Lars Sveen - Children of God

“Come,” said Orpah. “He won’t be going anywhere now, come with me.”

Anna went with her, and they went to see Mary, who told them where they were to sleep.

They were given some space in a family home, up against a wall, on the floor where something had been laid down for them to lie on. Anna sat down with Esther, but she couldn’t face telling any stories now, so she tried singing. Then Andrew came and asked if she wanted to come with him. Esther grabbed Anna’s hands and held on to her tightly.

“Just go,” said Orpah. “I’ll sit here with her.”

Anna bent down to Esther, kissed her forehead, and freed herself from her grip.

“I know this place well now,” said Andrew, as they walked together along a narrow path of large, jagged rocks. He pointed at a gnarled thicket and said he sometimes played hide-and-seek in there with the youngest children. He waved his hands and said there were small paths everywhere, and that he knew almost every single shortcut that was worth using, and a few more. He told her how it rained more up here in the hills, about the smell of the fruit trees, and how some of the children gathered the resin that ran out of the trunks, thinking it would turn to myrrh. Anna walked next to him. She yearned for him to stop talking, she wanted to touch him, she just wanted him there, still and close to her.

Andrew stopped. A lone tree reached up from where they were standing. Anna hadn’t spotted it in the twilight. She peered at the thick branches and the leaves hanging still. The sun had set, but the whole sky still shone above them, clear and black. Far away from Nazareth, down in the plain, a small bonfire was burning, like a single, glowing piece of coal in an oven. Anna stood there, staring at it, and Andrew said it was probably shepherds.

“You want to know why I left you that time,” he said.

Anna turned to him and nodded.

“I’d been quarreling with Simon, my elder brother, Simon Peter,” he said. “I went off on my own. I had nothing when I came to Sychar. I found you, but I had to keep going, I had to find a job to survive. I thought you didn’t need me, I couldn’t give you anything, there was nothing there for me. I went back to Capernaum, to Simon. That was where Jesus found us.”

“You left me,” said Anna. “You left me when I needed you most.”

Andrew didn’t say anything and just stared ahead.

“If you’d known that Jesus was going to Sychar,” Anna asked, “would you have gone too? Would you have gone to find me?”

Andrew shook his head. “I don’t know, Anna,” he said. “I don’t know if I’d have brought you here to this. Some of us say that the soldiers will come, that they’re waiting for us. I’ve told myself that I must believe in the power of the Lord, in the Lord’s mercy. But even Simon is worried about our safety. Still, I feel at home here. I was in Capernaum, with Simon Peter, when I met Jesus. I followed him here. I like it here.”

“I waited for you,” she said. “I thought that you were out there somewhere, waiting for me.”

“I thought you’d forget me,” he said.

Anna didn’t know what to say. She started to go, but she turned around and went back to him.

“You’ve got to tell me, Andrew,” she said. “You’ve got to tell me straight out. I’ve come all the way here, I’ve waited for so long. You’ve got to tell me.”

Andrew took her hands and held them in his.

“I never thought I had this in me,” Andrew said. “I don’t what’s happening. I don’t know what this is, but I want to be with you. Not like with the others. I want to be with you like we are now. I’ve spoken with Jesus and asked him if it’s right for me to be with you.”

Anna fell silent. It had turned dark, and the sounds of the others rose up to reach them.

“He said he lights a beacon for everyone in love,” Andrew went on, “for everyone who’s walking around in circles, unable to find the way. He said he lights a beacon for all love that’s lost, lighting a path through the night to the promised land.”

Anna tried to pull back her hands, but Andrew wasn’t letting go. His fingers were warm and soft, and she remembered the way he used to stroke her.

“He said that was all he could do,” Andrew said.

Anna tried to hush him, asking him to be quiet.

“I didn’t wait for you,” Andrew said. “I didn’t dare to wait for you. I thought I’d never see you again.”

“Don’t say another word,” she said, pulling him close. “Just come here.”

When she came back, confused and bewildered, Esther wasn’t there. It was dark, and the children weren’t supposed to be out alone at that time. Orpah was sitting outside by a bonfire.

“Where’s Esther?” Anna asked, and Orpah gave a start when she realized that Esther was missing. She got up and ran in to check where Esther should have been lying.

“She fell asleep straightaway after you left,” Orpah said.

Andrew told Orpah to stay there while they went to find her. “Maybe she’ll come back while we’re looking,” he said.

Anna and Andrew went around asking those who were still awake. Nobody had seen Esther, nobody knew anything, so they began to knock on the doors of the houses where their group had been taken in. They called out into the night, but there was no answer. When Anna eventually gave up and Andrew took her back, Orpah was standing there waiting for them. She said that Esther had suddenly come back.

“She didn’t want to talk to me,” said Orpah. “She just went to bed.”

They crept inside and found Esther on Anna’s blanket, her legs up against her chest, her mouth open, and her hair spread out loosely in a circle around her head.

“Maybe somebody who lives here thought she was a leper,” Andrew said, speaking softly so as not to wake anyone. “Maybe she was chased.”

“But it’s night,” Anna whispered. “What was she doing out at night?”

“Maybe she was just sleepwalking,” Orpah whispered. “I’ve seen others do it. She’s got nobody else but us. What do we know about her dreams, her nightmares?”

Andrew knelt down and stroked his hand over Esther’s hair.

“What happened to her?” he muttered. “I’ve never seen a wound like that, what do they call it, a mark of the beast?”

“I know what it is,” Orpah whispered. “It’s water that burns. I knew a girl who had it thrown on her by her brother. Her nose and her lips disappeared, and her eyes couldn’t see anymore.”

“But Esther must have been a child when it happened,” Andrew said. “How old is she now, ten, twelve?”

“It’s a mark of the beast,” Orpah whispered. “It can be put on anybody, in the same way evil doesn’t distinguish between adults and children, men and women.”

“Don’t say things like that,” Anna whispered. “She might wake up, she needs to sleep now.”

She kissed Orpah, kissed Andrew, wished them good night, and lay down next to Esther. Her tiny body was so warm. She gathered together Esther’s hair, draped it over her neck, and patted her head gently.

“Esther,” she whispered. “My little Esther.”

Anna closed her eyes and thought about how everything had changed and was new now. It was a strange feeling. She had been blessed with a new life, but there was still a flicker, a quiver, a twitch. She’d learned that good was followed by bad. All that time with Ruth, and then she vanished. When Andrew had been closest to her, he left. Reuben had sung to her softly, and then he went away when she got better. Was there something bad waiting for her now? Would she be taken back one morning, one evening, one night, by a Reuben, or by a Baasha? Would they all be surrounded one day by troops and punished for following Jesus? Once, several years ago, just outside Sychar, Anna had come across six crucified men. Their broken bones, the nails, their crooked fingers, and the smell made her run home, crying and afraid.