Christ the Lord - Anne Rice [35]
“Our Temple is one of a thousand temples, my lord,” I said.
Again came that flash, seemingly of memory, buried memory of some great agitated moment, but it was no memory. “A thousand temples throughout the world,” I said, “and every day sacrifice is offered to a thousand gods from one end of the Empire to the other.”
He glared at me.
I went on,
“All around us this happens, in the land of Israel this happens. It happens in Tyre, in Sidon, in Ashkelon; it happens in Caesarea Philippi; it happens in Tiberias. And in Antioch and in Corinth and in Rome and in the woods of the great north and in the wilds of Britannia.” I took a slow breath. “Are we the light of the nations, my lord?” I demanded.
“What is all that to us!” he countered.
“What is all that? Egypt, Italy, Greece, Germania, Asia, what is all that? It's the world, my lord. That's what it is to us, it's the world to whom we are to be the light, we, our people!”
He was outraged. “What are you saying?”
“It's where I live, my lord,” I said. “Not in the Temple, but in the world. And in the world, I learn what the world is and what the world will teach, and I am of the world. The world's made of wood and stone and iron, and I work in it. No, not in the Temple. In the world. And I study Torah; and I pray with the assembly; and on the feasts I go to Jerusalem to stand before the Lord—in the Temple—but this is in the world, all this. In the world. And when it is time for me to do what the Lord has sent me to do in this world, this world which belongs to Him, this world of wood and stone and iron and grass and air, He will reveal it to me. And what this carpenter shall yet build in this world on that day, the Lord knows, and the Lord shall reveal it.”
He was speechless.
I took a step back from him. I turned and stared ahead of me. I saw the dust moving in the rays of the noon sunshine. Sparkling in lattices above bookshelves and bookshelves. I thought I saw images in the dust, things moving with purpose, things airy and immense yet guided and patient in their movement.
It seemed the room was filled with others, the beating of their hearts, but they were invisible hearts or not even hearts. Not hearts like my heart or his heart, of flesh and blood.
Leaves rattled at the windows and a cold draft crept across the shining floor. I felt removed and at the same time there, under his roof, standing before him, with my back to him, and I was drifting, yet anchored, and content to be so.
The anger washed out of me.
I turned and looked at him.
He was calm and wondering. He sat collected amid his robes. He sat peering at me as if from a great and safe distance.
When he spoke, it was a murmur.
“All these years,” he said, “as I've watched you on the road to Jerusalem, I've wondered, ‘What does he think? What does he know?’ ”
“Do you have an answer?”
“I have hope,” he whispered.
I thought about this, and then slowly I nodded.
“I'll write the letter this afternoon,” he said. “I have a student here to take the dictation for me. The letter will reach my cousins in Sepphoris this evening. They are widows. They're kind. They'll welcome her.”
I bowed and placed my fingers together to show my thanks and my respect. I started to go.
“Come back in three days,” he said. “I'll have an answer from them or from someone else. I'll have it in hand. And I'll go with you to see Shemayah on this matter. And if you see the girl herself, you will tell her that all her family—we are all asking after her.”
“Thank you, my lord,” I said.
I walked fast on the road to Sepphoris.
I wanted to be with my brothers, I wanted to be at work. I wanted to be laying stones one after another, and pouring the grout and smoothing the boards and hammering the nails. I wanted anything but to be with a man with a clever tongue.
But what had he said that my own brothers hadn't said in their own way, or that Jason hadn't said? Oh, he'd been full of privilege and riches and the arrogant power that he held to help Avigail.
But they were asking me the same questions. They were all saying