The Handmaid and the Carpenter

  She began to weep, and Joseph did not know if it was from fear or joy.

  “We shall stay here in our home,” he said, hesitantly now.

  “Oh, Joseph,” she said. “I am so relieved to hear you speak those words! It is well known that the wise men have supernatural vision and that their words must not be taken lightly. Yet even more than their warnings, I fear leaving here again.”

  “Come,” Joseph said. He helped Mary to lie down on her pallet, Jesus in her arms.

  “Too many strange things have happened!” Mary said. “I want only to raise my child in peace!”

  Joseph closed his eyes in gladness to hear her say such things. “And you will,” he said. “Rest now, we are home.”

  He sat beside her, stroking her hair and waiting for her to fall asleep. Then he crept quietly from the house to go to the well for water to fill the cistern, that they might have what they needed in the morning.

  When he returned from his walk through the silent village, he lay beside Mary, who slept deeply. He thought of all that had come to pass since they journeyed to Bethlehem. He looked about his house, gratified to be inside its familiar walls. In a few days he would be back at work erecting fine buildings and then coming home to his family. He closed his eyes and slept.

  IN THE MIDDLE of the night, Joseph awakened in a panic. He shook his wife’s shoulder. “Mary! Awake and arise! We must go to Egypt!”

  “Joseph?” she said sleepily.

  He stood and pulled at her arm. “Arise, quickly! We must leave now!”

  She sat up, confused, the child asleep in her arms. She spoke in a whisper. “Joseph! Awaken yourself; I fear you are dreaming! Joseph! Are you awake?”

  He knelt down beside her. “Mary, I have had a most vivid dream of warning!” He did not want to tell her what he had seen in his dream: babies being slaughtered by the hundreds. “I have been instructed to go to Egypt.”

  “Egypt!”

  “Yes, and we must leave immediately.” He rose and began gathering items for their journey. Things only just unpacked were now tossed again into sacks. He packed bread, cheese, olives, nuts, and oranges. He filled one goatskin with water, then another. “Make haste!” he told Mary, who sat unmoving on her pallet.

  “I shall not go with you,” she said.

  He stiffened. “Do not argue with me.”

  She began to weep. “We must cross the Sinai to get to Egypt! You yourself have told me no one crosses the Sinai without an army or at least a caravan. And it is night, besides!”

  He tried to make himself sound calm and reasonable. “I cannot say strongly enough the urgency with which we must attend to this. The child’s life is in danger. We must go. Now.”

  “Because of a dream?”

  He spoke with his back to her as he packed the gifts the wise men had given them.

  “It was an angel who came in the dream. An angel who spoke to me.”

  “Now you believe in an angel’s words!” She rose slowly. “Yes, do not neglect to pack the myrrh we were given. For someone will surely have need of it to anoint us all!”

  He did not answer but went to the work shed for the donkey, who, upon seeing him, rose immediately to his feet. “Good and faithful donkey,” he said, “would that you might endow my wife with your same worthy qualities.”

  After he loaded up the donkey, he led it to the doorway of the house and called softly for Mary to come out. She closed the door behind her, then said, “Before we leave, I shall go to the house of my parents and bid them goodbye.”

  “The hour is late, Mary. They are sleeping.”

  She stood unmoving for a long time, until Joseph hung his head in resignation. Then she walked ahead of him and did not look back, nor did she look at him when he helped her mount the donkey outside her parents’ house. “I shall never see my mother again,” she said, and he knew she spoke truly. Mary made such predictions rarely; but when she did, she was never wrong.

  Anne came outside and kissed Joseph after Mary had said goodbye, bidding him to travel safely and care well for her daughter and grandson. “Trust in her and in the love you share,” she said. Then she stepped back, clasped her hands before her, and looked long upon Mary, and Joseph saw that Anne, too, knew that they would not see each other again.

