The Missing Madonna, Chapter 16 'Penniless Destitutes'

Through Joseph's Eyes

I’ve tried apologising, but it seems so lame. Mari just looks at me. I don’t know what she is thinking. Perhaps she is just stunned. Joshua has stopped screaming and I take him gently from Mari’s arms and he whimpers with an occasional choking sob against my breast. I help Mari to her feet. She shakes the mud and sand from her tunic. Her long dark hair, now untrammelled, glistens softly in the pale moonlight, for in the last few minutes darkness has fallen. I look at the turgid river reflecting the moon dimly. It is barely moving between its mudflats. We have no money, no food, only the clothes on our back. All my tools have gone. How shall I earn money to keep us? Inside I’m panicking but I try not to show this to Mari.

The temperature has already noticeably dropped since the sun sank below the horizon and I realise that unless we can find shelter, we are going to get very cold. Instinctively I put my arms around Mari and give her a hug. But in truth, what comfort can I offer? It is all my fault. I should have listened to the warnings I was given by the innkeeper. But the two men we met when we rested in the heat of the day were so plausible. They seemed so friendly. I know now how naïve we were. Everything was going so well, we were so exhilarated with the lushness and prosperity we saw, Mari’s news of another child on the way, the nearness of a large city where I could probably find work, and then this.

Now what shall we do? We need to get out of this place as fast as we can in case the thieves return. I don’t trust them. At the moment, whilst we’ve lost all our possessions we still have each other. Mari could so easily have been raped and they could yet return and violate her and abduct our son. I’ve no means of protecting them except for my bare fists and what is that against a gang of half a dozen armed with knives? Mari is weeping silently now. Tears are rolling slowly down her face and I taste them as I kiss her gently on the cheek. But what solace can I give? I mutter some meaningless words that are meant to convey comfort and hope, but they are just sounds. I apologise yet again.

“Joseph, don’t torture yourself,” she says laying her hand on my bare arm. “It was not your fault. How could you know that those men were leading us into a trap?”

She doesn’t know of the warning I was given by the innkeeper and so foolishly ignored.
When I say nothing, she adds:

“We just have to trust God now. Perhaps we had taken him for granted. He’s showing us that we must trust him and trust him absolutely. I was in a more desperate state than this when I was pregnant with Joshua and faced the wrath of the rabbis in the synagogue. God looked after me then. He will look after us now.”

I wish I had her faith, her unwitting trust. I know God has been good to us and I believe the signs we’ve had that Joshua is special and will eventually be great. But I’m assailed by doubts in stressed times like this. Why can’t I be more positive like Mari? Anyway, I must not stay here dithering. We must move on and see if we can find some sort of shelter. We must go north towards the city.

I carry Joshua and we make our way quite quickly as we are now unencumbered although we stumble from time to time as we try to follow the rough path beside the river. I have no real idea where this track will take us, except that the city is obviously to our north, so we must eventually find it if we stick to the river. When we reach the city I’ve no idea what will happen. Will we be allowed in? Do they turn destitutes away? Will they think we are beggars? We have nothing to pay either legitimate taxes or bribes. When I think about it, I realise that we are in effect now beggars. How else will we sustain ourselves? I keep all this to myself as we move wordlessly along the track.

At least the pathway seems as though it will lead somewhere. It does not peter out but skirts the fields of corn and flax. We stop to get our breath at one point and I explore some of the flax plants and can feel the seed pods, but they don’t look edible. Then I remember someone telling me that children eat the roots of the papyrus plant and there’s a forest of the stuff along the river bank. I give Joshua back to Mari – the lad had fallen asleep in my arms – and I go foraging, grubbing the straggly roots from the water in case they are all we can find to eat. With a bit of luck we will find some date palms and perhaps we’ll find some that are ripe and fallen that we can collect.

I see that Joshua has stirred and Mari indicates that we should wait a while for Joshua to feed. At least the boy won’t starve as long as Mari’s milk flow holds up. He drinks long and noisily and then falls straight back to sleep on Mari’s shoulder as she seeks to wind him. At least he is not old enough to be aware of our predicament. We get up and continue on our way. I have no idea how far we have to go – clearly the villains diverted us well to the south of the city. We have to choose whether to walk through the night and arrive at the city gates exhausted and in darkness or whether to rest in the open and come to the city at dawn, when we can properly appraise our situation. At least we’ll keep going for the moment. I hope to get us within sight of the city gates before we stop. It’ll be cold overnight. Walking gives us a little warmth.

