Nine

You know, any number of people have come up to me recently--that is, of course, before I was confined to this bed--to tell me how remarkable Jesus was. But underneath what they said, I could tell that there was a good deal of astonishment that a carpenter's shop could produce such a great man. I usually told them that David, after all, started as a shepherd, and then I would smile to myself. If they knew. If they only knew. He is not a great man, not really. No. Not a great man. --Though, of course, he is a great man. That is the real enigma. You will see. It is a relief to be able to explain myself.

And actually, Matthew, if you had a knowledge of carpentry, you would have seen it earlier as we worked together. I suppose one who was not skilled would not have noticed, since Jesus never made a show of himself, but--let me phrase it thus: I am--or at least I was--a very good carpenter, but nothing in comparison to him. They say a carpenter knows how to speak to wood; he knew how to listen to it.

(He paused a bit, looking out the window) You should have watched him. He would run a hand along a plank, almost caressing it, and it was as if the wood and he reached an agreement on how it could become what he wanted. His joints were always perfectly true and solid; the simplest cabinet was a work of art. But of course, I knew from the beginning that he was not really meant to be a carpenter finally--though it is carpentry's loss that he was called to higher things.

(He turned his head back to face Matthew.) But you will want to know how it all began. The beginning is always the best place to start, I suppose. But first of all, I think I should warn you that you will see that I am not really his father, though I have acted as father to him ever since he was born, and, to my great honor and delight, he calls me "Abba." Never did a name sound so musical to me--except perhaps the name of his mother.

I had known her ever since she was born and I was three years old; and it was more or less taken for granted ever since I was eight or ten that one day she would be my wife. You understand how those things are. There are some who repine at having a spouse chosen for them, but both Mary and I had confidence that our parents had not only what is called "our interest" in mind, but our satisfaction. They could see that we were comfortable companions, even in our childhood.

So everything went along smoothly, through our young life. (He stopped as if considering whether to say something, and evidently decided to do so.) There was one thing, which could certainly not be called a difficulty, but was a definite peculiarity about Mary. I have never mentioned this, because--well, I just never did. I suppose it would sound as if I was making something significant out of coincidence.

During our childhood, of course, we spent a great deal of time together, and after a while I noticed that Mary never got sick. All the rest of us became ill from time to time--colds and the usual childhood diseases, you know. But not Mary. In fact, to this day, there has not been one moment that she has ever been ill with any disease, even the most insignificant. And not even cuts and scrapes, though of course women are less prone to such things than men. Everything else about her that I ever saw was perfectly normal, but once I noticed how--how shall I call it? Immune--she was, I paid attention, and it is true. I have no explanation for it, and she never seemed to have what might be called miraculous escapes; she simply never happened to be injured or become sick, that is all. I do not pretend to understand it, if there is anything there to understand.

Other than that, as I said, we had an uneventful childhood. But when she came of age to marry, I received the first of several severe shocks.

(He paused again, and turned and spoke musingly to the scene outside the window.) It was a lovely spring day, I remember; one of those warm days in early spring, which give promise of the summer that is to come. We were sitting together on a bench, toward evening, looking out over the fields growing red and then dark, before she had to go home and help her mother with the evening meal.

(He turned to Matthew, as if to explain himself.) She was always--she always seemed to me to--to glow, somehow--to radiate out some kind of invisible light--but this evening, she was more lovely than usual. It occurred to me for the first time that she had become a woman, and I reached over and took her hand.

(He held out his hand and looked at it.) It was such a tiny hand--it completely disappeared into this great paw of mine--and was so delicate. (He looked up at Matthew.) I was afraid I might break it. To this very day I feel thus whenever I hold her hand, even in my weakened state, when she is actually so much stronger than I. But to me, hers is a toy hand, somehow. She used to laugh at me for this. (He gave his little soft laugh himself.)

At any rate, on that day, she looked over at me, and I could see that there were tears in her eyes.

"Joseph," she said, "I know not how to say this. I realize you wish me for your wife, but there is something I must tell you. I have--how shall I put it?--I have been asked by the Master--not in words, exactly, but I know what I am to do, and I am certain that I am not mistaken--I have been asked never to have--marital--you understand?--with a man."

I was dumbfounded.

For a while I could not speak. I knew that she was what you might call close to as the Master, so to speak, but this took me completely by surprise. I finally said, "You are quite certain?" and she answered, "I have never been more certain of anything. I am so sorry for your sake."

"But he told us to increase and multiply!" I expostulated.

She replied, "I know. I know not why he wishes this of me--it seems to go against everything I expected--" and she gave me an almost pleading glance as she said this, and I understood that she had been looking forward to our being together, "--but I know just as surely that he does wish it, and I cannot refuse him."

She was such a young thing, but she sounded so old--or not old, exactly. Wise. Serious. Mature. I know not.

After a pause, I said, "Of course, if that is the case, though it is difficult for me to believe." Not that I could doubt that she believed it. You could not have looked into those dark brown eyes and doubt it for an instant.

