Take This Cup

  “The Sign of the Two Fish means our nation,” Joseph said eagerly. Lifting his chin into the breeze, he murmured wistfully, “Could it be true? Could Messiah come in our lifetime? Could the cup of prophecy be filled and ready to be drained?”

  At his words I touched again Joseph’s cup at my waist and remembered more of what my teacher had said. “ ‘And a sword will pierce your heart too,’ ” I quoted from memory.

  “Eh? What’s that?”

  I recounted what Rabbi Kagba had told me about the prophecy over Jesus’ mother at his dedication in the Temple. “The rabbi did not like the sound of those words.”

  Joseph shook his head slowly. “Neither do I. There is much I do not understand. In one place Holy Scripture says Messiah will ‘proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.’1 Like releasing us from the grip of Rome,” he added in an aside to me. “But in another place doesn’t it say, ‘He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities’?2 How can they both be true? I’ve heard Jesus teach. I’ve seen his miracles. I want to believe in him, but something holds me back.”

  The discussion was interrupted by a shout from the shadowed highway: “Shalom to the camp.”

  Drawing a short sword, Joseph’s steward leapt to his feet and took a stance between his master and the unknown intruder. The ten guards drew their weapons and formed a protective circle about the camp.

  “Easy,” said a hooded, cloaked figure, advancing to the edge of the firelight. “I’m alone. No threat to you.”

  Terah and the guards relaxed slightly at those words, but I did not. I remembered how Zimri’s band of outlaws had sought shelter at my father’s camp before attacking us.

  “Can I come to the warmth?” the stranger inquired.

  This man was bulkier than Zimri’s sinewy form, and his voice was gruffer. I let the tension leave my shoulders.

  “Come in and welcome,” Joseph invited.

  The newcomer squatted between Joseph and me, extending broad, calloused palms toward its warmth. His face bristled with a coarse, wiry beard. The heavy ridges of his eyebrows made his eyes into deep holes above a crooked, flattened nose.

  “Is it safe to travel alone so late, even on this highway?” Terah asked.

  The lone man shrugged. “Perhaps not.” With those words he stretched, lifting his left hand high above his head.

  It was the same signal Zimri had given to launch the bandit attack on my father’s camp! “Joseph!” I said with alarm, but too late.

  The robber’s right hand darted into the fold of his robe. A knife flashed in the firelight before he seized me with one arm. He yanked me to my feet and pressed the blade to my throat.

  Joseph’s guards sprang forward. The bandit barked at them, “Get back or he dies! I am bar Abba, and you know I mean what I say.”

  Bar Abba! The notorious murderer who slaughtered and stole while pretending to be a freedom fighter. This was the assassin Zimri had said he was going to Judea to join.

  “Hold!” Joseph shouted to his men. Then to my attacker: “What do you want?”

  A ring of cloaked men appeared from the darkness at bar Abba’s sign. There were as many of them as Joseph’s entourage.

  “Want?” Bar Abba smirked. “I want your men to throw down their weapons. And then I want your camels and your shipment.”

  As the tip of his dagger jabbed my neck, Joseph ordered his men to drop their swords, and they complied.

  I recognized Zimri even before he spoke. “Didn’t I tell you this would work?” he said to bar Abba as he strode forward. “For some reason they value the life of this shepherd’s cur.” Approaching me, he threatened, “You are so much trouble. I will enjoy slitting your throat.”

  “No, you won’t,” bar Abba corrected. “He makes a valuable hostage. Remember who is chief here. All right, quickly now.”

  Struggling in bar Abba’s grasp, I shouted at Zimri, “What about my mother? What about my father?”

  Zimri sneered and shook his head, drawing his thumb across his neck.

  A dull, hollow ache swelled up in my chest, threatening to choke me. I no longer cared whether I lived or died. I let my hands be tied behind my back. A rope leash around my throat was handed to Zimri.

  I watched without seeing while Joseph and Terah were stripped of their fine clothes and valuables. After being forced to repack the camels, Joseph’s attendants were trussed up like chickens in the marketplace and piled in a heap.

