Chapter Five
WHEN WE CAME INTO THE HOUSE, we saw Silent Hannah there at once with Avigail.
Now wherever Avigail went, Silent Hannah went, and wherever the two went, there was always a gathering of children. James' sons, Isaac and Shabi, my other nephews and nieces, there was always such a crowd around Avigail and Silent Hannah. It was Avigail who drew the children, often singing to them, teaching them old songs, how to read bits of Scripture, even now and then rhymes that she made up in her head, and letting the little girls help her with her twine and her needles, and all the bits and pieces of mending she usually had in her basket. Silent Hannah, who did not hear or speak, lived with Avigail most of the time, though now and then, if Avigail's father was very sick, with his bad leg, Silent Hannah might lodge with us, with my aunts and my mother.
But now, as we came in, only the women were there with Avigail and Silent Hannah. All the children had been sent away, it was plain, and Silent Hannah stood up at once for news and looked imploringly to Joseph.
Avigail stood ready to support her. Avigail's eyes were red from crying, and she looked not at all like our Avigail, suddenly, but rather more like a woman in the mold of Yitra's mother. The sorrow of all this had transfigured her face, and she kept her gaze fixed on Silent Hannah and waited.
Now Silent Hannah had fluid and eloquent gestures for everything, and we all knew them. It had been several years since she and the Orphan had come to Nazareth as vagabonds do, and she'd lived with us since that time, and the Orphan had lived in many places. But we all knew her language of signs and I thought her hands as beautiful sometimes as Jason's hands.
No one knew how old she was. She might have been fifteen or sixteen. The Orphan had been younger.
Now, she stood before Joseph and very suddenly she broke into the gestures that signified her brother. Where was her brother? What had happened to her brother? No one would tell her. Her eyes swept the room, swept the faces of the women against the walls. What happened to her brother?
Joseph started to answer her. He started but once again the tears came to his eyes, and his pale hands hung in the air, unable to describe the shapes he saw or wanted to see.
James was worried. Cleopas started with words. He didn't know the signs very well. He never had.
Avigail could say and do nothing.
Finally I turned Silent Hannah to me. I made the gesture for her brother, and pointed to my lips, which I knew she could now and then read. I pointed upwards and made the sign for prayer. I talked slowly as I made the various signs.
"The Lord watches over your brother now, and your brother is sleeping. Your brother is asleep in the earth now. You will not see him again." I pointed to her eyes. I leaned forward and pointed then to my own eyes and to Joseph's eyes, and the tears on his face. I shook my head. "Your brother is with the Lord now," I said. I kissed my fingers and gestured again upward.
Silent Hannah's face crumpled and she pulled away from me violently.
Avigail took firm hold of her.
"Your brother will rise on the last day," Avigail said, and she looked upward, and then, letting Silent Hannah go, she made a great encompassing gesture as if the whole world were gathered under Heaven.
Silent Hannah was in terror. She hunched her shoulders and peered at us through her fingers.
I spoke again, gesturing. "It was quick. It was wrong. It was like someone falling. Suddenly over."
I made the gestures for rest, for sleep, for calm. I made them as slowly as I could.
I saw her face slowly change.
"You're our child," I said. "You live with us and with Avigail."
She waited a long moment and then asked Where was her brother laid to rest? I gestured to the far hills, high up in the hills. Silent Hannah knew the caves. She didn't need to know which cave, that it was the cave for those who die by stoning.
Her face was fixed again but only for a moment, and then with a strange fearful expression, she made the gestures for Where is Yitra?
"Yitra's family is gone," I said. I made the gestures for mother and father, and little ones, walking.
She looked at me. She knew this couldn't be right, couldn't be all of it. Again, she made the gesture for Where is Yitra?
"Tell her," said Joseph.
I did. "In the ground, with your brother. Gone now."
Her eyes grew wide with shock. Then, for the first time ever I saw her lips draw back in a bitter smile. A groan came from her, a terrible tongueless sound.
James sighed. He and Cleopas looked at each other.
"You come on home with me now," said Avigail.