at me and then at the men.
But the taller one, the calm one, was already answering me.
"Because they pulled down the golden eagle Herod had put above the great Temple gate, that's why," he said calmly. "The Law says plainly there shall be no image of a living thing in our Temple. You are old enough to know that, child. Don't you know it? Just because Herod built the Temple did not mean he could put an image of a living thing in it. What was the point to labor rebuilding a magnificent temple so that he could transgress the law and put on its walls an image that was a desecration?"
I understood him though his words were not so simple to understand. I shivered.
"These men were Pharisees, teachers of the Law," the tall man went on, fixing me with his eye. "They led their pupils with them to take down the eagle. And Herod took their lives for this!"
Joseph was at my side.
The angry man said, "Don't take him away, let him learn. He would know the names of Matthias and Judas. Both these boys should know." He nodded to me and James. "It was the right and just thing to do. And they knew what a monster Herod was. Everyone knew. You in Alexandria, what did it have to do with you?" He looked at my uncles. "But for us, we lived with him and his monstrosities. They were visited on great and small, I tell you. Once on a whim, a mad whim, fearing a new King had been born, a Son of David, he sent his soldiers two miles' walk from Jerusalem to the town of Bethlehem and ..."
"No more!" Joseph said, though he smiled and nodded as he put up his hand.
He drew me away. Quickly and firmly, he brought me towards the women. James he allowed to stay there.
The wind swallowed up all their words. But what happened in Bethlehem?" I asked him.
"You'll hear stories about Herod's deeds all your life," Joseph said under his breath. "Remember, I told you that there were some questions that I didn't want for you to ask."
"Will we still go to Jerusalem?"
Joseph didn't answer. "Go there, and sit with your mother and the children," he said.
I did what he said.
The wind was blowing hard now and the boat was heaving. I felt a little sick. I was getting a little cold.
Little Salome was waiting to question me. I snuggled in between her and my mother. It was warm here and I felt better.
Joses and Symeon were already asleep in their lumpy bed among the bundles. Silas and Levi were huddled together with Eli, who was the nephew of Aunt Mary of Uncle Cleopas, who had come to live with us. They were pointing to the sail and to the rig.
"What were they saying?" Salome wanted to know.
"Trouble in Jerusalem," I said. "I hope we go," I said. "I want to see it." I thought of all the words I'd heard. I said excitedly, "Salome, just think of it, people from all over the Empire are going to Jerusalem."
"Yes, I know," she said. "It's the best thing we've ever done."
"Yes," I said with a big sigh. "I hope Nazareth is a fine place as well."
My mother sighed and threw back her head.
"Yes, you must see Jerusalem first," she said sadly. "As for Nazareth, it is the will of God it seems."
"Is it a big town?" asked Little Salome.
"Not a town at all," my mother said.
"No?" I asked.
"A village," she said. "But it was once visited by an angel."
"People say that?" Little Salome asked. "That an angel came to Nazareth? It really happened?"
"No, people don't say it," said my mother, "but I know it."
She went quiet. It was her way. To say small things, and nothing more. After that, she wouldn't say anything even though we asked her over and over again.
My uncle Cleopas came back, sick and coughing, and lay down and my aunt covered him and patted him.
He heard us talking about angels in Nazareth—saying that we hoped we would see them—and he began his not so secret laughing.
"My mother says Nazareth was once visited by an angel," I told him. I knew that he just might tell us something. "My mother says she knows this." And his laughter only ran on as he curled up to sleep.
"What would you do, Father?" Little Salome asked him. "If you saw an angel of the Lord with your own eyes in Nazareth?"
"Just what my beloved sister did," he answered me. Obey the angel in everything he told me to do." And again came his low private laughing.
A terrible anger came over my mother. She looked over at her brother. My aunt shook her head as if to say let it all go. This was her way with her husband.
And usually it was my mother's way too, to let things go with her brother, but not this time.
Little Salome saw all of this, this look of anger on my mother's face, something so surprising I didn't know what to make of it, and I looked up and saw that James too was there, watching, and I knew that he had heard it. I was very sorry to see this. I didn't know what to do. But Joseph sat quietly away from all of this just thinking to himself.
I had a sense of something then, and why I'd never sensed it before I don't know. It was that Joseph put up with Cleopas but never really answered him. For him, he'd made this voyage over sea rather than land. And for him, he'd go to Jerusalem, even if there were trouble. But he never answered him. He never said anything to all Cleopas' laughing.
And Cleopas laughed at everything. In the House of Prayer, he would laugh when he thought the stories of the prophets were funny. He would start to laugh very low and then the little children, such as myself, would start to laugh with him. He had laughed in that way at the story of Elijah. And when the Teacher had become angry, Cleopas had insisted that the story had parts that were funny. He had said that the Teacher ought to see that. And then all the men had begun to argue with the Teacher about the story of Elijah.
My mother turned back to her mending. Her face became smooth. She had a piece of fine Egyptian cotton that she was mending. It was as if nothing had happened.
The Shipmaster was hollering at the sailors, and it seemed they had no rest.
I knew not to say another word.
All around us was the sparkling sea, so blessed, and the boat rising and falling beneath us, sweetly carrying us along, and other families were singing, and we knew the hymns and we too picked it up, singing with all our hearts. . . .
Never mind about the secrets.
We were going to Jerusalem.
4
EVEN LITTLE SALOME AND I were weary of the tossing ship when we finally reached the small harbor of Jamnia. It was a port that only the pilgrims and the slow cargo ships used now, and we had to anchor far out on account of the shallows and the rocks.
Little boats carried us in, the men dividing themselves to care for the women in one boat and the little ones in another. The waves were so rough I thought we would be pitched into the sea. But I loved it all the same.
At last we were able to jump out and make our way through the foaming tide to the land.
We all fell to our knees and kissed the ground that we'd reached the Holy Land safely, and we hurried inland, wet and shivering, to the town of Jamnia, which was quite a way from the coast, where we rested at the inn.
It was crowded after the boat, a little upstairs room full of hay, but we were so happy to be there that it didn't matter at all to us. And I went to sleep listening to the men disputing with the other men, and voices hollering and laughing below and more and more pilgrims came in.
The next day there were donkeys aplenty for sale for all of us pilgrims and we began our journey across the beautiful plain with its distant groves of trees, saying goodbye to the misty sea, and heading slowly towards the hills of Judea.
Cleopas had to ride on the donkey, though he protested at first, and we made our way slowly, many of the other families in the great crowd passing us as we went, but we were all of us so happy to be in Israel that we didn't care to hurry, and Joseph said we had plenty of time to be in Jerusalem for the purification.
When we put up at the next roadside inn, we made our beds in a large tent beside the building, and there were warnings from those traveling down to the sea that we shouldn't go on, that we should just go north right to Galilee. But Cleopas was by this time out of his head, and singing "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem" and every other song of the city he could remember.
"Take me to the gates of the Temple and leave me there, a beggar, if you will!" he said to Joseph, "if you mean to go on to Galilee!"
Joseph nodded and said we would go on to Jerusalem and to the Temple.
But the women were growing afraid. They were afraid of what we would find in Jerusalem and afraid for Cleopas.
His cough came and went but he was hot all the time, and thirsty and restless. And laughing, always laughing under his breath. He laughed at the little children, and the things other people said, and he looked at me and he laughed. And sometimes he was laughing just to himself, maybe remembering things.
The next morning we began the hard slow climb into the hills. Our ship companions had long ago gone ahead, and we were with those who had come from many different places. I still heard Greek spoken around us as much as Aramaic. And even some Latin.
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