Two from Galilee (24 page)

They gave her a spray of myrtle to carry and Hannah clutched it, the scent of it harsh and sweet. She felt herself being half-led, half-shoved along. The street was filled with guests bearing torches that lit up the trees so that they sprang at her like wet yellow mouths, belching sounds of merriment. The tymbals were playing, and the lyres. A crowd of youths surged up, already far gone in wine. Aaron was a popular fellow and they shouted his name in fond jests. Hannah could smell their breath as they made way for her and her family, shouting, "Step aside, these are kinsmen of the bride!" Despite the courtesy, Hannah's skin crawled, for she heard, or imagined she heard, a backwash of comment followed by laughter. How dared they? She turned, longing to claw them with her bare hands, only they had vanished around a corner.

The house of Cora and Nathan was indeed aswarm. Some people had mounted lamps on poles and these dipped about the courtyard like winged birds of fire. There was a tarry smell of smoke from the torches along with the perfumes and spices and oils. Their brother-in-law spied them being jostled and ignored and came expansively toward them, his pert homely face also rosy with wine. He was hearty with happiness, clutching Joachim by the shoulder and steering them inside.

"Cora, wife, come, come, your brother has arrived," he called. And she left off her assertive last-minute adjustings of her daughter's veil and greeted them effusively. She could afford to be generous, kissing them and exclaiming over Hannah's robe which she could see had been hastily donned, it was so wrinkled, and glancing at the two pearls over which she had once quarreled with Joachim, for they had belonged to her mother and it didn't seem right that they be handed on to a crude little urchin from Judea. Well, but her husband could afford to buy her jewels—they flashed now on her hands and in her wads of ornately piled hair. She exuded forgiveness and glory.

"Come see Deborah, she's just down from her chamber. Forgive me for saying so, but did you ever see such a beautiful bride?"

"No," Hannah muttered, "no, never." She choked on her own jealous love. The words were not merely the elaborate politeness required. "Our niece is radiant, she's fairer than the crest of Mount Hermon at sunrise." And it was true.

Deborah sat on a raised bench decked with flowers and glistening palm fronds. She reigned there, cool, bemused, a trifle imperious, half-hidden in the gem-shot lavender veil. Her gown was white with a sash of gold, embroidered with flowers and pearls to match her sandals. Her slant green eyes darted about, afire like the emeralds in her myrtle crown. She was all harsh bright sparks and she was very beautiful, but she also seemed disdainful, anxious only to have the whole thing over with.

Her mother regarded her with a candid objectivity. "But more than that she has always been such a good girl. And Aaron's such a fine man. Who knows but what this union might produce the hope of Israel?"

Hannah flinched and turned away. "The hope of Israel," Hannah echoed, though she felt strangled. It was the polite thing to say at weddings. Cora had meant nothing by it.

"The hope of Israel!" some others standing nearby took up the phrase and lifted their cups to the bride, who gave a vaguely contemptuous little nod and lowered her eyes. Joachim did not join in the toast. His grizzled jaw was working; he set down his cup.

Dressed in white the bridesmaids foamed about the little dais, holding their lamps aloft. They were singing the ancient wedding songs. Salome was among them, enjoying herself. Let her, Hannah thought, and raked such consolation as she could from the child's slight loveliness. Let Salome at least draw pleasure from these doings. As for herself, she was here, she had been forced to come, let her enjoy herself as well. For life was harsh and the grave was always close, so why not celebrate when you can? Rejoice, drink the soothing wine, and toast the honorable, if rather pudgy, bridegroom when he comes.

Hannah's rouged cheeks began to flame; she could hear her own voice ringing out, joining the songs that praised the virtues and beauty of the bride, who had never been the equal of her Mary, but who was unsullied, unscathed, and so could sit cool and remote on a flower-decked throne awaiting the arrival of her mate.

