Jerusalem's Hope (14 page)

Lev's head dropped. “Doing what I can for him. He'll take milk off my fingers but no ways else, and I can't be there all the time, can I?”

“He won't make it then,” Zadok declared. “All right.”

Emet was unaccountably saddened. A motherless lamb would die for want of care. He shivered, though the air in the lambing cavern was not chill.

“Are y' gonna sleep, sir?” Lev asked.

Zadok nodded. “After finishing my rounds.”

Lev persisted. “You've not slept in three days, sir. Things was different when herself was with us. She'd not allowed it.”

To Emet's surprise there was no explosion of ill temper. Instead Zadok answered quietly, “You're right. It
was
different then. But I'm going to the house. I'll be there if you need me.”

Outside the lambing caves Zadok again scooped up Emet, snapped his fingers for Red Dog and Blue Eye, and the procession was off on another cross-country trek. Though the night was deep and the path poorly marked, the hike was neither long nor strenuous.

The yellow moon rose like a fire on the hills.

As the limestone outcropping slid northward toward Jerusalem, the height of the cliff diminished. In no more than five minutes' walk, at Zadok's pace, the ridge had shrunk to a rolling hill. On the brow of the last knoll, before the crest subsided completely, stood Zadok's home.

Though it overlooked Beth-lehem, it could not be called part of the town. It was still closer to the sheepfolds than to the village.

From Emet's bouncing perch he could see that the squat, square building was freshly whitewashed. A set of exterior stairs scaling the west wall gave access to the roof, while behind the structure was a bit of garden.

As they neared the house Emet noticed that the air swirled with a kaleidoscope of scents: sweet and tangy, pungent and cloying. He couldn't understand where it was coming from. He saw no orchards nearby, certainly no flowers blooming. There was the garden plot, and it was mostly barren because of the time of year.

Upended again, Emet was deposited on the doorstep and told to wait with the others. Zadok retrieved a live coal from his cook fire, blew it into flame against a bit of lint, then lit a pair of lamps.

The dwelling had two rooms. The room in which Emet stood contained a table and benches, a cook pot and shelves. A doorless opening beside the fireplace gave access to the one room beyond. That was all.

All, except that the aromas of spice and flowers were still more intense inside the house than they were outside.

“Sit,” Zadok instructed. Apparently this time he did mean boys and dogs both, for while Emet, Ha-or Tov, and Avel sat on one bench facing the fire, Red Dog and Blue Eye guarded the ends of the table. “Take off your shoes,” Zadok commanded.

Over the smoldering coals hung a pair of large kettles. From one vessel Zadok ladled warm water into a wooden bowl. Stretching upward he retrieved two bundles of dried plants hanging from the rafters.

That was when Emet discovered that the rafters were blooming thick with dried flowers and herbs. The ceiling was a garden of preserved plants. Some, like sage, he recognized; others were unfamiliar. But they combined to produce a sense of wholesome purity.

Crushing pale blue flowers together with dark green leaves, Zadok kneaded the mass into the bowl as if making bread.

“Lavender and mint,” Zadok said. “You first, I think,” he added, indicating Emet.

With surprising gentleness in one so gruff and apparently harsh, Zadok massaged and soothed Emet's scraped and blistered feet. Though the warm water and the scent of the herbs combined to make him sleepy, with Zadok kneeling close in front of him Emet was able to study the black eyepatch and horrific old wound close up.

Who was this man who was such a mix of contradictions? What was his story? And why had Yeshua sent them to him?

Emet looked away quickly when Zadok raised up, before the old man caught him staring at the eyepatch.

When Zadok finished patting Emet's feet dry, he rubbed goose grease into the worst sores and bound them loosely with linen strips. “That should serve for now,” he said. “There's broth in the other kettle. Help yourself. Bowls on the shelf.”

As Zadok proceeded to minister next to Ha-or Tov, Emet selected a bowl from the stack on a shelf. The walls of Zadok's home were bare except for the shelves that ran around three sides of the room. Clay pots, drinking cups, and utensils were neatly arranged in a precise, orderly fashion.

Emet couldn't explain exactly, but the home displayed a feminine touch. It had no finery about it, but something spoke of a now-absent woman's loving care.

Ha-or Tov wasn't shy about Zadok's injury. “You know,” he said, “you should go to Reb Yeshua. He'd fix your eye for you. I know.”

Emet tensed. Was that too much of a challenge to the man? Would he turn surly again, or get angry?

Zadok grunted. “Is that so? Well . . .” Then he refreshed the medicinal soak and began to work on Avel.

Emet breathed a sigh of relief.

When Avel's feet had likewise been doctored and all three boys had eaten their fill of broth, Zadok directed them into the room at the rear. “Straw-filled pallets in the corner,” he said. “The sheep fleece is to lay on. Go to sleep. We'll talk tomorrow. I've got my accounts to cast up.”

The soft white wool beneath him was unlike anything Emet had ever felt against his skin. Both Ha-or Tov in the middle and Avel against the far wall lapsed into sleep seconds after lying down. Emet, on the outer edge of the bed, closed his eyes. He inhaled the aromas and breathed a sigh of contentment. Such luxury! Was he dreaming? If he had lain down in a palace, could he have experienced such comfort? He forced himself to stay awake, to relish this sense of well-being and to observe the old shepherd as he moved about the other room.

