34 The Father, the Son & the Slave
You know the Passion narrative. This is not that tale. This is the story of a father, his estranged son and the slave caught between them as they journey from Nazareth to Jerusalem. This is the final chapter.
T H I R T Y-F O U R
What else should he have expected of a slaver’s enterprise? The gate had thrown him off. Sturdy, banded with iron and in good repair, the gate was a blatant lie in regard to what lay beyond it. On another day, the fact it was closed at this point in the afternoon might well have given Josef pause. The gate would have stayed closed, too, had Marcus not used the full weight of his rank as a Roman Tribune.
It took some time though, before Josef, alone, squeezed through the narrow gap in the panels and into the stuff of nightmares. He had thought the Temple’s stench bad, but this was worse. Far worse. Here. also, was the reek of blood and shit, but these were overwhelmed by rot — it smelled as if the world itself was dying within these walls.
The slaver’s domicile and administrative rooms occupied the Northeast corner of the compound, because it was the highest ground. Every other length of wall hosted cages of various sizes. None were empty and the weight of despair haunting the faces that watched him brought tears to his eyes. He was grateful he did not see Metlip among them.
A low stage took up space in the middle of the yard, bordered at the far end by a row of thick posts. Chains hung at ankle, waist and neck levels, held in place by iron clamps. A limp body, naked and motionless, hugged one post awkwardly. The chain to his collar was too short to let him lie prone.
“I am disappointed in my purchase,” said the one-eared Aegyptian, Hammaret.
“How can that be?” Josef answered. “He speaks more tongues than you.”
“Very true. He is also an excellent ledger clerk. He will be First Slave. Eventually. Yet he lacks some basic skills and must learn them.”
“He lacks nothing.”
“No?” The slaver slowly swung his club in a circle, taking in every cage. “Every one of these possesses what yours does not.” As he talked, the scarred merchant moved, his steps slow and even. “You owned that boy for all this time and you never trained him?”
As they passed the low stage, Josef’s attention was drawn to flies dancing in fresh blood streaks on the surface. He jerked his gaze back to Hammaret. “He knows everything I know,” he said.
“Indeed, everything you know, but nothing a slave must know.” They had reached the line of posts but Josef had his back to them. Hammaret pointed with his club. “But he will learn, like all the rest.”
Josef turned, his gaze falling where the slaver pointed. He saw the figure was Nubian and male, the visible portion of his face puffy and swollen. Anger blossomed within him and he turned to loose his temper at the Aegyptian when his eyes fastened on the slave’s collar. It was not the common iron band but leather.
“Metlip!” he cried. Josef dropped to a crouch next to his son, weeping freely. “What have you done?” He shook the Nubian without result. “Metlip. Metlip!”
“What value is a disobedient slave?” asked the Aegyptian.
“What manner of man treats another so?”
Hammaret shrugged. “A man with reason to.”
“There was no reason for this. You are the beast, not those you cage.”
“I disagree. I know my business. He sleeps now, but I broke nothing in him except his defiance.”
“This boy — this man — has always been obedient, and respectful, and honest.”
“Surely he is all of these things,” Hammaret agreed. “But he refused to inflict punishment on other slaves and so I punished him. I have taught him submissiveness.”
Josef let out a low laugh. “You taught him nothing. Do you think that the strength of your arm can kill his spirit? You will die first.”
“Then perhaps I will kill him now and save the effort.”
“Let me buy him back.”
Hammaret stared at Josef, then shrugged. “This time I will have profit enough for both bargains, this one and the first.”
“Of course.” He pulled the slaver’s payment for Metlip from his belt and added the bag of Roman denarii he received from Marcus.
“Take him,” the Aegyptian said, and turned away.
The palanquin bearers loaded Metlip into the chair quickly but carefully. None looked at the surrounding cages as they laboured, and they kept their gazes lowered as they eased through the gate and into the street. Marcus road ahead, barking orders for people make way. He shouted in Latin, but even those who didn’t speak the Roman tongue understood what he wanted.
Josef walked alongside the chair holding the curtain open, watching Metlip sleep and thinking of the future. He understood why Iesu had to do what he did, and whenever tears threatened, he thought of his son’s last smile.
In Solomon’s palace, the Nubian slept in a bed no smaller than any other, though his chamber was at the rear and smelled of the kitchen. Two of Sol’s servants bathed and cleaned his injuries, while another produced a tray with wine, water and pomegranate juice. Josef hovered, and while he lacked any useful skills in healing, he was loath to have Metlip find himself alone when he woke.
When the idea came to him, he wasted no time. He called for a servant and a tall, thin youth who made Josef think of Judas understood immediately what was needed. He returned a short while later with a thin-bladed knife and shears that appeared capable of cutting through bone. Josef tried the knife first, but its progress was slow, and so he took hold of the shears. These were more clumsy than the blade and had two sharp points rather than one. The servant held steady, but he was decidedly worried he would wake up less a finger or two tomorrow.