  Joachim stood smiling, putting up a brave front that fooled no one, and only when he thought Mary and Joseph had turned back for the last time did he wipe the tears from his face. But Joseph did turn back, and he nodded once at Joachim, who nodded in return. Then Joachim turned and walked slowly with Anne back into the house.

  THEY HAD BEEN in Egypt but a short time when they heard of Anne’s death. Mary bore her pain quietly and, to Joseph’s great relief, did not turn from him. Well over a year later, they learned that Herod, frustrated at not having been able to find the baby he so desperately sought, had ordered the slaying of all male babies two years and younger in or near Bethlehem, and the order had been carried out. And then Mary wept bitterly, saying, “I think of Rebecca and her joy in her son, Isaiah, who is no more.” She moved from side to side, keening, her own child pressed against her heart.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Nazareth

  AUGUST, A.D. 9

  Joseph

  OSEPH AND JESUS WASHED FOR DINNER OUTSIDE the house. The younger children watched, the two little girls, Anna and Lydia, jumping up and down and clapping their hands. They were eager for Joseph’s attention, and he was eager to give it to them. They liked when he unfastened the thongs of his leather belt, unhitching his wooden mallet and iron chisel. Each evening they fought playfully about who would have the privilege of putting his tools away in the workshop. Performing this task, they imitated Joseph’s care and attentiveness, and it made him proud that his characteristics were so clearly in them. Anna and Lydia both took pride in being able to name these and other tools: the file and dowel pin, the auger and plane. He was more accommodating of his daughters’ inquisitiveness and love of learning than he had been of his wife’s: such were the softening and conciliatory effects of marriage and children. He did not protest his daughters’ endless questions about things that did not properly concern them; rather, he took pride in their quick and eager minds. They would come with ease to their natural roles of wives and mothers, he was sure, for they demonstrated the same eagerness to learn with Mary when she taught them bread making and weaving, laundry and child care.

  Joseph’s body hurt him this evening. He ascribed the aching in his joints to the hard labor he and Jesus had performed on an unusually hot day. Hauling stone in such heat had taken a toll, as had cutting wood. Even mixing mortar had been difficult for him today. And his problems with digestion were not going away—often, his belly pained him.

  He was not the young man he used to be. Soon he and Jesus would change roles and he would be his son’s helpmate. Would that Jesus shared the enthusiam his daughters had for the trade! But Jesus was an unusual child, given to long periods of silence and seclusion. Once, at planting time, as Jesus stared at the seeds that lay in his hand rather than sowing them, Joseph had come to stand beside him. He had lain his hand on Jesus’ shoulder and asked gently, “What is it you see, my son, that so captures your attention?”

  “God,” Jesus had said, still focused on the seeds. Then he had looked up and repeated softly, “God,” and there was in his tone not so much explanation as entreaty. He is indeed his mother’s son, Joseph had thought, remembering the way that, early in their courtship, Mary had talked to him about evidence of the Almighty in nature, indeed in everything around them.

  Jesus finished washing first and went into the house. There, Joseph knew, he would talk to his mother in private. Jesus and Mary had a close relationship, what seemed at times an exclusionary one, even, but Joseph did not mind. Jesus had since birth endured certain hardships—there were still those who talked behind their hands when he passed, and he was known pointedly as “Mary’s son.” Jesus took solace from Joseph’s quiet and steady claim
to him as a son, but he seemed to need his talks with his mother—they thought in like ways.

  Years after Jesus’ birth, Mary still insisted that he was divine, that it was the angel’s visit alone that accounted for his conception. Joseph upheld her reputation despite his ongoing doubt. He supposed he would need his own miracle to convert his belief to hers!

  But in the end, Joseph had his own way of looking at Jesus. What was it that made a man? Was it the seed alone? Was all that a man would become present at—or before—his birth? Surely not. Surely Jesus was shaped by Joseph even as were his other children.

