Joseph came up to us, and guided us back to the family.
The women were just coming back with food they'd bought. It was time for everyone to gather and time for prayer.
For the first time I saw worry in Joseph's face as he watched Cleopas.
Cleopas still fought with his wife over the water, not wanting to take it.
I turned and looked at him, and I knew right away he didn't know what he was doing. He wasn't right in the head.
"You come sit by me!" he said to me.
I did it, sitting at his right hand, crossing my legs. We were all very close together. Little Salome sat on his left, watching everything he did.
He was angry but not at anybody there. Suddenly he asked when we would get to Jerusalem? Did anybody remember we were going to Jerusalem? It frightened everyone.
My aunt suddenly was very tired of it and threw up her hands. Little Salome went quiet also, just looking at her father.
Cleopas looked around himself and he knew he had said something wrong. Then he seemed himself again, just like that. He picked up the cup of clean water and he drank it. He took a deep breath and looked at his wife. My aunt came nearer again. My mother moved beside her, and put her arm around her. My aunt needed to sleep, I could see it, but she couldn't do that now.
The sauce was hot from the brazier. I was very hungry. The bread was warm too.
It was time for the blessing. The first prayer we all said together in Jerusalem. I bowed my head. Zebedee, being the eldest, led us in the prayer in our family tongue, and the words were a little different to me. But it was still very good.
Afterwards, my cousin John bar Zechariah stared at me as though he had something very important on his mind but he didn't say anything.
At last we began dipping our bread. It was so good - not just a sauce but a thick pottage of lentils and soft cooked beans and pepper and spices. And there were plenty of dried figs to chew after the hot flavor of the pottage, and I loved it. I didn't think about anything except the food. And Cleopas was eating a little which made everyone happy.
It was the first really good supper since we'd left Alexandria. And there was plenty of it. I ate until I almost couldn't eat anymore.
Afterwards, Cleopas wanted to talk to me and made everyone leave us alone. Aunt Mary just made a quitting gesture again and moved away to rest for a moment, and then went to other chores with the clearing away, and Aunt Salome was tending to Little James and the other children. Little Salome was helping with Baby Esther and Little Zoker whom she loved so much.
My mother came near to Cleopas.
"Why, what are you going to say?" my mother asked him. She sat down on his left, not very close but close enough. "Why should we go away?" She said this in a kind way but she had something on her mind.
"You go away," he told her. He sounded like he had drunk himself drunk but he hadn't. He had drunk less wine than anybody else. "Jesus, come in so you can hear me if I whisper in your ear."
My mother refused to leave. "Don't you tempt him," my mother said.
"And what do you mean by that?" Cleopas asked. "You think I've come to the Holy City of Jerusalem to tempt him?"
Then he clutched at my arm. His fingers were burning.
"I'm going to tell you something," he said to me. "You remember it. This goes in your heart with the Law, you hear me? When she told me the angel had come, I believed her. The angel had come to her! I believed."
The angel - the angel who'd come in Nazareth. He'd come to her. That was what he'd said on the boat, wasn't it? But what did this mean?
My mother stared at him. His face was wet and his eyes very big. I could feel the fever in him. I could see it.
He went on.
"I believed her," he said. "I am her brother, am I not? She was thirteen, betrothed to Joseph, and I tell you, she was never out of the sight of us outside of our house, never could there have been any chance of anyone being with her, you know what I'm saying to you, I mean a man. There was no chance, and I am her brother. Remember, I told you. I believed her." He lay back a little on the clothes bundled behind him. "A virgin child, a child in the service of the Temple of Jerusalem, to weave the great veil, with the other chosen ones, and then home under our eyes."
He shivered. He looked at her. His eyes stayed on her. She turned away, and then moved away. But not very far. She stayed there with her back to us, close to our cousin Elizabeth.
Elizabeth was watching Cleopas, and watching me. I didn't know whether she heard him or not.
I didn't move. I looked down at Cleopas. His chest rose and fell with each rattling breath and again he shivered.