Two from Galilee by Marjorie Holmes Page A

Hear too your own blood beating like the flutter of their wings, as they wheeled off. Someone coughed, there was a stirring toward the back, and Mary's heart raced for it struck her as not inconceivable that Reb Levi might stalk forward to make public the indignation he had vented on Joachim. Half-smiling, the old gray leader waited a moment more before lifting his hands for the blessing.
    But even before it was pronounced, two figures moved into the aisle. Robes billowing, Cleophas and his father strode from the synagogue.
    Men surged forward to congratulate Joseph. The rude departure only added zest to their words, for they were mostly poor and it delighted them that a mere carpenter had bested the richest man in town. Upstairs the women crowded around Mary and Hannah, eager for details. But Hannah squirmed through, impatient to get home. She'd been unable to concentrate on the Scriptures for fretting about the food. Would there be enough to go around? After that little scene, no doubt the company would be considerable, and Hannah shrank with anxiety for the deficiencies of her little house.
    She had one terrible final pang at the image of those grandly departing backs. As if she were being forced to witness the literal withdrawal of some glittering fulfillment almost within her reach. But no—she set her sharp little teeth. She must cut the garment to fit the cloth. Joseph was all that her tormented pride had driven her to proclaim. Down in some dark locked cupboard of herself she had known it all along. . . . Oh, she was a vain and wretched woman, unworthy of this rare and exquisite daughter, this noble if humble youth who was to become her son. Let her be punished and shamed in the streets if ever again she muddied the vessel of their happiness.
     
    Cora, Deborah's mother, stood with the other sisters-in-law trying to protect the cheeses and fruits and cakes, spread out on tables in the yard. The flies were bad and the children almost worse. Both must continually be shooed away. Meanwhile all about, guardedly lest Hannah overhear, was the tentative buzz of tongues.
    "It's still hard to believe Joachim would not give in to Hannah—she dominates our brother in everything else."
    "Well, you know his weakness for Mary. A wonder she wasn't spoiled."
    "Not spoiled?" Cora gasped. "What about now? 'The eye that mocks a father and scorns to obey a mother—'" she began, but halted before the shocked reaction of the others that she should choose such a cruel proverb. For Mary was their niece and the family ties were strong. Cora was irked at herself for betraying the resentment that had smouldered within her for years.
    She was a massive, strong-jawed woman, who had borne seven children, five of them sons. As the eldest sister, she had tried to champion Hannah when the family first became saddled with that impudent waif from Bethlehem. She had made a great show of counseling and commiserating with her in her barrenness; yet she had felt fortified by her own fruitful loins, armed against Hannah's quicker mind and sometimes vitriolic tongue.
    It had galled her when Hannah finally conceived. Galled her further that her brother's wife had failed to be properly humble that the child was a girl. Mary's undeniable beauty had been a blow. Jealously examining her own daughters, Cora had found them wanting. Deborah had an agile catlike loveliness. Esther was pretty in a pudgy, dimpled way. But Mary's was the kind of beauty that people turned to gaze at on the street.
    Thus from the beginning Hannah was armed, a voluble little adversary with whom you could not compete. And Joachim was almost as bad. It was amazing that Mary wasn't ruined. Yet Mary only grew more radiantly appealing with the years. Cora was baffled and aggrieved.
    Outwardly unctuous, creamy with praise, even forcing her own daughters to yield to Mary when it came to toys or games, she bided her time. Often she used Mary as an example: "How soft-spoken your cousin is," she