The boy was wasting no time; as he talked he kept moving and Mary followed him. They were now climbing uphill.
“If you really mind about donkeys,” the boy said, giving evidence that he did not, ‘you could save us a few steps by telling us where the carpenter lives. That bag,” he prodded the uppermost one, ‘is for him, iron stuff, nails and door hinges and handles. And they’re heavy. These,” he prodded the side bales, ‘don’t weigh much really, dyed cotton stuff. Then along comes my master and says—You’ll be going through Nazareth, drop this on the way. Just my luck.”
She said, “I know where the carpenter lives. I am betrothed to him.”
“He’s a fortunate fellow,” the boy said, concealing under gallantry a certain feeling of surprise. She had an elegance, not of clothing or of manner, or speech, nevertheless an elegance and a delicacy that made it hard to picture her as the wife of a village carpenter. But his interest in her was peripheral. If he hoped to be at the feast tonight he must keep moving. The donkey struggled and made little sobbing sounds. In its browny-grey coat the places where the goad went home ran red.
Suddenly she said, “I can’t bear it, I can’t bear it. Please, please, let me carry the heavy bag.”
He was so astounded that he ceased prodding the donkey.
“Don’t be silly. Break your back, that would.”
“No,” she said, “I’m strong. I’m really very strong. I can carry that bag and you won’t even have to turn into the village street. You can go straight along and save time.”
The boy realised the truth then. He’d fallen in with a mad woman. Pretty, young, properly dressed, she’d been alone at the watering place; without asking his name she had invited him to eat honey cake and drink wine in her house; she minded about donkeys and said she was betrothed to the village carpenter. Madness was the one and only explanation.
And mad people must be respected; they were possessed by devils. And they were strong. In his own village there was a madman who could straighten a horseshoe between his hands.
He saw himself, at the feast this evening, making a bid for attention—What do you think happened to me this morning, just outside Nazareth? I fell in with a mad woman. And they’d all think of somebody old, with staring eyes and wild grey hair.
He said, “If you want to carry it, lady, you may. But it is heavy. And nails make an uneasy load.”
She had already set down the two water-jars she carried in the shade of a bush at the edge of the road.
“I can carry it,” she said. The donkey, unprodded, had slowed, come to a standstill, and stood, drawing breath.
Hardly believing what he was doing and yet thinking what a story this would make, the boy unhitched the bag of iron stuff and laid it upon Mary’s back. She put her hands over her shoulders and took the sack by its ears. The donkey, relieved of its heaviest bale, gave itself a
little shake. “Here we go then,” the boy cried.
“Oyl Oyl”
They moved, considering the incline of the road, at a spanking pace. Mary walked beside the donkey; she could see its eyes, so gentle, so entirely hopeless. The knowledge that she had ,eased this load, this one journey, braced and encouraged her. And then, suddenly it seemed, the donkey had tripped ahead and she was alongside the boy.
He tried to think of something that could be said to a mad woman.
He said, “You all right?”
“Quite all right, thank you.”
“In some places,” he said, ‘where women carry heavy loads, they wear head-bands. They help, they take some of the weight. But after a time they leave marks, like pack galls.”
She seemed to be making rather heavy work of it and an obscure feeling of guilt afflicted him. She asked to do it, he reminded himself. He’d told her it was heavier than it looked.
“I told you it was heavy, didn’t I? Had enough? Let me shove it back on him.”
“I’m managing,” she said, trying not to sound breathless.
She was amazed at the heaviness of the comparatively small sack. Like every other woman of her kind she was accustomed to carrying things, bundles of washing, of firewood, of gleaned corn, baskets of winnowed corn for grinding, baskets of vegetables, water-jars, Joshua; but none of them had ever seemed a quarter the weight of this. The position perhaps; she wasn’t used to carrying things on her back; and the boy hadn’t exaggerated when he said that it was an uneasy load; points of some of the nails came through the sack and dug into her.
Think about something else. That was a trick she’d learned early when set to do tedious jobs like grinding corn or shelling beans. So she thought about the fine new house which Joseph was helping to build just outside Cana. The nails would be intended for decoration of the outer doors, nail-studded doors were evidence of wealth in a country where iron was scarce and expensive. With rows of nails and iron hinges and handles it would be a very imposing door indeed. The thought crossed her mind that Joseph would not be pleased if he knew that she had carried this load uphill! He was a very kind and considerate man—it was that which had first attracted her to him.
Then, quite unbidden, another thought slipped into her mind. A hideous thought. There was another use for nails; the Romans used them for that slow, terrible punishment known as crucifixion. The Jews stoned their malefactors, and a man could be knocked senseless in three minutes, and dead in five. On the crosses men hung and suffered for as much as three days. Oh, why must she think of that now? Wasn’t this load enough, pressing down, hindering the breath, making every step a painful labour?
The boy could hear her breathing now—worse than the old donkey at his worst.
“Give over now,” he said, almost pleadingly.
“It was a daft idea. You’ll do yourself a damage.”
She lifted her head and saw that they were almost at the top of the hill which was marked by a group of trees, old gnarled hawthorns bent by years of prevailing westerly winds. And she saw the little donkey, plodding on with his lightened load. She shook her head at the boy and the drops of sweat flew off and spattered the dust. She drew in a breath that hurt her chest like a knife-thrust and said:
‘ I-shallgettothe-top.”
The maddest, most stubborn woman he’d ever encountered; but the guilty feeling moved in him again. He lifted his donkey goad, intending to dig it into the sack and so lighten it for her. But the stick slipped, or the sack swayed and the point struck her in the side. A little blood from the goad, and some from the wound, crept out and stained her grey gown.
The boy was almost crying.
“I didn’t mean to do that! It was an accident, an accident!” he cried.
“I was trying to help you! Give up, now do I I should never have let you try it.”
She seemed not to hear, or not to understand. And he knew that at the feast tonight he would not entertain anyone with his encounter with the mad woman from Nazareth; it wasn’t amusing any more. It would be quite a time before he even wanted to think about it.
Mary plodded on, ten steps, counting now; change to seven,seven was a special, mystic number; seven and another seven; must be almost at the top now. And then, swift as flame leaping through dry sticks, pain ran through her, possessing, engulfing; a pain such as she had never known before; a pain that made ..every other pain a mere discomfort. She cried out in a voice that was to ring through the donkey-boy’s dreams for years; the sack fell with a rattling thump and she stood swaying, her hands pressed to her body, and then gently collapsed.
The boy stood and swore in three languages. What now? Sling her across the damned donkey and take her into the village, That’d mean carrying the sack himself, and a waste of time finding out where she lived. That wouldn’t do. He took her by the shoulders and pulled her to the side of the road, under the shade of the new-leafed trees. She seemed very light and soft between his hands; and she was pretty. It was a shame that a girl like that should be so crazy. He had half a mind to get his water-bottle and wet her sleeve and dabble it across her face, try to bring her round; but that meant a further waste of time. And he was a little frightened. After all he had struck her and she was mad; she might come round in quite another frame of mind and accuse him of attacking her. So with another half-guilty, half-apologetic look at the pretty pale unconscious face, he left her; took up the bag and refastened it to the back of the donkey which had snatched this unusual opportunity to take a mouthful of grass. He’d better deliver the bag and get on his way as soon as possible. She’d come round, and she wasn’t far from home; or somebody would come along with more time and a less-loaded beast. She’d be all right. But he wished it hadn’t happened.