The Handmaid and the Carpenter Read online

  He made his voice go stern and low, manlike. “We must go. Tomorrow we shall complete our chores early in the morning. It is a long walk to Sepphoris and back. And in between, much to see and do.”

  Mary put her sandals on, then stood and looked up at him. Her head cover was crooked, and Joseph gently straightened it.

  All the way back to the village, Mary asked questions about what they would see in Sepphoris, what they would do there. And Joseph told her to be patient, that all her questions would be answered in time.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Joseph

  IVE HUNDRED FEET ABOVE THEIR VILLAGE, they could see thirty miles in three directions. Mary stood speechless, the wind pulling at her tunic, looking at the snow-topped mountains to the north, the Sea of Galilee to the east, and the Mediterranean to the west. To the south was the Plain of Esdraelon and the uplands of Gilead and Samaria. On the next hill to the northwest, they could see Sepphoris, the city they were going to walk to. Joseph showed her a road that went all the way to Egypt, as well as Via Maris, the Way of the Sea, a Roman road connecting Damascus with the seaports. Just as they turned to leave, he put his hand on Mary’s shoulder and pointed to the minute forms of a caravan that had just come into view. “Look,” he said. “They are on their way from Jordan to the city of Caesarea.”

  “The Silk Road!” she said. “It is the Silk Road I am seeing!”

  “An extension of it,” he said, smiling.

  She turned her attention again to the long, slowly moving line. “What do they carry?”

  Joseph shrugged. “Pepper. Saffron. Silk, of course.” He was not so much interested in their wares as he was in their route.

  “Joseph,” she said quietly. “Look what you have given me!” She turned slowly around and around, her face radiant with wonder. He was full of pride, as though he had indeed made all this for her, as though it had not been there for many years before them and would be after.

  “I shall show you even more now,” he said. “Let us be on our way.”

  She moved ahead of him through the firs and the cedar trees and down the steep path, thick with thistles. She cried out suddenly, and sat down. A deep gash above her ankle was bleeding freely. She pressed her fingers over the cut, looked quickly about, and then directed Joseph to pick various things for her, wild mint from here, various other leaves from there. She pressed them together and lay them over her wound. Almost immediately the bleeding stopped. Soon afterward, Mary lifted the leaves. No redness to the wound, no swelling. She stood up. “Let us go.”

  “Does it not hurt you?” Joseph asked.

  “Not any longer.” She lifted the bottom of her tunic to show him where she had been injured. One could scarcely see a mark.

  “It is a miracle. My wife is a miracle worker!”

  She laughed. “My husband fails to understand. It is only nature, caring for us as we care for it.”

  Joseph frowned. “We care for nature? How is that?”

  Mary’s face grew thoughtful. “We appreciate it. We are mindful of it. For all things on the earth are one. All things are one another’s children and also one another’s parents. So I believe.”

  Joseph shook his head and began walking again, this time in front of Mary, that he might prevent another injury to her. Over his shoulder he said, “Never will come the day when we shall have to attend to nature. It cares for itself. Naturally!” He laughed at his own joke and turned around to see Mary enjoying it, too. But she was unsmiling, oddly quiet, looking only at the path before her.

  Such a deep-thinking girl, his wife! It was never a good idea to wander so in one’s mind. It could make for a restlessness, for deep unhappiness. It would be good when she was busy with their children, attending to those things for which she was created. It was holy, a family, as Mary certainly knew. He and their children would fill her heart and mind so that she would no longer be given to such strange ruminations. Or to asking so many questions!

  The walk was five miles over rugged terrain, and the sun beat down upon them. He stopped often to offer Mary water from his goatskin. When she lifted her chin and drank, he admired the loveliness of her long neck, the grace with which she blotted droplets of water from the corners of her mouth, the slow smile of gratitude she offered. Once, walking along beside him, Mary began to sing. Joseph stopped walking and turned to her.

  “What is it?” she asked, looking anxiously about. “What have you seen? A mountain lion?” But there was in her fear a kind of happy excitement.

