LITMIR.BIZ

      We found Mary sitting on a low wooden bench outside her house, surrounded by the girls from the village who were bubbling with expectation. The youngest of them nestled in their older sisters’ arms. Mary passed a bowl of mashed olives and bits of bread to share. She had tied her head scarf at the back of her neck, like a worker in the field. Under her belt she had tucked squares of old fabric that she used to wipe away the crumbs from the younger girls’ cheeks. They all went to her and pressed their tiny lips toward her. Anything to get her attention.

      Some of the mothers helped to prepare the girls for a story. They dressed the children up as characters, rubbing ash on the faces of those who would play the penitents. Their job, mothers reminded them, was to pray for victory before the battle.

      One of the older girls stepped forward and waited until everything was quiet. Then she glanced at Mary, who lifted her chin, just slightly, and nodded her approval. The girl announced the story, “Joshua at the battle of Jericho,” and began her narration.

      Some of the girls, the defenders of justice, stole into the midnight valley as Mary stretched a line of painted wooden stars above their heads. They marched around the city walls to frighten their enemy, the Cananites. Mary handed a ram’s horn to a pudgy girl with one wandering eye. The sudden blast from the horn made the audience lurch into nervous laughter.

      When the brave marched back home after their victory, the youngest girls, who had been crowding behind Mary, jumped up. Each one wore a straw wreath in her hair. Mary tapped a tambourine against her hand and led them in the victory dance. The girls imitated her, twirling and spinning as she did.

      When they were finished with their story, the more forward girls smiled confidently at the audience, while the shy types clung to Mary’s skirt. She bent down and kissed their hair, or whispered words of encouragement.

      I practiced my speech, waiting for her to come toward me. She finally did approach, but only after all the mothers and grandmothers had their fill of her attention.

      “Peace be upon you,” she said to me. She was inviting, as if she thought she knew me.

      I thanked her for her blessing, unsure of how to address her. I rarely spoke to people outside my own circle of acquaintances.

      “How did you like our story?” she asked.

      “I must have heard it when I was young.”

      “The Lord is always with us. Joshua’s victory reminds us of that.”

      Her confident voice soothed me. “Yes,” I said.

      I was about to explain my visit when an unusual shyness came over me. I stood looking at her tapered fingers, so like her son’s.

      “You are Joanna, Abijah’s daughter,” she said.

      “How did you know?”

      Her answer was far from what I expected.

      “Don’t you remember me?” she asked. “I am your cousin.”

      I can only imagine the expression on my face. Not certain whether to believe her, I tried to appear composed, but the sudden rumbling in my chest betrayed me. My face felt hot and moist. She recognized my illness but did not back away from me, as so many do. Instead, Mary took my arm and walked with me to the low wall that had been crowded with relatives and neighbors not long ago.

      “I will bring you something,” she said. When I was alone and waiting for her to return, a tickling in my throat worried me. I never knew what a coughing fit might bring. She came back quickly and held out a drink of herbs and honey. It quieted me at last.

      “I remember you as a little girl, in the square in Sepphoris,” she said. “I would see you there with your parents. Don’t you know me? I am the daughter of Joachim and Ann.”

      My father’s brother was Joachim. I was surprised that I recognized the name. I remembered that he had married my mother’s sister, Ann. I was very young at the time. Our families broke apart after that. My aunt and uncle kept the Hebrew ways and opposed the Romans, but my father and mother did not. They welcomed Caesar and the wider world he represented. Prosperity became their god.

      “You wore pretty woven sashes around your dresses,” I recalled. I hadn’t thought of my cousin’s colorful linen belts for years. “If we saw you in the market, my mother told me I was not to talk to you.”

      “I envied the way your father carried you in his arms,” Mary said. “You were his little treasure.”

      “And now you have grown children of your own,” I said, hoping to ease conversation toward the purpose of my visit.

      I didn’t know about my cousin’s life, only that she was married and her husband died. She raised children with him and called them all her sons and daughters.

      “I have seen your son, the healer,” I said.

      Her gaze moved slowly across my waxy complexion and slid over the coat that hung on my shoulders. “What have you heard about him?”

      “That he heals the sick by touching them.”

      “And so you have come here,” she said. Her voice dropped, just slightly. I sensed her caution.

      “Perhaps you could arrange for us to meet,” I suggested.

      “In private, you mean,” Mary said.

      It suddenly occurred to me that I was not the first to make this request of her.

      “My husband

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