"I have prayed much and much over this, Joseph, not only for me but for you. I would dearly love to have a husband, and had always thought that when the time came, I would have one; and of course, if I were to have a husband, it could be no one but you. But . . ." And she sighed and turned her face away.

There was nothing further to say, really. We sat there, watching the darkness fall--I could feel it fall also inside me--and finally, I told her that I understood, which was a lie, and after a short time, we parted.

If there was anything I did not understand, it was this.

It was only then, actually, that I realized how very deeply I loved her. Up to then, she had always seemed like my hand or, perhaps better, my eyes. We take them for granted until we face blindness, and then realize how precious they are.

Well, after I reached home, there seemed no recourse except to pray, and so I prayed and prayed, not quite knowing what I was praying for, because if the Master Himself had demanded this of her--of us--who was I to ask him to reconsider? But I could not bear it. We find--as no doubt you have also found--that we bear many things that we cannot bear. It seems to be the fate of being human.

Well, and then I tried to sleep. (He gave a short little laugh, as if at the futility of it.)

But of course, I was young, and had had a trying day at work, and so I did in fact doze off a bit. Toward dawn the next day, however, a thought awoke me, and banished any further possibility of sleep. I actually saw a partial way out!

I hastened to see Mary again and said, "You said you must not touch a man. But who will protect you and see that it does not happen? Your parents are old.

"Consider this: We could marry, and I would agree never to touch you, and our marriage would keep anyone else from seeking to do so. As long as you stay unmarried, someone might ask for your hand, and you might not be in a position to refuse."

She looked taken aback, but I could see that it made sense to her, and I knew she would trust me to keep my part of the bargain, and that nothing would please her more except--what apparently was out of the question. She was silent for a long while; it was clear to me that she was concerned that her very desire for this solution was making her wary of accepting it. Finally, she told me that she would have to pray.

Well, she prayed that evening, as did I, with a fervor I did not know I possessed, and a few days later, we became engaged to marry. In one sense, it was extremely sudden, but we had had what one might call a courtship for years, and there was no reason not to commit ourselves.

Her father told me, "Are you certain you are ready for this? You know, among us, the engagement might as well be a wedding, except that you must not come together. But you cannot simply leave. If you want to separate once you have been engaged, you must divorce her." I told him I realized that, and could conceive of no reason why I would want to--how I could bring myself to--separate from her, and he consented and blessed our commitment.

And then almost immediately came a second, and much greater shock. She disappeared.

I went to see her in the morning before I began work, and her parents told me that she had suddenly left Nazareth the previous evening to visit her cousin in Judea, who needed her. She had told them, the mother said, to tell me that she was sorry, but that she probably would not return for three or four months, and then would let me know what had happened, if I had not already found out.

"That was what she said, Joseph," said her mother. "'If he has not already found out.' I asked her what she meant, and she would not explain herself. She seemed frantic to be gone."

"Did she not say why her cousin needed her?" I asked.

"No. I asked. She said she was not at liberty to tell me. Her own mother! I even asked how she knew this mysterious fact, since her cousin lives on the hill just opposite Jerusalem, and how could she have received word without our knowing? But she merely said she had been told, and adamantly refused to say by whom, and kept telling us that her cousin needed help and that she must leave immediately."

"Alone? How could you have let her go?"

"Joseph, there was no stopping her. She told me that there was no danger; she had a protector with her, she said--whatever that meant. She threw together some clothes, and nothing that her father or I could say could hold her back or get anything out of her but that she simply had to leave at once. I said, 'Before you even see Joseph?' and she answered, 'I must leave before seeing Joseph. I cannot see him until I return! All will be well then, but I must go now!' Can you make sense of that?"

"Did she seem worried? Frightened? Troubled?"

"Exactly the opposite, Joseph! I could not understand it. She was--excited. Excited is not the word. It was as if something wondrous and--and--I know not, glorious--had happened, or was about to happen in Judea, and she simply had to leave. I asked her and asked her what it was all about, and--you know how she is, Joseph, she could not lie to me, and so she did not try to pretend that it was nothing, but she assured me that she could not tell me, but that it was not bad, and that things would become plain after she returned. She seemed a bit worried about that for a moment, but . . . I know not. I have never seen her thus. Never! In the end, we simply had to give in and pray that she would be safe."

I was a little less willing, you will doubtless imagine, to believe that she would be safe and that everything would be all right. I was even half tempted to go to Jerusalem myself and look for her--which I realized would be a hopeless task, even if she managed to arrive without harm.

I found out as much as I could from her parents, which was practically nothing; they were as mystified as I, and the mother kept saying, "She has not acted thus in her whole life before, Joseph! Never in her whole life! I cannot understand it!" as she wrung her hands, half in worry over Mary, and half in guilt as she read the expression on my face.

Eventually, I left and returned to my house and shop.

