The Book of Feasts & Seasons (23 page)

I smelled them before I saw them. Shepherds. They were even more ragged and work-worn than the people I had seen on the road, or in the Inn. Their hair and beards were long and lank, as if they had never known soap or shears. None of them had anything better woven than poncho-like rough cloak to wear, or a dirty loincloth. But they had sticks in their hands with crooks at one end, or some sort of hook or loop of leather, for drawing lambs back, the same as the one carried by Little Bo Peep. Some things don’t change with time.

I must have startled them when I blundered suddenly into their midst in the narrow street. But these men did not flinch or draw back or slap my face or step on my hand. They were all smiling cheerfully as if they were happy to see me.

I spoke to them in Greek, and then in Latin. I don’t remember clearly what I said. It might not have been very coherent. I doubt these simple hill-folk, the yokels of First Century Palestine, understood the tongues of their conquerors. But of course they knew what I wanted. I wanted to know why they were singing. What was the news? What was going on? You don’t need language to understand this. You just need to be human.

One of them, thinner and more careworn than the rest, blind in one milky-white eye and with ugly growths on his cheek and neck took me by the hand and led me back the way the others had just been coming.

It was a little ways outside the town. We just stepped through a low spot in the toppled wall, where the growing grass had already made a green path like a stile. He pointed at a cave.

“I am looking for a stable,” I said. “A stable with a baby in the manger! And a big honking star sitting right on top of it! Where three kings of Orient are. Maybe a little drummer boy, too.”

The shepherd just pointed again at the cave. Now, in the dusky gloom (for the sun sank below the horizon rapidly at this latitude) I saw a little flicker of butter-yellow light, like a reflection from the smallest lamp, somewhere in the depth of that cave.

The shepherd gave me a little shove, and went back, grinning. As he skipped off, he raised in voice in song, his hands over his head, twitching left and right with the rhythm. I could not understand a word of it, but I could hear his whole heart was in it. I could hear the gratitude.

As I got closer, I saw there was trampled earth around the cave mouth. I could smell the smell of dung. Then, I heard the lowing of cows, the bleating of sheep.

The stable was in a cave. Who puts a stable in a cave? On the other hand, considering how flimsy the last wall was that I broke through, maybe it was not a bad idea.

There was a man standing, leaning on a tall staff, in the shadow to one side of the cave mouth. He was bald on top, but with ringlets of silvery white hair reaching from his ears to his shoulders. A beard as white as snow reached nearly to his sash. His robe was finely made, especially in contrast to what the grimy, half-naked shepherds had been wearing, bold pattern of blue and scarlet stripes, with threads of purple running through it.

He looked up as I approached, and his eyes were so noble and stern that I thought I was looking at some wise king out of a storybook; but they were so sad and kind that, if it had been a storybook, it was a story about a king long banished from his home, a prince whose forefathers in their pride and folly had been toppled from the throne that he would never see. The land under his feet, which was his by right to rule, he walked through as a stranger and an exile.

My mouth was dry.

“I want to see the child,” I said. I said it in Greek. And when he merely looked at me, motionless, silent, sad, and stern, something welled up in my heart I cannot explain, and tears came into my eyes, and I sank down to my knees.

“Please, sir,” I said in Latin. “I need to know. She’s dead. I need to know there is a reason. I need to know there is a hope. I have to see the child. That he is not just a story, that he is not just a lie. Everyone says it’s a lie.”

He put his hand on my shoulder, and leaned forward and kissed me on the mouth, and wiped my tears off with his thumb, then pulled me to my feet. But then he tapped the heel of his staff against my shoes, first the left, and then the right, and he nodded, making a little gesture with his eyebrows.

“Oh!” I said. “Like the Japanese, are you? No shoes in the house?”

He nodded. I slipped my shoes off.

He made a wide sweep of his arm, like a king throwing open the doors to a palace for a visiting dignitary, and motioned me to enter what was, after all, a stinking stable.

The ground was cold underfoot, and there was straw and quite a bit of dung, and I wished the light were better so I would see what I was stepping into. Well, sometimes you have to walk without seeing.

