Christ the Lord - Anne Rice [8]
“We wish you a safe journey,” said Joseph, “and now you must tell me if you need anything for the journey. My sons and I will get whatever you need.”
“Wait,” said Yitra's mother. She went to a chest that lay on the floor, and undid the fastenings. Out of it she took a folded garment, what might have been a wool mantle.
“This,” she said, as she gave it to me. “This is for Silent Hannah.”
Silent Hannah was the Orphan's sister.
“You will take care of her, won't you?” the woman asked.
Joseph was amazed.
“My child, my poor child,” he said. “So kind of you to think of Silent Hannah at a time such as this. Of course, we'll take care of her. We'll always take care of her.”
5
WHEN WE CAME INTO THE HOUSE, we saw Silent Hannah there at once with Avigail.
Now wherever Avigail went, Silent Hannah went, and wherever the two went, there was always a gathering of children. James' sons, Isaac and Shabi, my other nephews and nieces, there was always such a crowd around Avigail and Silent Hannah. It was Avigail who drew the children, often singing to them, teaching them old songs, how to read bits of Scripture, even now and then rhymes that she made up in her head, and letting the little girls help her with her twine and her needles, and all the bits and pieces of mending she usually had in her basket. Silent Hannah, who did not hear or speak, lived with Avigail most of the time, though now and then, if Avigail's father was very sick, with his bad leg, Silent Hannah might lodge with us, with my aunts and my mother.
But now, as we came in, only the women were there with Avigail and Silent Hannah. All the children had been sent away, it was plain, and Silent Hannah stood up at once for news and looked imploringly to Joseph.
Avigail stood ready to support her. Avigail's eyes were red from crying, and she looked not at all like our Avigail, suddenly, but rather more like a woman in the mold of Yitra's mother. The sorrow of all this had transfigured her face, and she kept her gaze fixed on Silent Hannah and waited.
Now Silent Hannah had fluid and eloquent gestures for everything, and we all knew them. It had been several years since she and the Orphan had come to Nazareth as vagabonds do, and she'd lived with us since that time, and the Orphan had lived in many places. But we all knew her language of signs and I thought her hands as beautiful sometimes as Jason's hands.
No one knew how old she was. She might have been fifteen or sixteen. The Orphan had been younger.
Now, she stood before Joseph and very suddenly she broke into the gestures that signified her brother. Where was her brother? What had happened to her brother? No one would tell her. Her eyes swept the room, swept the faces of the women against the walls. What happened to her brother?
Joseph started to answer her. He started but once again the tears came to his eyes, and his pale hands hung in the air, unable to describe the shapes he saw or wanted to see.
James was worried. Cleopas started with words. He didn't know the signs very well. He never had.
Avigail could say and do nothing.
Finally I turned Silent Hannah to me. I made the gesture for her brother, and pointed to my lips, which I knew she could now and then read. I pointed upwards and made the sign for prayer. I talked slowly as I made the various signs.
“The Lord watches over your brother now, and your brother is sleeping. Your brother is asleep in the earth now. You will not see him again.” I pointed to her eyes. I leaned forward and pointed then to my own eyes and to Joseph's eyes, and the tears on his face. I shook my head. “Your brother is with the Lord now,” I said. I kissed my fingers and gestured again upward.
Silent Hannah's face crumpled and she pulled away from me violently.
Avigail took firm hold of her.
“Your brother will rise on the last day,” Avigail said, and she looked upward, and then, letting