Neither did it help to have Metlip’s eyes open and find two figures leaning over him, one tugging at his collar while the other worked cold metal by his neck. But then the collar separated and fell away. The Nubian’s hand, from habit, sought the cold iron ring that had, through his life, reminded him of his status even as it comforted him. It was not there. His face immediately registered alarm. Josef placed his hand on the African’s chest.
“Peace, my son,” Josef said. “You wake to a new world.”
Metlip licked his lips and tried to speak, but could not. Josef poured a cup of juice from a glazed pitcher decorated with colourful, dangerous-looking monsters. The Nubian took several swallows before he was able to utter a single word. “Iesu?”
Josef could only shake his head. “Iesu refused to buy his life with yours. But your sacrifice reminded him of his.”
“You do not resent me, Master?”
Lifting the ruined collar, Josef said, “No, my son, ‘Master’ no more. You are a free man and I am your father.” He paused to take a steadying breath. “Iesu acknowledged how once more you revealed what he was meant to do. Sometimes I wonder if the Father Above sent you — “
“Father Above? Did he baptize you? Where?”
“In his cell. And Marcus, too, though that must be kept secret.”
A river of tears burst across his cheeks to soak his pillows, and Metlip struggled to speak his next words plainly. “Thank you, Father.”
“No, Metlip, thank you. You are as much a part of my family as any other. You have always been my son, but I was too foolish to see. Forgive me.”
“There is nothing to forgive, Mas — , Father.” A wide smile stretched across his face then, his white teeth bright against his skin like a waxing moon in the night. How long had he wished he could say that word? His tears ran again.
Metlip flexed his limbs one at a time, gauging his injuries. He hurt in many places but nothing was broken.
“That’s what Hammaret said,” Josef chuckled. “‘I know my business. I broke nothing but his defiance’.”
“He could never,” Metlip answered. “I learned well from my brother.”
They sat in silence for a time, each in his thoughts, but then Metlip asked, “Why am I free, Father?”
“Because your sacrifice opened my eyes to what my fears hid from me. You are my family. And, if you are to become my partner, you cannot be a slave.”
Metlip began to weep again, but now Josef sensed a shift in the texture of his tears. These were not tears that washed away tension or accompanied relief. These were tears of sadness. Of loss. And all the fragments of memory and scraps of insight that eluded him previously now seemed to come together of their own accord into a web of connections. The centre of the construct was loss, and the nature of that loss was love. There was no maiden in Nazareth, so she had to have been in the caravan. And whoever she was, she stayed with the caravan when it split. An image of a maiden standing behind men grouped with purpose, hidden behind a mountain of blood red robes. Methelas. And his slave, the pale, silver-haired girl who looked at no one other than Metlip.
Josef rested his hand on his son’s arm. “All will be well. Have faith. Your mother is not returned, nor Maryam who was with her. I must make an errand, but I will not be long. Is there anything I might bring you?”
“No, Father. Thank you.”
“Rest, then, son. You have earned it.”
Standing next to the bed watching his son fall asleep, Josef felt a weight lifted, and with it a release of energy.
Marcus sat with Solomon in the garden tent, drinking a Salvo family vintage and comparing notes on which parts of the world each had seen, wished to see and swore to avoid.
The Roman saw Josef and stood, arms spread in invitation. Josef returned the embrace with equal zeal, though only for a moment. “Come, beloved,” Josef said.
“How is Metlip?” Solomon asked.
“He is hurt but not damaged. I gave him his freedom, declared him my partner, and — ,” Josef paused to clear his throat. “And I recognized him as my son.”
Solomon scowled. “Now there is no chance you will leave him with me.” And then he laughed.
“Sol,” said Josef, “where does the Sadducee Balthast reside?”
“Balthast?” Sol exclaimed. “Do not let him touch you, or you risk losing whatever he grasps. He lives three streets away, behind gates carved with naked babes. Hideous.”
Turning to leave, Josef waved at Marcus to follow. “Where to now, dear Josef?”
“To sell my wagon,” the carpenter replied, “and purchase a woman.”
“You do that on purpose, I know. You explain to confuse.”
“First the wagon, and I will share what I know on the way.”
Nali was well practised at standing motionless, her features reflecting submissiveness. Inside, she was dancing. The two men who delivered the strange wagon seemed neither cruel nor threatening — at least not yet, but that in itself was a good sign. She could always tell those who would force her, hurt her, humiliate her. These men had none of that about them. They struck her as being very familiar, even though one was Roman and the other Hebrew.
Part of her was still not convinced they had come for her. Yes, they admired her alabaster skin, and the Roman had gently run his fingers through her hair, but they had not even wanted to see her naked.
The bargain was complete before she realized, and she made sure not to look at her former master as she fell in line behind her new owners. She wasn’t even sure, at first, which one had purchased her, but then recalled a legionnaire could not own a slave.
