Few people were in a hurry, most of them indeed were willing to prolong the business, nevertheless there was some rough order of precedence. Married women first, according to age; then girls. And every morning, as the women, like figures on a frieze, moved, stooped, waited, straightened themselves and set their jars on their head, half-way through the married women’s line somebody was certain to say, “Michal’s turn.” And there would be laughter.
Mary, part of the frieze, standing aside with the other girls would wait for the poor joke and wonder that now, after two years, it should still have the power to amuse. Sometimes she felt impatient with them; at other times she would think—It is the measure of the fundamental dullness of their lives. She would wonder, too if twenty years hence her life would have narrowed down to a point where she must relish an ancient jest and one that had never, at first coming, been very good.
There’d been a time when Michal, a pretty, lively young woman, had taken her rightful place at the spring; then her husband had died, leaving her in a pitiful plight, no relatives at all, nobody to be responsible for her or to fend for her. She’d been reduced to doing the most menial jobs about the village in return for a meal or a bit of cast-off clothing. Then suddenly she had ceased to solicit jobs or charity, had appeared in a brand-new dress one day, the next with scented oil on her hair, soon with bangles on her wrists. There were whispers and raised eyebrows and hard looks and suspicion, soon confirmed. Her tumbledown little house stood on the outskirts of the village, almost next door to the inn on the road to Sepphoris, and men had been seen going in, and coming out.
She must have been very stupid, Mary thought, or very brave, for morning after morning she had joined the exodus to the spring, amazed at first and then tearful to find herself treated as though she were invisible, until she came too near; then she’d be pushed past or jostled. She seemed to think that if she persisted the morning would dawn when she would find herself forgiven and accepted again. She’d had three new water-jars broken and two dresses soaked before she realised that the women had outlawed her—for ever.
After the last ‘accident’ Mary, then very young, and strictly brought up to respect her elders, had spoken out in a way that Rachel and Susannah and Leah knew.
“It’s a shame!” she said, as Michal, finally admitting defeat, fled back along the path, with no water and her pretty dress spoiled.
“She did try, until she was nothing but skin and bone. We should be sorry for her!
They’d rounded on her with an astounding ferocity.
“Shame is it? I agree, so it is to hear a girl so young speak in such a way.”
Tm glad your mother didn’t hear that,” said the woman who intended to inform Mary’s mother at the first possible moment.
“I was sorry for her. Many’s the job I found for her, things I could
well have done myself. And when we killed a sheep remembered her.”
“And bread she never lacked; my husband saw to that,” said the wife of Hilliel, the Rabbi who was also the baker.
Susannah attempted to take Mary’s jar.. “I’ll fill it for you. You run home,” she whispered.
Tm going to fill my own jar. I haven’t done anything. I only said I thought it was a shame. And I still do!”
They were all going to say the same things again, but more vehemently, when an old woman moved and stood near the girls and said to Mary:
“You’re young, dearie, and very innocent. You’ll learn later that a woman like that is a threat to every married woman. Men are frail creatures. Let it go, now, let it go.”
That morning the chatter on the return journey was loud and vociferous. Imagine Anne’s daughter, Anne’s daughter, saying a thing like that! And what was the world coming to when any girl so young should not only rebuke her elders but, when in turn rebuked, be defiant? Did you see how her eyes flashed? If my daughter ever dares … Mary knew by the expression on Anne’s face that she had been informed. What she did not know and never would was that the informant had obtained little satisfaction from the interview.
“Maybe she spoke out of turn,” Anne said, ‘and she’ll hear about that from me. But as for sticking up for a harlot, worse nonsense than that I never heard, even from you, Rebecca! Why, the girl’s so innocent she wouldn’t know what Michal’s doing nowadays. That wouldn’t occur to you, would it? She thought it was a shame to treat her so because she wouldn’t understand why. My daughter’s been properly brought up, let me tell you.”
To Mary she said stern things about respect to elders and being careful about one’s reputation. Michal she did not mention either by name or reputation, still being careful of her child’s innocence. But of course the girls knew all about it and often discussed it; they thought it was a terrible way to earn a living. Nowadays Michal drew her water very early in the morning or in the afternoon; and every day, when the procession reached a certain point, the joke about her turn was made, and the women laughed and Mary thought of their dull lives, and of her own, so like theirs, except, of course, for what went on in her head.
On this morning the four girls were last at the spring and then delayed a little because it was Leah’s turn to carry Joshua and he had decided not to be carried by her; Rachel must carry him. They argued about this, saying, “You shouldn’t; he’s too heavy,” and each in turn inviting him, cajoling.
“Joshua, you ride on me; I’ll be your horse,” Mary said. But Joshua had his mind made up and knew already that one male mind made up is a match for any number of women.
“I’ll take your jar then,” Mary said. To carry two jars, one on your hip, one on your head was easy enough, but it took a second or two to lift and arrange both without spilling a drop, and the others had rounded the rocky point and were on the path by the time that she was ready to follow them. She had her back to the highway when she heard the hurried, stumbling hoofs, the laboured breathing of the burdened, the cheerfully callous exhortations of the driver.
Don’t look! she told herself. There’s really nothing you can do about it, and what you see will haunt you all day and even more at night when you lie down and, shut your eyes. Hurry round the rocks without looking, get on to the path, join the others, think of something silly to say.
But you always looked; you were compelled to, if only in the hope that it might not be quite so bad as you feared.
She looked. It was very bad. An aged, decrepit donkey. Three bales, one on either side; a third poised across them. The driver was just a boy, not ill-looking; in his weather-darkened face his eyes were bright and his teeth very white as he gave a rueful grin.
“The short way’s closed, I see. That would happen today of all days. Now we’ve got to get up this hill.”
“Oh, please,” she said, ‘don’t prod him. He’s very old and very small for such a load.”
“Just what I said. My very words, this morning. I wanted the black one, half his age and twice his size. With a wreck like this how can I make the journey in one day? I mean to, though!”
He gave evidence of his intention and Mary made a sound of distress.
– “You don’t want to fret about donkeys—pretty girl like you.” His voice was friendly; his glance ran over her with approval, a near-flirtatiousness. Something in her shrank from the glance, but if he considered her pretty, could she use his admiration to help the donkey?
She said, “I do fret about them. It may be silly but to see one hurt hurts me. Look, if you’ll let him take his time up this hill and not prod him, I’ll walk with you, and when we come to my home I’ll give you a honey cake and a cup of wine.”
“You’re a funny one,” the boy said.
“Where do you live?”
“Just over the hill; in Nazareth.”
One part of her mind broke off to consider what her mother would make of this offer of hospitality to a chance-met donkey-boy.
“I’ve got to make a stop there,” the boy said; ‘and any other time I’d be only too pleased to eat and drink as well. It just happens that today I’m in a hurry. My brother’s wife has a child—a boy, and tonight he’s giving a feast. It would be just my luck to get a long journey, a half-dead donkey and an extra load, and the short cut closed.”