  It was when all but three of bar Abba’s men had sheathed their weapons and grasped the lead ropes of the camels that I heard the shout from the black hillside: “Now!”

  Suddenly, beside each of the robbers appeared a pair of Roman soldiers, their javelins prepared to skewer all of bar Abba’s men. The legionaries looked to a muscled, russet-haired centurion for their orders.

  A tug on the rope jerked me off my feet, and the tip of Zimri’s knife dug into my ear.

  “Call off your men or he dies!” Zimri snarled.

  The centurion shrugged. “Go ahead. He’s nothing to me. The only difference to you is, if you kill him, I will kill you here and now . . . crucify you where you stand. But if you don’t, you might actually live to have a trial. Doesn’t matter to me. Your choice.”

  The pressure of the knife in my ear increased for a moment. My heart beat wildly.

  Then Zimri tossed down his blade. A pair of Roman soldiers pinioned his arms to his sides.

  Desperate to escape, bar Abba flung himself at the centurion. His upraised sword swept toward the officer, who parried it with his own. Their blades rang together. Bar Abba jabbed at the Roman with a knife in his other hand.

  The assassin was larger and stronger, bull-like in his fighting. The centurion was cool and quicker in his movements.

  Lowering his shoulder, bar Abba attempted to butt the centurion out of the way and did succeed in knocking the Roman down. As the bandit chief tried to flee, the officer caught him by the ankle and brought him sprawling to the ground.

  Immediately the officer planted one knee against bar Abba’s back, but the bandit whipped around, slashing with his dagger. The knife edge skittered off a metal bracelet on the Roman’s wrist.

  Then the Roman drove his clenched fist into bar Abba’s chin, following through on the blow by letting the point of his elbow crash against the robber’s cheekbone.

  Bar Abba sagged, and the fight was over.

  Once order was restored, Joseph of Arimathea confronted the Roman. “Marcus Longinus. How could you risk the life of this boy like that?”

  “Would it have been better to let that scum carry him away to be killed later or sold as a slave? No, I know his kind, cowards who will do anything to save their own hides. You’ll see. Bar Abba and Zimri will race to see which one can sell the other out faster.” Then to me he said, “But I am sorry, son. I would not want you harmed for anything.”

  Resuming his discussion with Joseph, the centurion explained, “I’ve been after bar Abba for three years. We received word that his band was hiding in the ruins of Gezer. When we saw your camp, we expected they would attack you.”

  “So you staked us out like a goat to draw in a lion!” Joseph protested.

  “A little gratitude, if you please,” Marcus Longinus corrected. “It is bar Abba’s practice to leave no living witnesses to his robberies. What would have happened if we had not been here at all?”

  To that question, Joseph had no response.

  As the sun rose, the troop of Roman soldiers and their prisoners set out toward Jerusalem while we returned to our trek to Joppa. All I could think was that I was alive . . . but now I knew my parents to be dead.

  Chapter 23

  As we approached Joppa, the highway skirted olive groves and stands of pomegranate trees. Still lower on the downward slope were vineyards, their gnarled trunks standing in the wintry chill like upright walking sticks. Savagely pruned until only a single pair of branches was left upon each vine, t
he barren rows looked the way I felt inside.

  Joppa was built on a promontory extending out into the sea. Waves crashed around the western base of its hundred-foot-tall summit, dotted with houses. I was fascinated by my first view of the Great Sea. I had heard of it, but nothing in Rabbi Kagba’s teaching or my parents’ descriptions prepared me for how vast it seemed. Nor was its appearance comforting. It appeared to me a trackless wilderness where drowning could be expected at any moment.

  Approaching Joppa as we did from the southeast, the morning light shone directly on the city, but its appearance was not improved by it. The town was built entirely of gray rock. I saw no color, nor even any whitewash, to relieve the dullness. Flat-roofed boxes were what passed for homes. They varied in size alone but not in shape.

  Perhaps it was the weariness in my own soul that drained any interest in Joppa from me. I wanted my mother and father. I wanted my home. I wanted things to be as they had been before this ordeal began, only now never could be again.

