But she thought—A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and she knew, with deadly certainty, that she would witness the death of this child who now, vibrant with new life, kicked her in the ribs. He would be human, and as a human he would die; but he would also be the Son of God, and as such immortal. Difficult to understand, impossible to communicate, but in her heart she knew.
So they moved southwards. Every morning the old donkey set out bravely, the finished product of at least four thousand years of conditioning, from the free wild ass, stamping his hill beat, through captivity, gelding, near-starvation, into this tempered slave, this triumph of survival. But each day, when he began to sag and limp, and with any ordinary owner would have been given fresh impetus from pain, whip or stick or goad, Mary alighted. And each day she walked more heavily. Presently Joseph began to fret about the weather.
There were always a few weeks when, even as far south as Jerusalem, the rain-laden winds were chilly; about once in every three years the rain would turn to snow; even more rarely there would be frost. Such times were known as bad winters and helped to date things: before, or just after, or during the last bad winter, people would say, recalling some event. Joseph hoped and prayed that this was not to be one of those bad winters; but the signs indicated that it might be. The wind veered and came screaming down from the north, filling the sky with leaden, swollen-looking clouds. Then, in the evening, after they had found a place to sleep—and for all his anxiety he always insisted upon stopping early—he’d go out to attend to the donkey, or simply to sniff the wind; and the sky, so lowering all day, would be swept clear of clouds and the stars would shine with a frosty sparkle. There was one, particularly large and bright, which seemed to look down and say “Frost tomorrow I’ Frost or snow, and what would happen to the old donkey, already making such heavy going that occasionally Joseph lost patience with it?
“When he worked for Micah he carried heavier loads,” he’d say. Or, “He takes advantage of you; he knows he has only to sigh and you’ll get down and walk.”
It worried him greatly when people passed them in the road; and it seemed that everybody passed them, even people on foot. Mary walked slowly and heavily now and easily grew short of breath.
“If all these people are bound for Bethlehem, the place will be crammed,” he said.
Mary always replied, “Don’t worry, Joseph; there’ll be a place for us.”
She said that on the last morning, just as Joseph, shouldering his bag, took the donkey’s head-rope and said:
“Come on, you! We’re having no nonsense today!”
And at that moment he felt, on his cheek, the first, soft, almost
caressing, deadly ominous touch of a snowflake.EIGHT
ON THE ROAD TO JERUSALEM FROM JERICHO
miles After Balthazar had joined them, Melchior and Caspar travelled more comfortably and cheaply. He did all their shopping, took on the menial jobs of camel-tending, fire-making and cooking when they camped in the open, negotiated all the arrangements if they slept at inns. He could also have made the journey much more interesting and instructive, had Melchior not been so impatient. Caspar was eager to exploit his ability to ask questions and explain things, but Melchior often acted as a buffer, saying.
“We have no time now. That can wait.”
The company of a third person brought the inevitable discord. Two men, however different in character, can, unless they are unreasonable, come to terms between themselves; with two there can be no taking of sides, and in an argument it is one voice against one voice. With three it is different.
Usually, as they pressed onward, Balthazar, in any argument, tended to side with Melchior who had befriended him, who followed the star, who was a man of education, the man to whom he could speak directly, the man who, except when preoccupied or bothered about time, was friendly. But when, as they came nearer to Jerusalem their arguments were no longer concerned with such trivial things as to when to stop and where to spend the night, but devolved upon their point of destination, then Balthazar found himself siding with Caspar.
“I know now,” Melchior said, coming back from a session with his chart and his tools, ‘that Jerusalem cannot be the place. It is too far north. If we come to a road which branches off we should do well to take it. This road is crowded and leads to the city. We have no reason to enter the city at all.”
There followed one of their awkward, three-cornered arguments.
Balthazar could recall, with complete clarity, the maps that had hung upon the walls of the counting house in Tyre. On them all the caravan routes were marked, and every city with which the Greek did business was ringed in red.
“There is no large city directly south of Jerusalem,” he said with what, for him, was assurance.
“South of Jerusalem there are a few villages, sheep country, then desert and nothing else until you come to Egypt. In my dream, or my vision—call it what you will—I saw the three of us, riding into the gateway of a city, a walled city with many towers. There is no such place south of Jerusalem.”
“I’m inclined to discount what you saw,” Melchior said, politely, but firmly, ‘as I told you, clairvoyance is an inexact science. The star has guided me, unfailingly, for thousands of miles. Am I now to disregard it because of something you saw in a dream or a trance? With no moment to waste, mark you.”
“What is it now?” Caspar asked, sensing contention. Melchior informed him, briefly. And with almost equal brevity Caspar said:
“I wish to see Herod, and Jerusalem. I do not like huckster’s talk, but it is a fact that you have come so far at my expense.”
“That I do not deny,” Melchior said sourly, ‘but it is of no importance.” He looked at his two companions and thought how dangerously easy it would be to hate them both, the young man with his money and his passion to see things and ask questions; the black man with his chatter about visions; both of them prepared to waste time, that most precious commodity of all, by going to Jerusalem, the one to satisfy idle curiosity, the other to fulfill his dream. Yet they were both indispensable.
Balthazar looked at his two companions and thought how easy it would be to dislike them both: the young man so arrogant because of his money, the old man so stubborn about his errand. He thought of his vision, the risks he had taken-would either of them have risked such a flogging as he would endure if recaptured? Yet, in their separate ways, they scorned, or were oblivious to, the thing which had made him risk his life.
Caspar looked at his two companions and thought howpleasant it would be to hate them; the old man, so physically inexhaustible, with all his gabble about stars and his innate arrogance; the black man, so emasculate and servile. Yet there they were, his left hand and his right. Without them he could not ask for so little as a cup of water.
“What you saw,” Melchior said to Balthazar, ‘could have been the gateway to a Palace. Perhaps with your real eyes you have never seen one. I have seen many, with great gateways and towers and turrets, easily to be mistaken for cities.. ..”
“With my real eyes I have seen palaces. In Egypt, in Tyre … places that you perhaps have never heard of. Believe me, I know a palace from a city as you know a radish from a melon. And I saw us, dressed just as we are and riding the camels we ride, passing into the gates of a city. I know,” Balthazar said, with the humility that has power because, being so low it cannot be struck down, ‘that you ridicule my vision. But I beg you, ask yourself; but for that vision, which brought me to you, where now would you be?”
“Lost and penniless, in a strange land,” Melchior said with equal humility.
“That I admit, and so, when he understands, will he. But I still say that Jerusalem is not my goal and I am positive that to go into Jerusalem will not only be a wicked waste of time, but, because of the waste, dangerous to the child.”
“Now I beg you to consider,” Balthazar said, ‘you look at the stars and see a child, connected with a star. I—dreaming, or tranced, what you will, see a star and the gateway of a great city. In ordinary terms, which of us, I ask you, carries most weight? He’—he nodded towards Caspar—‘has seen nothing, but he has paid and paid and paid. And he wishes, you tell me, to see Jerusalem. Could we not oblige him?”