"Your hair is like a flock of goats, moving down the slopes of Gilead. . . . Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind your veil. . . . My dove, my perfect one, is the only one, the darling of her mother!" people chanted. There were tears in Cora's eyes, Hannah saw with sympathy and a kind of incensed bafflement—for how was it that other women could feel so about their ordinary offspring? And then Hannah's heart was stirred by the music and the wine and she turned and flung her arms about her sister-in-law.

"Oh, Cora, how fortunate you are!"

She felt Cora go tense in the embrace. A little croak of disbelief escaped her. And turning, Hannah saw a slight commotion in the doorway. The music had stopped, a startled silence washed through the crowd. "Mary!" someone whispered. "It's Mary and Joseph."

Oh, no, Hannah thought. But she felt a spurt of defiant gladness as well. For how beautiful Mary was, framed by the doorway to the courtyard, her face shining with that old radiance that had caused people's heads to turn. And behind her stood Joseph, a trifle diffident, uncertain of their welcome, but never so gravely handsome, as if these past weeks had lent new dimensions to his sensitive face.

No one spoke, the embarrassed crowd drew aside as they entered, Mary bearing her burden high, like a queen. The virgins had stopped singing; exchanging troubled glances, they lowered their lamps. The married women began to murmur, some of them looked uncomfortable. "Such nerve," someone muttered. "How dare they show up here?"

"Hush, be careful," a neighbor warned. "That's Hannah, her mother, standing there."

"Well, let her hear. If a daughter can't be trained to keep out of trouble let her at least be trained not to soil a wedding feast when she's up to her chin with child."

Hannah had gone limp. Now slowly she was braced to tiger strength. Her fists knotted, her lips drew back. Bridling, she turned and would have rent the speaker limb from limb, but she felt the restraining grip of Joachim's hand. "Stop," he ordered beneath his breath, "We cannot spoil our niece's wedding."

Our niece's wedding! That he could think of anyone save his own child at such a moment seemed the final outrage. And she began to keen and wail within, and rock her little one against her breast: Oh, Mary, my baby, my little lost bird, why have you been so foolish as to expose yourself? These idiots, these jackals, they would never believe the truth if it were shouted from the housetops.

Nathan came striding in from the garden. He looked at his wife, who was plainly upset. This was Deborah's doing. She adored her cousin, no matter what. Evidently she'd bidden Mary to come but said nothing, no warning—oh, she'd always been a sly one. And this marriage to Aaron whom she only tolerated, whom she almost despised—was this Deborah's way of punishing them for their choice? Oh, what were children coming to any more?

As for Mary and Joseph, if they had any respect for their relatives or their parents they wouldn't have come. Yet here they stood, so comely both of them; under any other circumstances they'd have graced the occasion. There was something almost noble about them, making a mockery of their humble state—Joseph a mere carpenter, Mary a woman in disgrace. It would be too cruel to bid them to depart. Deborah would never forgive them. And Mary's parents had already been through enough, Cora reminded herself with a mixture of acrimony and family loyalty.

Yet something else restrained her. Something she could not explain. An uneasiness smote her, a staggering concern. Hannah's claim. Hannah's preposterous hintings, which Cora had squelched, and rightly, as the last-ditch inventions of an overwrought woman well-known for an exaggerated passion for her child.

And yet, the sweet light that flowed almost tangibly from Mary. And Joseph, who stood behind her, one hand lightly cupping her shoulder. The gesture was loving, loyal, that of a heartbroken man who would support his beloved regardless of all the world. And yet more ... so much more. Something that baffled and rocked the aunt; that look of secret suffering and gentle commitment on his face. As if something had died within him and something new been born.

She wanted to cry out with it, to demand an explanation. She wanted, curiously, to prostrate herself before it. She was exalted and repulsed by it and she rejected it with all her being. This was her daughter's wedding; there was no place for it here.

Deborah had sprung to her feet, hands outstretched. "Joseph! And Mary, my cousin. Oh, I thought you'd never come." Bending, she threw back her veil almost gaily for Mary's kiss.

