“You’ve given me a headache.”
“Fortunately, we’ve finished,” said Miryam, giving the grindstone handle one last shove. “We have more than enough barley for our journeys.” Miryam frowned in pain as she rubbed her aching palms.
I remembered what Lev had said once about Miryam as he was trying to talk himself out of his love for her. “She has red, rough hands and looks very ordinary, like any other girl in this village. Her front teeth are crooked, and her hair has hardly any curl. And yet, when she smiles and laughs, her eyes shine. And she is just so beautiful!”
At that moment Miryam turned her smile on Naomi and me. “I have something to give you before we’re separated. Come this way.” She led us up the same path I had run along in the quiet moonlight only a few nights before, up to the top of the Nazareth ridge. Today the hillsides were full of our villagers who were hastily picking any ripened fruit from their orchards and vines to carry away with them. Goats bleated, children cried, and people called to one another. We climbed up to the ridge’s highest point, the same spot where I’d so recently experienced such bitter disappointment.
“I want to tell you a story,” Miryam said, sitting down and wedging us together between two tall rocks. “Remember last year when my parents wanted me to marry Yosef? I’d seen him only once and I hadn’t even met his two little boys. Deep down, I was anxious and confused about everything. Should I follow my parents’ wishes and marry Yosef? But what if I never came to love him? Could I be a good mother to his children? What does The Holy One want me to do? What is my place in His plan?”
Naomi said, “I never worry about things like that.”
“Of course not,” I snapped.
“Why should I?” Naomi challenged.
“Stop, you two,” Miryam said, and continued her story. “One wet, dark afternoon I came up here. I sat right where we are now. I prayed. I cried. I begged Adonai to give me a sign, to tell me what I should do. Then I stopped crying and just waited for an answer. Suddenly, the most amazing thing happened: a strong light broke through the clouds right over the valley below. It began moving quickly towards me.”
Like my dust towers, I thought.
“Were you scared?” said Naomi. “I would’ve run away!”
“I was afraid so I hid behind these rocks. Then the light swept right to here . . . and stopped. It seemed to be waiting for me to say or do something.”
Naomi interrupted, “I definitely would’ve run away at that point. Did you?”
“No. Although I didn’t know what it wanted, I trusted it. It waited. It shimmered. It grew brighter and lovelier. It seemed to be inviting me in, pulling me into itself. It was so beautiful! I have no words to explain how it drew me to it. After some time—I can’t say how long—I stepped into it. I said ‘Yes.’ That was all: just ‘Yes.’ Then it filled me with its brightness, and I felt myself glowing.”
We were all silent until Naomi whispered, “Maybe the light was an angel. Did it smell? I hear angels smell like baking bread.”
Miryam laughed. “No, it didn’t smell. I don’t know what an angel looks like, but this light that swirled around inside and around me was full of color—flaming orange and bright green and deep violet and sunrise pink. And full of sound, too. Babies laughing. Water lapping the shore. Doves cooing. It was full of life and so, so lovely. Then, gently, slowly, the light swept back to the cloud it had come from and disappeared.”
“Were you sad when it left?” said Naomi.
“No, I was happy! My fears were gone. A peace settled upon my heart, a certainty that The Holy One cared for me and for all of our people, each one of us. And I knew that I was pleasing in His eyes. And I knew I should marry Yosef.”
A bitter taste, as if I had sucked on the rim of a metal pot, puckered my mouth. The dust clouds had not swept me up. They had swirled off to the caves of Arbel without me.
“I was hoping that, coming to this same spot and hearing what happened to me, maybe you two could feel the peace that settled on me here. Of course we’re all anxious, but I think that the light’s message was that Adonai loves us, each one of us. I know He will be with each of us on every step of our journeys. The psalm says, ‘I sought the Lord, and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.’ Pray with me, will you?”
Naomi laughed that ridiculous giggle of hers. “Delivered from all my fears sounds good. I’ll give it a try.”
To please Miryam, I prayed with them, though my prayer brought me no peace. I left the Nazareth ridge in anger and confusion. Miryam had sought answers, just as I had, and The Holy One had sent her a sign. She was pleasing to Him, even though she was a girl. He had a plan for her. She had been given the very blessing I had sought but been denied.
The Journey to Jerusalem
Another week passed as I prepared our household for our journey to Jerusalem. Father was of little help, consumed as he was by his fear of an imminent retaliatory invasion. He roamed the hilltops around Nazareth, scanning the horizon for signs of a Roman column on the march. He wandered from house to house in the village, monitoring each family’s preparedness. When one family we planned to travel with encountered difficulties selling its livestock, and another had a sick baby, he decided we could wait no longer. Instead we would set out on our own and find other countrymen to travel with once we were out on the main road. With great care, he rolled protective calfskins around his scrolls and sealed them tightly into stone jars. The old donkey bore only this precious load. The younger one carried all our other provisions.
Naomi’s parents and the few of our friends who had not yet departed walked with us to the edge of the village. Naomi and her mother wept and clung to each other, and Amos had to pry his wife and daughter apart so we could proceed. The familiar loneliness of having no mother seeped into my chest once again, but I clutched my father’s hand and didn’t look back. In my other hand I cupped some soil from our courtyard. I will return, I will return, someday I will return, I told myself with each step. Though my heart pulled backward, my feet moved forward, one regretful step at a time, throughout the whole long morning. Naomi sniffled for a long time until Father put her between the two of us and asked her sing to cheer us all up.
We traveled east, which surprised me, because Lev had told me that a good road led straight south from Sepphoris to Jerusalem. But Father explained that the southern route passed through Samaria, considered a dangerous and unclean land. We would travel east to the Jordan River and follow it south almost to Jericho, then turn back west to Jerusalem.
All across Galilee, olive trees and trellised grapevines graced every hillside. Grain crops, mostly wheat and barley, flooded the valleys. Healthy pomegranate, almond, and fig orchards clustered around the villages. But the prosperity of the land did not match that of the people. In village after village, the children, listless with hunger, did not smile or raise their hands in greeting to us. Beggars squatted along the roadside. The first one we spoke to told us a bitter story, later repeated by others we met.
“I was a farmer. Rome demanded one-fifth of my crops as tribute; King Herod imposed other taxes; the Temple and its priests required its offerings and tithes.” He stopped to gulp down the date cake we gave him, then held out his bony hand for another. “I had to borrow to meet all these obligations, and the debt crushed me. My creditors took over my land.”
“Were your creditors Romans?” Father demanded.
“No.