Needless to say, those three and a half months were like three and a half centuries for me. I simply could not fathom what had happened, and why she could not have asked me to come with her. I could have quitted my work, if it was that urgent, I suppose. And why could she have not waited even one day to let me know about it before she left? It was as if she half expected someone else to explain everything to me while she was away. And of course no one did.

(He looked over at Matthew and laughed ruefully.) I would not like to acknowledge any of the work I did during that time. I would concentrate on what I was doing for a moment or two, but then my mind would fly off to Judea, fruitlessly wandering over the landscape looking for her; and I would half resolve to drop everything and seek her--but I never actually did. I never did anything, in fact, but go through motions. Day after day after day.

Well, finally, after, as I say, three and a half months, she reappeared in Nazareth, and came first to my house. And when I saw her at the door, I--it was--I told you that she had always looked to me as if she were full of light somehow. Well, now it was as if--as if--as if she had swallowed a star! I cannot describe it!

I spent a few moments fairly bursting with joy and relief before I could find my tongue. Naturally, I asked her what had happened, and she looked at me and said, "Then he did not tell you."

I said, "Who?" and she said that she had been told that her cousin, who was an older woman, was going to have a baby, and wanted no one to discover it, and she felt she had to go and help.

"Is that all?" I asked angrily, thinking that it was not something so pressing that she had to leave without even letting her future husband know where she was going and why.

She looked back at me with that--that radiant face, and said, "No, Joseph, it is not all, and I must prepare you for this. I am sure that you will come to understand it and accept it, but you must--you must ready yourself."

She was so deadly serious, and yet seemed so gloriously --how to say it? Blissful--that I could make nothing of it. "What is it?" I asked, trying to be as calm as I could.

"You see," she said, "it was not merely that Elizabeth had a son, but I myself am going to have a son--in six months."

I was struck completely speechless.

(He paused for a considerable time, reliving the moment.) Her voice broke through the cloud of thick smoke that had fallen over my mind. "It is all right, Joseph," she said.

Well, that loosed my tongue, and I bellowed, "All right! Who has done this to you? How could anyone be so--so evil!--"

"Joseph, Joseph," she cried, holding me by the shoulders, "Can you trust me? Can you trust the Master?"

I shook myself out of her grasp and snarled, "What does the Master have to do with this? How can you even say such a thing! When I find out who it was, I will kill him! And I will find out, whether you tell me or not! You say six months? Then it must have happened on your way to Judea! Why did you not allow me to come with you? Why did you not have anyone? Where was this 'protector' of yours, eh? A young, beautiful simple girl like you! What could one expect? I blame your parents! They should have tied you up, if they could keep you no other way until I arrived!" And I ranted on, becoming more and more incoherent. In truth, I had no idea what I was saying.

As soon as I had stopped to catch my breath, she looked at me and said, with a certain annoyance in her voice. "Nothing happened on the trip to Judea. I knew nothing would happen, and nothing did."

"You cannot mean it was someone here in Nazareth!"

She said, as if explaining to a little boy, "No one here in Nazareth was responsible for this." She seemed to have expected me to go into transports of delight, and was completely unprepared for my taking it as something horrible, and was--if I may say so--completely disgusted that I should think of it as something actually sinful. I understand now why she would feel this way, but at the time, it simply made me even more furious.

"Then if it was not someone in Nazareth, and it was not on the trip to Judea, would you kindly explain to me how it could have happened at all?"

I grasped her roughly by the shoulders and looked straight int her eyes. "I require an answer!"

At that moment, it seemed to dawn upon her how things must look from my point of view--she had been too wrapped up in her own experience up to then, especially since, as I later found out, her cousin had realized in some way what had happened, and had welcomed her. She looked at me with an expression of infinite pity--though to me she still had behind it that maddening ecstatic, triumphant joy--and said, "Joseph, I ask you, as I asked you before, to pray over this, and I am sure you will receive light. You prayed before, remember, and the idea came to you to marry me to protect me--"

"How can I marry you now!" I fairly screamed, shaking her. "Especially after what we had agreed!"

She took my hands off her shoulders, and held them in hers, gazing sadly and at the same time jubilantly into my eyes. I was torn between the desire to tear my hand away and slap that lovely face into a bloody pulp, and to fold her into my arms and say that I cared nothing about what had happened, that I loved her desperately, and that I would do anything for her. But I was frozen. I could not so much as move a finger or utter a sound.

After a long while, she said, "I can only ask you to trust, and that you will find that it is all right. You will understand then why I do not tell you now, but it is truly all right, Joseph. Truly. You will see. It is far, far more than all right! You will see! I know you will see! Trust me! And yes, trust the Master, however strange this may seem. Once you discover this, I will tell you all. Pray. And I will pray for you. Very hard. Trust and pray."

Well, what could I do when she put it thus? As I retell it to you, it perhaps does not sound convincing, but if you could have heard her, and seen that--that angelic expression, you would melt, as I melted, for all my rage. I turned away, without a word, and went home. She had not mollified me, by any means; merely overcome me.