At this the crowd murmured afresh. "These modern girls, have they no shame?" "It's bad luck, her first child will be stillborn. . . ." But a new commotion diverted them. Word had come from the courtyard, "He's on his way, the bridegroom's almost here!"

The news sent people running for doorways and into the garden to see the procession. The maids hastily regrouped, holding aloft their lamps that sputtered in the gusts of air from all the rushing about. The music could be heard drawing nearer, a bright tinkling of flutes and tambors and lutes. People did not resume their singing, they waited in a murmuring suspense, for the knock of the bridegroom on the richly ornamented door.

At last it came—
boom, boom, boom!
Mighty and demanding, almost comical in its urgency, and yet holy as well—the male for his mate. And people laughed and sang his praises as he entered in his swishing robes of Oriental splendor, grinnning rather sheepishly under his fat turban that was so jaunty and gay with flowers. Plump and perspiring he stood before her with shy moist passionate eyes and a dimple in his round chin. He was shorter than Deborah when she stepped down, her face demurely hidden behind her veils.

But he bore her away in triumph and honor, accompanied by the joyful procession of groomsmen and maids. And half of Nazareth trooped after them to the fine house he had built, where the wedding feast was to be held. There would be singing and dancing and toasts most of the night before they would be finally led to the bridal chamber, there to join their bodies in the hope that out of them might come forth a son who would be the saviour of them all.

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Mary
and
Joseph
left
early.

Behind them they could hear the sounds of merriment that would continue half the night. A quarter moon lay on its side in a metallic sky. It was circled with a shining band and within the arc burned a sole bright star.

"The circle means the cold will be upon us soon," Joseph said.

Mary pulled her cloak more tightly about her. "Yes, only too soon. Winter will be fully upon us when the little one arrives."

Joseph reached out and drew her nearer. No one was abroad to see. He wanted to reassure himself with her closeness, lost though she was to him. She was so precious, doubly precious now in her pregnancy. Precious in the very burden of disgrace that she had put upon him. That was his weight to carry about and he must bear it as gracefully as she bore the growing burden of the child. He remembered the sly looks tonight when he made his excuses, "My wife is tired." He knew some of the men were thinking, "And besides he longs to get her home for himself, huge though she is. A man who wouldn't wait for his own wedding canopy. . . ." But that didn't matter, only Mary mattered. The pity was that there was no way to spare her, for whatever was said to his discredit reflected on her.

She said, "I'm sorry if I spoiled it for you."

"You could spoil nothing for me, Mary. You are my life."

"Then I have spoiled your life."

"No, no. It is not your doing. It was simply my fate to love you. You who are also the beloved of God." They walked along in silence, still conscious of the music and voices drifting down. Human everyday sounds, lively and tantalizing with the celebration of purely human love. . . . And the bride and groom. Were they growing eager for their hour? How soon would Deborah be led to her couch, stripped of her finery and made to lie down to await her husband in the still throbbing music of the darkness? And the groom, slightly drunken, flushed and perspiring, his garland askew, his pudgy hands outstretched. When? When? How soon?

But he must not have such thoughts. Such evil thoughts. The Lord had chosen him for this honor and this trial. Would he have been selected if he had not also been strong? Yet he was not strong, he knew wretchedly, as surely God knew only too well. Why then, why?

Joseph lifted his aching throat. "Perhaps that circle of light in the sky is a good omen for our cousins. It's like a wedding band."

Mary followed his gaze, aware of the band on her own finger. Married and yet not married. It was all so strange, pure and cold and strange, yet with the little being in her belly burning as boldly as that single star.

"Let's hope they'll be happy, Joseph, even though there is no love between them such as yours and mine."

His heart broke. He said, "Love has seldom been considered important to a happy marriage in Israel."

"Perhaps one day all that will change. This child that is even now rollicking about within me—I feel that he will change so much. Not just things like freeing the Land and making all the world realize there is but one true God, but things that affect people like us, people who know the meaning of love."