Two from Galilee by Marjorie Holmes Read Free Book Online Page A

mingle with those of Jacob after services. And seldom had Joachim brought any business to his shop. A subtle yet very real barrier had separated them, a barrier as forbidding as if Mary's people had been wealthy and highborn.
    "Is it never to be then?" he demanded of the empty, uncaring space above. He searched it vainly a moment for some sign. And Joseph's eyes were wet, in part for the immutable loss of Mary, but in part for the loss of his faith. He thought with shame and bitterness of the long communion that in his desire he had conjured up. He had given himself the answers all the time! Now he saw that the true worshiper does not expect answers. The days were long past when God summoned Moses up onto a mountain, or revealed himself through a burning bush or a ladder of stars. This was a new age and a new era, where the true believer did not expect such evidence from Jahveh. Least of all should he expect personal favors.
    "So be it."
    He watched a lizard dart up the tree, its iridescent blue whip of tail quivering. He sat up and plucked a leaf from a low bough and bit down hard upon it. Its taste was bitter, like life. But it existed. It was. As he was and would continue to be. Even without her who had gradually become his primary excuse for being, he would survive. But how? How? The prospect was scalding.
    His first thought was escape. The desert monastery of the Es-senes, holy men who fasted and prayed the better to draw near and know the unknowable one. Joseph winced. As he had bitten the leaf so he set his teeth against his own brown, salty flesh. He did not want to deny it, to beat or starve it into submission, he wanted it to be fulfilled as a man must be fulfilled. He wanted it to live and to beget further life. But if he was not to have her, his heart's true wife?
    He flung himself over, brought his fists down savagely upon the hard unyielding earth. "Oh, God, my God, if this be thy will then so be it. Thy will be done!"
    And then the peace of his first awakening came over him and he lay quiet once again. He lay regarding his lifted hands. Scarred though they were he knew their strength and skill. They could fashion things, good worthy instruments for the business of living. Plows and wagons and yokes, benches and tables. For he would prove that celibacy need be no disgrace. He would build the houses and furnishings for the married; some day he might even build the cupboards and railings in the synagogues. And that would be his manner of worshiping the Lord of Life. He would be a good man, a good carpenter, better than his father, better than anyone perhaps in all Galilee. Such would be his aim and his purpose, his method of making amends to the God Jehovah for having dared in his brash and passionate youth to presume that God had somehow made with him a covenant.
    He had risen that day many months ago and brushed the earth and leaves from his tunic and come back into the village curiously cleansed and freed. His parents, sensing some change in him, did not badger him further. They were strangely quiet about Mary, though the news had gotten about: her betrothal was not imminent after all. Evidently it was as Timna had predicted, no suitor was considered up to Hannah's expectations. At least Joachim had found excuses to put them off.
    Relieved though Joseph was, he had gone on hammering nails into boards, hammering his own hopes back into subjection. For he must turn his thoughts elsewhere, avoid her at all costs. He knew there would be others; the hour had merely been postponed. He must practice the detachment and self-control he would need to endure it when it arrived.
    But now—this day. . . . Staggered, he watched the departing form of Joachim. And it was as if the thick shoulders in the faded brown tunic, the staff that almost truculently struck the stones, were bathed in a small burning cloud of glory, belying his hard-won knowledge that no more did Jahveh mingle in the affairs of men.
    Joseph's face was