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“I pray you live to let me tell my child what I will.” He was gentle but he meant it. “Enough questions. Enough talk of the bad things of long ago. We’re out of Jerusalem. We’re away from the troubles. We have good daylight and we can go far before making our camps.”
“I wanted to go into Jericho!” cried Little Salome. “Couldn’t we go into Jericho for a little while? I want to see the palace of Herod where they burned it.”
“We want to see Jericho!” cried Little Symeon.
Suddenly all the children around us took up the cry, even children of new pilgrims who were with us, and I started to laugh at the way in which Joseph smiled.
“You listen to me,” Joseph said. “We will bathe tonight in the River Jordan! The River Jordan! We’ll wash our bodies and our clothes in it for the first time! And then we’ll sleep out in the valley under the stars!”
“The River Jordan!” Everyone was shouting it with great excitement.
Joseph was telling the tale of the leper who’d come to the Prophet Elisha and been told to bathe in the River Jordan and how he would be cleansed. And Cleopas began a story of how Joshua had crossed the Jordan, and then Alphaeus was telling James another story, and I went from story to story as we moved on.
Zebedee and his people caught up with us, whom we hadn’t seen since we’d left Elizabeth, and he too had a tale of the Jordan River, and Zebedee’s wife, Mary, who was my mother’s cousin, Mary Alexandra, but always called Mary, soon began to sing, “Blessed be all those who fear the Lord; that walk in his ways!”
She had a sweet high voice. We sang with her.
“For you will eat the labor of your hands; and you will be happy and all will be well!”
We were such a large clan that we moved slowly, with many stops for the women to take their ease, and for Little Esther to be wrapped in fresh swaddling clothes. My aunt Mary was sick, for certain, but my mother said it was good news, a baby coming, and I stopped worrying about it. And Cleopas had to come down off the donkey many times to cover his feet, as they say, which meant to find a private place to relieve himself away from the road.
He was weak and my mother went with him, holding his arm, which made him angry, but he needed the help, and she wouldn’t let the men do it. She said, “This is my brother,” and she went with him alone.
He did it so many times that he told us the fu
And hours later, in hope of making peace with King Saul, David sent this tassel to him, to let him know that he, David, might have slain King Saul, but would David have slain an anointed King? God forbid.
We all loved the stories of David and Saul. Even Silas and Levi who were usually bored with stories came up to listen as Cleopas told these tales. Cleopas was speaking in Greek all the while, and we were all very used to it, and liked it, though nobody said so.
Cleopas told us the marvelous story of how Saul, when the Lord ceased to speak to him, went to the Soothsayer of Endor, to beg her to summon from Sheol the spirit of the dead Prophet Samuel, to tell Saul his fate. There was to be a great battle on the next morning, and Saul, who no longer found favor with the Lord, was desperate, and sought out a woman who could talk to the dead. Now this was forbidden by Saul’s own orders, along with all soothsaying. But such a woman was found.
And out of the Earth by her power came the spirit of the Prophet asking, “Why have you disturbed my rest?” Then he foretold that Saul’s enemies would defeat Israel, and that Saul and his sons would all die.
“And what happened then?” asked Cleopas, looking around at all of us.
“She made him sit down and eat a meal for his strength,” said Silas.
“And that’s what we’d like to do right now.” Everyone laughed.
“I tell you, we will not eat or drink until we reach the river,” cried Cleopas.
And so we pushed on.
And to the river we finally came.
Beyond the tall grass, it was red with the light of the sun that was almost gone away.
Many people were bathing in the river. People streamed down to the banks from all directions, and others had made camps nearby. We could hear the singing coming from everywhere, and songs blended into songs.
We ran into the water and the water came up to our knees. We washed our bodies and our clothes. We were singing and shouting. The cool air did not bother us, and we were soon warm and the water felt warm.
Cleopas came down from the back of the beast and walked into the river. He threw up his hands. He sang aloud so all could hear him.
“Praise to the Lord, Praise to the Lord, my soul, sing! While I live I will praise the Lord; I’ll sing praises unto my God while I have any life in me; Put no trust in princes, nor in others, in whom there’s no help; the breath of your men goes out of them; they return to the earth; in that very day their thoughts are gone, gone!”
All began to sing with him:
“Happy is the one that has the Lord of Jacob for his help!”
The whole river was full of singing, and those on the banks began to sing.
I’d never seen my uncle as he was now, looking up at the red sky, and with his arms up, and his face so full of his prayers. All the cleverness was gone from him. All the anger was gone. He didn’t care about the people. He didn’t sing for the people. He sang and sang without looking at anyone. He looked up at the sky, and I looked at it, at the sky darkening with ribbons of red from the dying sun, and the first of the bright stars.
I moved through the water as I sang, and when I reached him, I put my arm up around his back, and felt him shivering under his robe that was trailing in the water.
He didn’t even know I was there.
Stay with me. Lord, Father in Heaven, let him stay with us. Father in Heaven, I ask this! Is this too much? If I ca
I was weak. I needed to hold on to him or I would have fallen. Something happened. It happened quickly and then slowly. There was no more river, no more dark sky and no more of the singing, but all around me there were others and there were so many others that no one could count them; they were beyond the grains of sand in the desert or in the sea. Please, please, with me, please, but if he has to die, so be it—. I reached out with both arms. I reached up. I knew, just for a moment, a tiny moment, the answer to everything, and I worried about nothing, but that moment vanished, and all these countless others went upward away from me, away from where I could see them and feel them.
Darkness. Stillness. People laughing and talking as they do late at night.
I opened my eyes. Something fled away from me, like the water washing away on a beach, just being pulled back, so big and strong you can’t stop it. Gone, whatever it was. Gone.
I was afraid. But I was dry and wrapped up and it was soft here, soft and close and dark. The stars were sprinkled all over the sky. People still sang and there were lights moving everywhere, lights of lanterns and candles and fires by the tents. I was covered up and warm and my mother had her arm over me.
“What did I do?” I asked.
“You fell down in the river, you were tired, you were praying and you were tired. There were so many people, and you were praying and you cried out to the Lord. You’re here now, and you go to sleep. I put you to bed. You close your eyes now, and when you wake in the morning, you’ll eat and you’ll be strong. It’s all too much, and you’re little but not little enough, and you’re a big boy, but not big enough.”