José Saramago: The Gospel According to Jesus Christ

The silence that followed the murmurings and whisperings of travelers settling down for the night was broken now and then by muffled conversations in the caravansary, by a shrill cry, the panting and snorting of animals, and the occasional awful bellow of a camel in heat. Then the party from Nazareth, all discord forgotten, could be heard muttering in unison the last and longest of the prayers of thanksgiving offered to the Lord at the end of the day, Praise be to You, O God, King of the Universe, who shuts our eyes without robbing them of light. Grant, O Lord, that we may sleep in peace and awaken tomorrow to a happy and tranquil life, help us to obey Your commandments. Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil. Lead us along the path of virtue and protect us from bad dreams, wicked thoughts, and mortal sickness. Spare us visions of death. Within minutes, the more just if not the more weary members of the party were fast asleep, some of them snoring unspiritually. And soon the others joined them, most with nothing more than their tunics to cover them, for only the elderly and the very young, both delicate in their own way, enjoyed the warmth and protection of a coarse blanket or threadbare mantle. Deprived of wood, the fire began to die, only a few weak flames continuing to flicker. Under the archway, the party from Nazareth slept soundly. Everyone except Mary. Unable to stretch out because of her belly, which could have been harboring a giant, she lay against some saddlebags in an effort to rest her aching back. Like the others, she had listened to Joseph arguing with old Simeon, and rejoiced in her husband's victory, as befits any wife no matter how harmless or unimportant the conflict. But she could no longer remember what the argument was about, her recollection of it already submerged in the throbbing of her body, which came and went like the tide of the sea, which she had never seen but had heard others describe, the restless ebb and flow as her child stirred in her womb. The strangest sensation, as if that living creature inside her were trying to hoist her onto its shoulders. Only Mary lay with her eyes open, shining in the shadows, still shining after the last flame had died away. No cause for wonder, for this happens to all mothers, and the wife of the carpenter Joseph was no exception, after the angel appeared to her disguised as a beggar.

Even in the caravansary there were cocks to greet the morning, but the travelers, merchants, drovers, and cameleers had to make an early start and begin preparing, before dawn, for the next leg of their journey. They loaded the animals with baggage and merchandise and made even more noise than on the previous evening. Once they have departed, the caravansary will settle down to a few hours of peace and quiet, like a brown lizard stretched out in the sun. The only remaining guests are those who have decided to rest all day, but by evening another group of travelers will start arriving, some more bedraggled than others but all of them weary, not that this has any effect on their vocal cords, because the moment they arrive, they start shouting their heads off as if possessed by a thousand demons. Back on the road, the party from Nazareth has grown bigger, ten people have joined them, so anyone who imagines this place to be deserted is much mistaken, especially when the feast of Passover and the census coincide.

No one needed to tell Joseph to make his peace with old Simeon, not because he was in the wrong but because he had been taught to respect his elders, especially those who were paying the price for long life by losing both their brains and their influence over a younger generation. So Joseph went up to him and said, I've come to apologize for my insolence last night, I didn't mean to be disrespectful but you know what human nature is, one word leads to another, tempers are lost, and caution is thrown to the winds. Without raising his eyes, Simeon heard him out in silence, then finally spoke, You are forgiven. Hoping his friendly overture would win more from the stubborn old man, Joseph remained at his side for a fair stretch of the road. But Simeon, eyes fixed on the dust at his feet, continued to ignore him, until Joseph in exasperation decided to give up. At that very moment, seemingly roused from his thoughts, the old man placed a hand on Joseph's shoulder and said, Wait. Surprised, Joseph turned, and Simeon stopped and repeated, Wait. The others walked on, leaving the two men standing in the middle of the road, a no-man's-land between the group of men ahead and the group of women behind, which was gradually approaching. Above the women's heads, Mary could be seen swaying with the rhythm of the donkey.

They had left the valley of Isreel. Skirting great rocks, the road curved awkwardly up the first slope before penetrating the mountains of Samaria to the east, then along arid ridges before descending on the other side to the Jordan, where the burning plain stretched southward and the desert of Judaea fired and scorched the ancient scars of a land promised to the chosen few but forever uncertain to whom it should surrender. Wait, said Simeon, and the carpenter obeyed, suddenly uneasy. The women were drawing nearer. Then the old man clutched Joseph by the sleeve, and he confided, When I lay down to rest last night I had a vision. A vision. Yes, a vision, but no ordinary vision, for I could see the hidden meaning of words you yourself spoke, that if your child was still not born by the last day of the census, it would be because the Lord did not wish the Romans to learn of its existence and add its name to their list. Yes, that is what I said, but what did you see. I didn't see anything but suddenly felt that it would be better if the Romans did not learn of your child's existence, that no one should be told of it, and that if the child must be born into this world, at least let it live without torment or glory, like those men up there in front and those women bringing up the rear, let it be as anonymous as the rest of us until the hour of death and forever after. Humble carpenter as I am from Nazareth, what fate could my child possibly hope for other than the one you have just described. Alas, you are not the only one to dispose of your child's life. True, everything is in the hands of the Lord and He knows best. And so say I. But tell me about my child, what have you discovered. Nothing beyond the words you yourself uttered and which took on for me another meaning, as if on seeing an egg I could sense the chick inside. God wills what He creates and has created what He willed, my child is in His hands and there is nothing I can do. That is indeed true, but these are days when God still shares the child with its mother. But should it turn out to be a son, it will belong to me and to God. Or to God alone. All of us belong to God. Not quite all of us, some are divided between God and Satan. How can one tell. If the law had not silenced women forever, perhaps they could reveal what we need to know, for it was woman who invented the first sin from which all the rest came. What do we need to know. Which part of woman's nature is demonic and which divine and what kind of humanity they have. I don't understand, I thought you were referring to my child. No, I was not referring to your child, I was talking about women, who generate beings such as ourselves and who may be responsible, perhaps unknowingly, for this duality in our nature, which is base and yet so noble, virtuous and yet so wicked, tranquil and yet so troubled, meek and yet so rebellious.

Joseph looked back. Mary was advancing on her donkey, a young boy in front of her and astride the saddle like a grown-up, and for a second Joseph thought he was seeing his own son and seeing Mary for the first time, at the head of this group of women. Simeon's strange words still filled his ears, but he found it hard to believe that any woman could wield so much power, especially this unassuming wife of his, who had never shown any sign of being different from other women. Turning to look at the road ahead, he suddenly remembered the episode of the beggar and the luminous earth. He began to tremble, his hair stood on end, he got goose flesh, and when he turned back to take another look at Mary, he saw, saw clearly, a tall stranger walking by her side, so tall that the man was head and shoulders above the women, this had to be the beggar whom he had missed seeing last time. Joseph looked again, and there he was, a sinister presence among those women that defied explanation. Joseph was about to ask Simeon to look, to make sure he was not imagining things, but the old man had moved on, having spoken his mind, and was now rejoining his companions to resume his position as head of his clan, a role he cannot hope to play much longer. Deprived of a witness, the carpenter looked again in his wife's direction. This time the beggar was gone.