“Actually, you’ll be thrown in with the prisoners you abused before you came here,” Tavita added. “Wonder how that will turn out for you.”
I slept with a smile …
When I awoke it was dark outside. I bolted upright in a panic: the medicine! The throat treatments! I was failing in my duty!
Mary reassured me otherwise: “Once Tavita got things organized, the rest was easy.”
I scanned the warehouse. Before I slept, the patients had been arranged in long rows. Some were comfortably near the fires but others were chilled at too great a distance,
Now the boys were arranged in circles, like the spokes of a wheel, with a charcoal brazier at the center of each.
“Tavita, Peniel, and I have made the rounds with the medicine. We’re starting with the throat painting now. You can help, if you’re up to it.”
I nodded, overwhelmed with generosity and hope.
“And they’ve all been fed,” Mary added. “Rapha and her crew saw to that.”
“How?”
“Let’s just say Tavita found the right encouragement.”
I mixed the phytolacca and prepared to show Mary and Tavita how to apply it. The boy I used for my demonstration was named Lamech. When I sat down next to him, his eyes were clearer than in days and his voice sounded stronger. “Please, sir. If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather the lady dosed me,” he said, pointing at Mary. “She told me part of a story when she gave me my tonic. I’d like to hear a bit more, if you don’t mind.”
Soon enough I was wrapped again in both a blanket and in slumber, confident that with Mary and Tavita in charge, my boys—I thought of them that way—were in better hands than in the previous week I had been caring for them. And that notion did not injure my feelings one bit.
Telltale barking coughs still ricocheted around the ward of Jerusalem Sparrows. The plague would not lightly give up its grip on my boys.
What changed was the atmosphere in the hospital, meaning both the air we breathed and the spiritual sense too.
With only the prison matrons to assist us, Peniel and I had felt like drowning men. No task was ever completed; no dosage or feeding gave satisfaction.
We had been holding our own, but that was all.
When Mary and Tavita took charge, they insisted that any old, filthy rags be taken out and burned. The cheap charcoal we had been using was discarded; higher quality coals burned with more heat and less smoke. The crones were set to work sweeping and scrubbing floors with the steaming lemon water under Tavita’s watchful eye.
The boys were bathed. The straw of their pallets was turned every day and discarded once a week, to be replaced with fresh stuffing. Tavita washed faces, cut and brushed hair, sewed new robes from blanket stock.
How she found time for all that and nursing as well I never discovered.
After another week, with rotating care provided by Mary and Tavita, it was clear that a true miracle was in progress. Not another death did we have.
Some, like Jason, were not only stronger, but they were gaining weight by eating regular, nourishing, hot meals.
Others, like Suda, who had been very low indeed, were brought back literally from the brink of the grave. Suda, who still mourned his lost brother, was able to swallow an entire bowl of broth and nibble a bit of bread.
Mary rocked the children. She sang to them and told them stories about Jesus. “Do you know how, when our great-great-great grandfathers were in the wilderness, God sent manna … bread from heaven … to feed them? Well, Jesus did something just like that in Galilee. He fed thousands of people from just five barley loaves and two little fish.”
“And then what happened?” they chorused.
“More later,” she promised.
Disappointed groans followed her to her next circle of patients, but they were the sounds of boys on the mend, their strength returning.
Tavita also told every one of the Sparrows about Jesus of Nazareth. “In Capernaum there lives a girl named Deborah. She’s about your age,” the servant said, pointing toward a twelve-year-old. “Well, she got sick and died.”
“Did she have the plague too?” piped a listener.
“No, something much more sudden,” Tavita said. “But do you know what Rabbi Jesus did for her? He spoke to her, and she woke up and sat up.”
“Was she really dead?”
Tavita nodded vigorously. “Really and truly. But Master Jesus spoke her name, and she came to life again.”
Suda whispered, “I wish he did that for my brother Hiram.”
