The Liars' Gospel: A Novel Page 4

  She shrugged. “Some teacher. I saw one last winter who cast a live snake out of Rakhel who had the pain in her gut. She vomited, and it came up and crawled into the grass covered in her blood and slime. Rakhel was better for a while after that, and after that she was worse and then she died.”

  “Is that the same teacher as this one?”

  The woman shook her head. “We wouldn’t have him again in Emek. No, but this one will do cures, I expect, the same as the rest. Are you sick, any of you?”

  She ran her eye appraisingly over the children. They had all come, leaving their families some of them. Yirmiyahu, tall and broad-shouldered, had a wife, Chana, with two months to go in her fourth pregnancy. Iehuda had two little boys with him. Shimon’s wife had not yet borne a child and there were fears…well, it was too early to fear that yet. Dina was becoming a woman—time to think of finding a husband for her—while Michal and Iov were still children, she older, he younger, tracing patterns in the dirt while they waited for the grown-ups to finish their conversation. They were a healthy family, may the Evil Eye stay far off. Miryam did not like the look the woman gave them—a jealous look, as a poor man might give a rich man’s flock.

  “Thank God,” Miryam said, “we’re well. We’re bored, that’s all. The harvest is in and the sun is shining and we thought to entertain ourselves—perhaps we’ll see this teacher.”

  The woman nodded. She knew Miryam was lying but could not quite tell why, or about what. She sniffed, moved her shoulders uneasily and the baby began to wail.

  “He’ll be working his wonders at the synagogue on the hill.” She jerked her head towards the structure at the opposite side of the valley.

  “May you be blessed in your going,” said Miryam.

  “And you in yours,” said the woman, without a great deal of sincerity.

  As soon as she passed out of sight, Iov tugged on her skirt and began:

  “Why didn’t you tell her, Ima? Why didn’t you tell her we were going to see Yehoshuah? Why didn’t you tell her he’s our brother? He’s my brother—” this last addressed to Michal, as if Yehoshuah weren’t her brother too.

  Yirmiyahu hoisted Iov onto his shoulders and said, “Not everything needs to be told, pipsqueak. Maybe Ima didn’t want to make the woman jealous.”

  And this answer appeared to satisfy Iov for the time being.

  They would not have needed directions. As they approached Emek, a great swarm of people became obvious, walking from every direction to the synagogue on the hill. Perhaps three or four hundred were here! A greater number than Miryam had seen anywhere outside Jerusalem. They pressed forward, towards the synagogue. Were all these come to see her son? His name must be larger than she thought. He had no such name in Natzaret, where the people remembered him as a stumbling infant, a complaining child, a petulant boy-man. The synagogue was full, the people had spilled out onto the street. At one side, a man was selling hot flour cakes to those waiting for the wonders.

  Miryam did not see him at first, through the crowd—she, a woman with children, was kept to the back with the other women. But Iov wormed his way forward, tugging on her hand, until they were almost at the door of the synagogue. And two heads parted suddenly and there he was, speaking. Her body turned cold and then very warm. As if she were in love. Ridiculous! For her own son? The little boy she had washed and clothed and fed from her breast? She ought to have gone to him and washed his face off, where his forehead was always dirty because he would sit on the ground and sift the dirt and then rub his brow. She could see that little dirty smear even from where she stood. She ought to have strode over to him and said, “I am this child’s mother—give me the seat of honor.”

  And she knew now why she had not done so, but she hadn’t known it then. Only in the seat of her soul, she had faltered. She thought it was the way the other men looked at him. He was the kind of man her own father would have uncovered his head for, stood up in the house of learning for, told her to call “teacher.” Yehoshuah looked so comfortable there.

  He was debating with an older wise man—she heard others in the crowd call him Ezra the Teacher, his beard was as white as a lamb’s fleece. There was a jar of wine on the floor and a table before them. Ezra dipped a cup in the jar and placed it with a sharp slam in front of Yehoshuah. He dipped a cup for himself, took a mouthful, swirled it around. He pulled on his beard. The crowd became silent. This was the debate they’d come to hear.