  Joseph of Arimathea tried to engage me in conversation by recounting bits of Joppa’s history. “This is where King Hiram of Tyre landed the cedar beams from Lebanon used to build our Temple. And you remember it was from Joppa that the prophet Jonah tried to flee from the Almighty.” He gazed into my staring, uncaring eyes and abruptly began prattling. “Jonah,” he repeated awkwardly. “No harbor, though. Rowed out to the ships. Out there.” Vaguely, he gestured toward a row of vessels bobbing at anchor, then shut his mouth and kept it closed.

  My grandparents, I learned, lodged with a man called Simon the Tanner. While tanning was a despised, smelly trade, it was also lucrative. Simon’s home was among the largest dwellings in Joppa. Simon was kin to Nicodemus the Pharisee and well known to Joseph.

  These and other such random thoughts bobbed in my head like the vessels on the waves. I had never met my mother’s parents before. I wondered if they would be pleased to see me, or hate me because I was alive and my mother was not. I was certain my brothers would blame me. How could they not, when I halfway blamed myself?

  When Joseph’s caravan arrived in the street outside Simon’s home, he asked me to wait with Terah while he entered to alert the household. It was, he said, so we would not catch them by surprise, because we were arriving earlier than expected.

  His small deception was meant to be an act of kindness, but it did not fool me. I knew he wanted to deliver the news about the death of their daughter before he introduced me to my grandparents.

  Moments passed. An older couple emerged from the gate. The woman was short and plump. The man, not much taller, but slimmer. Both had pale, drawn faces. The woman tottered slightly, clutching the man’s arm for support.

  “Boaz, Rebekah,” Joseph said, “this is your grandson, Nehemiah. Nehi, here are your—”

  Dropping to her knees, my grandmother extended her arms toward me. In her face she looked so much like my mother!

  Bursting away from Terah’s hand on my shoulder, I ran to her and fell into her arms. She pressed me to her, letting me bury my face in her neck, both of us weeping. We rocked back and forth, she and I, clinging to each other for comfort.

  She was perfumed with the aromas of baking: flour and spices. But there was also a faint hint of jasmine and lavender and rose . . . just like my mother.

  My grandfather stood awkwardly beside us both, stiffly patting first one head and then the other. “Come in, come in,” he kept urging, as if grief would be less if hidden from daylight.

  My grandmother and I shuddered as one, and we both sniffed. Drawing back slightly, she held me at arm’s length and peered into my eyes. “Dear, sweet child. I see your mother. I see my Sarah.”

  Once inside the house we sat on a bench with me between my grandparents. Each of them held one of my hands. My grandmother patted my hand over and over again.

  “Where are my brothers?” I said. “When can I see them?”

  “They’ve gone . . . left for Amadiya . . . before word came that you were in Jerusalem.”

  “But how can I . . . ? I’ve got to see them,” I said with desperation. “I have to tell them . . . you know.”

  Gently, my grandfather said, “I’ve already sent a messenger after them. He’s well mounted and riding fast. He will catch them and turn them around. Don’t worry.”

  “And which . . . who . . . ?” I asked and stopped, fearing to bring more sorrow into this grief-stricken gathering.

  “What is it, my boy?” Grandfather asked.

  Joseph came to my aid. “We heard that one of your grandsons—one of Nehi’s brothers—was killed in the fire. But we did not learn the name.”

  “Oh,” Grandmother said abruptly.

  I saw the hurt of the recollection hit her like a slap to the face, and my own heart was pierced again. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I said, uncaring whether I made sense or not.

  “Terrible! Terrible!” Grandmother murmured. “It was the drunken brother of a cloth merchant. A guest. He started the fire. Not one of my grandchildren. But a horrible end for anyone.”

  How could I feel crushed and lifted both at the same time? Not one of my brothers, but both of my parents? Good news, bad news. Relief and groans coming heartbeats apart?

  “We are rebuilding the shop,” my grandfather confirmed. “It will be complete by Passover. But what with the crowds and all . . . well, we won’t try to move back until after the holiday.”

