“Blasphemy!”
She moved yet closer to him and gently put her hand on his arm. “Joseph. You of all people know and revere the power of God. If he chooses to visit a miracle upon us, who are we to question his methods? I tell you that I have been chosen to bring into the world the Son of God, and—”
Joseph yanked his arm from her. “I will hear no more!”
He strode quickly away.
He could feel her watching him go. And then she shouted after him, “Divorce me, then! And I divorce you also! For your great lack of faith, you who study the Torah! For your cowardice, you who call yourself strong!” Then, finally, she fell silent, and next he heard the loud sounds of weeping he had so desired but that now tore at his heart. He focused on the short sounds of his exhalations, the flapping of his sandals against the parched, unyielding earth. He walked more quickly, then ran, toward home.
JOSEPH TOSSED AND TURNED on his pallet, unable to sleep. Just before dawn, he became aware of a presence beside him. He turned toward it. “Mother?…Father?”
There was no sound, but rather a throbbing silence. Then a voice said, “Joseph, son of David. Be not afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to him, and he will be named Jesus, which means ‘He who saves,’ for he will deliver his people from their sins.”
Joseph lay rigid, afraid to move, afraid to respond.
The voice continued, “All this was done to fulfill a prophecy that says, ‘A virgin will be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and the people will call him Emmanuel, meaning ‘God is with us.’ ”
Joseph swallowed, then slowly rose up on one elbow. He saw nothing. Heard nothing. He lay back down, his eyes wide, and then he bolted from his pallet.
THE SKY WAS TINGED with pink by the time he arrived at Mary’s house. The rooster strutted through the courtyard, ruffling his feathers and preening, preparing to announce the beginning of a new day.
Joseph stole into the house and went quietly over to Mary’s pallet. He stooped down, whispered her name, and touched her lightly on the arm. She gasped and sat up, and Joseph held his finger to his lips. Fortunate now the age of Mary’s parents and their poor hearing! He looked over to the other side of the room and saw Joachim snoring loudly, sleeping on his back with his limbs splayed. Anne faced the wall, curled up on her side, breathing deeply and regularly. Joseph smiled at Mary, but she did not return his smile. She sat still, staring at him.
He waved urgently toward himself for her to follow him. Still she sat. He mouthed, “Come with me!”
Gravely, she shook her head.
He looked quickly again at Mary’s parents, then sat back on his heels and regarded her. A moment passed, then another. Then Joseph put his hands in the prayer position and entreated her with his eyes, and Mary finally stood and followed him out into the courtyard.
There she crossed her arms and said, “What business have you with me?”
“Mary,” he said, “an angel has now come to me.”
“Joseph!”
He put his finger to his lips. “Come with me.” She stood still, breathless, then reached out eagerly for his hand. He closed his eyes in a brief moment of gratitude, then led her out toward the fields.
Once there, he bid her sit down, and he sat next to her. The day was glorious, still night-cool. Butterflies flew up and down and all around, huge white clouds drifted past, and wildflowers nodded in the breeze.
“Tell me of your angel,” Mary said. “Of what did he speak?”
Joseph shrugged. “He? Or she? I know not which. Did you see your angel?”
“I saw mostly bright light, but also I saw the outline.”
“I saw only darkness and heard a voice.”
“But what did it say?”
He looked at her, his beauty, his flower. “First, I must confess…perhaps it did not truly happen.”
She pulled back and frowned. “How do you mean this?”
“I mean that in my great weariness—for I slept not at all last night—I fear I heard things that were not there. Things that would have me not divorce you. For what the angel said is that I should not fear to take you as my wife. He said that the child in you has come to fulfill a prophecy, that you will give birth to one who saves his people from sin, and therefore he will be named—”
“Jesus,” she said. They said it together.
“He said the child was conceived by the Holy Spirit.”
Mary clapped her hands together and raised her eyes to the sky. “Then you believe! I thank God.”
Joseph shook his head sadly. “Ah, Mary. What shall I make of these exotic fabulations? For, in truth, these things seem more fit for stories that children might tell than as direction for our lives. Are they dreams, these angels? A shared vision? Are they true? Are they false? Are they the miracles you and others say they are? Or are they Devil himself, come to dissuade good men from a righteous path? I tell you that by God, I know not. I know not!” He looked at her with great love and deep sadness. “I know nothing for certain but that my love for you abides. And so I shall take you unto me as my wife after all.”
“Oh, Joseph! My heart is lifted up.”
“But hear me now. We shall be married tomorrow, in secret. We shall have no feast to which we invite the village. It would not be proper.”
Mary hung her head and nodded. One who did not know her as Joseph did might think she was disappointed. But Joseph knew she hung her head to hide her smile. It was Joseph’s mother who would rend her garments and wail. But no matter his mother’s tears; it would be with them as he had said. In the morning, in a small, legal ceremony, they would be wed.
For now, he stood and held out his hand to her.
“Where do we go now?” she asked.
“Ask no questions. Come.”