  Ezra said, “I’ve heard it said that you work wonders and make cures in the name of God.”

  Yehoshuah nodded. Ezra smiled.

  “Well, this is no crime. God gives great power to those who trust in him. When I was a child I saw Khoni the Circle Drawer bring down rain by his prayers from a cloudless sky. Those who are as old as me remember it.”

  Ezra looked around the room, indicating a few gray-bearded men with his finger who murmur, “Yes” and “I saw it.”

  “And many a man has come to this village to perform cures. And many of them found some success. Now tell me, is it true that you make your cures on the holy Sabbath day?”

  Yehoshuah said, “It is true.”

  Ezra banged the table so violently that the cups of wine jumped and spattered.

  “Then you make yourself greater than God!”

  There was a low rumble from the crowd, a murmur of agreement from the people of the village, a mutter of discontent from Yehoshuah’s friends.

  Ezra turned to the crowd, bringing them with him as he spoke:

  “Wasn’t it enough for the Lord Almighty, God of Hosts, to have six days to create the world? And didn’t he make man with one gesture of his finger”—Ezra flicked the little finger of his right hand—“on the very last hour before the Sabbath, along with all the diseases that plague us and, it must follow because God knows the end of all things, all the cures for those diseases?”

  Yehoshuah stared directly ahead of him, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. Miryam had seen that look on his face many times before, a way of staring that made her think he wasn’t listening. Ezra evidently thought that Yehoshuah’s lack of response meant that he was winning the debate.

  Ezra raised his voice so that even those standing outside could hear him with perfect clarity: “And if He Who is in All Places could create the cures for all diseases in six days and rest on the seventh, who are you to challenge him? Who are you to do away with the commandment to rest on the Sabbath?”

  He lowered his voice again and brought a chuckle to it—he was a skilled orator, taking the crowd with him as he spoke: “Now, I don’t say it’s wrong to heal the sick, of course not. But you couldn’t do it on the other six days? Why make these unfortunate people wait till the Sabbath? Can’t you heal them on a Friday, so they can be home to enjoy their soup with the family like everyone else?”

  The crowd laughed. Miryam heard people whispering, “That’s a good point,” and “If even God could make the world in six days…” to each other.

  “But of course”—Ezra was coming to a conclusion—“there is an explanation, isn’t there?” His voice became hard again, low and firm and solid. “We know that our God rests on the Sabbath like all his creatures. And so if you heal the sick on that day, where does your power come from? Not from God.” He banged the table again and shouted, “Not from God! We’ve seen you jerking and crying out as you heal, and we know what it means. If not from our God, the God of our forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, your power comes from a foreign god like Ba’al Zvuv!”

  His voice was loud and strong, and as he finished speaking the crowd erupted into foot-stamping and shouts of agreement.

  And then Miryam’s son rose to speak. He spoke softly, rocking all the time on the spot and looking not at the crowd, as Ezra had done, but above their heads, as though reading from letters written in the air like a prophet.

  He said, “Tell me, is it permitted to save a life on the Sabbath day?”

  And one of his followers shouted out, “It is permitted!
”

  He said, “And is it permitted to do anything which might save a life? Even if the outcome is uncertain, is it permitted?”

  One of the other men in the crowd, not one of Yehoshuah’s friends, called out, “It is permitted!”

  “Well then”—he turned his whole body round to Ezra in a jerking unsteady motion—“who are you to say that I should not perform a cure! For if I left them one more day, perhaps there would be no cure at all? And tell me”—now he spread his arms wide to the crowd, but still spoke quietly—“is it permitted to circumcise on the Sabbath, revered Ezra?”

  Ezra, a little puzzled, but gracious, nodded to acknowledge the truth.

  “It is permitted, of course. If the eighth day after the boy is born is a Sabbath, we circumcise on the Sabbath.”

