And now, here was this woman, with the face of youngDorcas, about to face that ordeal, with no roof, no shelter.
He said, “There is room. There is the stable.”
“Shut your mouth!” Eunice said.
“Once get her on our premises and who can say where it’ll end? Childbirth fever. Milk fever. She might lie in our straw for weeks. I ask you, would any decent woman be in such a pass? Let her bear her child in the ditch, where, like as not, it was begotten.”
He said, “You shut your mouth! I’ve done with you. D’you hear me? Done!” He lifted his hand, which shook like a leaf, and unhooked the lantern from over the door.
“Allow me,” he said, ‘to conduct you to the stable. It is at least sheltered and warm.”
“And it’s mine!” Eunice shouted.
“So is that lantern and I absolutely forbid–—’ He said, “Eunice, I never yet have struck you; but another word and I will hit you, hard!”
Both he and Eunice were completely bilingual, switching effortlessly, sometimes even in mid-sentence, from Greek to Aramaic, from Aramaic to Greek. Ephorus, assuring Joseph that there was no room, had used Aramaic; Eunice had spoken the same language when she said, “The best we can manage …” But the altercation between them had been in Greek. Joseph, the much-travelled man, had followed it, and in his heart been deeply affronted; but the innkeeper had mentioned a stable, and even the shelter of a stable would be welcome now. So he had held his tongue, tried to control his face and been thankful that nothing this horrible woman was saying meant anything to Mary.
Eunice, quelled by the threat, opened the door and went in, banging it behind her; and the three of them, with the donkey, were left in the wind and the snow.
“If you will come this way,” Ephorus said, and, holding the lantern in his quaking hand, led the way to the side entry ami the stable door. It was a low building, but deep and wide, with a manger along one side. To the left of the doorway were some neatly ranged tools, to the right a great heap of straw. A cow and a donkey stood by the manger, and their bodies had heated the place so that, coming in from the night, it felt warm. It some sweet too, of straw and the breath of the non-carnivorous animals.
“It isn’t much,” Ephorus said, ‘but it is the best I can do. It’s quiet,” he said, consoling himself, ‘and you’ll have it to yourselves.”
The woman turned to him with a smile, which, because it reminded him of Dorcas, he tried to analyse. If you said it was sweet, he thought to himself, you’d wrong it, because sweet sounds insipid; yet there was a sweetness about it, and a radiance which lit up her pale tired face.
“We’re extremely fortunate,” she said.
“And you are very kind.”
“I meant it all to be so different,” the man said.
“I aimed to get here yesterday, or the day before. But we’re thankful to be under cover.”
Ephorus’ desire to serve outran his caution.
“I’ll bring you a blanket,” he said.
“And what about supper?” She said, Thank you. We have some food left.”
“Cold food,” he said.
“You need more than that on such a night. I’ll be back….” He looked round for a hook on which to hang the lantern, and hurried away, his lame leg dragging a little less than usual.
When he had gone, Mary said, “I knew that somehow a place would be found for us.”
“But what a place!” He looked around him with distaste.
“Suppose your time should come, here on a bed of straw.”
She said, “It must be the right place, the place God chose. The pains began hours ago, and they’re getting harder now. He’ll be born by midnight.”
Something seemed to burst in his brain.
“You didn’t tell me!” he said, almost angrily.
“You walked and walked. And all on account of that damned donkey! I didn’t want to buy it in the first place. It’s ruined all my plans. What baby was ever born in a stable … leave alone such a baby as this….” And his thoughts ran about; in a crowded inn there must be some kindly, experienced woman who could help; and how curious it was that they’d been without any shelter until he’d said, “Oh God, God!”
Then the innkeeper had relented and he’d thoughtthat God had them in His keeping, after all. But the end was a bed of straw, in a stable. Mystery added itself to mystery, enough to make a plain, ordinary man run mad.
“It is the right place,” Mary said confidently.
“For me, for him.
Look at that!”
Their old donkey had limped in behind them and made for the manger, snuffing eagerly. It had made for the manger and Eunice’s well-fed animal had edged away, making room for the newcomer at that portion of the manger that contained food.
“He’s prepared to share,” she said.
“And the man is kind. Where better could a child be born ?”
She’d tell him, she thought, when he was grown and Lord of the world, just how he had been born, and ask him to look out for humble people and animals.
In the kitchen the two slaves were abed and asleep. Eunice was abed, but not asleep. When Ephorus entered and went towards the great black pot which held the remains of the mutton stew she reared up and said
:
“Oh, so you’ve done with me, but you come crawling back for your supper!”
He heard only the chiding, not the relief in her voice. He said, “I don’t want your supper! It’s for her … for them. They’re customers, aren’t they, like all the rest? They’re entitled to supper. They’ll pay, don’t you fret about that.”
Ordinarily he defeated her by his apathetic silence, the best buffer a man could rear between him and a nagging woman. Now he was answering back. Happily she threw herself into what promised to be their first real quarrel in years.
“That’s right,” she said.
“That’s just like you. Stand like a stuffed man when I’m serving proper people, then hop about like a flea to serve a couple of feckless no-goods that turn up late and happen to take your fancy. Threatening to hit me, too; after all I’ve done for you. And that’s about all you’re good for, biting the hand that’s fed you all these years.”
He moved the black pot on to what remained of the fire, took two bowls and two spoons. He said, “You can stow that talk, Eunice. I’ve had about enough of it. You’ve fed me and housed me, but you did it because you wanted to. Don’t deceive yourself about that. Out there, just now, you said things no man could bear. Your lantern, your stable. Try that in a court of law and you’ll soon learn whose this place is, down to the last spoon! But I want none of it. It’s all yours…. I give it to you, with a glad heart and you can enjoy it, all by yourself, tomorrow. But tonight Tm dishing out my mutton stew and I’ll also have my blanket.”
Astonishingly, she was silenced. In silence she watched him dish the stew into the bowls, cover them with a cloth and set them on a serving tray. In silence she allowed him to take the blanket, fold it over his arm and go out. When he had gone she turned on her pillow and cried into it. She cried and cried, weeping for the man whom she had seen in that stripped, unconscious body, the man who had eluded her, never coming to life, however coaxed or provoked, until now, when after eleven years of skirmishing he was about to elude her for ever.
She was still crying, and her candle was still burning, when Ephorus came hurrying back. His face was bleached and distraught. He spoke her name, “Eunice,” in a way he had never said it before. Ha! she thought, he’s had time to think things over, and has come back to apologise. She steeled herself. Never let him think that he had got the better of her!
“What is it?“she asked coldly.
“I want you to do something for me.”
As she had guessed; he wanted to be forgiven and taken back, fed, sheltered, kept in idleness. This was what she wanted too, for him, but it would never do to relent too quickly.
“Things’ll have to be very different around here,” she said.
“Oh, they will be,” he promised hastily.
“I’ll do anything you want me to, Eunice. I’ll work, I’ll stay off the wine. I’ll do everything I can to repay you, if you’ll do this one thing for me..,.”
She was tired, she had been upset, she had been crying, and her ordinarily sharp wits weren’t at their best. She could only think of times in their earlier life when quarrels had been mended in bed. Tonight, for the first time in several years, they’d had an open