She followed him back toward the village, then to one of the streets opposite the area where Mary lived. There, he pointed to a house at the end of a row of houses like it. But this one was obviously new; the white limestone shone hard in the sun. Trying to suppress his feeling of pride, he watched Mary walk toward it. It was a fine structure, though he did say so himself! Two stories and four rooms, a large oven in the corner. Steps even and wide leading up to the roof, windows properly spaced high along the outside walls. Mary reached the door and stopped, then turned to Joseph, her face full of a pleasure so rich it looked like pain. He had carved birds into the door, hundreds of them. Some were aloft, some were nesting, some sat on branches in groups. And one, eye level with whomever came to the door, offered an olive branch.
He reached past her to open the door, and she went inside. After Joseph came in, she closed the door behind them and reached for him, putting her arms around his neck. But he stepped away from her, saying, “Not now, Mary. Nor tomorrow, nor the day after, nor the day after that. Only when it has left your body will I know you.”
Mary moved her hand to her stomach and spread her fingers wide. “He is not an it.”
Joseph shrugged. “For now, we shall go back to the houses of Anne and Joachim, and Rachel and Jacob, to tell them the news. We must not stay here; it is improper until we have had our wedding ceremony.”
Mary looked around excitedly, then spoke, her voice earnest. “I honor this and all our traditions.” She gestured for Joseph to go out before her, and took one last look around. Then she closed the door behind her gently, as though it might break. As though it had been crafted not from sturdy wood but from spun glass, and required great care in the handling.
She took his hand and walked closely beside him, and he looked down on her black hair, her perfect shoulders, the rise of her breasts grown larger with pregnancy. She moved with indescribable grace, and he thought of how he would lie with her someday. But not now. Not yet. Not until her womb was again empty and they were, in that way, back to where they’d started. And it was from there, he thought, that they would begin again.
ON THEIR WEDDING NIGHT
Joseph lay on his side, turned away from Mary.
“Joseph?” she said.
“I am weary, my wife.”
“Yet I am full of thoughts and so many feelings! Can we not speak? Have you no words at all for your wife on the day you have wed her?”
He turned to face her, suddenly shy. “Of what shall we speak?”
Mary smiled and reached out to run her fingers along the side of his face. Her touch! “I am happy to be here.”
“And I am happy you are happy.” He kissed her fingers and then took his hand away. No good would come of him being further aroused.
Mary took in a deep breath. “And I shall say, as well, that I hope you will come to see that what the angel told you—”
“We shall speak of it no more. I order this, my wife.”
She lay quietly, then said, “Would you like to feel it?”
He knew what she meant. Her rounded stomach. “No,” he said.
“He moves most actively this night. Perhaps he is telling us of his joy at our union.”
“No, Mary.” He yawned, though he felt no need to.
“Or perhaps he is frightened at his new surroundings. Oh, Joseph. Do you think he is frightened?”
He made his breathing go deep and regular, that she might think him asleep. After a time, he heard her leave her pallet and move out to the other room. He rose and followed at a distance in the darkness. She wrapped a shawl around herself and slipped out the door. Was she leaving him? Again? He was ready to call out angrily to her when, through the crack in the door, he saw her sit with her back to the house and look up at the stars. She sang, softly, sweetly, and rocked herself from side to side. Both of her hands rested over her belly, and when she had finished singing she looked down at herself. “Shhhhh,” she whispered. “I am here now as ever I shall be. Great is my love for you, and my devotion enough for two.” Again she rocked from side to side, and the smile on her face Joseph felt in his knees.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Nazareth
DECEMBER, 4 B.C.
Joseph
E LAGGED, COMING HOME. HE DREADED SHARING with his wife the news he’d learned at the marketplace. A census had been ordered by Caesar Augustus in Rome. A messenger, accompanied by Roman soldiers, had stood in the middle of the crowd to read: I, King Herod, as a friend of Caesar, decree: Let every man repair to the place of origin of his house and family and have his name inscribed in the public registers. After the soldier’s departure, the Nazarenes had talked worriedly among themselves. Once their names were inscribed, they could no longer evade the payment of the poll tax. Also, they would owe more taxes on their land, as it would now be more accurately assessed. Already they were poor and struggling; must they become poorer still?
Joseph put away the donkey in the workshop he had built next to the house; it doubled as a stable at night. He filled one bucket with grain and another with water. He spread hay for the animal’s bed. “More troubles for we who are troubled, eh?” he said. The donkey stared at him and swished his tail. “I am as well without a solution,” Joseph said. He patted the donkey’s rump and went inside the house.
Mary was at the stove, stirring the chickpea-and-eggplant stew she had made. A fresh loaf of bread rested on top of the stove. She turned to greet him, flush-faced and happy. But her smiled faded when she saw him.
“What has happened?”