  “Well then!” Yehoshuah turned to the crowd. “If we can put right one part of the body—and not even a part that is broken or hurting—all the more so we should be able to make right other parts!”

  Emek was a pious village. But this argument made sense. There were some unwilling nods in the crowd.

  Ezra stood up and, with all the appearance of good humor, said, “But God has told us to circumcise on the Sabbath! He has not told you to heal. Where is it written or handed down in the law? The Lord Himself rests on the Sabbath—this is how we know your power does not come from Him!”

  Yehoshuah became angry now. It was swift and frightening to see him flash to sudden wrath.

  “You say my power comes from Ba’al Zvuv, whom the Philistines call the prince of demons,” he said, “but I drive out demons from sick men and women! You’ve seen me!”

  He appealed to the section of the room containing his friends, but Miryam saw several others nodding.

  “And can a demon drive out demons? Can the prince of devils drive out devils? A house divided against itself cannot stand!”

  He thumped the table now and looked down for a moment breathing deeply. When he looked up, his face was dark.

  “Listen,” he said, “Rabbi Ezra, you’re committing a grave sin. Because you’re slandering God. Now, we all know”—he stared around the room—“that if you tell a lie about your friend and you ask forgiveness, if he forgives you God will also forgive it. But if you tell a lie about God,” he was shouting now, “if you tell a lie about God there is no forgiveness for you! God will not forgive you, Rabbi Ezra, for lying that my power is not from Him!”

  The arguments continued. At times Ezra seemed to hold the crowd’s approval and at times they favored Yehoshuah. At one moment, when the crowd were shouting to Yehoshuah, “Praise God!” and “You speak the truth!” one woman called out, louder than the rest: “Blessed is the mother who gave birth to you, Yehoshuah, and blessed are the breasts that nursed you!”

  Miryam saw which woman it was who said this. She was young, neatly dressed, no children with her. She thought: this woman does not even know me and yet she loves me. And she almost spoke up and said: it is me. I am here.

  But Yehoshuah replied angrily, “No. Blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”

  And she said nothing. And the debate went on.

  There was a raving quality to Yehoshuah. As he spoke, spittle flew from his mouth, his face became red, his eyes looked wildly, angrily around the room. He quoted from the Torah and from words he’d heard listening to the sages. And she thought: is this my son? How did this man come from me? Every parent will think this about their child someday—all children become strangers to those who gave them birth. This was what she told herself.

  When they finished speaking it was dark. Their arguments had twisted and turned, each of them had become angry and dissatisfied with the reasoning of the other. At last when it was evening Ezra called a halt and they embraced as friends, as was right. Ezra said: come, eat meat with us and bread and drink wine. And most of the crowd began to disperse. They had meals to eat in their own homes, or long walks to make. Only Yehoshuah’s little band of friends, thirty or forty of them, and Ezra and the elders of the village remained while Ezra’s wife and daughters brought roast lamb and bread and olives and fresh figs.

  Miryam waited longer than she should, she supposed. She could have rushed through while the crowd was dispersing and touched Yehoshuah’s arm, and perhaps he would have turned around and smiled and said, “Mother!” She sometimes occupies herself for hours imagining that that is what happened, imagining the smile on his face and her own swelling heart.

  But by the time she had gathered the family and given the little children the last of the bread and cheese and straightened her robes and her head-covering the men were already in the smaller back room of the synagogue, eating. She walked around to the back of the building, holding Iov and Michal by the hand, the other brothers walking behind her. There was a sound of loud debate, noisy laughter from behind the old wooden door. She wormed her hand out of Iov’s sticky grip and knocked.

  A man opened the door a crack. She recognized him. It was a friend of Yehoshuah’s. She had heard someone in the crowd point him out, Iehuda from Qeriot, a man with a curling beard and an anxious look. He frowned, as if she had said something entirely inappropriate before she even spoke.

  “You are…Iehuda?” she said, trying to smile. “I’m…we are the family of Yehoshuah, your teacher. We are here to see him.”