  “No, it is your voice. How lovely it is! I want to be still and listen. Sing for me.”

  “Ah, but now I shall be too much aware.” She looked away from him.

  He put his fingers to her chin and gently turned her face toward him. “I ask this of you, my wife.”

  She looked down and sang the song to completion. Her voice was low and soft; it both soothed and stirred him. She raised her head to look at him, pink-cheeked. “So you have it, my husband. A song for Joseph.”

  He nodded. “I shall ask that from this day forth, you sing only for me. And for our children.”

  Her mouth opened, surprised. But then she nodded obediently, and they continued on their way.

  WHEN THEY REACHED the outskirts of Sepphoris over two hours later, Mary exclaimed, “But this is not far! I could go farther. Then farther yet!”

  “And so you will,” Joseph said. “We are not yet to the marketplace, nor to any of the buildings I want to show you.” He himself was tired from the climb up the hill outside Nazareth and then the long walk. Of course God knew it took a toll to walk a distance watching out for someone else! As her protector, he had walked the distance twice. He would be glad to sit for a while and eat some of the delectable food offered at the marketplace. He wanted especially some of the skewered meat that had been marinated in herbs and oils, then grilled.

  Mary turned to face him. “I could walk to the Sea of Galilee!”

  He laughed. “It seems I have perhaps shown you too much. For now you are full of foolishness!”

  “But could I not?”

  He tipped his head left and right in a gesture of equivocation. “You could, perhaps. But would it be wise? No. It would be unwise, indeed.”

  “Have you seen it?”

  “The Sea of Galilee? Yes. I went there once, with my father.”

  Her eyes widened. “What is it like?”

  “It is like…a sea.”

  “Joseph!”

  “All right, my demanding one. It is…it is bluer than one could ever imagine. A blue that both incites the imagination and calms the spirit. And vast beyond comprehension. Sunlight sparkles on the water bright as all of Caesar’s jewels; it stabs the eyes; and fishermen shout and—” He hung his head, shook it, and slowly began to laugh.

  “What?” Mary asked. “What do the fishermen do?”

  “Mary. Why do you stand with your back to your birthplace, which we have traveled so far to see? We are in Sepphoris! Let us appreciate what is before us!”

  “You are right as always, my husband.” Mary turned around, reached back for Joseph’s hand, and together they walked into the city.

  Because of Mary’s delight, Joseph saw with new eyes the colorful chaos of the multicultural marketplace: fortune-tellers; gangs of running children, their faces smeared with food; coins being flung onto silver platters; sheep being herded through the crowd, the whites of their eyes showing in panic; toothless beggars; turtledoves cooing from wooden cages; stall after stall of vendors loudly hawking bolts of linen, scented olive oil, watermelon, metal oil lamps, mantles, tunics, and cloaks.

  As they walked the streets, they admired the Roman architecture of the banks and law courts, the Greek mosaics with their representations of people and animals, of flowers and leaves and winding vines. At last, Joseph stopped before one half-finished building and pointed. “There it is!” he said proudly.

  She stared. “There what is?”

  “The building I am working on! The o
ne I told you about. It was I who cut and laid those stones in the corner!”

  “Ah!” she said.

  “And also I shall make the door for it.” He felt foolish now.

  Mary hesitated, then said, “You alone will do that?”

  He shrugged.

  She moved closer to the building. “It will be a fine door!” she said loudly, and her loving enthusiasm raised his spirits.

  “Now we shall go back to the marketplace and eat,” he said. She ran to his side and looked up at him. “Shall we have honey cakes?”

  AS THEY ATE, they sat on a half-wall and watched the activity in the marketplace. Most of the people were unlike the lean specimens in Nazareth—they had plump bellies and soft-looking hands, faces absent of the deep wrinkles so common to Nazarenes. Their garments were made from fine wools and silks, and Mary stared longingly at the bright colors. People spoke loudly in many foreign languages. Even the Aramaic spoken here was different—so many dialects, and all far less guttural than the language Mary and Joseph used.

