Take This Cup (24 page)

“Yes, but I . . . I have to see him.”

I was too late.

Fearful of the scowling guards, the crowd dispersed.

Red gestured to the pair of brother Sparrows who edged toward them. “What’s happened?” he asked as they drew near.

“Jesus, the rabbi from Galilee,” one brother said. “He was with the folks from Bethany. They hired us to link for them.”

“The priests was going to arrest him,” the other sibling explained.

“Or kill him. Said he was a blasphemer. We was standing near him.”

“That’s how we helped. We saw the guards and snuffed out our torches . . . and Jesus slipped away.”

“Away,” I repeated in distress. I could not locate my family, and now I had let my mission slip away as well. “Where’s he gone?”

“Why does it matter?” Red asked. “He’s escaped.”

I started to explain, then stopped as I spotted the embroidered hem of a prayer shawl flapping in the breeze. That bright blue band with the scalloped rim embroidered with white letters of the
Shema
was my mother’s workmanship. There could not be two shawls that much alike.

Pulling free of Tim’s hand, I approached the young man wearing the shawl and tugged at his arm. “Sir,” I said, “that tallith. Did you get it at the shop of Boaz?”

The tall, aristocratic-looking man smiled. “In fact I did. Why do you ask?”

“Because I am their grandson. I am Nehemiah. Called Nehi. I just came here from beyond the two rivers to find them.” It was too difficult to explain, and I waved my hand in frustration.

“By your accent I knew you are from the East,” the man said.

“My mother, Sarah, is their daughter. I didn’t know their shop had burned. Do you know . . . can you tell me . . . where my family has gone?”

Again the smile. “It so happens, I can. My shawl . . . your mother’s work, yes? Her skill sought after and well known. I ordered it a year and a half ago and received delivery only weeks before the fire. So, Joppa. On the seacoast. Staying near relatives. Does that help?”

“Yes. My aunt, Mother’s older sister, lives there. Her husband, Adonijah, is an exporter of woolen cloth.”

“I know Adonijah, the fabric exporter. Your aunt and uncle live near the custom house at the quay.”

“One more thing, sir. They say one of my brothers . . . perished in the fire. Do you know . . . I mean, I don’t even know which . . .”

Sorrow clouded the cheerful face. “I heard someone had been lost, but no, I’m sorry. I don’t know his name.” He gazed at me intently. “Nehemiah, do you have a place to stay, boy?”

Looking back at the row of raggedly dressed Sparrows, an elbow peeking out of a rent in a cloak here and a knee showing through a hole there, I knew I could not desert them. “Yes,” I said. “I am with friends.”

“Very well, then. Should you need me, my name is Joseph of Arimathea . . . the Younger. The Sparrows are clever. They can find my home if you need me. And since it’s too cold for many fares tonight, boys, here.” Joseph shook a leather bag of
coins over each upturned palm, dispensing pennies, then met my eyes again. “Joppa,” he said again. “You’ll find them.”

He turned to go. The snow was falling harder now, obscuring the flames of the menorahs.

“One more thing, please,” I pleaded. “Rabbi Jesus. Do you know where he’s gone?”

“After tonight,” Joseph said, casting an angry glance toward a knot of priests pushing beggars out of the way in their haste to escape the cold, “I believe he would be wise to leave Jerusalem. What his destination might be . . .” He sighed and we parted.

Timothy rubbed his cheek as he considered the departing merchant. The prayer shawl billowed in the breeze like the lifted wings of a soaring bird. “So, Joseph of Arimathea knows your family. I’m impressed. He is a rich man. You are well connected. Why would you choose to stay with us rather than in his mansion?”

I shrugged. “You said you would share the bread with me. I’ve been looking forward to it all night.”

“Well then. Come on.” Red clapped me on the back. “Bread and pennies, see? And a nice warm cavern to go home to.”

I felt safe in the company of the link boys. Their torches lit the way for us as we made our way down the slick paths to the caverns beneath the Temple Mount.

