The Gods Look Down Page 20

  As they descended from the hills, returning to the city, neither woman felt the need to speak; each was alone with her own private thoughts. Maria was thinking Our god was taken from us and we were denied the religious beliefs which sustain the other tribes. For many generations we have been a godless people. Is it now the time when we shall be welcomed back into the fold?

  And even as she thought these things germination had already begun.

  *

  Maria stayed three months in Juda with Elisabeth and Zacharias and saw the birth of their child, a baby boy whom they named John. Then it was time for her to return home.

  Her mother greeted her warmly and that first evening they sat around the supper table and drank wine and sang songs. Maria told them of Elisabeth’s good fortune in at last bearing a child, though she said nothing of the circumstances which had led to the blessed event. Her mother said, ‘You look better for having spent some time in the hill country; the climate must agree with you. You’re not as thin as you were.’

  ‘I feel very well.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re back home with us. It’s been a strain running the household without you.’ She smiled and said contentedly, ‘Now we’re back as we were.’

  For several days Maria remained in or near the house. Her mother didn’t insist on this, nor did she forbid her daughter to walk through the village, but it seemed as if there was an unspoken agreement which Maria tacitly acknowledged and obeyed. But inevitably there had to come a time when, her heart in her mouth, she entered the carpenter’s shop, and keeping her eyes modestly lowered asked if she might collect some scraps to use as kindling. She had not been sent: her mother knew nothing of the errand, but she pretended to herself that she was carrying out her mother’s wishes and being the dutiful daughter. After all, she reasoned, three months had elapsed and there couldn’t now be the slightest danger; not the slightest.

  ‘Well, well,’ said a voice, and she looked up in confusion to see Jozabad, alone, standing at the bench. ‘I thought you’d gone for good.’

  ‘I’ve been visiting some relations. Where’s Eliel?’

  ‘It must be the season for visiting relations. He’s gone to visit some of his. You’re looking well.’

  Maria blushed crimson.

  ‘You have a fine colour,’ Jozabad said, smiling. She looked at his strong square hands holding a piece of timber. His hands fascinated her. She could still remember vividly the first time she had seen him, and the image of his hand, golden in sunlight, was imprinted on her memory.

  ‘How’s your mother these days?’ asked Jozabad.

  ‘She’s very well. Thank you.’

  ‘Has she forgiven me?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘It seems I did the wrong thing in coming to your house. Isn’t that why you were sent away?’

  Maria traced a pattern in the sawdust with her foot.

  ‘Isn’t that the reason?’

  She shrugged slightly.

  ‘You didn’t want to go; it wasn’t your idea.’

  Maria shook her head slowly.

  He suddenly grinned at her. ‘Don’t look so pensive! I like you and I think you like me. Nothing wrong with that is there?’

  ‘We’re of different tribes.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I’m of the tribe of Dagon.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘Doesn’t it matter to you?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Should it?’

  ‘Everyone else thinks it matters.’

  ‘They’re everyone else: we’re you and me. If it doesn’t matter to us why should we care what they think?’ He gathered up some waste and brought it to her; she noticed the veins on his hands, standing out, and patches of moistness between his fingers. She had an almost irrepressible urge to kiss his hands, sweaty as they were, and rub the damp palms against her cheek.

  He said softly, ‘We shouldn’t care what anyone else thinks.’

  ‘People can be very cruel,’ she said, with a bitterness that surprised him.

  ‘You have a depressing attitude towards life for one so young.’

  ‘You’re not much older than me.’

  ‘Twenty-four. You’re nineteen.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ she asked quickly.

  Jozabad didn’t answer, just smiled, his dark-brown eyes fixed upon her, and Maria knew with total conviction that what she had felt for him that first day three months ago was a true and abiding emotion.

  They had to overcome the opposition of both families to their betrothal.

  Jozabad’s parents, who lived in a village near the coast, were as outraged by the notion as was Maria’s mother: it was unheard of, a scandal, not to be countenanced at any price. Every kind of obstacle was put in their way – religious, social, economic, family pride, family disgrace. The marriage could not and would not be allowed. And it did seem, for a while, as if the families would have their way, for a girl of Maria’s age could not wed without her parents’ consent.

  So Jozabad was left with no choice: he pulled the oldest trick in the book and told his parents and Maria’s mother that she was pregnant by him. If they were to save the honour of both families they had to get married at once; there must be no delay. His own people were still dead against it, having little regard for what befell a woman of the tribe of Dagon: it was only to be expected of her kind, they said, for it was common knowledge that all their women were nothing better than harlots. One had only to recall what had taken place; between Dagon’s daughter and the Angel of the Lord …

  The marriage took place, though outside the temple, for the priests refused to sanctify or give it their blessing, saying it was a blasphemy and that the child of their union would be damned for all its days in the sight of God. Jozabad had brought disgrace on his people and henceforth would not be permitted to worship in the temple. They washed their hands of him.

  On their wedding night, lying side by side in the warm pressing darkness, Maria gathered together every ounce of her resolve and told her husband of her condition. Jozabad didn’t respond straight away and Maria waited in an agony of despair. Then he said:

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me before?’

  ‘I thought I would lose you.’

  ‘I love you. You know that.’

  ‘I was afraid. Forgive me.’

  ‘There is nothing to forgive.’

  ‘Do you still love me?’

  ‘Yes I do.’ He held her in his arms. ‘There is nothing to forgive, Maria, because I already knew. I knew that day in the carpenter’s shop when you had returned from Juda.’

  ‘It isn’t possible. How could you have known?’

  ‘I knew,’ Jozabad insisted gently in the lightest of breath. ‘And there is nothing to forgive.’

  *

  Towards the end of the year, Jozabad (in common with all the people of the village) was required to go to the city in order to be taxed. This was decreed by the ruler of these lands, Caesar Augustus. He set out from the village, taking Maria with him, and they went from Galilee into Judaea, to the city of David, which was called Bethlehem. The journey was difficult and made harder because Maria was near her time. When they arrived they found the city full with all the people who had come to be taxed and there was no room anywhere for them to stay. The only place they could find to spend the night was a stable, which they accepted gratefully.

  Part Three

  And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone, round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

  St Luke 2:8

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to acknowledge the following sources and my indebtedness to their authors for providing some of the concepts in this novel.

  To Jorge Luis Borges for his reworking of the Al
eph myth, as depicted in his short story ‘The Aleph’ published in A Personal Anthology (Pan, 1972).

  To Professor Edmund Leach for the study of semiology in his fascinating book Culture and Communication: An introduction to the use of structuralist analysis in social anthropology. (Cambridge University Press, 1976.)

  To George Sassoon and Rodney Dale for their interesting and thought-provoking article Deus est machine? in the 1st April, 1976, issue of New Scientist; also for their translations from The Book of Splendours, the Kabbalah Denudata and the Kabbalah itself.

  And not least to the authors of the Judaeo-Christian Bible, King James version, which has got to be the greatest work of science fiction ever written.

  TH