Joseph nodded and said we would go on to Jerusalem and to the Temple.
But the women were growing afraid. They were afraid of what we would find in Jerusalem and afraid for Cleopas.
His cough came and went but he was hot all the time, and thirsty and restless. And laughing, always laughing under his breath. He laughed at the little children, and the things other people said, and he looked at me and he laughed. And sometimes he was laughing just to himself, maybe remembering things.
The next morning we began the hard slow climb into the hills. Our ship companions had long ago gone ahead, and we were with those who had come from many different places. I still heard Greek spoken around us as much as Aramaic. And even some Latin.
But our family had stopped speaking Greek to others, and was using only the Aramaic.
It wasn't until the third day that we finally saw our first view of the Holy City from the slope above it. We children jumped up and down with excitement. We were shouting. Joseph stood smiling. Ahead of us lay twists and turns in the road, but we could see it all before us - this sacred place which had been in our prayers and in our hearts and in our songs since we were born.
There were camps about the high walls with tents of all sizes, and cooking fires, and as we drew closer and closer, the crowds were so big that we hardly moved for hours at a time. People everywhere were speaking Aramaic now, though I still heard some Greek, and all of the men were on the lookout for those they knew, and here and there clasping hands and waving and calling out to friends.
For a long time, I couldn't see anything. I was in a crowd of the children, mingled with the men, my hand in Joseph's hand. I only knew we were moving little by little, and we were close to the walls.
Finally we passed through the open city gates.
Joseph reached down and caught me up under his arms, and put me on his shoulders and I saw the Temple clearly above the small city streets.
I felt sad that Little Salome couldn't see this, but then Cleopas said loudly he had to have her up with him on the donkey, and so Aunt Mary lifted her and she could now see too.
And look! We were in the Holy City of Jerusalem, and the Temple was right in front of us.
Now in Alexandria, I had, like any good Jewish boy, never let my eyes stray to the pagan temples. I had not looked up at the pagan statues. What were idols to a Jewish boy who was forbidden to make such things and held them to have no meaning? But I'd passed the temples and the processions with their music, looking only to the houses to which Joseph and I had to go, which seldom took us out of the Jewish quarter of the city anyway, and I suppose that the Great Synagogue was the grandest building that I had ever entered. And besides pagan temples were not for entering anyway. Even I knew that they were supposed to be the house of the pagan gods for whom they were named and put together.
But I knew of these temples, and somehow from the corner of my eye, I had taken their measure. I had taken a measure as well of the palaces of the rich, and had some idea of what any carpenter's son would call the scale of things.
And for the Temple of Jerusalem I had no measure at all. No words from Cleopas or Alphaeus or Joseph, or even Philo had made me ready for what I saw.
It was a building so big and so grand and so solid, a building so shining with gold and whiteness, a building stretching to the right and to the left so far that it swept out of my mind anything I'd ever seen in the rich city of Alexandria, and the wonders of Egypt passed away from me, and my breath was taken out of me. I was struck dumb.
Cleopas now had Little Symeon in his arms so he could see, and Little Salome was holding Baby Esther who was bellowing for no reason, and Aunt Mary was holding up Joses, and Alphaeus had my cousin Little James.
As for Big James, my brother, James who knew so much, James had seen it before, when he was very small and had come here with Joseph before I was ever born, even he seemed amazed by it, and Joseph was quiet as if he had forgotten us and everyone around us.
My mother reached up and put her hand on my hip and I looked down at her and smiled. She was pretty to me as always, and shy with her veil drawn over most of her face, and clearly so happy that we were here at last and she looked up as I did to the Temple.
All through the crowd, and it was a great crowd of those shifting and moving and coming and going, there was this feeling of people falling quiet and still just to look at this Temple, trying to know its size, trying to take it in, trying perhaps to remember this moment because many of them were here from far away and long ago or for the first time.
I wanted to go on, to enter the Temple - I thought that's what we would do - but that was not to be.
We were pushing towards it but losing our sight of it, and dipping down into crooked and tight streets, the buildings seeming to close over our heads, people pressing against one another, and our men asking for the synagogue of the Galileans, where we were to lodge.
I knew Joseph was tired. After all, I was seven years old, and he'd been carrying me a long while. I asked him to put me down.
Cleopas was now very feverish, and yes, laughing with happiness. He asked for water. He said he wanted to bathe now, and Aunt Mary said he couldn't. The women said we had to get him to bed right away.
My aunt was almost in tears over him and Little Symeon started to cry so I picked him up but he was too heavy and James took him in his arms.
And so it was through the crooked and narrow streets we went, streets that might have been in Alexandria, though they were much more crowded, Little Salome and I laughing that "the whole world was here," and everywhere there was fast talk, raised voices, people speaking Greek, even Hebrew, people speaking Hebrew, and some speaking Latin but not very many, and most Aramaic like us.
When we reached the synagogue, a big building of three stories, the lodgings were full as everyone expected, but as we were turning away to look for the synagogue of the Alexandrians, my mother cried out to her cousins, Zebedee and his wife, and their children who were just coming in, and they all flocked to her with much embracing and kissing, and they wanted us very much to come up with them and share the space already made for them on the roof. Other cousins were already there waiting. Zebedee would see to it.
Now the wife of Zebedee was Mary Alexandra, my mother's cousin, who was always called Mary same as my mother, and same as my aunt Mary who was married to my mother's brother, Cleopas. And when these three women hugged and kissed they cried out: "The Three Marys!" and this made them very happy, as if nothing else was going on.
Joseph was busy paying the price, and we pushed our way with Zebedee and his clan, and Zebedee had brothers with wives and children, through the crowded courtyard where the donkeys were given over for care and feeding, and then we climbed the stairs, and then went up a ladder, the men carrying Cleopas who was laughing all the way in his low manner because he was ashamed.
On the roof, a swarm of kindred greeted us.