Joseph let himself down wearily into the chair he had made only last week. That was when he was feeling secure about his own success, sure that he would grow more and more prosperous and that soon he and Mary would have more chairs than they could use. Enough for the whole village! he had told her. “We shall offer to lend them to those having wedding feasts, that all their guests may sit in comfort.” For it was indeed the season for weddings. With no seeds to sow, with no harvesting of barley and wheat and olives and grapes to consume entire days, young people had time to celebrate the end of their betrothals and the beginning of their married lives. Only last week, Mary and Joseph, along with their parents, had attended a lavish wedding. Rachel’s eyes had filled with tears, watching the couple exchange vows, and Joseph had suspected it was not because of the usual poignancy attached to new love and the beginning of a new life. His suspicions were confirmed when, after consuming a large goblet of wine, she had collapsed into a chair, blubbering and saying over and over, “You would have had better.” Jacob had apologetically escorted her away from the festivities.
Joseph had looked for signs of envy or regret in Mary and had found none. She was genuinely glad for the couple, and pleased with her own circumstances. For their life together was going well. They loved each other, they were content in their work, and their parents were looking forward to the coming of their grandchild—though each set of parents had their own ideas about the baby’s origins. Rachel was markedly cool with Mary for over a month, and Jacob fearful of being too friendly. He liked Mary a great deal, but feared his wife more. Therefore he lowered his head when he welcomed Mary to his home and suppressed his normal jubilant self around her in deference to Rachel, who would not so much as offer Mary a smile. But that awkward time was gone now, and all waited in pleasant anticipation for the child, who was due soon. The midwife who met Mary at the well only last week had predicted three weeks more, and her predictions were remarkably accurate.
Now this. Now Joseph, born in Bethlehem, would need to make the long journey there. It was more than eighty miles and would take ten days, round-trip. But he must go. And so in answer to Mary’s worried question about what had happened, he answered, “There has been a decree issued. All must register for a census in the town of their birth. Therefore we must go to Bethlehem.”
“But I am so near my time!” Mary said.
Joseph shrugged. “Caesar cares not.”
Mary moved to sit beside him. “I shall stay with my parents.”
“No, Mary. As my wife, you will make the journey with me.”
“I am near my time!” she said again, and again Joseph said, “Caesar cares not! We must leave in the morning, Mary. And now may I have my dinner?”
Mary looked into Joseph’s face, weighing arguing with him, he knew. Then she went to the stove and filled two bowls with her stew, which was every bit as delicious as it smelled, and he told her so. After a long moment, she thanked him.
Later, when they lay on their pallets before sleep, he reached out to touch her shoulder. “I am sorry to ask this of you, my wife.”
She turned toward him. “It is only that I fear for the child.”
“You must not fear. For I will care for you both.”
She drew in a quick breath. Then she nodded, patted Joseph’s hand, and turned away from him. He sensed that her spirits had lifted markedly, for never had Joseph said he would care for the child. Never had he mentioned him.
“Do you smile in the darkness?” he asked.
Silence.
“Mary?”
She giggled, then turned back to him. She kissed his forehead, his eyes, his mouth. And then he kissed hers. It was their way.
“Our journey will go quickly,” he said. “We will soon return, and then the baby will be born, and all will be well.”
CHAPTER NINE
Bethlehem
DECEMBER 25
Mary
HIVERING ON THE COLD GROUND AT NIGHT, her wool cloak her only covering. Covering her ears against the cries of leopards and jackals that lived in the brush of the Jordan River valley. During the day, dust in her nose, in her hair. The ever-growing soreness in her back, her buttocks, her legs. The terrible thirst—once, Mary nearly fainted for want of water. And once she nearly fell from the donkey when he stumbled on a rock. A near robbery, until Joseph talked his way out of it, saying that he had money only for a night’s lodging in Bethlehem, and could they not see how great with child his wife was?
“Would that you had let me stay with my parents,” Mary had said bitterly, after the robbery attempt.
“Who then wo
uld have frightened the robbers away?” Joseph had turned from leading their donkey to grin at her. Finally, she returned the smile.
On the fifth day, as the sun was going down and the cold of the night again setting in, they reached the outskirts of Bethlehem. “We will first find lodging,” Joseph said. “Then, early in the morning, we will register. And then we will begin our journey home.”
Mary was worried. She had not told Joseph, for what, after all, could he do? It was a midwife she needed to talk to. Late that morning she had begun having pains. They were not the dull cramps she’d been feeling the last couple of weeks; these were harder. Yet they were not labor pains, either; of this she felt certain. She had seen women in labor, Elizabeth most recently, and these were not labor pains.
But then there came a sudden wetness beneath her, and Mary knew well what it was. She put her hand to her stomach. “Joseph?”
“Yes?” He turned to look back at her. In his face was great weariness. The journey had been hard on him, too; the last few miles, he had leaned heavily on his walking staff. “What is it?”
She swallowed.
Joseph’s eyes grew wide. He halted the donkey and asked anxiously, “Are you…? Oh, Mary, is it time?”
She nodded.
He stood stock-still. Clasped his hand together tightly. Leaned over to embrace her. Clasped his hands together again. Drew himself up and attempted, unsuccessfully, to speak slowly. “We shall find lodging and a midwife. Can you wait?”
She smiled at him, in spite of herself.
“Oh, I…forgive me, I know, I…” He kissed her forehead, her eyes, her mouth, and moved to lead the donkey forward. “Do not worry!” he called back to her.