The Hebrew had to be her master. “Do you speak Latin?” he asked her.
“Yes, Master.”
“Any other tongues?”
“My home tongue,” she answered. “A little Greek.” A little Greek. Only what she needed to know to assure the men who used her that they were sexual gods. And, of course, the many ways to thank them later. She looked about herself eagerly as she kept two paces behind the men. This was the first time she had walked the streets of Jerusalem and the setting sun bathed the pale yellow stone with a soft gold patina. The gates of the estate where they stopped were bigger and more stoutly built than Balthast’s, the wall taller.
An iron latch slid open with a crack, and just as quickly shut. What happened next left her frozen with fear. Her escorts stood aside to let her enter. It had to be a trick, or a test. The punishment for refusing could not be any worse than failing, so she didn’t move.
Then the Hebrew gestured. “Please,” he said. Please? “You are welcome here, Nali. No one will hurt you.” Others had said the same thing and lied, but since Metlip had been taken from her, she no longer cared about her fate.
Her new owner ushered her up the front steps of the palace as if she were a queen, or a noble woman. A young boy, wearing less clothing than she, bowed to her. So this is how I die, she thought.
“Has my wife returned?” the Hebrew asked the servant, who nodded and gestured at the stairs to the upper floor. Nali climbed the stairs because no one had ordered otherwise. She entered the chamber because they did. An older woman sat on the edge of a bed that Odin himself might rest in. She saw there was someone in the bed, but they were hidden by the woman and now the Hebrew. Then the woman released a wail and stood abruptly, wrapping her arms around her husband.
“Oh, Josef!” she cried. “Our son is dead.”
Nali thought she was referring to the person in bed, but then a leg moved, and a voice she never thought to hear again, said, “I tried to save him, Mother.”
Nali was very well practised at standing motionless, but now her self-discipline failed her. She rushed to the bed. “Metlip?”
Maryam lay curled in the corner of the massive bed in her large chamber and wept, though she knew not why because she could not think. Her thoughts fused with her fears, her sorrow washed away her intent, until she believed she could no longer even trust her senses.
She did not know it when she sat up, nor when she opened the door and stepped out. She paid little attention to the familiar passages as she drifted through them and, outside, the gathering darkness seemed irrelevant. One word echoed through the hollow of her heart, tumbled along the empty halls of her mind — a name. Iesu.
Iesu. She needed to tell him something. Some part of her knew where he might be found, but other parts of her conspired to keep it secret. She was unaware she stood in Solomon’s garden as she sought the last moment that made sense. She recalled her wedding and the joy she felt — not just her love for Iesu, but for the redemption she never thought to gain. But then a shadow swept through her memories, known but nameless, and she recalled the weapon she was sure would banish it. The child. Her child. Their child. If he knew, it would change everything. Iesu. If only she could remember where he was.
Josef found her, arms cradling her belly as her eyes searched the shadows, whispering Iesu’s name over and over. When he laid his hand on her arm and said her name, she looked at him. “Iesu?” When she saw it wasn’t him, she fainted. Josef caught her as she swooned. He summoned a servant and requested a way to carry her back to her bed, and then he sat with her through the night.
He leaned against a wall, dozing, when a chill woke him He opened his eyes to find her watching him. It was still dark, but he had kept a lamp burning to allay her fear.
“It did not have to be this way,” she said. “If I had trusted your wife’s counsel over my fear and had just told him — ” She covered her face with her hands and loosed her sorrow in a ragged keen punctuated by gulping breaths and shudders that reached her toes.
Josef waited. When her tears subsided, he told her, calmly, “If there is blame to own, then it is mine.”
Her eyes widened. “How is the fault for keeping him ignorant of his fatherhood yours?”
“Not his fatherhood, his fate. I stood by and let him choose it.”
“Why?”
Josef sighed. “Iesu had to do what he did. It was the final test of his faith in the Father Above. His self-sacrifice will forever stand as a testament to the truth of his teaching, the eternal light that awaits all who embrace his message.”
Maryam sat up, as if in challenge. “Why did he not tell me?”
“What good would it have done?” Josef answered, his tone soothing. “It would not have altered the outcome, only ruined what time remained for you to share.”
Unconsciously, her hand moved to her stomach. “What will I do now?”
“How do you mean?” he asked.
“Where do I go?” she replied, shaking her head as if to dislodge the answer.
Josef reached for her hand. “You are my daughter. You will come with us. You and your child are my family.”
Maryam’s tears ran again, but softly.
Josef added his other hand, pressing hers between his. “If it is a boy, perhaps he will become a carpenter.”
“And if the child is female?”
“She will still likely be a better carpenter than her father.”
Silhouetted against the dying sun, the lone torture frame seemed lost and lacking purpose. It was well made, with wide, strong arms, and yet it listed slightly as if tired. Or injured. Below where the two beams were notched and crossed was a knot with a discoloured tail, as if the frame suffered a terminal bleeding wound.
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