Tavita folded the boy in her arms and rocked him. “Me too, lamb. But Hiram’s in olam haba now. Who else do you know in olam haba who was there to meet him?”
“Mama and Papa,” Suda said, his lower lip trembling. “They both died the same year we came to Jerusalem. That’s how we came to live in the quarry.”
“There now, my sweet boy,” Tavita crooned, stroking Suda’s forehead and cheeks. “Someday we’ll go see them together, eh? What a reunion that will be.”
At the other end of the hall Mary sang. She had a beautiful, lilting voice. “Listen! This is a song written and sung by my namesake, who was the Lawgiver’s sister:
“Sing to the LORD,
for he is highly exalted
The horse and its rider
he has hurled into the sea.1
“Now I know,” Mary said, “your terrible sore throats won’t let you sing now. But I’ll teach this to you, and soon enough we’ll all sing it.”
They all believed her and looked forward to joining her choir.
And so did I.
Chapter 26
There came a morning when I awoke with a headache and a sore throat. In the reflection of a polished brass serving tray I inspected my tongue and saw two pale white spots there, each about the size of a denarius. I did not tell my sister, but she knew instinctively I was not well. I was shaky when I walked and halting in my speech.
The symptoms appeared on the same day word came that our departure from the hospital was abruptly ordered. A ferret-faced man named Ra’nabel ben Dives, who was secretary to High Priest Caiaphas, arrived at the head of a pack train of supplies.
It was more like a royal procession: a half score of donkeys were tended by twoscore servants and preceded by a crier and three men blowing silver trumpets.
“Make way for the high priest’s retinue. These supplies are urgently needed by the suffering beggars of Jerusalem. Make way!”
Ra’nabel, head piously covered, walked behind the procession, praying loudly and thanking the God of Israel for the sacrificial generosity of Lord Caiaphas. By his prayer he informed the citizens of Jerusalem that this charity was absolutely essential to the survival of the Sparrows.
In truth the total supplies Caiaphas sent would only have required a single cart to transport, but they were welcome just the same. Or so I thought when one of the servants pounded on the door of the hospital, and Ra’nabel announced the gift.
While I spoke in a normal tone, the secretary continued stridently proclaiming to all Jerusalem the goodwill offered by Caiaphas. He made certain to make the aid sound massive and the plight of the “destitute and dying” very grim indeed.
I told him the help was very welcome. “And, thanks be to the Almighty, the danger is past. The boys are all on the mend, getting better every day.”
Ra’nabel then informed me that our presence at the hospital was no longer required. “Lord Caiaphas thanks the House of Lazarus for its good service as you return to Bethany.”
“Return to … you’re ordering us out?”
“Lord Caiaphas, mindful of his responsibility to the poor of Jerusalem, wants to take personal charge of seeing that the contagion does not spread. We will take over now.”
In my foggy mental state it took a moment for me to comprehend these actions, and then it came to me. Word had reached the high priest, probably through one of the crones, that the Sparrows were improving as we worked and pray
ed in the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
If the boys had died, then Jesus could have been blamed, but he could not receive credit if they were made whole. The high priest had waited until a successful outcome was assured before seizing the credit for himself.
I started to reply to this takeover, suffered a sudden bout of coughing, and finally acquiesced.
When Mary protested, Ra’nabel’s features lost their ingratiating aura. “You would do well to keep silent! We know the man from Nazareth is a sorcerer. It has come to the attention of Lord Caiaphas that incantations have been performed using the blasphemer’s name. You are hereby ordered to gather your belongings and be out of here by tomorrow or be arrested for witchcraft.”
With a hand trembling with both illness and emotion, I penned the news in a note to my sister Martha. I also asked that she prepare the disused building behind the barn for me to occupy.
Mary, reading my words, protested. “Brother, you’re not well. When you get home you need your own bed.”