  His frown deepened. “I’ll ask if he wants to see you.”

  “If he…”

  But he had closed the door already. They waited there. Her older sons met her glance and then looked away. The anger rose from their shoulders like the steam-wreathed breath off cattle in the early mornings.

  He came back. He had the grace, at least, to look embarrassed now.

  He shook his head.

  “He doesn’t want to see you,” said Iehuda from Qeriot.

  He stood there for a moment in silence.

  “What did he say?” said Yirmiyahu, the anger hard in his voice.

  Iehuda from Qeriot moved his shoulders uneasily.

  “It doesn’t…” He paused, breathed out through his nose, like a bull. “We are a family now,” he said, “we who follow his teachings, we are like his family.”

  Through the open door she could hear her son’s voice. The other guests had become quiet and he was teaching. It was his voice, the consonants of that little boy she had taught to feed himself with a spoon, and if she shouted out now he would hear her. She wondered for a moment if Iehuda from Qeriot was lying. But she knew he wasn’t. She’d known as soon as she left for Emek. She’d known as soon as she’d heard that he was nearby, and in that same moment had realized that he hadn’t sent word.

  She turned around to look at her children. Yirmiyahu would have been willing to start a fight with Iehuda from Qeriot, she thought. She hoisted Iov up onto her shoulders.

  “Come on,” she said, “come on.”

  When she came back to the village, she could not be bothered to hide that she had seen him. The people in the village asked where they’d gone, the whole family all together, and she said: we went to see my son, Yehoshuah, preaching. We ate meat and drank wine with him but we were tired and preferred not to travel further. She knew this would find its way to her husband. She did not care any longer. Neither could she care what was true and what a lie. She found that she was waiting for Yosef’s return not with fear but with a dull emptiness. She had sons and daughters but not one can fill the place of another, and she would never have another firstborn. She wanted to mingle truth with lies, and to have Yosef be angry with her for speaking to Yehoshuah, because that was better than remembering that he had not spoken to her at all.

  She should have done it then, turned her heart into a stone. She should have said to herself, “My son is dead,” and begun to mourn him. As if it were possible. As if we can begin to mourn for a death a moment before it comes, as if we can grieve for any destruction before it arises. Even if we have known for a hundred years that it must be so. Nothing can be anticipated in grief—for
if we could bring our sorrow forward, would we not mourn for a baby on the day of its nativity? She should have mourned for him then, on the day he was born.

  It is the first day of Passover. This is the day, of course. She knows it down to her fingers’ ends. She has wondered how she would feel, but like the impact of an anticipated blow, contemplating it in advance cannot reduce the pain. Pinchas, her younger brother, knows it too. He has walked from S’de Raphael for the Passover feast. When he sees her, he makes a grimace at her and rises from blowing the embers of the fire. He puts his arm around her shoulders. His wool jerkin is damp, moss-scented. He pulls her close and says, “May your other sons live, Miryam! May they make you proud and bring you more grandchildren and great-grandchildren.” He kisses the top of her head and she nestles against his shoulder, pressing her nose into that mushroomy fabric. It feels safe here. Safe like family.

  She sniffs and pulls away.

  “Better get that fire going.”

  He lets his hands fall to his sides.

  “I still think about the ones Chava and I lost,” he says at last.

  And she does too, and she understands. She still thinks often of her two that died, the little ones—lost at the pinnacle of their sweetness and grace to a cough and a chill and the simple fact that she could not keep them here. And those that never quickened, or that quickened but did not hold. She thinks of them and it is an ordinary sadness, the kind most parents share. But this particular thing is different. Perhaps it is only different because there is anger in it too.

  “It’ll be like this all day,” she says. “The cousins and the aunts and the nephews and their wives.”

  Pinchas shakes his head.

  “Never. Some of them will forget.”

  “The others will tell them.” Then, “Iov will remind them.”

  “Has he still got that gossiping tongue? Like a woman at the market.”