Zadok produced a wax tablet from inside the fold of his robes. With a sharpened goose quill dipped in ink, he transferred the tally of lambs born to a more permanent record on a parchment scroll.

All the while the dogs blinked up from where they lay by the fire. They followed their master's every move.

Emet struggled against sleep. He watched as Zadok finished his work, then took down a tall clay jar from a shelf. From it the old man removed another scroll covered with columns of Hebrew script. Zadok spread the document out on his table and began to study, line by line, in the lamplight. What was he searching for?

The old man glanced up at Emet. A flicker of amusement crossed his face. “Still awake?”

Emet pressed his lips together. “Yes, sir.”

“Do y' know what day it is?”

“No, sir.”

“
Shabbat.
The day of rest.”

“I'm not tired, sir.”

“The only ones excused from rest on
Shabbat
are shepherds of Migdal Eder at lambing time. The Almighty makes exception for those who tend his sheep.”

“I like it here,” Emet ventured.

“So y' must have a shepherd's heart then, eh boy? Else you'd be resting.”

“I hear the sheep. Far off. Like music.”

Zadok scanned the text before him. “The one who sent you to me?”

“Yeshua?”

“How old a man is he, now?”

“Couldn't say, sir.” Emet could merely judge faces as young, middle, and old. He did not know what “how old” meant. “Not as old as you. Older than Lev. I don't know.”

“Did he tell y' why you're to come here? To Migdal Eder? To me?”

“He said you needed us.”

The corner of Zadok's mouth turned up. “Did he, now? I need you? To tend the flocks? To herd the sheep?”

“To remind you, he said. I don't know what he meant. He said . . . since she was gone . . . you needed us. We didn't know who she is. But he said what he said . . . and then he left. We came to Beth-lehem to find you and give you the message.”

“To tell me Immanu'el was coming?”

“Yes, sir.”

The old shepherd's face clouded with unexpressed emotion. He leaned forward with interest. “Do y' know the meaning of
Immanu'el,
boy?”

“I don't know much of anything, sir.”

“Well, then. It's enough you've come.” Zadok lapsed into silence and returned to his study.

For a long time Emet watched the old man search column after column of text. The fleece beneath the boy was soft and warm. Emet struggled to keep his lids from closing. But in the end . . . no use. No use.

The shepherd, buried in concentration, was hunched over the writings when Emet finally gave in to sleep.

That same night, over cold chicken, apples, cheese, and wine, Nakdimon told the story of Yeshua and the events in the Galil to his mother.

Skeptical and wary, she received the message coolly. “I'm an old woman, Nakdimon. I've seen enough of this sort of thing come and go to know that hope for a Messiah always ends in someone's death. Stand back from it awhile before you carry such tales to Gamaliel and the Sanhedrin.”

“I have to tell what I've seen. What I know.”

“There's a frenzy in the streets already. People whisper in the souks that the hour has arrived. I'm sure I don't know what hour they're talking about, but it's making the
cohanim
nervous I can tell you!”

“If he comes . . .”

“If he comes it won't end well. I didn't raise a fool for a son. You know what could happen.”

“Em, I don't believe he's preaching the overthrow of any government. Only the tearing down of what's false in us . . . in our hearts . . . and building something pure and clean again.”

She exhaled in disapproval. “Fanatic.”

“Righteous man.”

“Fanatics usually are righteous until you peel away the message and find pure lust for power underneath.”

“Em . . . Mother . . . his is a different sort of power . . . mercy and love . . . I wish you could hear him.”

“If he comes to Yerushalayim, the whole world will hear him! In chains he'll give testimony about his kingdom, and Rome will nail him to the nearest cross. Mark my words! Could he be such a fool as to come here now?”

“When the time is right . . .”

“So much for another Messiah. They're as common as sparrows these days. A Messiah in every family tree and on the branch of Jesse . . . or whatever it was Isaiah wrote about him. It's a fable. Not meant to be taken literally. It costs too much to believe such things! There's always a slaughter of little lambs at the end of the story. Or have you forgotten?”

Nakdimon fell silent for several minutes. Then he finally said, “Well then. We have come to a disagreement about him. He may be the one who could restore our nation to the glory of King David's throne.”

“Those are words of revolution, Nakdimon! Treason. Dangerous. King David is dead. His tomb is a half mile from here. I'm saying that your Rabbi from Nazareth would join David within the week if he comes into the city. What good is a dead Messiah to anyone? Or a dead member of the Sanhedrin with seven orphan children? You speak openly in favor of this fellow and you're a dead man too. Think of your children. Your position.”

Nakdimon nodded, deferring to her opinion. “I'll give my report to Gamaliel in the morning. And then we'll see.”

A short time later Nakdimon made his way up the stairs to the dormitory room where his seven children slept.

Strange how coming home again had instantly reemphasized his loneliness. Since Hadassah had died there had not been a waking hour in which she was not somehow vivid in his mind. It was the absence of her that bored a hole in his heart. The continuity of grief had connected the moment of her leaving to the present. A bleak future had stretched out before him . . . existence without Hadassah!