Red locked arms with mine. We held one another steady. He explained the working of the Sparrows’ charity as we descended into the vast shelter. Solomon’s quarry was reserved for the orphan sons of Jerusalem.

By decree of the ruling seventy of the Sanhedrin, Solomon’s former stone quarry was a shelter for torch-bearing Sparrows
from the ages of about five to twelve. In recent years, after bullying and abuse had increased among the population, married couples who were servants of righteous families took turns living in the cavern as custodians. These were called shepherds. The shepherds’ tent was erected inside at the center of the quarry. Outside the tent flap a fire blazed in a rock-lined pit like the hub of a wheel. From the center, smaller camp fires spread like spokes. The number of Sparrows varied. This month Red told me there were just under two hundred boys. These were organized and grouped by age. The youngest and most vulnerable children slept nearest the main fire and the overseers’ tent.
They were like the lambs in my father’s lambing caves
, I thought, as we neared the entrance of the shelter.

We approached a row of latrines outside and stopped to use them.

Timothy explained, “It’s not so bad. We all contribute our wages. Work crews of boys haul water and wash clothing. The older boys cook and help distribute bread. Torches are donated by the Temple charity. That fellow you met, Joseph of Arimathea, is a big contributor.”

I involuntarily touched Joseph’s cup tied at my waist. I pondered the fact that, just like Joseph of old and his coat of many colors, I had met a man named Joseph who now wore my mother’s finest prayer shawl.
Did it mean something?
I wondered.

“Our fares are set by law,” Red continued. “Nobody dares cheat us these days. We get paid when we carry our torches. Whoever don’t pay gets hauled up before the judges and whipped.”

Timothy coughed into his hand. “It’s better now than when I first came. In the spring, when the days get longer, we don’t have so much business. The farmers come, and lots of boys get
hired to work outside the city. Lucky ones get apprenticed in trades.”

Red pantomimed a hammer blow. “I’d like to be a blacksmith. Work by a forge. Never be cold again. That’s what I’d like. But . . . it’s not so bad.”

Timothy plucked my sleeve. “Except we have no one . . . not like a family. Not like somebody like you. A shepherd’s son. What a coat. And such boots.”

Red agreed. “If you was on your own, going to Joppa, there’s some in the pass who would kill you for such a coat and boots. But not here. They can’t hurt you here.”

Again my thoughts went to the danger of travel and the offer of Joseph of Arimathea to help me. Perhaps I should speak with him again.

The Sparrows’ cavern was dimly lit by the fires. Smoke curled lazily upward and drifted like mist against the blackened stone ceiling. Groups of Sparrows made their nests in fresh straw.

I followed my new friends to the shepherds’ tent, where we placed our bread into heaping baskets for distribution.

Timothy said over his shoulder, “You know what I heard about Jesus? The one you’re so keen to meet? He fed five thousand people with five loaves of bread and two fish.”

Red shook his head in disbelief. “We sure could use someone like him here in Jerusalem.”

“Aye,” Timothy agreed. “But no wonder the priests hate him so. If even half the rumors are true about Jesus, he makes them and all their fine charity look small, don’t he?”

Red argued, “Don’t know why he doesn’t just call down fire from heaven, if he’s the Messiah like they say. He healed a blind beggar named Peniel, who begged his whole life at Nicanor
Gate. If he can give Peniel eyes, why can’t he make bread grow from trees?”

I asked, “Why don’t you follow him and see for yourself?”

The boys exchanged an uneasy look. Timothy explained, “You know what would happen if we left our place to follow Jesus?”

Red blurted, “They’d throw us out, just like they did to poor Peniel after he could see. The elders chased him out of Jerusalem. Told him to never come back to synagogue! Threatened his parents. He was disowned. If us Sparrows went out the gates even one time to meet Jesus? When we came back, our places would be gone. There’d be some other boy carrying my torch.”

“It ain’t worth it.”