“No,” I countered. “I cannot be where I’m a danger to the others. I’ll be fine in the old cottage. But only you and Peniel can come see about me. Please make it clear to Martha that I love her, and there is no way I will expose her to this disease.”
Our departure from my boys was tearful. Laying hands on each child, we prayed in Jesus’ name for their continued strength and full recovery. “Remember what we say: there is true power in Jesus of Nazareth. Not another one of you has been lost. Who has ever heard of such a thing?”
Mary kissed each boy’s forehead … then we were gone.
By the time we reached my front gate, my head was throbbing. I could not open my eyes wider than a squint because the Judean sun was unbearable. My throat felt parched, yet when I tried even a mouthful of water I could not swallow without a great effort to overcome the pain.
Because I did not want to alarm Martha, I said nothing about any of my symptoms. A few days of rest and good food, I reasoned, and I would be on the mend. In my deepest heart I knew this was self-deception at best. I was afraid to admit the extent of my illness for fear Martha would insist on summoning Jesus to help me.
The thought of being the cause of his arrest … or worse … was something I could not permit.
I pretended to scratch my beard, complaining that Mary and Tavita had made the Sparrows more presentable than I was. In reality I fingered the line of my jaw, the glands underneath alarmingly swollen and hot to the touch.
Martha met us and would have swept me up in an embrace, but I fended her off abruptly. “Need rest and quiet,” I said brusquely. When I saw how my tone had hurt her, I added, “A few days … right as rain.” It was becoming harder and harder to speak at all. With every word either my throat seized up or I coughed, so all my phrases came between short pauses. “Fix your famous … lamb and rice. See how … fast I get … strength back. But not today,” I added. “Soup, today, please. Only Mary and Tavita should … come near me, Martha. They … had this illness … got well, but you … never had it.”
“Neither have you,” Martha murmured, alarm barely hidden behind a carefully neutral visage.
That night Martha prepared a savory broth. The steaming tureen of chicken soup filled the freshly scrubbed cottage with the aromas of cardamom and ginger.
As soon as I smelled it I felt my throat constrict. “Just put it … down,” I managed to rasp to Mary. “Sleep a bit. Eat later.”
I did sleep then, but fitfully. My dreams were filled with images of a snake coiled around my neck, strangling me. When, in my dream, I struggled to free myself from its coils, it turned into a black cord knotted about my throat being tugged ever tighter by Lord Caiaphas and his scribe Ra’nabel.
Mary’s touch on my forehead woke me. “So sorry, brother. You were making terrible noises, writhing on the bed. It sounded like you were calling for help.”
“Just …” My throat hurt so badly I had to pause before adding, “. dreaming.”
Her arms under my shoulders helped me prop upright. My head felt as if it weighed far too much for my neck to support. The least jostling filled my head with the sense a grinding stone was rolling around inside it.
She gave me a sip of water, for which I was grateful, but when she held the mug to my lips a second time I waved it away. Mary prayed for me then. In Jesus’ name, she asked the Almighty to recognize how diligently I had worked to save the Sparrows and requested I be shown the same miracle of restoration as they.
When I opened my eyes in the morning, bright sunshine streamed in. Outside the cottage’s window an almond tree displayed its exuberant rebirth in showy pink blossoms.
A trio of caregivers surrounded my bed. Mary, Tavita, and Peniel formed a knot of silent witnesses. Had they been standing over me all night? Was I so ill that they thought I was going to die? Or was I dreaming now?
Mary spoke: “Good to see you awake, brother. Martha sends her love and a pot of stew.” She nodded toward Peniel, who raised the lid of the kettle he carried and inhaled appreciatively. “Smells wonderful, Master David,” he observed. His stomach growled.
I had no appetite. My coughing was not as violent, but only because I had no strength left in my exhausted frame.
By what I knew to be a feeble gesture, I waved away the soup. With fragments of words I vowed to have some later.
“You must eat to recover your strength,” Mary insisted.
