The Child Madonna - Chapter 25 - The Filled Water Jar

Chapter 25 The Filled Water Jar

I am ambling home along the track towards the well. I am feeling a little drier now, and I stop near the solitary fig-tree to pull on my loincloth which I have been holding in the sunlight. It feels a little damp between my legs but it is not too uncomfortable. My mind is numbed, I am not thinking clearly at all, but I am buoyed up by a sense of wellbeing. The well comes into view, and it is deserted. Good! I shall not have to explain my absence to anyone; I will fill my water jar and make for home.

The water jar is missing. Surely it cannot have been stolen? I’m convinced I left it there, leaning against the parapet. Panic begins to creep over me as reality prises open my defences. How long have I been gone? I look for the position of the sun and my stomach lurches with fear – for the globe is well past its southerly point and indicates that it is a couple of hours into the afternoon. I have an absence of at least two, possibly three, hours to explain. How can I start?

I rehearse what has happened in my mind and realise with horror that there is nothing that I can readily admit to. The meeting and the conversation with the stranger, the walk to the river, my bathing there; all inexplicable. Unless I tell them the truth. And who will believe it? The more I repeat it to myself, the less plausible it sounds.

I have broken into a run although it is much too late for that. All I have achieved is to arrive outside my house totally devoid of any conclusions on what to say. I push the gate open and go inside totally unprepared.

“Please God, help me now; protect your servant!”

The door to my home is suddenly flung open. My mother is there looking absolutely distraught.

“Mari, thank the Lord God, you’re safe! We all feared the worst when we found your water jar. Where on earth have you been?”

“I went down to the river.”

“What for, child? How could you give us so much worry?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you’d be worried. You told me there was no hurry, and I was hot so I thought I’d cool myself in the water.”

“But three hours, child? How could you be so thoughtless, it’s so unlike you?”

“I looked everywhere for the water jar, but couldn’t find it.”

“When the children returned home and hadn’t seen you, I sent Salome and Rebecca back to look for you. They found your jar, already filled, but no sign of you. They spent ages, calling and searching, then gave up, Salome carrying the water home.”

“Did you say that the water jar was already filled?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I didn’t fill it. It fell over as I put it on the ground and all the water spilt. I left it until I returned from the river.”

“Salome!”

My sister comes running; she has of course been listening to every word exchanged so far.

“It was filled, mother, right to the brim. It was so full, I had to pour a little out to be able to balance it on my shoulder.”

“Well, that’s another mystery, child. What are you going to say for yourself? If I didn’t know you better, I’d accuse you of meeting someone you didn’t want us to know about!”

I didn’t want to answer, not in front of Salome, anyway. I tried to busy myself silently with Mother’s work, but only got in her way. Eventually the others went out to play in the courtyard.

My mother and I are left on our own. Rather than question me directly, she is waiting for me to speak, I can sense it. And I still don’t know how to begin, what to say. Once I admit to her what I think has happened, the die is cast, and many things will be taken out of my hands. Nagging still at the back of my mind is the doubt that I have been tricked, that my experience by and in the river was a delusion brought about by a mixture of my own daydreaming and an opportunistic stranger with a roving eye. In which case, perhaps the message of my pregnancy is a myth, a story told to gain my co-operation, and the forecast baby boy will not materialise, I need not therefore admit anything to anybody until it is seen to be necessary.

My mother is still waiting. My thought processes are clogging under her gaze, I am being rushed. How can I think I can say nothing and no-one will ever know? If I am not pregnant, what will happen on my wedding night? Joseph will know I’m not a virgin, won’t he? Will he disgrace me, divorce me, have me burned or stoned to death? But am I a virgin or not? It seems stupid to say this, even to myself, but I’m not absolutely sure I know the answer, technically at least. I saw no blood, but I was immersed in the fast flowing stream. I felt no pain, but I was both numbed by the cold and burned by the sensation in my mind. I offered myself to God; if a mortal took me in disguise, am I guilty of my own seduction?

“Mother, I’ve got something to tell you,” I hear myself saying, divorced from what I am thinking.

My mother looks at me sharply, her eyes are so penetrating that I wish immediately that I had not opened my mouth. But I can’t stop now.

“I did meet someone.”

“Child, how could you after all the warnings you’ve been given.”

“It was someone very special, Mummy. And it was not my fault, he came to search for me.”

“Go on. Tell me the worst.”

“You know the stranger who is staying in Althaeus’ house, you know, the tall blond man?”

“Yes, Mari, I know who you mean only too well. You’re confirming my very worst fears.”

“He came to me at the well and asked me for a drink, then told me all sorts of strange prophecies about myself. He kept quoting the scriptures and told me that I had been chosen to give birth to the Messiah!”

I try to look at my mother to discern the effect this having on her, but dare not.

“Then he told me to go and bathe in the river on the path to Mount Tabor, so I did. That is why I took so long.” I suddenly have an inspiration. “He must have filled my water vessel whilst I had gone to obey his words!”

“Mari, you have never lied to me before. Why are you telling me this silly tale? You surely don’t expect me to swallow it, do you?”

“I can’t say anything else, it is the truth!”

“Then you’re more naïve than I thought you were. All this study in the synagogue has gone to your head and you’re starting to delude yourself. Mariam, it’s dangerous nonsense. Stop going off alone, letting your mind fancy all sorts of wild thoughts; stay here with me and keep your concentration on reality. There’s a lot to do. What on earth do you think Joseph would make of all this talk? Uncle Eli had to persuade him that you would be a good obedient wife as it was, because he saw evidence of your independent and rebellious nature. If he heard just one whisper of all this nonsense, he’d be off. And then how would we find you a husband?”

I want to tell her more; it’s going to be harder later. But after what she’s just said, how can I add anything? I can see in her eyes that she fears to ask what happened at the river, she does not want me to say.

“I’m sorry, mother, I’ve done my best to tell you. You’ll see the truth of what I say when I’m pregnant as the stranger foretold!”

“I didn’t hear that remark, Mari. I’ll not react to that. I just pray it doesn’t mean what I fear it means.”

“Oh, by the way, Mama, the stranger said that cousin Elizabeth is having a baby too and that he’s going to be a prophet who prepares Israel for the Messiah. You didn’t tell me that that was the reason she and Uncle Zechariah never came to my betrothal banquet.”

“How on earth did you know Elizabeth was pregnant? Who told you?” My mother is shaken by my words, then she seems to recover. “Oh, I’m sure some tittle-tattle is going the rounds. A pregnancy as late as Elizabeth’s is news, probably one of Eli’s daughters picked up the story during the banquet, and I dare say it’s now village gossip.”

“But why didn’t you tell me yourself?”

“Well, it seemed a bit odd at the time. Your aunt seemed to be hysterical, we thought. Zechariah was so ill, he couldn’t communicate with anyone, and we wondered if Elizabeth was just going funny in the head. But we’ve since had news confirming that she is expecting a child shortly after next Passover. It is extraordinary after she has been barren all her life.”

“Then you see, mother, what the stranger told me was true. Why shouldn’t what he said about me be true as well?” I add excitedly.

“Oh, Mariam, do not dream away your youth in idle speculation. I still tell you it is dangerous.”

But she did not seem to me to be quite so convincing in what she said. I think I’ve said enough now, the seed is sown. I must wait for it to grow.