Mary of Nazareth by Marek Halter Read Free Book Online

trust in the Almighty. She plunged into the increasingly noisy and populous alleyways.
    Avoiding a group of men coming out of a little synagogue between two tall fig trees, she ventured into an alley just wide enough for two people to pass each other. Below the level of the pavement, a cobbler’s den gaped open like a mouth. She jumped when an apprentice suddenly waved long creepers of ropes in her direction. His laughter pursued her as she ran almost to the end of the alley, which kept getting narrower as if about to close around her.
    The alley led to a patch of waste ground strewn with litter and covered in weeds. There were stagnant puddles here and there. Hens and other fowl barely moved aside as she advanced. The walls of the hovels surrounding the area had not been whitewashed in a long time. Most of the windows were shutterless. A donkey with filthy fur, tied to the trunk of a dead tree, turned its big head toward her and brayed. The sound echoed, as unsettling as a trumpet raising the alarm.
    Miriam cast a glance behind her. For a moment, she thought to turn around and plunge back into the alley, but she did not want to endure the apprentice’s taunts again. On the other side of the waste ground, she could see two streets that might perhaps take her back to the center of the town. She moved forward, looking down at the ground to avoid the puddles and the litter. She did not see them coming. Only the sudden cackling of the disturbed hens made her look up.
    They seemed to have emerged from the muddy ground. A dozen hairy, ragged boys with snotty noses and crafty eyes. The oldest could not have been more than eleven or twelve. They were all barefoot, and their hollow cheeks were as black with dirt as their hands. They were so badly nourished that, young as they were, they were already missing teeth. They were
am ha’aretz.
That was the contemptuous name the Judeans gave them. It meant morons, yokels, bumpkins, the wretched of the earth. Sons of slaves, who themselves would never be anything other than slaves in the great kingdom of Israel.
Am ha’aretz:
the poorest of the poor.
    Miriam stopped dead, her face burning, her heart pounding, her head full of the monstrous stories she had heard about these children. How they attacked you like a pack of wild animals. How they stripped you naked and violated you. And even, people said with a thrill of hatred and fear, how they ate you.
    This was a perfect place, she had to agree, for them to commit these horrors without fear of being disturbed.
    They also slowed down. There was caution on their faces, but also the pleasure of sensing that she was afraid.
    Having quickly judged that she posed no risk to them, they leaped toward her. Like cunning dogs, they surrounded her, hopping up and down, mocking her, their mouths open to show their small, hungry teeth, nudging each other with their elbows and pointing their disgusting fingers at her beautiful cloak.
    Miriam felt ashamed of her own fear, her wildly beating heart, her moist palms. She remembered what her father had said to her once: “Nothing people say about the
am ha’aretz
is true. People make fun of them because they are the poorest of the poor. That is their only vice and their only wickedness.” She made an effort to smile at them.
    They replied with their ugliest grimaces, waved their filthy hands, and made obscene gestures.
    Perhaps her father was right. But Joachim was a good man and liked to see good in everyone. And, of course, he had never been in the position she was in now: a young girl surrounded by a pack of these demons.
    She couldn’t just stay here and do nothing. Perhaps she could reach the nearest street, where there would be houses.
    She took a few steps in the direction of the donkey, which was watching them and wagging its big ears. The boys followed her, increasing their stupid cries and threatening leaps.
    The donkey brayed angrily, showing its yellow teeth. The boys