“No. Ain’t worth it,” Red echoed. Dozens of fellow link boys hailed my friends as we passed. This was a sort of family. They were brothers, united by suffering and loneliness. They were bonded, just as the shepherds’ families who watched my father’s flocks were bonded to one another. I realized this was the one haven of safety for orphans in the vast and dangerous city. For a Sparrow to lose his place beside the fires of Solomon’s quarry was to lose everything.

We washed in a common trough and then made our way to the circle of twenty-five boys, where Timothy and Red introduced me all around. Then we heaped up clean straw to make our beds.

My stomach growled. “How much longer?”

Red raised a finger. “The last of the brothers will be returning soon. We count them all. Timothy is captain of our circle. He will count and report. We don’t eat until we’re all in the roost, so to speak. Not one is left out.”

Minutes ticked past, and stragglers arrived at the cave one
by one. They snuffed out their torches and picked their way through their companions settling into their home group.

It was late, and baskets of bread had yet to be divided and distributed. I was exhausted from grief and disappointment. Hunger gnawed at my belly and kept me awake. I fixed my gaze on the shepherds’ tent, waiting for an adult to emerge and take charge.

“When?” I asked again.

Timothy shrugged, counted the boys in our circle, then stood. “Wait here,” he instructed. He made his way toward the bread baskets outside the overseers’ tent. Waiting in a line of other captains, he seemed confident and undisturbed by hunger pains. At last an elderly couple emerged. The white-haired man raised his hands and blessed the meal, then took charge of distributing a half loaf for each Sparrow to our captains.

Red said, “If all your family is dead, maybe you can come here. Come live with us all. Become a Sparrow.”

I gave a half smile and thanked him for the invitation.

From here and there in the cave I heard the sound of coughing. It was hard to imagine being sick without my mother to tend me. I tried to imagine living the lonely life of a boy in Solomon’s quarry. A hush of anticipation fell over the cavern.

My eyes stung with tears as I took my bread from Timothy. What if all my family was dead? Or what if I couldn’t find them? I remembered my mother’s cooking in the sheep camp. Meat roasting over the fire. Sometimes trout. Fresh bread slathered with butter. Vegetables. Nuts and dried fruit. Rich cheese.

I held the crust of bread in my hands and tried to be thankful. How I longed for Mama’s gentle voice and sweet prayers for me as she lit the
Shabbat
candles.

Timothy sat down cross-legged beside me. “What are you
staring at? This isn’t bread Jesus conjured up. Looking at it won’t make it grow bigger.” He tore at his morsel. “Eat!”

I nodded and raised the scrap of supper to my mouth. It was tasteless and stale. The generosity of the Temple charity was somehow tarnished by the lack of quality of the bread. But when a boy was starving, he would not complain.

I studied Red as he picked off small mouthfuls and seemed to savor each bite. Behind, in the ring of younger boys, someone began to cough with the force of a barking dog.

Timothy paused but did not raise his eyes. After a while he replied, “It’s the season when so many boys get sick. The sickness carries many away.” Then he leaned close to me. “Nehi, get away from here. Quickly. Tomorrow. Go see the man who wears your mother’s prayer shawl. Beg a favor of him. An escort to Joppa. Find your family if you can. Leave this place.”

Chapter 22

T
he day was cold, the air clear and biting. Blackened snow, fouled with soot and grit and churned into slush underfoot, was heaped in corners and alleyways. Only the parapets surrounding the roofs and the tops of walls enclosing terraces and gardens still boasted coats of pure white.

Red, Timothy, and I stood outside the gates of the manor belonging to Joseph of Arimathea, the Younger. It was set just inside the wall of the Holy City, on a hill atop Jerusalem’s far southwestern border. The home was modest in comparison to the palace of High Priest Caiaphas, or that of another Pharisee named Nicodemus, both of whose dwellings we had passed in coming from the caverns. Yet those grand homes were near enough to be called neighbors. The finely fitted amber sandstone of this wall and the ornate scrollwork of this gate proclaimed the wealth of the family within.

I was at my destination, but now I hesitated. My fingers touched the knob of a bell pull that hung beside the gate. I flinched away from the chilly brass and stopped.