Christ the Lord - Anne Rice [49]
I didn't want sleep. I feared sleep. I wanted peace, I wanted the day to come so I could walk, I wanted the rain to keep falling so that it would blot out every sound in this room, every spoken word. And why at all at this hour and after so much were they speaking?
I looked up. James stood glowering at me. Beside him stood Cleopas. My mother stood there trying to pull her brother away, and finally James let it out:
“And how are we to provide this bride with proper robes and veils and a canopy and all the attendants of which you so vehemently spoke, to marry such a man as the grandson of Hananel of Cana!” He rose off the balls of his feet in rage. “Tell me, what is it that lies behind your boast, you, who caused this disaster, this very disaster. How could you claim for her a raiment and preparations such as no one in this house could ever give to your sister!” There was a flood of words yet to come.
But I rose to my feet.
My uncle Cleopas spoke gently. “Why couldn't you have married her yourself, my son?” he asked pleadingly. “Who is it that asks this of you, that you don't marry?”
“Oh, he's too good for that,” declared James. “He would do Moses one better and not take a wife; he would do Elijah better and not take a wife. He would live as an Essene but not with the Essenes for he's too good for them. And had it been any other man in that grove with the girl, she'd be ruined. But all know you, no, you would never have touched her.”
He drew in his breath for another rush of words, but I stopped him.
“Before you make yourself positively ill with rage,” I said, “let me ask my mother—bring here, please now, the gifts that were given to me when I was born. Set them here before us.”
“My son, are you certain?”
“I am certain,” I said. I kept my eye on James.
He went to speak and I said:
“Wait.”
She went out directly.
James stood regarding me with cold contempt, ready at any moment to erupt. My brothers were now grouped about, behind him. My nephews stood watching, and into the room had come Aunt Esther and Mara. Shabi and Isaac and Menachim stood against the wall.
I looked unwaveringly at James.
“I am weary of you, my brother,” I said. “In my heart, I'm weary.”
He narrowed his eyes. He was astonished.
My mother came back. She held a chest which was heavy for her to hold, and Mara and Esther assisted her as she brought it forward and set it down on the floor in front of us.
Decades, it had been hidden away, this chest, ever since our return here from Egypt. James had seen this chest. James knew what it was, but my other brothers had never set eyes on it, as they were the sons of my uncle Cleopas, and they'd been born after me. None of the younger men had ever seen it. Perhaps the boys in the room had never even heard tell of it. Perhaps Mara and Little Mary didn't even know that it existed.
It was a Persian chest, plated in gold and exquisitely decorated with curling vines and pomegranates. Even the handles of the chest were gold. It shone in the light, brilliantly as the gold of Avigail's necklace had shone on her neck.
“It's never enough for you, is it, James!” I said. My voice was low. I struggled against my anger. “Not the angels