“Do I not know you?” I asked.
“Rabbi, you are the Son of God,” Nathanael whispered. “You are the King of Israel.”
“Because I saw you in my mind's eye, beneath the tree, fretting about so many bundles to take to the wedding?” I thought for a moment, then trusting my mind and my words, I said, “Amen, amen. You too will see the sky opened as John saw it. Only you will not see a dove when you see it opened. You'll see the angels of the Lord on High coming and going on the Son of Man.”
I touched my chest with my hand.
He was awestruck. So were the others, but they were caught in a collective fascination, an ever-increasing wonder.
We had reached the toll post.
There sat the rich toll collector whom I'd seen in the river, the man so well described to me as the one who'd taken my beloved Joseph up and away from the bank, the one who'd taken Joseph's body home to Nazareth for burial.
I came up to him. Those waiting to confer with him stood back. Soon the crowd was too large and too pressing, and filled with more than casual rumblings. Horsemen, donkeys laden with goods, carts filled with baskets and baskets of fish—all these waited and people began to fuss that they had to wait.
My new disciples clustered around me.
The toll collector scribbled in his book, his teeth set, lips slightly tensing with the strokes of his pen. Finally, ripping himself unwillingly from his calculations for the shadow at his elbow that would not leave, he looked up and saw me.
“Matthew,” I said. I smiled. “Did you write down in your fine hand the things that my father, Joseph, told you?”
“Rabbi!” he whispered. He stood up. He couldn't find any words in his own mind for the transformation in me, for the whole range of small differences he now perceived. The finely woven robes were the smallest part of it. Fine robes to him were a usual thing.
He didn't notice the others who shrank from him. He didn't notice John and James bar Zebedee glowering at him as if they wanted to stone him, or Nathanael eyeing him coldly. He stared only at me.
“Rabbi,” he said again. “Had I your leave, I would write them down, yes, all the stories your father told me and more too, more of what I myself saw when you went into the river.”
“Come follow me,” I said. “I've been in the desert for many many days. I would dine with you tonight, I and these my friends. Come, make a feast for us. Let us come into your house.”
He walked away from the toll post without so much as looking back and took me by the arm and led me into the thick of the little seaside city.
The others wouldn't hurl insults at him, not in his presence. But surely he heard the casual judgments issuing from those behind us, and those who spread out and followed loosely in a small herd.
Without letting go of me, he sent a boy ahead to tell his servants to prepare for us.
“But the wedding, Rabbi,” asked Nathanael, plainly distressed. “We must go or we won't be there in time.”
“We have the time for this one night,” I said. “Don't you worry. Nothing could keep me from the wedding. And I have much to tell you tonight of what happened to me when I was out in the wilderness. You know full well, all of you, or soon will, what happened when I went to be baptized in the Jordan by my cousin John. But the story of my days in the desert is mine to tell you.”
25
THE VIOLET EVENING was shining over the hills as we slipped unnoticed into Nazareth.
I had taken us round to where we wouldn't be seen, because the torches were already going up and one could hear the eager voices. The bridegroom was expected within less than an hour. The children were playing in the streets. Women in their finest white robes were waiting already with lamps. Others were still gathering flowers and making garlands. People were coming in from the groves round and about, their arms filled with branches of myrtle and palm.
We found the house in a welter of excited preparation.
My mother cried out when she set eyes on me, and flew into my arms.
“And you thought he wouldn't be here,” said my uncle Cleopas, who bound us both in his embrace.
“Look, here, whom I've brought for you,” I said, and gestured to Little Salome who at once went into a flood of tears in her father's arms. Little Tobiah. The nephews and cousins came to cluster about us, the little ones to pick at my new garments and all to welcome those whose names I hastily spoke.
My brothers greeted me, each eyeing me a little uneasily—especially James.
All knew Matthew as the man who'd mourned with them for Joseph. No one questioned his presence, least of all Uncle Alphaeus and Cleopas, or my aunts. And his habitual fine clothes created no stares.
But there was no time for talk.
The bridegroom was coming.
Dust had to be fiercely brushed from our clothes, sandals wiped, hands and faces washed, hair combed and anointed, wedding garments taken out of their wrappings, Little Tobiah to be scrubbed like a vegetable and garbed immediately, and so we lost ourselves in the preparations.
Little Shabi ran in to announce that he had never seen so many torches in Nazareth. Everyone in the entire village had turned out. The clapping had begun. The singing.
And through the walls we could hear the thump of the timbrels, and the high-pitched melodies of the horns.
Not a glimpse of my beloved Avigail.
At last we went out into the courtyard, all we men to be ranged around it. Out of the baskets, the little ones took the exquisitely made garlands of ivy and white-petaled flowers, and placed a garland on every bowed head. Yaqim was with us. Silent Hannah in shining white, her maiden hair gracefully combed beneath her veil, held up the garland for my head, her eyes brimming as she smiled.
I looked at her face as she turned away. I heard the music as she heard it, the insistent beat. I saw the torches as she saw, flaring without a sound.
The twilight was gone.
The light of lamps and candles and torches was dazzling as it flashed and flickered in the lattices and on the rooftops across the way.