  For a long time we did not notice Joseph, standing self-consciously beside the door. “I should go,” he said. “I am going with my cargo as far as Alexandria. If tide and wind cooperate, I will return in two Sabbaths. With your permission, I will look in on Nehemiah again then.”

  For a time, immediately after his departure, I barely noticed that Joseph of Arimathea had gone. I was so grateful to be with my grandparents . . . to feel their love and know the security of being in their home . . . that I wanted no more adventures! For so long I had been on the run, or in hiding, or facing bandits, or living by my wits, that I was ready to be a child again, though I would not have admitted it if asked.

  My grandmother’s embrace and the gruff kindliness of my grandfather kept my days free of sorrow or fear. When I woke in the room next to my grandparents, it took me a moment to recognize where I was, and then I took comfort in my grandfather’s snores. By the sound of his rasping breath, I received proof that I was physically safe.

  With that reassurance, I next prayed earnestly to return to sleep as quickly as possible, before my thoughts overwhelmed me. My brothers had still not returned, and the deep-rooted guilt I felt at having fled from Zimri remained unresolved.

  And then there was the matter of my mission and the Cup of Joseph. Opinion was divided, it seemed, about Jesus of Nazareth. Was he a healer, a miracle worker, a prophet sent by the Almighty—or a charlatan, a deceiver, a traitor, or a collaborator?

  How was it possible for the Messiah, the Anointed One, the long-awaited prophet promised through Moses and all the others, to be unrecognized as who he truly was? Was it Jesus who was flawed . . . or men who were blind?

  Perhaps we could have resolved these questions by going to Jerusalem, but my grandparents refused to take me.

  Shortly after my arrival in Joppa, word came that a plague was strangling the Holy City.

  “The choking sickness,” Grandfather called it. “All who can afford to are fleeing the city. Thanks be to the Almighty that we came away before it struck. The fire, you see, was a blessing in disguise.”

  “But the poor beggars,” Grandmother lamented. “Things like these always hit the homeless the hardest. Those who cannot escape—who have no money for warm clothing and good food—are the first to die.”

  I thought of my friends: Red, Timothy, and the others, and wondered how they were. The caves beneath the city might remain above freezing, but they could not be called either truly warm or entirely dry. I myself had seen how the Sparrows struggled to obtain enough to eat.

  “Can’t we go hel
p them?” I asked. “Do something for them? They helped me.”

  Grandfather would not even consider it.

  Grandmother said, “It’s good that you want to help, Nehi, but your grandfather is right. We cannot risk returning there. Not now.”

  There soon came a day when my nighttime worries and frets crept into the daylight hours. The comforting thump and swish of shuttle and frame as my grandmother worked her loom no longer reassured me. Instead, the sight of her laboring over the skeins of blue and white thread reminded me how very much I missed my mother and my home in Amadiya.

  Grandmother noticed when I leaned against the door frame, gnawing on my lower lip and frowning. When my grandfather emerged from his makeshift counting office, I heard her whispering to him but could not make out what was said.

  “Nehemiah,” Grandfather said, clapping his hand on my shoulder, “let’s go down to the waterfront. There’s a shipping agent there I want to visit. Besides, there are some famous sights in Joppa that visitors come especially to see. You might like it.”

  I was grateful for the diversion.

  “Even without a proper harbor,” Grandfather explained, “Joppa is a famous seaport. Greeks and Persians and our people all come here to visit.”

  I had not seen anything especially noteworthy in Joppa, so I was curious what would draw attention from many different races.

  A series of rocky ledges that formed one bit of Joppa’s shoreline marched in ranks out into the salt water until disappearing beneath it. Some distance offshore they reemerged as dangerous reefs, barely breaking the surface, poised to tear the bellies out of unsuspecting ships.

  Only one rock reared much higher than the waves. From the place I stood it appeared about the size and shape of the oak cabinet in my mother’s workshop in Amadiya—the one in which she kept the finest thread for the most elaborate, custom-ordered prayer shawls.

  I remarked on this to Grandfather, but he assured me it was really much larger. “About the size of the shed where we keep the chickens.”