  Mary pointed to a handsome man a short distance away, who stood talking to a circle of admiring onlookers.

  “Who is that?” she asked, talking around the honey cake in her mouth.

  Joseph tenderly brushed a crumb from her face. “It is a traveling teacher, one who makes his way from town to town accepting gifts from those who come to see him.” There was in his explanation a measure of contempt.

  “But…he is a disciple, then, is he not?”

  “No,” Joseph said.

  “A scribe?”

  “He is not a Jew.”

  Mary looked at him. “But he is a teacher.”

  “So they call themselves. But they believe not as we do. Our Torah and Mishna stress religion, law, history, and ethics. The Greek gymnasium concerns itself with science, the arts, linguistics, and body training.”

  “But is that wrong?” Mary asked. “The Roman government allows everyone to practice what they believe.”

  “Yes,” Joseph said. “But the Romans view all these beliefs as being part of their own system! And they meddle in our affairs when it is our right and our desire to be separate.” He watched the teacher gesturing wildly to make a point. “That man’s teachings are dangerous.”

  “Why?”

  Joseph sighed. It was unseemly, the girl’s inquisitiveness. But he would share with her what he had learned at synagogue, that she might be impressed by how he, too, could speak in a teacher’s way. “It is dangerous because it harkens back to the time of the Cynics,” he told her. “Hundreds of years ago, they called for a lifestyle of austerity and self-sufficiency. They encouraged both men and women to renounce all claims of the state and the social order. Even the family and religion were to be rejected in favor of a free life in accordance with ‘nature’! Such teachings were of course a threat to order and morality, and the Cynics were expelled from Rome long ago. Now there are those who are beginning to speak again of such things.”

  “Let us listen.” Before Joseph could stop her, Mary rose and moved closer. The traveling teacher saw her and stopped talking and stared; even in a place so cosmopolitan as this, Mary’s beauty shone. He smiled at her, and she looked down and tucked her escaped hair behind her ears. She would need to perfect her braiding, Joseph thought. Only on her wedding day should a woman’s hair be loose.

  He came to stand at Mary’s side. “We must go now. The hour grows late, and we must be back in Nazareth before dark or tempt the wild animals.”

  They walked rapidly at first; then, as the city grew smaller in the distance, more slowly. Mary asked Joseph about the construction of the buildings. About the lives of the buyers and the sellers they’d seen in the marketplace. About whether he had ever dreamed of being a scribe—what an honor it would be, did he not agree? Only once did Joseph lose patience with her, and that was when she asked if they might live in Sepphoris.

  “No,” he said.

  “You would be close to the place where you labor. You would not have to walk so far each day…”

  “We will never live in Sepphoris.” He would not look at her.

  “…and you would be quicker coming home to me.” Her voice was singsong, flirtatious.

  “It is forbidden!”

  “Forbidden? By whom? I think only by you.”

  Joseph stopped walking and turned to her. “What did you say?”

  Mary did not repeat herself. But there was no need; Joseph had heard her.

  “Always we will honor our traditions,” he said. “And we will raise our children in the village where we ourselves were raised.” He began walking again.

  Mary spoke softly, wearily. “Never have I said we would not honor our traditions.”

  For some time, they walked without speaking. And then Mary reached again for Joseph’s hand. Somewhere inside, she acknowledged her own wrongheadedness. Joseph was only doing what he should, pushing her to become a proper woman, a proper wife. She should stop asking questions, talking back, taunting him. He was tall and handsome, kinder than any man she had ever known. His kisses rattled her to the bone. Even in anger he never frightened her; she saw him those times as a puppy holding on to his end of the rope. When they were wed, surely she would want for nothing.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Mary

  IY!” MARY REACHED FOR THE BACK OF HER head, where Naomi had pitilessly yanked on her hair. Mary sat on the ground, while Naomi kneeled behind her, attempting to fashion a braid that would subdue Mary’s curls.

  “Do not complain,” Naomi scolded. “If Joseph wants your hair done properly, you must learn to do it!” Her voice lowered as she added, “And he is right. Since I have known you, your hair has been wild about your face.”