Eventually, a couple of hours later, I think I can make out the beginnings of the city wall the other side of the river and about half a mile in front of us. It must be well after midnight now and there are a cluster of palm trees beside our path just ahead. We stop and I scrabble about in the darkness to see if I can discover any dates, but I can find none. However, this seems as good a place to rest as anywhere and we lay down, huddling together for warmth with Joshua fast asleep squeezed between us. I think Mari has drifted off, I can hear her soft breathing, but I lie fretfully, cold and wide awake as the events of the last few hours torture my brain. Time and time again I curse my stupidity. I want to keep turning over in my restlessness, but I’m fearful of disturbing Mari and the boy, so I lie there staring at the stars. Finally I come to my senses and use my watchfulness to pray to God, asking for his protection. I must have drifted off then into a shallow sleep. When I wake I’m aware of disturbing and uneasy thoughts, dreams near the surface of consciousness, then open my eyes and see a pale dawn breaking, the sun not yet over the horizon.

Both the others are asleep and I disentangle myself from them and start tramping around under the trees looking for fallen dates. I find a few and brush off the sand and dust from them and am tempted to eat them for I can feel a gnawing hunger. But I resist – we must share every little thing we have. I try one of the papyrus roots instead - it doesn’t seem very appetising but at least it’s something. If we chew the stems at least it will provide us with some sweet sustenance.

I return and find Mari and Joshua still fast asleep. It is cold, there is a slight mist creeping up from the river. I’m astonished that they can appear to sleep so peacefully. I sit and watch them. Joshua will be twenty months old soon. I put a finger into his dark curls and feel the softness. His big brown eyes are tightly closed. I lay my hand against his cheek. It is cool. Mari has cuddled his chubby body in the folds of her skirt and her bare arm is slung protectively around him. He is special, of course he is special. He is our first born son. Well, Mari’s, I suppose. But most of the time I think of him as mine. He is in my care, my protection. Some protection, I think. If God has given him to us to look after for a special reason, then I’ve failed. He is so vulnerable lying there, with just our love to ward off the violence of the world that we’ve experienced. But is he so special? He looks like any other healthy Jewish boy of his age.

Then I stare at my Mari. Her long dark hair is flowing over the sandy soil, her head is turned towards the child and there is the trace of a faint smile on her lips. As she lies there so defenceless, so trusting in her slumber, I’m reminded of her when we first cohabited on our way to Jerusalem and Bethlehem. She was so young then. She’s settled down a little now - her responsibility for Joshua has matured her and she is not quite so impulsive as she used to be. She has filled out and grown a little taller, but her face is still unlined and, without the stolen shawl and wedding necklace she looks like the virgin lass of our betrothal ceremony. Despite my trepidation, in that moment my heart fills with the overwhelming love I experienced on that first night together, away from the intrusive attentions of Eli and his family. I’m tempted in this moment to disturb her sleep and part her flimsy clothes and take her there beneath the translucent sky, but I hang back, it seems inappropriate in our dire situation.

As if to confirm my hesitation, she suddenly awakes, sits up and goes white. She gasps for air for a moment and looks wildly about her, taking in the reality of our situation. She hurriedly untwines Joshua from her folds and staggers to her feet and rushes to one of the trees off the track and I hear her cough twice, then she is sick. There is a low moan and she is sick once more, then she retches once and I see her staggering back wiping her mouth. All my thoughts of a romantic tussle with the girl subside in the instant and my stirrings of lust are replaced by the practicalities of dealing with Joshua who has woken up as his mother cast him aside in her urgency to cope with the nausea welling up within her. Mari goes down to the edge of the river and wipes her face in the murky water while I jiggle Joshua up and down to calm his crying, his slumber so rudely interrupted. When Mari returns, she smiles weakly at me and nods. It is her morning sickness again, nothing more. It is a little more acute today. Perhaps the experience of the last twelve hours has disturbed her system and accentuated the severity of the symptoms of early pregnancy. Perhaps her lack of food has not helped. I let her rest awhile as I feed Joshua a couple of dates I picked up earlier, then, as the sun casts an orange glow over the cornfield behind us I indicate that we should be on the move.

“No, Joseph, wait a while. I need to feed Joshua.” She puts the child to her breast and I feed her a couple of dates to chew while I scrape back the sand and dirt from the papyrus roots I had picked earlier. It seems nondescript but harmless. I doubt if it’ll still the pangs of hunger that I’m feeling. While Mari is feeding the child I go in search of more dates and find a bunch on a low lying palm that I can just reach and pull off as many as I can grasp in the hope that they’ll keep us going until we get to the city.

When we start to walk towards the walls of Pelusium that we can just discern picked out by the dawn rays, Joshua insists on walking with us, holding his mother’s finger only. She is bent towards him, an uncomfortable posture to keep up for any length of time, but Joshua is in no mood to be picked up, so I try to take over, but he will need to let go of his mother first. She indicates to me that it’s alright, let the boy have some exercise. She persuades him after a while to change hands and leans in the opposite direction as if to uncurl her body.