  Yet Joseph had to admit there was something exceptional about their firstborn; Mary was right in this. The extraordinary circumstances surrounding his birth. The mysterious nature of his personality, his protracted periods of intense contemplation. The way he often seemed unreachable, even as he stood directly before a person. He was oddly restless, too, as Mary had been. But perhaps he would outgrow this, for Mary was restless no longer. Now she reveled in her life as a normal Nazarene woman. She met Yola and Naomi in the courtyard every morning, and as they attended to their chores they talked with great pleasure. Joseph had once come upon them so seized by laughter they could not speak, but only waved their hands helplessly about when asked the reason for their hilarity.

  Mary had told Joseph that much of the women’s time was spent talking about their families, and she had shared with him what Naomi had said about Jesus: “She said I must make him more like other children.”

  “Ah,” Joseph had said. He agreed wholeheartedly with Naomi, but he had learned over the years to tread lightly with Mary, that he did not force her to defend herself. “And how did you reply?”

  “I replied that I shall encourage even more his independence and free spirit. For one of my greatest joys is to argue with Naomi, who believes always that her opinion is the irrefutable truth.”

  “Mary—” he had begun.

  And she had sighed and said, “I know, my husband.”

  For her part, Mary seemed to have learned the value of Joseph’s conservative point of view. He had explained over and over to her the necessity of adherence to tradition, for without it they would lose their identity. He had invoked the sacred covenant it was their obligation to honor: if they lived in accordance with God’s commandments and prohibitions, he would intervene in human affairs and drive the Romans from Israel, as justice called for. “What bitterness Judas Maccabaeus would taste if he knew of the Roman rule, and of those who have turned their back on the laws of our patriarchs to cooperate with the Romans!” Joseph had told Mary. He had told her also of his strong belief that each person was called to the test each day, that there was an ongoing war inside the self, and the challenge was to always honor what was right. What he did not speak of was something he believed Mary knew anyway: that he had gone against deeply held principles in marrying her when she was with a child not his own. Moreover, he had never regretted it, which he worried was an even greater sin. His love for Mary enriched and enlivened him, gave his life structure and purpose and limitless joy. Also, it tormented him.

  Now he came into the house and sat at the large table, and Mary ladled out the soup she had made. There was also dried beef over which Josus and Judas would surely fight—each liked it exceedingly well. Their younger sons, Simon and James, were quiet and polite but too thin. Tonight Joseph would offer the beef to them first.

  The younger sons asked Joseph and Jesus many questions about their work that day—they had finished a project in Sepphoris. After such accomplishments, they always enjoyed a feast. Today it had been roasted meat and vegetables on flatbread and a basket of apricots and almonds. After they detailed the delicious food they had enjoyed—even as they were enjoying the delicious food!—they talked about how fine the building looked. “Better than all the buildings that surround it,” Jesus said, and looked across the table for his father’s agreement.

  “Better by far,” Joseph said, smiling.

  That night Mary and Joseph allowed their children to sleep on the roof, so long as the smallest three were kept to the far inside. Even Jesus had joined them, a rarity—usually, if he slept outside, it was in the fields, by himself.

  “Our Jesus seeks company this night,” Joseph said as he lay on his pallet beside Mary. “Yet he must endeavor to be with others more often; he is too much alone. Even working beside me, he often seems alone.”

  “Though he labors now as your assistant, his real work is yet to come,” Mary said. “Perhaps it is thoughts of this that so occupy him.”

  Joseph scoffed. “His real work, you say! As when he remained behind at the temple when last we journeyed to Jerusalem for Passover? And we were so frightened until we found him? You especially, my wife! And then, upon finding him, to have him tell us that he was ‘about his father’s work’!”

  “Do you recall as well that the teachers were impressed with him?” Mary asked.

  Joseph said nothing.

  “That they said—”

  “I remember,” Joseph said. “Yet he is still a child and not yet a man. He is only beginning to learn what he must to make his way in the world.”

