But these were thoughts she could share with no. one. Alone in the kitchen of the little house, laying out the Sabbath food, cooked on the previous day, she did pause for a moment, gripped her hands together and said, “God, I must leave it to You. All I ask is strength to bear what comes.” Then, carrying the dish she went in to Joseph and said, gaily:
“Mother was annoyed, wasn’t she? Calling you a donkey! If she only knew, to my mind that was a compliment.”
Smoothly, beautifully, she had made everything sound safe and ordinary again.
Despite all the mutterings and the prognostications of ruin, the carrying out of the latest order from Rome caused less upheaval than had been anticipated. The order was regarded as harsh and tyrannical and, as always under any kind of threat, the Jews united. Farmers who, because they were born in or near Nazareth, need make no journey, or only a short one, undertook to keep things going on the farms of those who must face longer journeys. An old smith who lived in comfort with his well-married daughter in Sepphoris walked all the way from that city to tell the man who must go to Beersheba that he would take charge of his forge while he was away; he made no favour of it, it would be as good as a holiday, he said, to get his hands on tools again.
Joseph was less fortunate in finding a substitute and was faced with the closing of his carpenter’s shop when he heard through Hilliel, who had heard from the Rabbi at Japha, half an hour’s walk away to the south, that a carpenter named Aaron there would be willing to undertake any urgent job, if Joseph would leave a chalked notice on his door directing any possible customers to his shop.
In later days, amongst his many other worries, Joseph sometimes wondered about Aaron and how long he had done two .men’s work before wiping that notice off the door at Nazareth. But when he came back there were the chalked words, renewed again and again, and one of his first visitors was Aaron, carrying in his hand a small bag of money and in his head an exact amount of every piece of work he had done on Joseph’s behalf.
Only men, the taxpayers, the putative recruits should there ever be a general call up, were compelled to register, but Mary was far from being the only woman to accompany her man; there were women who disliked the idea of being left alone, women whose men did not wish them to be alone, and a multitude of women to whom the prospect of a family reunion was irresistible. Relatives unseen for years could be visited, children shown off, marriages arranged. The women, less politically minded and in many cases less informed about the Law, would, with the slightest encouragement, have made the whole thing into an outing—or in the case of those who remained in their own homes,an opportunity to show hospitality. The men took a more dour view, looking upon the new taxation with dread and upon the census with distrust. ‘ In Joseph’s household the preparations were complicated by two incidental things. The first was Anne’s inability to accept the idea that Mary’s child might be born far away, under some other woman’s eye. She wept, she cajoled, she threatened to accompany them, and then withdrew the threat when she realised that two of her own brothers must
return to Nazarethwhile we can, let us cling to the ordinary. There’s so much to come that won’t be….”
So much, she thought. All those dreadful prophecies about being wounded, bruised and then slaughtered. One said, “He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter.”-Surely, never before, in the whole history of mankind, had any woman conceived and carried a child whose fate she knew from the first. She’d known, of course, all along, but in the early days, especially after her visit to Elisabeth, she had been filled with ecstasy and mysticism. But day by day, as the child grew and weighed heavier, became more and more part of her, her sorrow for him, her protective feeling, grew. He would be great and glorious, he would be the Son of God; but human, too, vulnerable to pain, and she, his human mother, must grieve and suffer, for him.
But these were thoughts she could share with no. one. Alone in the kitchen of the little house, laying out the Sabbath food, cooked on the previous day, she did pause for a moment, gripped her hands together and said, “God, I must leave it to You. All I ask is strength to bear what comes.” Then, carrying the dish she went in to Joseph and said, gaily:
“Mother was annoyed, wasn’t she? Calling you a donkey! If she only knew, to my mind that was a compliment.”
Smoothly, beautifully, she had made everything sound safe and ordinary again.
ii Despite all the mutterings and the prognostications of ruin, the carrying out of the latest order from Rome caused less upheaval than had been anticipated. The order was regarded as harsh and tyrannical and, as always under any kind of threat, the Jews united. Farmers who, because they were born in or near Nazareth, need make no journey, or only a short one, undertook to keep things going on the farms of those who must face longer journeys. An old smith who lived in comfort with his well-married daughter in Sepphoris walked all the way from that city to tell the man who must go to Beersheba that he would take charge of his forge while he was away; he made no favour of it, it would be as good as a holiday, he said, to get his hands on tools again.
Joseph was less fortunate in finding a substitute and was faced with the closing of his carpenter’s shop when he heard through Hilliel, who had heard from the Rabbi at Japha, half an hour’s walk away to the south, that a carpenter named Aaron there would be willing to undertake any urgent job, if Joseph would leave a chalked notice on his door directing any possible customers to his shop.
In later days, amongst his many other worries, Joseph sometimes wondered about Aaron and how long he had done two men’s work before wiping that notice off the door at Nazareth. But when he came back there were the chalked words, renewed again and again, and one of his first visitors was Aaron, carrying in his hand a small bag of money and in his head an exact amount of every piece of work he had done on Joseph’s behalf. Only men, the taxpayers, the putative recruits should there ever be a general call up, were compelled to register, but Mary was far from being the only woman to accompany her man; there were women who disliked the idea of being left alone, women whose men did not wish them to be alone, and a multitude of women to whom the prospect of a family reunion was irresistible. Relatives unseen for years could be visited, children shown off, marriages arranged. The women, less politically minded and in many cases less informed about the Law, would, with the slightest encouragement, have made the whole thing into an outing—or in the case of those who remained in their own homes,an opportunity to show hospitality. The men took a more dour view, looking upon the new taxation with dread and upon the census with distrust.
In Joseph’s household the preparations were complicated by two incidental things. The first was Anne’s inability to accept the idea that Mary’s child might be born far away, under some other woman’s eye. She wept, she cajoled, she threatened to accompany them, and then withdrew the threat when she realised that two of her own brothers must
return to Nazarethfor the census and would have to be looked after.
“Muddling about and walking just at that time,” she said, weeping again, ‘the baby’ll most likely be born by the roadside.”
“That won’t happen,” Joseph said firmly.
“We intend to start early. And she won’t be walking, she’ll be riding.”
“And being jolted, which is just as bad!”
Mention of the riding reminded Joseph of the other complication. Over the matter of the donkey he had yielded to Mary and in his heart felt that in doing so he had made a mistake. There was a donkey, very old, more than a little lame, that belonged to a man named Micah who had a little brick-kiln, and on this sorry animal Mary had set her heart.
“But it’s lame,” Joseph said.
“It wouldn’t be if it had some rest. If we could buy it now and feed it up a little …”
Joseph’s mind underwent the by-now-familiar dichotomy; this woman, my wife; this woman, chosen of God to be the mother of His Son.