Non-Jews, of whom there were a few in the neighbourhood—the innkeeper was a Greek, the blacksmith a. Roman veteran who had learned his trade in the army—had the wrong idea about the Feast of the Passover; because it was solemn they thought it dull and dreary, and thought the word “Feast’ misapplied. But it was a feast, even for those who stayed at home, and for those who went to Jerusalem it was an expedition, a sightseeing visit, a holiday and often a family reunion as well.
That year Josodad had enjoyed the Feast a little less than usual. Martha had put all the traditional things on the table, the unleavened bread, the mutton, the eggs, lettuces and radish, and the sweet dish made of raisins and nuts and spices; all the traditional things had been said; but Josodad’s mind, instead of being fixed on the Escape from Egypt which the Feast celebrated, had been all the time marking the vacant place and wondering how Nathan was faring, whether he had fallen in with congenial company, whether he were being robbed or cheated by the rascals who haunted the outer precincts of the Temple, fattening on inexperienced pilgrims.
Nathan had come home changed in some subtle way. He was still merry and lively, but with thoughtful spells. He seemed older, which was right, he was growing up; and perhaps, the father thought, the Temple had impressed him. His mother had produced the obvious feminine reason for the change; somewhere a girl had taken his eye; and she hoped that it would be a daughter of one of the family’s friends or distant relatives to whom he had been charged to give messages, should he see them.
This explanation Josodad could not accept. Nathan would have told him. He was not the kind of boy to cast his eye on an unacceptable girl, and he knew that all he had to do was to mention his preference to his father who would at once begin to make inquiries and approaches. Then they would build an extra room on to the house, prepare for and celebrate the marriage, and as a gift Nathan would receive part of the flock. Josodad had already selected the breeding animals whose progeny in a few years’ time would form the nucleus of a new flock. That was how it had been in his family for generations, ever since the return of the Jews from the Babylonian captivity; Josodad hoped that so it would always be. He was a Jew of the old-fashioned, orthodox kind.
But although their relationship was as sound and easy as it had always been, there was no mention of any girl. What there was a good deal of talk about was a young man named Dan whom Nathan had met in Jerusalem
and who had proved to bealmost a neighbour, coming from Tekoa, a village within an easy walk away. Dan played the pipe, too; ‘he made songs; he was altogether congenial. His father was a shoemaker and he himself had learned that trade.
All through that summer Nathan, whenever he had any spare time, set off for Tekoa to visit Dan.
Martha said, “You must invite him back.”
Nathan said, “I will,” but never did so until she began to nag.
“Why must you always go to him? Isn’t your company worth a walk?”
“Are you ashamed of your home?”
“Do I not cook as well as his mother?”
Thus pressed, Nathan had issued the invitation, and Josodad and Martha, without knowing exactly what they had expected, were disappointed in Nathan’s new friend. A hulking, awkward, dumb young man who seemed at first painfully shy, and then suddenly, over supper, came to life when he began to talk of the iniquity of the Roman occupation and the even greater iniquity of the Jews’ apathy. Once his silence was broken, words poured’ out of him; he spoke bitterly about the Hippodrome that Herod had built in Jerusalem, and of the Jews who attended it.
“In ten years’ time,” he said, ‘you won’t be able to tell a Jew from a Roman or a Greek.”
Nathan, looking very uncomfortable, listened, and when Dan, from lack of breath, not invective, paused for a second, said: “Don’t talk politics over supper, Dan. It spoils the taste of the food.”
Then, for some reason, Dan had looked contemptuously at Josodad and given a little grunt and relapsed into silence.
Next day, out with the sheep, Josodad said, “Your friend, Dan, is a Zealot.”
“He is that way inclined. I think he’d be in the hills by now, but his father’s sight is failing and he has several sisters. So he’s needed at home.”
“Then I hope he doesn’t say in the open what he said last night in our house. Such talk is dangerous.”
“Maybe. But everything he said was true. And such things should be said.”
“That I doubt,” Josodad said, mildly.
“I’ve never known talk like that do anything except stir up trouble.”
“What would be your remedy, then, for our present situation?”
“Patience; faith in God; and the strength to survive, holding to the Law and keeping our blood pure.”
“You think that is enough ?”
“It has served, in similar situations in the past. We were slaves in Egypt, but we came out as a people; we were captives in Babylon, but we came out as a people. Now we have the Roman heel on our necks, but we shall emerge, as a people.”
“How long is it since you were in Jerusalem, Father?”
“Eighteen years.”
“Then forgive me if I say that you can have no notion of the changes that have taken place. Life here goes on the same, so you think it is the same everywhere. Do you know what Dan calls people like you, Father? Happy-do-nothings.”
“But what is there to do—except what I have just said? Wait. In His own good time the Lord will deliver us.”
“With what? That is what Dan asks. Who could free a whole nation of happy-do-nothings, and worse?”
All around them the sheep were quietly grazing and Josodad jerked his crook towards them.
“My boy, if God so willed he could turn that flock, in a blink of an eye, into an army, ready and girded.”
With some awe, but also with some curiosity and a slight disdain in his voice, Nathan said, “You really believe that, don’t you?”
“If I didn’t I should not have said it.”
“No. You are a man of integrity,” the boy said.
“And you are happy in your faith.” It was as though, suddenly, their ages had been reversed. This thought stung Josodad and he summoned all the parental authority which in families like his seldom had to be called upon because it was so implicitly acknowledged.
“Look here,” he said, “I don’t want that boy to go putting crazy notions into your head. Talk of resistance and of guerrillas is all
very fine, but what do they do except make thingsworse for ordinary people? So, they kill one Roman, or they steal three horses. The Romans can spare what they lose, but in the subsequent inquiries in all the nearby villages we lose what we can ill spare. The lesson taught at Sepphoris wasn’t wasted on sensible people, and, on a smaller scale, every bit of revolt is similarly punished. If I thought that you,” he said, very confident of his power over this beloved boy, ‘went to Dan’s house to listen to such inflammatory nonsense as he talked last night, I should forbid you to go.”
“Often enough,” Nathan said, ‘we hardly talk at all. We make songs and sing them. He has many friends. And he plays the harp. It’s easier for us to go to him, carrying our pipes.”
Hundreds of times later Josodad was to reproach himself for being over-confident, too easily satisfied, blind. It hurt him sometimes, even now, to remember that in her unwitting, female, jealous way, Martha had been nearer the truth than he had. The little group of musicians had achieved a certain local fame and been asked to make music for a wedding in Zilgah.
“Oh,” Martha had said sharply, ‘he can carry his harp so far!”
“There is a harp in the house of the bride’s father,” Nathan said.
On that occasion he had been absent for two days and a night—and why not, He was young, and when he worked he worked; he was entitled to his recreations.
For two years it had gone on, had become part of life; a wedding, a Barmitzvah, a circumcision feast, all in need of music.
Looking back, in the light of hindsight, that most vivid and dreadful illumination of all, Josodad could see that often around the times of Nathan’s absences, there had been incidents. But what was there about them to make connection with a boy who was always home exactly when he had said he would be, who never had a mark on him, who never showed any sign of excitement, or of interest in the incident; and who could always supply, in the detail so dear to women, exactly what had been worn and eaten at the wedding or whatever it was which he had witnessed?