"Still playing the village fool, I see," he said. He peered at me as if trying to memorize my face and features.
"My lord, will you write a letter for Avigail, a letter to our kindred in Jerusalem or Sepphoris, or wherever they might be best suited to receive her, to offer her a home of which she can be part? The girl's blameless. The girl's clever. The girl's sweet, and gentle. The girl's modest."
He was surprised. Then he laughed.
"What makes you think Shemayah will let her out of his grip?"
"My lord, if you find such a place, and you write a letter stating this case, if you yourself, Hananel the Judge, should come with us, with the Rabbi and with my father Joseph, we can surely see to it that Avigail is safely taken away to some place very far from Nazareth. A man can say no to the Rabbi in Nazareth. He can say no to the elders in Nazareth. It's not easy to say no to Hananel of Cana, regardless of what's happened before - and I don't know that Shemayah knows anything about your grandson and what happened between you."
"He was for the match," came the flashing response. "Shemayah was for it until my grandson admitted he didn't have my blessing or permission."
"My lord, someone must do something to save this child. She's dying."
I stood up.
"Tell me to whom I can go, what kindred in Sepphoris," I said. "Give a note of introduction. Tell me what household. I'll go there."
"Don't get yourself into a perfect rage," he said, sneering. "Sit down. And be quiet. I'll find a place for her. I know the place. I know more than one."
I sighed, and I murmured a small prayer of thanks.
"Tell me, O pious one," he said. "Why haven't you, yourself, asked for the girl? And don't tell me she's too good for a carpenter. Right now, she's good for nothing."
"She is good," I said. "She's blameless."
"And you, the child of Mary of Joachim and Anna, tell me. I've always wanted to know. Are you a man beneath those robes? A man? You understand me?"
I stared at him. I could feel the heat in my face. I could feel myself begin to tremble, but not to the extent that he could see it. I refused to look away from him.
"A man like other men?" he asked. "You do understand why I ask. Oh, it's not that you don't marry. The prophet Jeremiah didn't marry. But if memory serves me right, and it always does, and I do remember talking in this very place, though not in this house, in another house, with your grandfather Joachim at the time - and if memory serves me right from those days and it does - the angel who announced your birth to your shivering little mother wasn't simply some angel fallen from the Heavenly Court, it was none other than the angel Gabriel."
Silence.
We stared at one another.
"Gabriel," he said to me. He raised his chin slightly and arched his eyebrows. "The angel Gabriel himself. He came to speak to your mother and to none other, except, as we all know - the prophet Daniel."
The warmth beat in my face; it beat in my chest. I could feel it in the palms of my hands.
"You press me like a grape, my lord," I said, "between your thumb and forefinger." And I know that when pressed in this manner, I may say strange things, things I don't even think in the course of my day-to-day work, things I don't even think when I'm alone . . . or dreaming.
"So I do," he said. "Because I despise you."
"So it seems, my lord."
"Why don't you jump to your feet again?"
"I stay because I'm on an errand."
He laughed with immense satisfaction. He curled his fingers under his chin and looked around him, but not at the heaps of books, or the lattices with their flashes of light and green, or at the pools of light on the marble floor, or the thin sweet smoke rising from the bronze brazier.
What does it take to ransom Avigail?
"Well, you certainly do love this child, don't you?" he asked. "Either that or you are a fool, as people say, but only some people, I should add."
"What must we do to help her?"
"Don't you want to know why I despise you?" he asked.