  “You are teaching him well,” Mary said. “For it is from you he has learned that the greatest of things is love. That the skill most valuable is belief in oneself. That inside the soul is something longing to speak, if only we will listen.”

  Joseph laughed. “And it was you who taught me that!”

  “It is not so,” Mary said. “I fear we have become so close we know not where one ends and the other begins! But I assure you, our children and I, too, have learned much from you. It is you who has made me content with my life, you who has brought such peace to my heart. Do you still not know how I admire you?”

  “Even though I have performed no miracles?” Joseph liked to tease Mary about what she called Jesus’ “miracles”: The easing of a pain in Mary’s back after he had touched it. The way, when he was six and was sent to the well for water, he was jostled and dropped the clay pitcher, breaking it, but brought home water anyway, carrying it in a thin shirt, through which, by all rights, it should have leaked out. Joseph had no explanation for these things, but he balked against calling them miracles.

  “Jesus longs for your love and respect,” Mary said quietly.

  “I do love him,” Joseph said. “As I love all my children. As I love their beautiful mother.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead, her eyes, and her mouth. Then he put his hand to the side of her face and smiled at her. He kissed her collarbone and felt her relax against him. Other men complained of their wives’ attempts at rejection, but Mary never denied him. Never mind that it was becoming difficult to care for so large a family at a time when work for Joseph was less than it ever had been. Never mind that yet another mouth to feed and small body to clothe would make things more difficult still, even with Jesus beginning to contribute to the family. Since the first night in Egypt when Joseph had at last known Mary, she had seemed to relish his attentions, and she welcomed each new child with joy.

  But now he pulled suddenly away from her.

  “Joseph?” There was alarm in her voice.

  He wanted to reassure her but could not speak. He winced, holding his hand to his abdomen. Finally, “It must be the apricots,” he said. “Perhaps they were not ripe.”

  “Shall I prepare anemones for you?”

  He gasped and softly cried out. After a moment, he took her hand and kissed it. “Thank you, but there is no need.” Anemones did not help his pain any longer, nor did the galangal Mary gave him to relieve his nausea. “I apologize, my dear wife. Stay here and take your rest; I shall walk for a time in the night air. In the morning, I shall be greatly improved, I am sure.”

  “If you are going outside, I shall come with you.”

  He smiled at her. “As you wish.” He leaned in closer. “We shall have an adventure.” But he had come to relish the idea of such things, too.

  He rose to his k
nees, then abruptly sat down. “Though it is probably unwise to walk when it is so late. We should take our rest.” He lay down, bit at his lower lip, and clenched his fists. The pain!

  Mary lay close to him. He could feel her praying, and he closed his eyes and prayed with her.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Nazareth

  SEPTEMBER, A.D. 9

  Mary

  E MOANS, THE SMALLEST OF SOUNDS, AND she draws him closer. He looks up at her, searching her face. “I fear you will forget me.”

  “Joseph. You are my beloved. You run in my veins.”

  “Who will care for you now?”

  “I shall be cared for by caring for our children.”

  He grimaces, then speaks with soft authority. “You must teach them humility. And groom them for their proper roles. Instill in them the need to honor our traditions, for without them—”

  “Do not trouble yourself, my husband, do you not understand that I already know what you will ask of me? And that I will gladly do all of it?”

  Joseph shivers and closes his eyes. When he opens them, Mary sees that a certain dullness has come into them. He is dying, then; the time has come. She feels a rush of great pain, but overcomes it by looking out at the land and stilling herself at the center. Later will be the time for her private sorrow; now she must take care of him. She looks down at her husband and smiles.

  “I cannot help but worry about Jesus,” Joseph says. “I have loved him well, and endured much for his sake, as you have also.”

  “God knows!” Mary answers. “And I know also that although you love all your children, it is Jesus who is closest to your heart.”

  He smiles wanly. “Only because of my circumstances do I allow you to say such a thing.”