The Bronze Bow - Elizabeth George Speare [59]
"What did he say to them today?" she would ask. And Daniel would do his best to remember. He would try to call back the lakeside and hear the lap of the water and the shouts of the workmen and even the breathing of the men and women packed close around him. He could hear their stillness, and that deep, steady voice. Sometimes he could remember almost word for word, because Jesus had left an unforgettable picture in his mind.
"He told us a story about a traveler who fell among thieves who beat him and left him half dead beside the road. And a priest and a Levite came by and saw him and passed by on the other side, but a cursed Samaritan stopped and bound up his wounds and took care of him. I wish the story had been about a Jew instead. If Jesus means that Jews and Samaritans should treat each other like neighbors, that is foolish. It could never happen."
Often the words themselves eluded him, and only the memory of the voice struck troubled echoes deep within him. It was true, he did like best to go in the morning, not only because he loved the lake at dawn and the bustle of work beginning, and the walk back through the fields fresh-washed from the night dew, but also because then, in the clear bright sunlight, nothing seemed impossible. He could truly believe that the kingdom of God was coming nearer, and he could almost hear the sound of trumpets in the distant hills.
When he went to the city in the evening, everything seemed different, and he was not so sure. A sadness seemed to hang over the world. At night people came flocking to the home of Simon the fisherman, where Jesus lived in a booth on the rooftop. There the workers would gather, weary from a day of hard labor at the forge or the wharves or the vineyards. They would crowd into the small room, spilling out and filling the narrow yard, sprawling on the trampled earth, so close-packed that one could scarcely find a way between the bodies. It was at night that the hungry, who had not eaten all day, came to be fed, and the down-and-out and worthless. It was at night that they brought their kinfolk on litters. The air was thick with the day's heat and the stench of bodies and the smell of fever. The eyes of the ill and lame, which looked up with hope in the new morning, were glazed at night with a long day's suffering Daniel was disgusted at the way they jostled each other and tore at the food and snatched bread from the helpless, and at the way no one bothered when some Door creature who could only crawl on hands and knees was passed over or even trodden on.
At night Jesus too looked weary. His brilliant flashing eyes were dark with pity. Yet he never turned away, never refused to speak to them. While he talked, they all forgot for a while. You could see their faces, turned upward to the light that streamed from the open door. And you could see that his words touched their minds and hearts like some healing ointment, and that the scars on their spirits that came from being beaten and kicked and turned away all day long, lost their smart and for a short time did not matter. Often a man's body was healed, and he leaped up, full of new strength; and then a new hope coursed through them all.
But as Daniel went home, with the black heat pressing him down, all the misery he had seen dragged at him, clinging like burs to his spirit, and he did not hear any distant trumpets. On these nights it was difficult to find anything to tell Leah. When he lay down and tried to sleep, the same question went on and on in his mind. When—when? How long must the world go on like this?
There was one story he almost wished he had not told Leah, because she asked for it over and over again.
"Tell me about the little girl who was sick," she would beg. Daniel would repeat the words that he had said so often that they were like a lesson memorized in school.
"Jesus went to her house and—"
"No, begin at the beginning," she