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

slightly dazed as he turned back into the shop.
    His father waddled in, rosy and puffing from his own merry chase of the hen. "What ails you, son?" he asked. "You look as if you'd just seen a vision."
    "Perhaps I have," Joseph said. "That was Mary's father. I have been bade to his house to share the evening meal with them."
----
IV
    Contents - Prev / Next
    TH E meal was almost ready.
    The bread had been baked and was cooling, the table was set. Anxiously Mary surveyed the bowls of curds, the dishes of dates and raisins, the squat earthen mugs of wine. In a few weeks there would have been fresh vegetables from the garden, she thought with regret, but no matter, the duck would compensate. Its aroma roasting on the spit outside intensified her affection for her father. Wiping her hands, she raced into the yard to turn it once again. The fat dripped into the fire, smoking and hissing, the flesh was turning a golden brown.
    "Matthew!" she summoned. "Come keep an eye on the duck, don't let it burn. Esau, your sense of smell is keen, you warn him when it's ready to be turned."
    She flew inside, glancing at the table with a start of pride—its white linen cloth, and the best goatskin rugs and cushions which she had spread down beside it. Then she climbed the ladder to the loft to freshen herself. But first she pulled aside the drapery and looked into her mother's room. Hannah lay huddled on her pallet, one hand flung over her eyes.
    Mary tiptoed in. "Is your head any better, Mother? Let me sponge it for you."
    She knelt and dipped a napkin into the basin of water and vinegar that stood on the floor. But her mother turned away. "No, don't bother yourself. You have more important things to do."
    "Nothing is more important than the health of my mother. It grieves me to know that you're suffering."
    "It's nothing," Hannah said tightly. "There are worse pains."
    Yes, worse pains, Mary thought. Worse pains than this sourness that had come between them again and hung as sharp as the vinegar in the room. But no, she would not let herself be troubled, not tonight.
    She sprang up, since Hannah would not accept her ministrations. What if Joseph arrived before she'd changed her spattered tunic or brushed her hair! She caught her breath before the enormity of his coming; its miracle sweetened the fetid air. "Then forgive me, Mother, if there's nothing more I can do I'll go to prepare for my father's guest."
    Hannah lowered her hand, gazed at her daughter, so excited, so flushed. "Your father's guest," she said drily. "In the middle of the week, not even the Sabbath, and flesh roasting. A duck. And you speak of your father's guest."
    "Would that he were to be your guest too," Mary said. "Would that you felt like rising and freshening yourself and coming down to greet him."
    "I'm ill." Hannah turned her face once more to the wall. "There are hammer blows on my head and nails in my heart, and nobody cares. Neither you nor your father. Nothing matters but the coming guest."
    "I care, Mother. I'd stay with you if I could. But since I can't let me call Salome."
    "No, no, go on. If I can't have you I don't want anyone. Go and make yourself fair," she said. "For your fathers guest!"
    Mary bathed swiftly from her own basin of soft cistern water. She longed to linger. Her body was hot and sweaty from the rushing around. She longed to lavish on it the care she had given the food, to annoint and perfume it and bid it be still for the coming of Joseph. But he might be striding up the hill even now, and the water for his own handwashing wasn't drawn. Thank goodness the cistern was full from the rains, but this very water in which she was sponging was brackish and gnat-filled. It would never do for Joseph—was there enough clear well water for the purpose in the jugs?
    And the children—she could hear them shrieking as they pranced around the duck. What if they upset the spit and it fell into the coals? It might be burning—there was almost too crisp a smell