  “I know well how to braid my hair,” Mary said. “But my hair knows well how to escape. Shall I spend all my days trying to capture it?”

  “How often must you be told that wives should at all times endeavor to please their husbands? As women, it is our calling and our privilege. You do not deserve to be betrothed to Joseph! Another woman would know her great fortune!” She yanked again on Mary’s hair.

  Yola, Mary’s other, more favored friend, rose from where she had been lying in the long grass next to the creek. She walked over to the two girls, then seized Mary’s braid away from Naomi.

  “Aiy!” Mary cried again.

  Yola loosened her grip and began instead to play gently with Mary’s hair, as when they were little girls, and Mary closed her eyes in relief and pleasure. “There is no need for such constraint,” Yola said. “Is it not a pleasing sight, Mary’s hair about her face? Let us put flowers in her braid instead.” She knelt behind Mary, plucked a beautiful white wildflower, and tucked it into her braid. Then she put in another.

  Naomi picked a tiny pink flower. “Use this, instead. Pink is better suited to her coloring. White suits me.”

  Yola ignored Naomi’s outstretched hand and instead picked another white blossom. “This color is more pleasing.” She held it to her nose and breathed in deeply. “And it smells of heaven, besides.”

  Naomi crossed her arms and stuck out her lips, pouting. “Mary, do you say white or pink?”

  Mary shrugged. “Of what significance is the color of flowers I cannot see?”

  “They are for Joseph!” Naomi and Yola said together. They looked at each other and smiled. On this point, at least, they agreed.

  Mary pulled away from Yola and turned to sit opposite her. “Why do we waste our time this way? Let us go into the water and cool ourselves.”

  The two girls looked at the creek, then at Mary.

  “It is too cold,” said Naomi.

  “It could be deep,” said Yola.

  “My friends have left me,” Mary said. “And have been replaced with old women afraid of their shadows.” She moved to the edge of the creek, took off her head cover, and flung it aside. Then she waded into the water, shrieking with delight as the cold rushed over her ankles. She walked in farther.

/>   “You are wet now!” Naomi cried, and Yola and Mary laughed at her.

  “She should be dry, sitting in a creek?” Yola asked. For Mary had indeed sat down, and now the water reached her chest. This is what she had longed to do when she was here with Joseph.

  “Come out from there immediately!” Naomi said. She spoke loudly, that Mary might hear her over the rushing sounds of the water. “It is improper, what you do! Come out before we are seen!”

  Mary ignored her.

  “We must go!” Naomi said.

  Mary turned away. On the opposite bank grew more flowers, yellow ones.

  Now Yola called out, “Mary! We have stayed too long!”

  Exasperated, Mary turned to face her friends. She called back, “Why can you not enjoy this rare pleasure? When I brought you here, I thought surely you would indulge yourselves!”

  “Enough!” Naomi said. “I shall have no part of this. I am going back to the village.” She turned and walked quickly away, toward home.

  Yola stood hesitating, then moved to the edge of the creek, where she crouched down to speak to her friend. “Naomi has for once spoken truly. It is not fitting, what you do. Come, let us all walk back to the village together.”

  “I care not what Naomi says. Nor you.” Mary swirled her hands about in the water.

  Yola frowned. “You are no longer yourself. It is not your friends who are leaving you; it is you who are leaving us.”

  Mary rose up and sloshed through the water toward Yola, then heaved herself onto the bank. She shook her hands, drying them, and Yola leapt up and away from the flying droplets. “You are wet as the creek itself,” she said, laughing. “And your tunic blackened with mud! Your mother will be displeased.”

  With this Mary did not argue. Her mother would be displeased. She looked down at herself and sighed deeply.

  Yola spoke quietly. “What lies in your heart, Mary? Since becoming betrothed, you are changed. You seem to me not joyful but disappointed. Yet Joseph is a good man, handsome, honorable, and hardworking. Devoted to God. And a descendant of the house of David!”