In the distance, there was a little light of a brass oil lamp, the kind Aladdin rubs to get a genii, shedding less light than my phone gives off when I pull it out of my pocket to check the time. There was darkness between here and the lamp.

Why he trusted me, a giant stranger whose language he did not speak, to be alone with his wife who had just given birth, that I cannot guess. I barked my head once or twice, so by the time I came to the small flickering circle of lamplight, I was bent and holding my skull. Because I had just stuck my head through a broken wall not fifteen minutes ago, it was covered with dust.

I am sure the young girl thought I was bowing, or had poured dirt in my hair to show grief or repentance, or something.

She was sitting on the ground, and there was at least three other people with her. The closest to the lamp was a smiling and crooked old crone to which the little girl spoke a word that was, even though gently said, was unmistakably a command.

Again, I was surprised. There was, of course, no reason to assume Mary and Joseph traveled alone in this day and age, or did not have servants. In my grandmother’s time even she, who was by no means a rich woman, had hired help come by on washing days and to help with the spring cleaning, and my grandfather had hands for the farm.

The girl was very young. Maybe she was sixteen, or maybe she was fourteen. I suppose in the ancient world, anyone above thirteen was considered an adult. Considering the life expectancy, maybe sixteen was middle aged.

To be honest, I was appalled at how young she was. Who marries a girl at that age? And travels with her while she is pregnant? Who makes her bear such burdens?

She rose gracefully to her feet, holding the babe in one arm, cradled against her naked breast. I did not think it was right to stare at a young girl’s naked breasts, even if she was a mother, so I tried to keep my eyes down, but with her free hand she touched my cheek and wiped the dust from my hair, and made me to stand up straight.

There were calluses on her fingertips. Women who do a lot of weaving get them, from pulling the threads in the same way, over and over. Young as she was, she had already seen her share of work. Despite having servants, these were not rich people. And I suppose in those days, even rich women wove.

I wish I could tell you how pretty she was. Her eyes were calm as a sea which had never known a storm, never felt the slightest wind, but were clear and blue deep into infinite deeps. It was like looking at the crystal bar of the time machine, as if they opened into another dimension. It was like—how can I put this?—as if I were Tarzan and had been raised by apes and was seeing a real human being, a normal human being, a woman who looked just the way women were designed to look from the beginning, seeing one for the first time.

I said something then. I don’t remember what. It must have been asking to see the baby, who was, by the way, very energetically suckling, his little jaw moving as tirelessly as a machine.

The bent old crone came forward with a bowl of water, and offered it to me. I reached to take it, but she poured it over my hands, and then wiped my hands with the hem of her shawl before I could stop her. Then she knelt and splashed my feet, and wiped them likewise. I realized then that not all the water in this land stank. It was just that room at the Inn they had not bothered drawing fresh water from the well.

Another servant, this one a wall-eyed old man in dire need of dental surgery, offered the girl a small clay cup, which she passed to me with her free hand. The final servant, a man with a whip-scarred face whose ears were cropped handed the girl something that looked like a stone. She put it to her mouth and tore it in half with her teeth, offering me half. It was sourdough bread. I drank the wine and ate the bread, grateful for the hospitality of the Middle East.

The wine of this day and age had a grimy residuum at the bottom of the cup, looking all the world like tea leaves in an old fashioned cup of tea. I started to toss the dregs of the wine away, but the girl put her small hand on my hand and made me drink the whole thing. Not daring to offend the custom of hospitality, I drained the cup to the lees. Then the earless man took the cup away.

Without a word, she handed me the child.

I wish I could say he was cute. No, newborn babies are only cute after a few weeks. He was still red from birth, and wrinkled like a lizard. The umbilicus had been cut off far from the navel, and tied with a red thread. In case you want to know, Jesus Christ is an outie, not an innie.

I have always wanted to have a child. I always wanted to hold a baby in my arms. I know most women love holding babies and few men do. I am one of those few. My wife, for reasons still painful for me to dwell upon, was not able to have children. She had led a wild life as a teenager, aborted her firstborn, and suffered complications as a result.

