She bent over to hold her belly for the pain that came then, and she told her child – not yet!
Her husband, having heard this, grew concerned. He hastened through the ruined gates of the city, going from house to house in search of accommodation, but no one had room. Joseph asked those on the crowded streets if they knew of any small space wherein they might spend the night, since his wife, he showed them, was great with child and her hour was at hand. They told him the little town was much burdened by visitors come from near and far to be counted. Every house was full. Perhaps they should try the Inn?
The Inn was also full to the brim, but the innkeeper took pity on them and told Joseph of a rocky grotto outside the city walls. He warned him that it had once been a place of sinful ritual. Part of it was now being used as a stable because Bethlehem was so full that even those places usually reserved for animals had to be used as lodgings.
The young couple, having no other choice, made their way there. And thus it was that Mary entered into that grotto where two years before Herod had performed a black ritual with the blood of the children of Bethlehem. And in that dark space surrounded by animals, fragrant with dung and straw, she sat. Above her, a cleft in the rock allowed a little of that sun-like moonlight to enter. It brought her peace. Here she could make herself comfortable. Here she could wait for the onset of the more painful contractions that would soon come. In the meantime, her young husband would go and find help.
When he returned he was accompanied by two women – a midwife and her young attendant Salome, whose dark round face and clear eyes made a gladness in Mary’s heart. The midwife told her the girl had a withered hand from birth, but that this deformity would not prevent her from collecting the water and folding the cloths and cleaning the knife with wine.
It was many hours later, as Mary lay exhausted with her child suckling, that the old midwife sent Salome to fetch more water. When she returned Mary noticed that the girl’s malformed hand was now made well and Salome, following her gaze, noticed it also.
Salome dropped the water vase and fell to the ground and gave thanks.
By and by Mary fell asleep and the midwife, seeking her own rest, made a way out of the cave and called for Salome to follow. But the girl refused to go. She would remain with Mary until her dying day.
‡
‘But what happens to the other child, Lea, the child that was sought by Herod and escaped the Romans?’ I asked her when she paused.
‘That is what I shall speak of next...’
5
MARIAM
Lea told how Mariam woke with a start.
‘The dream had come again and as always she could not remember it very well. In it, she woke to the howling of a wolf and found herself not in her husband’s tent but in a house among a number of sleeping women. In her heart there was always a feeling of despair and horror for something that had not yet come to pass, and a longing to be with someone – someone she did not yet know.’
‡
Awake now she searched the darkness for her child and found him sleeping soundly on his rush mat in their tent. On their journey to Egypt three years ago, fleeing from Herod and his madness, she had taken to dreaming such a dream but upon coming to Heliopolis – that island of green calm in the middle of the barren desert – the dreams had made a pause. They had only come again upon this return journey to her homeland, and she did not know what it meant, though it seemed to her to be a portent of peril.
She lay in the darkness listening to her husband’s soft breathing and recalled those years in Egypt with a fond eye. She saw Yeshua walking in the ruins of the fallen temples, his skin browned by the sun; she saw him bathing in the cool waters of the oasis for the holy ablutions, or sitting in the shade of the sycamores eating dates. She longed for the peace and safety she had felt then.
The priests had sequestered them for some years and at the appropriate time had begun to instruct Yeshua in the cool, dark, depths of their sacred places. He was taught many things: how to listen to what wafts on the warm breezes; what resounds in the songs of birds; what lives in the harmony of growing grass; he was taught how to see behind the shapes of twigs and branches; and what lay behind cloud, sky and storm: the thoughts of God!
She knew this because she was always with him, and she was with him again on the day the priests took him to see an old anchorite.
The anchorite lived on a limestone hill not far from the great city of Alexandria. He had retired to a contemplative life and now spent his days in a holy room, a sanctuary wherein he celebrated all the mysteries of the holy life. He never admitted anyone to his house and yet he had wanted to see Yeshua.