Mary of Nazareth by Marek Halter Read Free Book Online Page B

the cocks and hens, which scattered in panic. Then all the boys disappeared as suddenly as they had appeared.
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    S HE did not have long to wait.
    From time to time, a few people came along the alleys. None of them looked much more prosperous than the children. For a moment, their weary faces would light up with a hint of curiosity, and they would stare at her, before continuing on their way, indifferently.
    The hens returned to pick at the ground around the donkey, which had lost all interest in Miriam. The sun was climbing in a sky studded with little clouds, heating the litter-strewn ground. The smell was increasingly sickening.
    Trying to ignore it, Miriam forced herself to be patient. She wanted to believe that the children were not deceiving her and really did know where Barabbas was. She could not stay here too long; she was clearly out of place, and her presence would arouse suspicion.
    Then, without warning, they were back. This time, they were not running, but walking toward her with measured steps. When they reached her, their leader said in a low voice, “Follow us. He wants to see you.”
    His voice was as rough as before. Miriam supposed it was always like that. But Miriam noticed a change in his companions.
    Before they left the waste ground, the boy said, “Sometimes people try to follow us. We don’t see them, but I can sense them. So if I say to you, ‘Get out of here,’ that’s what you do. You don’t argue. We’ll meet up again later.”
    Miriam nodded. They plunged into a muddy alley flanked by blind walls. The boys advanced in silence, but without any fear. “What’s your name?” she asked the leader.
    He did not reply.
    The others glanced at Miriam with what she took to be a touch of mockery, and one of them proudly struck his chest and said, “My name’s David. Like the king who loved that woman who was very beautiful….”
    He stumbled over the name, which he could not remember. The others whispered names to him, but they could not remember Bathsheba, either.
    Miriam smiled as she listened to them, but she did not take her eyes off her guide.
    When the others fell silent, he shrugged nonchalantly and muttered, “Obadiah.”
    â€œOh!” Miriam said in surprise. “That’s a very nice name. Not all that common. Do you know where it comes from?”
    He looked at her, and his dark eyes shone with intelligence and cunning in his strange face. “A prophet. He was like me; he didn’t like the Romans, either.”
    â€œHe was small, too, like you,” the one called David said immediately. “And lazy. The scholars say he wrote the shortest part of the whole Book!”
    The other boys chuckled. Obadiah glared at them, reducing them to silence.
    How many times had they fought over the name? Miriam wondered. And how many times had Obadiah had to vanquish them with punches and kicks to impose his will?
    â€œYou know a lot,” she said to David. “And you’re right. The Book only contains about twenty verses of Obadiah. But they’re fine verses. I remember one that goes:
The day is near when Yahweh will judge our enemies. The evil they have done will come back upon their heads. And just as you, people of Israel, have drunk on the holy mountain, so all the peoples will drink without respite until their thirst is quenched. And it will be as if there were only one people!”
    She did not mention that Obadiah had fought the Persians, long before the Romans had become the plague of the world. But she was sure that the prophet Obadiah had been just like her young guide: wild, cunning, and brave.
    The children had slowed down and were looking at her in astonishment.
    â€œDo you know everything the prophets said by heart?” Obadiah asked. “Did you read it in the Book?”
    Miriam could not restrain her laughter. “No! I’m like all of you. I