Holding that young life in my arms, so frail, and so precious, seemed a miracle. I held him close, delighted with his warmth, with the living weight in my hands. The stink of the animals was in my nostrils, but the warmth shed by all the animals made the cave like an incubator. I was already blinking, trying to keep the sweat on my brow from getting in my eyes. It stung, and I my eyes swam with tears. I was wondering why in the world any mother would hand me her child to hold.

The girl looked at my face and spoke in Aramaic to the scarred man. He bowed to me and spoke in Greek, “I am Ehved son of Emeth. My lady greets you and says peace to you. This is Mariam daughter of Joachim son of Eli son of Levi and Anna daughter of Phanuel the High Priest.”

“Peace. Peace to you and to your lady. I am Jonathan son of Jacob.”

She spoke again. Her voice was like music.

“She says the child is the son of David. He is the king. The king belongs to the people. Whose arms should uphold the king, if the people will not hold him?”

She must have seen the look of surprise on my face when she handed him to me. Or maybe she could read minds. I had been riding a time machine this afternoon, I was a time traveler almost killed by another time traveler, so at this point I was not sure what I could believe.

The baby reached out and grabbed the crucifix hanging on a fine chain around my neck, and tried to put it in his mouth. My hand twitched, because I was torn between the need to get the choking hazard away from baby, but also to support the baby’s head, and I did not have three hands.

The girl must have seen the look of helpless male panic on my face, because she reached up with her small hands and neatly plucked the crucifix from the tiny red fist and the hungry little mouth.

The girl inspected the crucifix with a wide-eyed stare, tilting it to catch the lamplight. She said something in Aramaic. Her tone was one of innocent wonder, delight at finding a strange mystery.

The scar-faced man said, “My lady wishes to know what you are, and where you are from, that you would willingly carry so finely crafted an image of the death by torment only slaves suffer so near your heart? It is an abomination. In what land are such things made?”

The baby in my arms was so fragile. The girl seemed so happy, so serene. I could not say anything.

She spoke again. Ben Emeth said, “He that is hanged on a tree is accursed.”

“No,” I said.

Ben Emeth looked offended. “What do you mean, no?”

I thought of my wife’s unborn child, who had never lived, and whom I have never seen, never held, and who had never been mine. There are men who are fulfilled even if they are never fathers. I am not one of them.

I was no longer blinking because sweat was stinging my eyes. Now I was weeping.

I had been seeing it, in my heart, over the grave. A boy I could hold. I would have helped change diapers, and bottle fed him, made sure the apartment was child safe, no pennies on the floor a baby could have put in his mouth. I would have bought the right kind of safety seat for the car, the kind made of lightweight Space Age material, with a basket that unhooks from the seat for ease of carrying. And a stroller. And taught him how to walk. I would have been home for his first word. I would have tickled him and made him giggle.

And, later, ah, later: baseball and cub scouts and boy scouts and first communion and first love and teaching him how to tie a bow-tie and how to fold a flag and how to clean a rifle, and teaching him all the words to IMPOSSIBLE DREAM from MAN OF LA MANCHA. How to tell the truth. How to raise a child when his turn came. Everything. I would have taught him everything. Maybe he would grow up to be a doctor, and heal the sick and save their lives.

And if my son, the healer, if he got arrested for a crime he did not commit? I would have done anything, sold the car and the house to hire the best lawyers. And if he was bounced from one kangaroo court to the next, and witnesses got up and lied about him? I would keep hoping someone would give him justice. I would appeal. First to the Sanhedrin, then to Herod, then to Pontius Pilate. Someone would see he was innocent, that he had done no wrong.

But what if no one did? What if the politicians and the powerful people of the world, the priests and the princes and the conquerors decided to kill him? Would I keep hoping then?

“What do you mean, stranger?” said Ben Emeth again. Beneath his scars and the wrinkles of his age, I saw he had once been a handsome man, no doubt young and brave. He did not like people contradicting his mistress.