We plod on at Joshua’s pace for a mile or so until his tiny legs begin to weary and he allows me to hoist him on my shoulders. The city’s ramparts still seem a long way off, but now we’re able to stride out and Mari’s colour has returned. Suddenly the river seems populated, there are boats stacked with timber and other merchandise going upstream. The river itself seems fuller and deeper here and there are boats of varying sizes moored on the opposite bank and a couple of boatyards where small vessels seem to be under construction. If only I had my tools, I think, that is work I could do.

We are now level with the southernmost rampart of the city and imposing it is. The walls are set back from the river which acts as a further defence for the townspeople and the shoreline between walls and river is crowded with industrial activity intermingled with the primitive dwelling tents of families huddled round smoking fires. The stench from all this human and animal presence hits us on the other side of the now widening river and the muddy banks are full of squatting children and adults defecating publicly without shame or seeming embarrassment. Mari looks at me and pulls a face and Joshua looks curiously at the hive of activity. As we round a wide bend in the river, a bridge comes into view and we assume that we are reaching the Roman highway at last, a point where we should have arrived before sunset last night had I stuck to the advice I’d been given.

We are now facing another test. Will we get past the sentries and customs officers at the gate? After all this way, will we be turned back? If so, what should we do? It hardly bears thinking about. And yet I can think of no strategy to help us on our way. Do we throw ourselves on the pity of the city’s guardians, telling them the truth about what we have been through? Will they reject us as ignorant refugees, one more set of homeless wastrels to clog up the obviously overcrowded city streets? They’ll see at once that they’ll have no chance of extracting any money from us either as a tax or bribe. But what other option have we? I can think of no other plausible story that could possibly convince anyone charged with restricting entry to the city. Should we try and slip through with a crowd of other travellers? How vigilant are they?

Before I’ve resolved anything in my mind, our track has turned into a stinking narrow thoroughfare surrounded by a maze of hovels, populated by outcasts, men with misshapen facial growths and stunted arms, and I recognise we’re passing through a leper colony. Filthy children are running naked in the mud beside the river, women peer at us behind veiled faces with blatant curiosity. If we are rejected at the gateway, will we be sentenced to reside in this den of outcast humanity? I look at the innocence of my young wife and shudder at the thought of a fate that could await her here. And Joshua? How could we ever return to our own country and expect Joshua to be accepted as the promised Messiah, if it were discovered that he had lived among such paupers?

I look at Mari and expect to see her hiding her face from such pathetic and obscene sights, but am astonished to see tears glistening in her eyes. I’ve been too wrapped up in my own thoughts to have noticed. What’s wrong? What have I missed?

“Mari, my dear, what’s the matter? Are you still feeling sick? Have we been going too fast
for you?”

At first she says nothing but just waves her arms in the direction of a gnarled old woman clinging to the skeletal body of a tiny child. Her eyes brim with tears once more.

“It’s awful! We’ve got nothing to give to these poor people. How could they live like this? Does no-one care for them?”

“Mari, they’ve contagious diseases. They can’t be allowed into a crowded city without causing an epidemic. It’s sad but there’s nothing we can do about it. It’s just like in our own towns, we have to exclude such diseased persons from our villages too.”

“I think that’s cruel too. But at least they’re given food and old clothes and our villages are clean, not like this dreadful place. It’s nothing but a slum of the worst kind.”

Trust Mari to be thinking of these poor creatures rather than our own predicament. I hurry her through the narrow muddy pathway aware that her signs of distress have been observed and that any moment we will become the object of importuning hands clammering for alms. We have nothing to give and I fear we shall be molested if they think they can get something from us. Despite our lack of possessions, even our remaining clothes will mark us as people of greater substance and they will not believe we have as little as them. Joshua has seen the children and he is struggling on my shoulder – he wants to get down and play with them. I suppose it is the natural reaction of a child who has not yet learned the barriers that we erect as we grow older, learning from our bitter experience. I hold him tight until our track widens and we find a few poor stalls selling bread and dates and some shabby clothes scattered alongside. Joshua sees the bread and he’s gesticulating that he wants some, but we can’t even afford a hunk of the cheapest loaf. I give the boy one of the dates I’ve picked earlier and hope it will satisfy him.

Our track finally becomes a wide open market space alongside the main highway with myriad stalls and beasts of burden everywhere – donkeys, camels, even a couple of horses. Joshua is excited now, his eyes opening wide in wonder at the frantic scene before him. I realise that we can watch here without it becoming obvious, there are too many people milling around for anyone to take any notice of us. It crosses my mind that perhaps we can enter the imposing city gateway in front of us in a crowd of other travellers, but as I watch I observe that the crowds are thinning out as they near the walls and officials there, protected by soldiers, are sorting out those who would enter into orderly queues. We watch for many minutes. Mari realises why we are waiting.

