Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt

Joseph took Cleopas by the arm and pulled him away.

“Don’t talk,” said Joseph, staring at Cleopas. “No more of this here, you understand me? I don’t care what you think, you say nothing more.”

Cleopas said nothing. He began coughing again. And he made sounds under his breath as if he was talking but he wasn’t talking.

Joseph went to the task of tying the bundles on the donkey. In a softer voice he said, “Nothing now, you understand me, brother?”

Cleopas didn’t answer. My aunt Mary came to Cleopas and wiped some of the sweat from his forehead.

So I was wrong that Joseph never answered him.

But Cleopas gave no sign that he had heard. He was lost in his laughing and staring away, as if Joseph hadn’t told him these things. And there was sweat all over his face now, and the day wasn’t hot.

At last the clans were all together, and Joseph and Zebedee led us out of the courtyard.

“My brother,” Joseph said to Cleopas. “When we get outside the gates, I want you to ride on this animal.”

Cleopas nodded.

We were packed tighter than a herd of sheep as we tried to move up the street.

The sound of the women crying was loud under the archways and in the narrow high-walled places through which we had to go. I saw that windows and doors were shut tight. The wooden gates of courtyards had been closed. People stepped over the beggars and those huddled here and there. The men gave out coins. Joseph put a coin in my hand and said to give it to a beggar and I did, and the man kissed my fingers. He was an old man, thin and white haired with bright blue eyes.

My legs ached and my feet hurt me on the rough paving, but this was no time to complain.

As soon as we came out of the city, we saw all around us a sight that was even worse than what we’d seen in the Temple Court.

The tents of the pilgrims were torn apart. Bodies lay everywhere. Goods were scattered and people had no thought to pick them up.

And the soldiers rode wildly back and forth through the helpless people, crying out their orders, with no thought to the dead. We were to move on, everyone was to move on. They held up their spears. Some had drawn swords. They were all around us.

We could not stop to help anyone here any more than we could have stopped in the city. The soldiers even pushed at people with their spears, and the people hurried so as not to be touched in this shameful way.

But more than anything else, it was the number of the dead that caught our eyes. The dead were beyond number.

“This was a massacre,” said my uncle Alphaeus. He drew his sons, Silas and Levi, to him and Eli, and said so all of us could hear: “Look on the doings of this man. See it and never forget it.”

“I see it, Father, but shouldn’t we stay! Shouldn’t we fight!” Silas said. He said it in a whisper but we all heard it and at once the women cried out low and secretly to him that he must not say such a thing, and Joseph told him firmly there would be no talk of staying.

I started to cry. I started to cry and I didn’t know why I was crying. I felt I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t stop it.

My mother said, “We’ll be out in the hills soon, away from all this. You’re with us. And we’re going to a peaceful place. There is no war where we’re going.”

I tried to swallow the crying, and I became afraid. I don’t know that I’d ever been afraid before in my life. I started to see in my mind our dead man again.

James was looking at me. And so was my cousin John, the son of Elizabeth. Elizabeth rode on a donkey. And when I saw these two looking at me, James and my cousin John, I stopped crying. It was very hard.

The walk was getting hard. And that was a thing to think about, climbing the road as we went up and up until we could look down on the city. The harder we climbed, the less afraid I was. And soon Little Salome was up with me. We couldn’t see the city over the big people even if we wanted to, but I didn’t want to see it now, and no one stopped to say how beautiful the Temple was.

The men had made Cleopas get onto one donkey, and Aunt Mary was told to ride on the other. Both of them held babies in their arms. Cleopas was talking under his breath.

And on went the caravan.

Yet it seemed a wrong thing to me to leave Jerusalem in this way. I thought of Silas, and what he’d said. It did feel wrong to be going. It felt wrong to be hurrying away from the Temple in the hour when the Temple was in need of care. But then there were hundreds of priests, priests who knew how to cleanse the Temple, and many of them lived in Jerusalem, and so they couldn’t go away. And they would stay—they and the High Priest—and they would cleanse the Temple the way it ought to be cleansed.

And they would know what to do with our dead man. They would see to it that he was washed and wrapped and buried as he ought to be. But I tried not to think of him because I knew I’d start crying again.

The hills closed us up. Our voices were echoing off the sides of the mountains. People began to sing, but this time they sang mournful Psalms of pain and affliction.

When riders came through, we pressed ourselves to the side. The women screamed. Little Salome was asleep on the donkey with Cleopas, who slept and talked and laughed to himself and they were slippery bundles.

I started to cry. I couldn’t help it. So many riders passing us, and so quickly and no more Jerusalem.

“We’ll be there again next year,” Joseph said to me. “And the year after. We’re home now.”

“And maybe there will be no Archelaus by next year,” Cleopas said under his breath without opening his eyes, but James and I heard it. “The King of the Jews!” he scoffed. “The King of the Jews.”

Chapter 7

A dream. Wake up. I was sobbing. The man went down, the spear through his chest. He went down again, the spear through his chest. Wake up, they said, more voices. Something wet was against my face. Sobbing. I opened my eyes. Where were we? “Wake up,” said my mother. I was in the middle of the women, and the fire was the only light, except that something out there was lighting up the sky.

“You’re dreaming,” said my mother. She held me.

James ran past us. Little Salome was calling to me.

“Jesus, wake up!” said my cousin John, who’d never spoken a word until now.

What was this place, a cave? No. This was the home of my kinfolk here—this was the house in which John and his mother lived. Joseph had been carrying me by the time we got here.

All the women were wiping my face. “You’re dreaming.” I was coughing from so much crying. I was so afraid, afraid and never never would I ever be not afraid as I was now. I clung to my mother. I pushed my face against her.

“It’s the royal palace,” someone shouted. “They’ve set it on fire!”

There was a loud noise, the sound of horses. A darkness fell. Then the red light flickered on the ceilings.

My cousin Elizabeth prayed in a low voice, and one of the men said for the children to get back from the door.

“Put out the lamps!” said Joseph.

Again came the noise, the noise of horses rushing past, and screams outside.

I didn’t want to see what they were talking about, all the children screaming and shouting, and the prayers of Elizabeth ru

Even with my eyes closed, I could see the red flashes of light. My mother kissed the top of my head.

James said: “Jericho is burning. The palace of Herod is in flames. All of it’s burning.”

“They’ll rebuild it,” Joseph said. “They’ve burned it before. Caesar Augustus will see to it that it’s rebuilt.” His voice was steady. I felt his hand against my shoulder. “Don’t you worry, little one. Don’t you worry at all.”

For a moment I slipped back into sleep—the Temple, the man rushing towards the spear. I gritted my teeth and cried, and my mother held me as tightly as she could.