Speaking required too much effort. I shook my head gingerly. I saw Mary exchange a worried glance with Tavita. When Tavita volunteered to coax me to eat, as she had successfully done with my boys, I allowed her to try.
I could not find any aroma or any taste in the broth, but that was of no concern to me. The liquid seemed to get stuck halfway down my throat. A pain built in my chest, as if I had swallowed a stone, and it was blocking the passage to my stomach. Each drop required a supreme effort of will to force down.
I could only manage a few swallows before I shook my head again. Between the soreness of my throat and the bouts of coughing, I feared I would choke. In any case I was not hungry.
The three of them left then, but I overheard their conference through the thin walls of the cabin.
Mary insisted I was getting better.
Tavita replied that Mary had not seen my throat or tongue. “We should send for Jesus. Now. At once. Send Peniel today.”
I would have shouted and told them no, but I had no breath or strength for shouting. Feebly I called, but no one heard me.
Then I heard Mary complete my refusal for me: “My brother would never agree to call Jesus back into danger. We pulled all the boys through this. We’ll pull David through as well. You’ll see.”
I lay back on the pillow then, as tired as if I had fought a great battle.
Outside the window a flotilla of clouds drifted past, like an armada of galleys coasting down the wind. I admired the lack of effort, the ease with which they floated. Of course they could not stop nor turn against the wind. All they could do is run before it until they piled up against a mountain peak or dissolved above the hot sands of the desert.
At the moment either choice was preferable to where I lay and how I felt.
Chapter 27
Was it morning or evening? Dawn or twilight? I could not tell. The light in the cottage was dim, but it seemed to neither increase nor decrease. I tried to lift my head to look around; failed. I tried to raise my hand to hold it in front of my face; failed again.
A dearly beloved countenance, almost as familiar as my own, bent over me. What was her name? Part of my mind wrestled with the problem. I knew I should know her name. Why couldn’t I remember it?
A cloth dipped in warm water appeared. Gentle motions scrubbed my eyes, nose, and mouth. When it was lifted away from me, I saw it was stained red. Was I bleeding? It did not seem to matter.
“Poor, poor dear,” a tender voice crooned.
Mary! That was the name. I vowed to remember it.
A spoon was inserte
d between my lips, and some liquid dribbled in. Where did she think the fluid would go? I could not recognize much, but I knew my tongue was now swollen until it completely filled the cavity of my mouth and throat.
No room! I wanted to shout. You’re going to choke me!
“Come on, lamb, just a little more.”
I clamped my lips shut. The wooden spoon clunked against my teeth. Some broth or soup or water dribbled on my chest.
Mary tried again to insert the spoon between my teeth.
By rolling my shoulders and flinging my emaciated frame to the left I managed to knock the spoon from her hand. Leave me alone, I felt like screaming.
Even thinking about screaming made my head ache.
“David? Brother? We must … must … send for Jesus. Now. Today.”
A burst of coughing shook me from my head to my toes. Summoning all my reserve of breath and strength, I managed to croak: “No! Not safe! Don’t!”
Then, like a crushed grape skin after the juice has been pressed, I folded back into the bed, lying flatter and stiller than I had before. “Promise!” I demanded.
I was barely conscious of the ongoing efforts of my sisters and the physician, Sosthenes, to save me. I had no sense of time moving at all. I lived in a kind of perpetual suspense, waiting for something without knowing what.
I no longer opened my eyes. If I swallowed water or broth, it was without my knowledge, or perhaps in spite of it.
Only a few moments registered with me as taking place outside my mind.
The doctor, belatedly called to my bedside, forced open my mouth. He jammed a device in place to hold my jaws apart. Holding an oil lamp so close to my face I writhed away from the heat, he painted my throat with something far more foul and gagging than phytolacca.
I heard or perhaps dreamed Mary pleading with Marcus Longinus. “Go find Jesus!” she begged. “Tell him we need him to come. For the sake of one he loves, he must come! Beg him to intercede!”