“You remember, what I said to you, that I believed!” he said.

“But you’re not really sure, are you?” I whispered.

His eyes opened wide and a new expression came over him, as if he was waking from his fever.

“And Joseph isn’t either, is he?” I asked in the same whisper. “And that is why he never lies beside her.”

My words had come ahead of my thoughts. I was as surprised as he was by what I’d said. I felt chilled all over. Prickly all over. But I didn’t try to change what I’d said.

He rose up on his elbow, and his face was close to mine.

“Turn it around,” he said. He struggled for breath. “He never touches her because he does believe. Don’t you see? How could he touch her after such a thing?” He smiled, and then he laughed in that low laugh of his, but no one else heard it. “And you?” he went on. “Must you grow up before you fulfill the prophesies? Yes, you must. And must you be a child first before you are a man? Yes. How else?” His eyes changed as if he stopped seeing things in front of him. Again he struggled for breath. “So it was with King David. Anointed, and then sent back to the flocks, a shepherd boy, wasn’t it? Until such time as Saul sent for him. Until such time as the Lord God sent for him! Don’t you see, that’s what confounds them all! That you must grow up like any other child! And half the time they don’t know what to do with you! And yes, I am sure! And have always been sure!”

He fell back again, tired, unable to go on, but his eyes never left me. He smiled and I heard his laughter.

“Why do you laugh?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I am still amused,” he answered. “Yes, amused. Did I see an angel? No, I did not. Maybe if I had, I wouldn’t laugh, but then maybe again I would laugh all the more. My laughter is the way I speak, don’t you think? Remember that. Ah, listen to them down in the streets. Over there, over here. They want justice. Vengeance. Did you hear all that? Herod did this. Herod did that. They’ve stoned Archelaus’s soldiers! What does it matter to me now? I would like to breathe without it hurting me for one quarter of an hour!”

His hand came up, groping for me. He touched the back of my head, and I bent down and kissed his wet cheek.

Make this pain go away.

He drew in his breath, and then he appeared to drift and to sleep, and his chest began to rise and fall slowly and easily. I placed my hand on his chest and felt his heart. Strength for this little while. What harm is there in it?

When I moved away, I wanted to go to the edge of the roof. I wanted to cry. What had I done? Maybe nothing. But I didn’t think it was nothing. And the things he’d said to me—what did they mean? How was I to understand these things?

I wanted the answers to questions, yes, but these words only made more questions, and my head hurt. I was afraid.

I sat down and leaned against the low wall. I could barely see over it now. With all the families huddled so near, and so many backs to me and so much chatter and soft singing to children, I thought I was hidden.

It was dark now and there was torchlight all over the city, and loud happy cries, and plenty of music. Cooking fires still, or maybe fires for warmth as it was a little colder. I was a little colder. I wanted to see what was going on below. Then I didn’t. I didn’t care.

An angel had come to my mother, an angel. I was not Joseph’s son.

My aunt Mary caught me by surprise. She pulled me hard around to look at her. She was crouching over me. Her face was full of glittering tears, and her voice was thick:

“Can you cure him!” she asked.

I was so surprised I didn’t know what to say to her.

My mother came down upon us and tried to pull her away. They stood over me, their robes brushing my face. Words were whispered. Angry words.

“You can’t ask this of him!” my mother whispered. “He’s a little child and you know it!”

Aunt Mary sobbed.

What could I say to my aunt Mary? “I don’t know!” I said. “I don’t know!” I said again.

Now I did cry. I drew my knees up and I crouched even closer to the wall. I wiped at my tears.

They went away.

The families close to us were settled down, the women having gotten the little ones to sleep. Down below a man played the pipe and another man sang. The sound was clear for a moment, and then gone in the hush.

I couldn’t see the stars for the mist. But the sight of all the torches of the city, tumbling uphill and downhill, and above all, the Temple rising like a mountain with its great fluttering torches drove every other thought from my mind.

A good feeling came over me, that in the Temple I would pray to understand all these words—not only what my uncle had said to me, but all the other things I had heard.

My mother came back.

There was just room near the wall by me for my mother to kneel down and then to sink back on her heels.

The torchlight hit her face as she looked towards the Temple.

“Listen to me,” she said.

“I am,” I answered. I answered in Greek without thinking.

“What I have to say to you should have waited,” she said. She spoke Greek as well.

With the noise in the streets, with the low nighttime talk on the roof, I could still hear her.

“But it can’t wait now,” she said. “My brother has seen to that. Would that he could suffer in silence. But it’s never been his way to do anything in silence. So I say it. And you listen. Don’t ask questions of me. Do as Joseph told you in that regard. But listen to what I say.”

“I am,” I said again.

“You’re not the child of an angel,” she said.

I nodded.

She turned towards me. The torchlight was in her eyes.

I said nothing.

“The angel said to me—that the power of the Lord would come over me,” she said. “And so the shadow of the Lord came over me—I felt it—and then in time came the stirring of life inside me, and it was you.”

I said nothing.

She looked down.

The noise of the city was gone. The torchlight made her look beautiful to me. Beautiful perhaps as Sarah looked to Pharaoh, beautiful as Rachel to Jacob. My mother was beautiful. Modest, but beautiful, no matter how many veils she wore to hide it, no matter how she bowed her head or blushed.

I wanted to be in her lap, in her arms, but I didn’t move. It wasn’t right to move or say a word.

“And so it happened,” she said, looking up again. “I have never been with a man, not then, not now, nor will I ever. I am consecrated to the Lord.”

I nodded.

“You can’t understand this …can you?” she asked. “You can’t follow what I’m trying to tell you.”

“I do follow,” I said. “I do see.” Joseph wasn’t my father, yes, I knew. I had never called Joseph Father. Yes, he was my father according to the Law, and married to my mother, but he wasn’t my father. And she was so like a girl always, and the other women like her older sisters, I knew, yes, I knew. “Anything is possible with the Lord,” I said. “The Lord made Adam from the dust. Adam didn’t even have a mother. The Lord can make a child with no father.” I shrugged.

She shook her head. She wasn’t like a girl now, but not like a woman either. She was soft and almost sad. When she spoke again, she didn’t sound like herself.

“No matter what anyone ever says to you in Nazareth,” she said, “remember what’s been said tonight.”

“People will say things …?”

She closed her eyes.

“This is why you didn’t want to go back there …to Nazareth?” I asked.

She gave a deep breath. She put her hand over her mouth. She was amazed. She took a deep breath, and she was gentle:

“You haven’t understood what I’ve said to you!” she whispered. She was hurt. I thought she might cry.

“No, Mamma, I do see, I understand,” I said at once. I didn’t want her to be hurt. “The Lord can do anything.”

She was disappointed, but then she looked at me and for my sake, she smiled.