I could hear the singing rising with the strum of the harp strings, and the deeper throbbing of the strings of the lutes. The very crackling of the torches mingled with the singing.
Suddenly the horns sounded.
The bridegroom had reached Nazareth. He and the men with him were coming up the hill to joyful salutes and great volleys of clapping.
More torches flared suddenly in the yard around us.
Out of the central doors of the house came the women in their bleached woolen robes, beautifully banded in bright colors, their hair wrapped up in their finest white veils.
Suddenly the great white linen canopy festooned with ribbons was unfolded and hoisted. My brothers Joses, Judas, and Simon and my cousin Silas held the poles.
The street before the courtyard exploded with joyful greetings.
Into the torchlight stepped Reuben, garlanded, and beautifully robed, beaming, his face so filled with gladness that my eyes swam with tears. And beside him, the eager friend of the bridegroom, Jason, who sought now to present him in a ringing voice:
“Reuben bar Daniel bar Hananel of Cana is here!” Jason proclaimed. “For his bride.”
James stepped forward, and for the first time, I saw beside him the hulking, grim-faced Shemayah, the garland slightly askew on his head, his wedding garments not quite reaching their proper length due to the great width of his shoulders and the thickness of his immense arms.
But he was there! He was there—and he pushed James forward now towards the excited and explosively happy Reuben who came into the courtyard with open arms.
Silent Hannah rushed to the doorway of the house.
James took the embrace of Reuben.
“Joyous greetings, my brother!” James said loudly so that all the crowd beyond could hear it, and the clapping answered him fiercely. “Joyous greetings as you come into this the house of your brothers and to take your kinswoman as a bride.”
James stepped to the side. The torches moved in towards the door of the house as Silent Hannah stepped out and gestured for Avigail to come forward.
And come forward she did.
Swathed in veil upon veil of Egyptian gauze, she stepped into the flaring illumination, her veils encrusted with gold, her arms ornamented with gold, her fingers with glistening and multicolored rings. And through the thick and shimmering mist of white cloth, I could see the distinct glimmer of her dark eyes. The mass of her dark hair fell down over her breasts beneath these veils, and even on her sandaled feet were great rounded and glittering jewels.
James raised his voice:
“This is Avigail, daughter of Shemayah,” he said, “your kinswoman and your sister, and you take her now with the blessing of her father and her brothers and her sisters, to be your wife, in the house of your father, and let her from now on be a sister to you, and may the children you have be as brothers and sisters to you, according to the Law of Moses, and as it is written, let this be done.”
The horns sounded, the harps throbbed, and the timbrels beat faster and faster. The women lifted their timbrels now to join the resounding rhythm of those from the street.
Reuben stepped forward as did Avigail, until they stood before each other beneath the canopy, the tears coming silently from Reuben as he reached for the veils of his bride.
James put his hand between the two figures.
Reuben went on speaking to the face he could see distinctly now just in front of him, beneath its sheer drapery.
“Ah, my beloved,” he said. “You were set apart for me from the beginning of the world!”
Shemayah was pushed forward by James until he stood at the shoulder of the young groom. Shemayah looked at James as if he were a trapped man and would flee if he could, but then James whispered to him to urge him and Shemayah spoke:
“My daughter is given to you from this day forward and forever,” he said, glancing uneasily at James who nodded. Then Shemayah continued: “May the Lord on High guide you both and prosper you both on this night and grant you forever mercy and peace.”
Before the shouts of jubilation could silence him, James pitched his voice loud and clear:
“Take Avigail to be your wife in accordance with the law and decree written in the Book of Moses. Take her now and bring her safely to your house and your father. And may the Lord and all the Court of Heaven bless you on your journey home and through this life.”
Now came the new and uncontrollable inundation of clapping and cheering.
The women closed ranks around Avigail. Jason drew Reuben back and out of the courtyard with all the men following, except for my uncles and brothers. The canopy was folded only to make it narrow enough to pass through the gateway, and the bride, flanked by all the women of the house, including Little Mary and Little Salome and Silent Hannah, proceeded, with Avigail beneath the canopy. Once in the street the canopy was opened again.
The drone of the horns rose above the faster, more furious thumping of the harp strings. The wooden flutes and pipes rose in sweet, rousing melody.
The whole party moved down past the lighted doorways and the radiant faces, and the clapping hands. Children ran ahead, some carrying lamps dangling from poles. Others carried candles, hugging the flames against the breeze with their tiny hands.
The women lifted their timbrels. Out of yards and doorways came others with their harps and their horns and their timbrels. Here and there came the rattle of the sistrum, the jingling of bells.
Voices rose in singing.
As the crowd reached the open road to Cana, we all beheld the unbelievable spectacle of the torches on either side of us, lining the way, for as far as we could see. Torches moved towards us from the distant slopes and through the dark fields.
The canopy was now spread to its full width. Flower petals were hurled in the air. The music grew stronger and quicker, and as the bride continued, in her phalanx of women, the men on either side, up ahead and behind, began to lock arms and dance.
Reuben and Jason danced to the left and the right, arms locked, one foot stepping to the side over the other, then back again, swaying, gesturing, singing to the rhythm of the music, their outside arms raised above their heads.
