“How else can I respond, Rabbi? We women have no other answer.”

Martha opened wide her arms. “We women,” she said, “are two arms incurably open. Come in, my Rabbi. Sit down. Command. You are the master of the house.”

Jesus’ face shone. “I’ve finished wrestling with God,” he said. ‘We have become friends. I won’t build crosses any more. I’ll build troughs, cradles, bedsteads. I’ll send a message to have my tools brought from Nazareth; I’ll have my embittered mother come too, so that she can bring up her grandchildren and feel some sweetness on her lips at last, poor thing.”

One of the women leaned her bosom against his knees; the other took his hand and would not let it go. In front of the fire the small Negro had propped his cheek on his knees and was pretending to sleep. But from between his long eyelashes his black eyes watched Jesus and the two women, and a sly, contented smile spread across his face.

Mary, her bosom leaning against Jesus’ knees, was speaking. “I was sitting at the loom, Rabbi, working your Passion-a cross, with thousands and thousands of swallows all around-into a white blanket. I was shuttling the black and red threads and singing a dirge; and you heard me, pitied me and came.”

Martha waited quietly for her sister to finish. Then she commenced. “I know nothing except how to knead bread, wash clothes and say yes. Those are my only graces, Rabbi. I have a premonition that you’ll choose my sister as your wife, but allow me to breathe in the air of married life along with you: allow me to make and air your beds and take charge of all the household needs.”

She stopped, sighed, and then: “The girls of our village sing a song, a very bitter song. They sing it in the springtime, the days when the birds sit on their eggs. Instead of reciting it, let me sing it to you so that you’ll understand, because its bitterness lies in the tune:

Ho, you! beardless stalwarts-

I’m weary of selling, of selling myself

And finding no buyer.

I offer all at a bargain, including myself:

First come, first served!

Whoever gives me a swallow’s egg,

I shall grant him my lips;

Whoever gives me an eagle’s egg,

I shall grant him my breasts;

And whoever gives me a stab,

I shall grant him my heart!

Her eyes filled with tears. Mary entwined her arms around the man’s waist as though she feared he was going to be taken from her.

Martha felt a knife pierce her heart, but she gathered up courage and spoke again. “Rabbi, I want to say just one thing more to you, and then I’ll get up and leave you with Mary. Once there was a robust landowner named Boaz who lived near here, in Bethlehem. It was summer and his slaves had reaped, threshed, winnowed and made stacks on the threshing floor, the wheat on the right, the chaff on the left. He lay down between the two stacks and went to sleep. In the middle of the night a poor woman named Ruth came quietly, in order not to waken him, and sat at his feet. She was a childless widow and had suffered much. The man felt the warmth of her body at his feet. He lowered his hand, searched, found her and raised her to his breast… Do you understand, Rabbi?”

“Yes. Speak no more.”

“I’m leaving,” said Martha, and she rose.

The two remained alone. Taking a mat and the blanket which was decorated with the cross and the swallows, they went up to the roof of the house. A merciful cloud covered the sun. They hid under the embroidered blanket so that God would not see them, and began to caress each other. Once, the cover slipped off for a moment and Jesus opened his eyes. He saw the Negro boy sitting on the edge of the roof. He was holding a shepherd’s pipe and piping, his eyes staring far off in the direction of Jerusalem.

The next day the whole village stopped by to admire the new Lazarus. The small Negro ran errands, drew water from the well, milked the ewes, helped Martha to start the fire and then curled up on the doorstep and played his pipe. Loaded with gifts of ears of corn, milk, dates or honey, the villagers came to greet the strange visitor who looked so much like Lazarus. They saw the Negro on the doorstep, teased him and laughed. He laughed too.

The blind village chief entered, put out his hand and examined Jesus’ knees, thighs and shoulders. Then he shook his head and burst out laughing.

“Humph! Are you all blind?” he yelled at the villagers who had filled the yard. “This isn’t Lazarus. His breath doesn’t smell the same, his flesh is kneaded differently, and his bones are held firmly together by plenty of meat. A cleaver couldn’t separate them.”

Jesus sat in the yard, braided together truths and lies, and laughed. “Don’t be afraid, lads, I’m not Lazarus. It’s all over with him. It’s just that my name is Lazarus, Master Lazarus-I’m a carpenter. An angel with green wings led me to this house and I entered.” He looked at the Negro, who had doubled up with laughter.

Time ran on like immortal water, and irrigated the world. The grain matured, the grapes began to glisten, the olives filled with oil, the blossoming pomegranate trees bore fruit. Autumn overtook them, winter arrived, and their son was born. Lying-in after the birth, Mary the weaver admired the newborn with no end of admiration. “My God, how did this miracle issue from my womb? I drank of the immortal water,” she would say with a smile, “I drank of the immortal water: I shall not die!”

It is deep night, and raining. Welcoming heaven into its bowels, the gaping earth turns it into mud. Master Lazarus, stretched out in the deep of night amid half-finished cradles and troughs on the wood shavings of his workshop, listens to the thunder and thinks about his newborn son and about God. He is pleased. It is the first time that God has entered his mind in the form of a child. In the adjoining room he hears him cry and laugh; hears him dance at his mother’s feet. Is God then so close, he thinks, stroking his black beard. Are the rosy soles of his feet so tender, is he so ticklish; does he laugh so easily, this Almighty God, when the fingers of man caress him?

The small Negro yawned. He had pretended to be asleep in the other corner, next to the door. Hearing the mother cuddle the newborn, he smiled with satisfaction. Now in the night, when no one saw him, he had become an angel again and was relaxing, his green wrings spread over the shavings.

“Jesus, are you awake?” he whispered in the darkness.

Jesus pretended not to hear. It pleased him immensely to remain silent and listen to the newborn in the quiet of the night. But he smiled. He had become much endeared to this Negro. All day long the boy ran errands for him and helped him shape the wood. Then in the evening when the day’s work was finished, he sat on the doorstep and piped for him. Listening, Jesus would forget the day’s toil; and when the first star appeared they would all sit down together at the same table to eat, and the Negro would chuckle and joke ceaselessly, teasing poor Martha and embarrassing her on account of her virginity.

“Out in my homeland Ethiopia,” he would say, laughing and eying Martha coquettishly, “we don’t hide our inner longings and fret our hearts out as do you Jews; we discuss our desires honestly, openly, and act on them. If I want to eat a banana-who cares if it’s my own or someone else’s-I eat it. If I want to go for a swim, I go for a swim. If I want to kiss a woman, I kiss her. And our God doesn’t scold us, either. He’s a black and he loves the blacks. He wears golden rings in his ears and he too does whatever he pleases. He is our big brother; we both have the same mother-Night.”

“Does your God die?” Martha asked one evening, to tease him.

“So long as a single Negro is alive, our God will not die!” the Negro answered, stooping to tickle the sole of Martha’s foot.