“A Son of Israel, Teacher,” I said in Greek. “A student who seeks the wisdom of your gray hairs.”

“And what would you learn, child?” he asked, staring forward. He slipped the coin into his girdle beneath the fold of his woolen robe.

“Teacher, tell me please who is Christos Kyrios?”

“Ah, child, there are many anointed ones,” he said. “But the anointed one who is Lord? Who do you think it would be, if it would not be the Son of David, the anointed King come from the root of Jesse to rule over Israel and bring peace to the Land?”

“But what if angels sang when the anointed one was born, Rabbi,” I asked, “and what if magi came following a star in the sky to give him gifts?”

“Oh, that old story, child,” he said. “The story from Bethlehem, the story of the babe born in the manger. So you know it. Almost no one talks about it anymore. It’s too sad. I’d thought it was forgotten.”

I was speechless.

“People say ‘Here is the Messiah,’ and ‘There is the Messiah,’ ” he went on, saying the word “Messiah” in Hebrew. “We will know when the Messiah comes, how can we not know?”

I was too excited to think what to say.

“Tell me the words, child, from Daniel… ‘One like the Son of Man coming.’ Are you there, child.”

“Yes, Rabbi, but what is the story, Rabbi, of the child in the manger, in Bethlehem?” I asked.

“That was too dreadful, and who knows what really happened? It was so quick and so terrible. Only Herod could have done such a thing, a bloodthirsty and evil man! But I mustn’t say these things. His son is King.”

“But Rabbi, what did he do? We’re alone here, there’s no one near us.”

He took my hand.

“How old are you, child? Your hand is small and rough from work.”

I didn’t want to tell him. I knew he would be surprised.

“Rabbi, I must find out what happened in Bethlehem. I beg you, tell me.”

He shook his head. “Unspeakable things,” he said. “How did we come to be ruled by such a family? These men, given to rages, murdering their own children? How many of his own children did Herod destroy? Five? And Caesar Augustus, what did he say of Herod after the man had slain his two sons? ‘I’d sooner be Herod’s pig than his son.’ ” He laughed.

So did I out of respect for him, but my mind was racing with thoughts.

“Child, answer for me,” he said. “In my blindness I can no longer read my books and my books were all to me, my consolation, and it costs for me to have someone to read to me, and my books are my treasure. I will not give them up to pay for a boy to read to me what is left of them. I cannot give up those I copied myself, or those copied so carefully according to the Law. Tell me, Zechariah: ‘On that day …On that day…’ the last line, child …?”

“ ‘On that day there will no longer be any traders in the house of the Lord,’ ” I said.

He nodded.

“You hear them?” he asked.

He meant the money changers, and the people who disputed with them.

“Yes, I hear them, Rabbi.”

“On that day!” he said. “On that day.”

I looked at his eyes, at the thickness of the film. It was milk over his eyes. If only, but I had promised. If only I knew that it was right, if only, but I had promised.

His fingers tightened on mine, dusty, soft.

And I held tight to him and I prayed in my heart for him. All merciful God, only if it is your will, grant him consolation, grant him some relief…

Joseph stood beside me. He said, “Come, Yeshua.”

“May God bless you, Rabbi,” I said, and I kissed his hand. He was waving to me, though I was gone.

As soon as Old Sarah was on her feet, and Riba had the baby securely tied up to her, we started on our journey out.

At the top of the stairs into the tunnel, Joseph stopped. He held my hand. James had gone on.

The blind man ran towards us, his eyes dark and fierce with light. He squinted, looking to left and right and back at Joseph. It couldn’t have been more startling to see a dead man back to life.

My heart pounded.

“There was a child here!” the man said. “A child!” He glanced over me and down the stairs and over the crowd. “A boy of twelve or thirteen,” he said. “I heard his voice just now again. Where did he go?”

Joseph shook his head, and picking me up with a strong right arm, he swung me up against his shoulder and carried me down and through the tunnel and away.

Not one word did he say to me on the way home.

I wanted to tell him the words of my prayer, that my prayer had come from my heart, that I had not meant to do what was not right, that I had prayed, and put it in the hands of the Lord.

Chapter 24

The following days were cheerful and rich days for the family. We went to the sprinkling in the Temple, and bathed after the second time as was required. And during the period of waiting, we wandered the streets of Jerusalem in the day, marveling over the jewels, and books, and fabrics for sale in the marketplace, and Cleopas even bought a little bound book in Latin, and for my mother, Joseph bought some fine embroidery which she could sew to a veil to wear to the village weddings.

At night there was much music and even dancing in Bethany among the camps.

And the Feast of Passover itself was a great marvel.

It was Joseph who slit the throat of the lamb before the priest and the Levite who caught the blood. And after it was roasted, we dined according to the custom with unleavened bread, and the bitter herbs, telling the story of our captivity in the land of Egypt, and how the Lord had ransomed us from Egypt and brought us through the Red Sea and to the Promised Land.

The unleavened bread we ate because we had had no time in fleeing Egypt to make bread with leaven; the bitter herbs we ate because our captivity had been bitter; the lamb we ate because we were free now and could feast for the Lord had saved us; and it was the blood of the lamb on the lintels of the Israelites that had caused the Angel of Death to pass over us when that Angel had slain the firstborn of Egypt because Pharaoh wouldn’t let us go.

And who among us, in our little gathering, could not attach a special meaning to all of this, since we had a year ago come from Egypt, through war and suffering, and found a peaceful Promised Land in Nazareth from which we’d come joyfully to the Temple of the Lord?

The day after the Feast, when many were leaving Jerusalem, and the family was talking about when to go, and what should we do, and was Old Sarah ready to make the journey, and thus and so, I looked for Joseph and couldn’t find him.

Cleopas told me he’d gone back into Jerusalem with my mother, to the marketplace, now that the crowds were gone, so that she might buy some thread.

“I want to go back to the Temple, to hear the Teachers in the portico,” I said to Cleopas. “We won’t be leaving today, will we?”

“No, not at all,” he said. “Find someone to go with you,” he said. “It’s good for you to see it when it’s not so full of people. But you can’t go alone.” He went back to talking to the men.

Now all this time Joseph had not said one word to me about the blind man. What had happened with the blind man had made him afraid. I hadn’t known it when we hurried down the stairs that evening, but I knew it now.

And I didn’t know whether he could see the change in me or not. But I was changed.

I knew that my mother saw it. She marked it, but she didn’t worry. After all, I wasn’t sad. I had only given up running with the other boys. And because I saw things with different eyes, I was quiet but not at all unhappy. I listened to the men when they talked. I paid attention to things that before I would not have noticed. And I kept to myself most of the time.

Now and then I knew the temptation to be angry, angry with those who wouldn’t tell me all the things I wanted to know. But when I remembered the blind man’s unwillingness to say these “terrible things,” I understood why I wasn’t told. My mother and Joseph were trying to protect me from something. But I couldn’t be protected any longer. I had to know.