Long lines formed to flank the procession, and I fell in, dancing with my uncles and my brothers. Little Shabi and Yaqim and Isaac and the other young ones pivoted and leapt in the air, and clapped their hands heartily.
And with every step, with every turn, we saw the road ahead still ablaze with a wealth of welcoming light. More and more torches approached. More and more villagers joined our ranks.
And so it was until we poured into the enormous rooms of Hananel's house.
He rose from his couch in the great dining room to greet his grandson's bride with open arms. He clasped the hands of James and Shemayah.
“Come in, my daughter!” Hananel declared. “Come in this, my house and your husband's house. Blessed be the Lord who has brought you to us, my daughter, blessed be the memory of your mother, blessed be your father, blessed be my grandson Reuben. Come in now to your home! Welcome, with blessing and joy!”
He turned now and led the way past the blazing candelabra, for the bride and all her women to enter the dining room and other chambers set apart for them, where they would feast and dance, to their heart's content. Linen veils, trimmed in purple and gold and bound with purple and gold tassels, came down to separate the women from the men in the many archways of the banquet room, veils through which laughter and song and music and gaiety could penetrate, while giving the women the freedom to be pale shapes beyond the eyes of boisterous and roaring men.
Under the high ceilings of the house, the music exploded. The horns vied with the pipes in melodies, and the timbrels sounded as before.
Huge tables had been set throughout all the main rooms, round which couches were prepared for Shemayah and all the men of his daughter's family who had come with him, and for Reuben, and for Jason, and for the Rabbis of Cana and of Nazareth, and for a great flock of men of distinction, all beloved of Hananel, all of whom we knew and did not know.
Through the open doorways, we saw great tents spanning the soft grass, and carpets spread everywhere, and tables at which everyone might gather, either on couches or right on the rugs, whichever they desired. Amid all, the candelabra burned with hundreds upon hundreds of tiny flames.
Great platters of food appeared, steam rising from the roasted lamb, the glistening fruit, the hot spiced cakes and honey cakes, the piles of raisins and dates and nuts.
Everywhere, men and women turned to the water jars, and to the servants beside them, to rinse their hands.
A great row of six jars stood in each banquet room. A row of six stood out beneath each tent.
The servants poured the water over the outstretched hands of the guests and offered the clean white linen cloth for drying, catching the old water in silver and gold basins.
The music and the aromas of the rich platters melded and it seemed for a moment to me that—as I stood in the courtyard, in the very middle of it, staring from one feasting group to another, gazing even at the chaste veils that divided us from the dancing figures of the women—I was in a great unbroken universe of pure happiness which no evil could ever approach. We were as a vast field of spring flowers united in one gentle current of tender breeze.
I forgot myself. I was nothing and no one except part of it.
I moved outside, through the ranks of the dancers, past the busy and beautifully laden tables, and I looked—as I always do, as I've always done—for the lamps of Heaven on high.
It seemed to me then that the lamps of Heaven were even here the deep and private treasure of every single soul.
Could I not die now? Could I not dissolve this skin and rise as I'd so often thought of it, weightless and brimming, into the company of the stars?
Oh, if only I could indeed stop time, stop it here, stop it forever with this great banquet, and let al
l the world come here to this, now, streaming, out of Time and beyond Time, and into this—to join with the dancing, to feast at these abundant tables, to laugh and sing and cry amid these smoking lamps and twinkling candles. If only I could rescue all these, in the midst of this lovely and embracing music, rescue all these—from the blooming youth to the ancient with their patience and their sweetness, and their flush of unexpected and ravishing hope? If only I could hold them in one great embrace?
But it was not to be. Time beat on as the heels of the hands beat the membrane of the timbrels, as the feet stamped the marble, or the soft yielding grass.
Time beat on, and in time, as I'd told the Tempter, yes, as he'd tempted me to stop Time forever—in time, there were things yet unborn. It struck a deep dark shiver in me, a great cold. But it was only the shiver and fear known to any man born.
I did not come to stop it, I did not come to leave it at such a moment of mysterious joy. I came to live it, to surrender to it, to endure it, to discover in it what it was I must do, and whatever it was, well, it had only begun.
I looked around me at the many moist and ruddy faces. I saw Young John and Matthew, and Peter and Andrew, and Nathanael—all of them dancing. I saw Hananel weeping as he clasped his grandson, Reuben, who offered the cup to him to drink, and Jason embracing both of them, Jason so happy, so proud.
My eyes drifted over the whole assembly. Unnoticed I walked through room after room. I walked under the tents. I walked through the courtyard with its huge standing candles, and its high anchored torches. I peered over my shoulder at the soundless masses of gathered women beyond the veils.
I let my mind go before me. It went where the man could not go.
Avigail, veil lifted now that she lay among the children of the bridal chamber only, with Silent Hannah seated on the couch at her feet. Avigail, her eyes closed, as she slept.
I saw in my mind's eye just as clearly and simultaneously that instant in the courtyard at home when Reuben had said to her, “My beloved, you were set apart for me from the beginning of the world.”