“What are we going to do now, Joseph? Do we join the crowd at the wall and hope they’ll let us through?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to see if I can discern the system the customs officials are using. It looks as though those with animals and merchandise are separated and queue to go through the main arch, but their progress is slow and I suspect they are having the value of their goods assessed. Other travellers are making their way through the side gates. Perhaps there is no hindrance for people without obvious taxable belongings or perhaps they are just residents of the city being allowed back in. I don’t know whether we should risk joining that group of people and trusting to good fortune.”

I am just wondering whether we should take the plunge, when a large caravan of traders arrives in the assembly area with their animals. They look like Jewish merchants to me and they stop to water their beasts and check over their baggage and secure some items which seem to have slipped. A couple of the men stop alongside us and look at us with some curiosity. They must recognise that we are Jews but they will puzzle why Mari is not veiled and why I seem to be missing my outer garment. Their curiosity ultimately gets the better of them, and one of the men speaks to me.

“You’re a Jew too? Is that your wife and son? Why is she not wearing a veil? It’s not right, you’ll risk being misunderstood here. Or is she your daughter?”

I try to explain our misfortune, including the theft of my wife’s symbols of marriage. The man then seems to warm to me and listens carefully while I tell him the outline of our travels although I say nothing about our reasons for leaving Bethlehem. He obviously assumes I’ve come here to try my luck in the hope of a better life for my family. He draws over a couple of his colleagues and speaks to them rapidly about our situation. I can catch the odd word – they are speaking in Greek – and gather that he is attempting to persuade the other merchants to absorb us into their party to get through the entry point to the city.

“Bring your wife and child over here. We’re prepared to say that you are members of our group to get you through the customs check-point. We’re on our way to Alexandria to the large Jewish community there. If asked, just say that you’re accompanying us to visit your relatives there.”

I thank him profusely and call Mari over and tell her what has been offered to us. She beams at the man and he smiles at her and the child, then says to me,

“Just as far as inside the city, then you’re on your own. There are Jews here. I strongly advise you to find them – I’ll point you in their direction once we’re through the gate. And I’ve asked one of the lads with us to find you an outer garment and a shawl for your wife to cover yourself to avoid any misunderstandings.”

I thank him again and say that I’ll give him the garments back as soon as we’re in the city as I have no money to pay for them. He indicates with a hand movement that that is of no consequence, they are only cheap cloth and we can keep them, but that is the limit to their assistance. We then mingle with the group and Mari accepts the pale blue simple cloth to cover her head with gratitude. The lad exchanges a few Aramaic words with her and chucks Joshua under the chin, then he’s back retying the sacks of cloth on a camel’s back talking to one of the merchants in Greek again, but far enough away for me to be unable to discern what he is saying.

We don’t quite know what to do, waiting with these strangers for our turn at the entry gate. Are they expecting us to tell them more about our reasons for coming here? Should we tell them the truth as we should be safe in another country? Then again, I guess Herod’s spies will be everywhere and I’m sure it’s not beyond the reach of that tyrant to have us illegally abducted or even killed here in Egypt if he’s that sure that we might be a threat to him. I therefore choose discretion, thinking the least said the better. I offer no conversation and the merchants soon cease their inquisitive looks at us and concentrate on sorting their goods out ready for the negotiations with the Pelusium officials.

We finally get through into the city in the early afternoon. One of the merchants, realising we have no food and no wherewithal to buy any, purchases some bread and grapes and gives them to Mari, who is feeding Joshua at the same time, just before we are beckoned forward by one of the soldiers at the gate. After all our fears and conjectures, the crossing proves easy and uneventful. There are prolonged negotiations of the value of the various rolls and bags of merchandise and the merchants are forced to open up some of the baggage for scrutiny. A sum of money is paid with much shaking of the head and grumbling by our benefactors, then the huge door is pushed open and our party galvanises itself and proceeds into the shadows of its walls and the narrow street that is filled by our animals and the crowding roadside vendors. We continue with the merchant group for a few leagues, then the merchant who befriended us calls me over and points to a narrow street on our left which is descending gently back towards the river.

“You’ll find a Jewish community down there. And if you go all the way to the river, you might find some casual employment – the docks are down there and when a ship is in there is frequent need of labour to load the grain for Rome and the Italian provinces. I wish you and your wife ‘good fortune’.”

I put my hand on Mari’s shoulder and we watched the camels, donkeys and their masters continue to the west. We could see the roadway widening and glimpse tall imposing buildings in the distance. But our destiny is here down this dirty little alleyway on the left. I wonder what lies in store for us. I gently lead Mari and Joshua down into the unknown….