Eden (4 page)

Sheba gave Noah more pups.

And for a time the family dwelled in that house of peace …

DURING

Ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you. Which of these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind
.

Job 12:7–10

Nazareth

Some years and many lambs later, Noah and Sheba, the dogs of the stable and of the riverbank, were long in heaven. But their offspring survived to run the streets and houses of the carpenter's village, letting no one pass unknown. The village dogs all came out to greet passing strangers, especially the Roman cavalry, barking at the horses' hooves and the marching cohorts who filled the air with clouds of dust.

The great horses looked down their long noses and warned the dogs in no uncertain terms, “We're bigger, you're smaller. Now keep out of the way.”

And the village dogs knew better than to nip the hocks of the great warhorses, but still dashed up and down the line as the Romans tramped through the streets of Nazareth. After all, the dogs knew their business—

“No water here! No water!” they barked over and over. Warhorses had memories longer than their noses so they always remembered the yapping hounds of this village. The big animals whinnied to one another as they passed, “No reason to stop. No water here …” And for years it went on like this, the column of men and horses marching along, the dogs coming out to bark, until the endless stamp of feet and hooves passed the last stone house, the dust settled and the troops wound into the hills.

All village dogs bark, and the dogs of this village were no exception.

Every dog but one: the dog of the carpenter's shop.

The dog called Eden.

Eden's first memory was not her mother's warm belly in the straw, but the hand of the young man upon her head, smelling of sawdust, apricots, cinnamon and fresh hay in a manger. From that first scent Eden always knew whether the young man was close by or beyond the town gate. No distance seemed beyond her reach when it came to his scent.

Sensing him on the barest breeze, knowing where he'd walked and how long he'd tarried by the hem of his sleeve or the sandals on his feet.
Ah yes, by the date trees … and then talking to a caravan of grain merchants, oxen carts, the cattle dung, the sweat and the sound of a whip
. He had bid the merchants not to beat their animals so—but the hard men ignored him, the echo of their laughter still clung to his robes.

Perhaps that's why Eden didn't chase wildly up and down the narrow dusty street with all the other dogs. She knew where her master was … so why run about? Instead, she lay under the shop awning out of the noonday heat. Quietly she contemplated those who passed her front door, as sparrows fluttered in the street. The name Eden seemed to fit her as she stared out at the world, her peaceful eyes reflecting that pleasant place everyone knew from ancient legend, but none had ever seen.

She was not a large dog, but not a small one either, and perhaps the most ordinary of the village with her silvery fur and black inquisitive nose. One ear stood up at attention while the other folded down, so it always looked like she was listening. And when both ears stood up straight, Eden became as keen as any hunting hound that ran down rabbits for a living.

The dog, stretched on out her mat, watched humanity passing before her paws on a thousand errands. Gazing from every point of view: straight on, sideways or even laying on her back, all four feet in the air—the world appearing upside down, as though people walked standing on their heads.

But that did not change the scents of coming and going, one from the Tanner's shed, two from the Oil Seller's row of jars, three from the Carders heavy with the aroma of wool wax as they lugged large roles of yarn to the dyers.

As the afternoon shadows crawled up the plaster walls and the passersby dwindled to a few foot pads, Eden rose to make her rounds of the village, poking her nose into every doorway, looking in on every family and shop. She would pause to listen to the women gossip at the village well where she learned all there was to learn:
Ah, the barber's wife left him, gone back to her sister's again. And did you see that young hussy, that Rachel making eyes at the olive merchant's son and every other man in the street? The rabbi will have something to say about that—

Finally her rounds ended at the racks of dried-fish sellers on the edge of town, where she watched the weary men herd their flocks home from the fields and orchards. The sheep in their pens mostly talked among themselves, while the shepherds' mongrels were too busy overseeing them to pay her much mind. The shepherds' dogs dismissing her: “
Village dog
,” they snuffed. “Lays around licking her paws all day.”

Ah, what did those mutts know? All they did was talk to sheep.

On cool evenings families gathered on their flat roofs sharing food and chatting with their neighbors. The square houses were so close, many ran planks and bridges between the roofs so people could cross without having to go down into the stifling dusty streets. The carpenter's family had built many of these plank bridges between the houses and was often called upon to repair the boards as they loosened and spread.

When the sun set, the village children delighted in running like wild things from house to house along the gangways. And the mothers were forever shouting at them to “slow down, be careful, don't run!” as they bounded from roof to roof. At that time of day Eden came alive, barking at the children,
Don't run! Listen to your mothers! Don't run!

But children never listen, so Eden followed, nipping at their heels to keep them on the straight and narrow planks. And the children chirruped and laughed but never fell.

In the spring when all the men tilled the fields Eden left her place under the shop's awning and followed the young carpenter and his father into the fields. There she oversaw the work of the seasons as the men sowed the rows and the flocks wandered in search of early grass … at dusk, finally leading the young master and his father home for the family meal.

At harvest time she helped the men glean and gather the sheaves. During the rainy winter months, Eden sat on her hind legs on the shop's stone doorstep as the street turned to mud.

From the very first, Eden had always understood her master was not like the other men of the village. For unlike the village dogs she always slept in the house instead of with the other animals in a shed or in the street. Her bed was a warm, dry pile of shavings in a corner of the shop, and Eden always had food to eat, for her family shared alike. A clay bowl of water sat by the door—the first vessel in the house to be filled from the village well each day.

From her own safe corner of the shop she watched the young master year in and year out, working his trade. The carpenter's son patiently measured and cut, sanded and planed, fitting piece by piece as he slowly grew from youth to manhood and Eden grew with him. From young pup to wise old dog.… Some winter days her young man left his father's shop to wander alone and Eden followed, walking the hills and pastures under cloudy winds, never more than three steps behind or three ahead. Those times she slept when he slept, woke when he woke, sheltered in the same cloak throughout the night. They drank from the same rocky stream filled with winter's water and ate those same apricots she smelled on his hands when she had first opened her eyes to life.

On one such wander, they came upon a merchant and his camel. The poor beast knelt in the middle of the empty road, refusing to rise, burdened with bales of straw and baskets of goods too heavy even for its strong back. The merchant tugged at the camel's halter, begged and urged it to rise, but the beast refused to budge. The camel's reluctance only infuriated the merchant more, and as Eden and her master came upon them the man raised his whip to strike.

“Help me,” the camel said weakly to Eden. “I am old and this straw is too heavy.”

When the merchant saw Eden and her master, he fell silent and lowered his crop. The dog watched her master approach the camel. Without speaking he took a rolled carpet from the camel's back and put it aside. The merchant, suddenly afraid, said nothing.

“Does that help?” Eden asked.

“Yes,” the camel replied. “But not enough.”

Indeed, the rolled carpet was not the only thing her master took from the weary camel. He removed also and set aside a basket of eggs and long bolts of leather. His eyes held the merchant fast; as if to say,
these I shall carry, if you do the same
.

Then waited for the merchant's reply.

The merchantman, now more ashamed than ever, stared at his short crop, as if to wonder,
what are you?
Yet as Eden's master steadfastly gazed, the crop seemed to burn the merchant's hand and he dropped it on the ground. He reached across his camel's back and removed two sacks of grain held together with loops of rope. The loops went over the merchant's head and rested on his shoulders so that he now wore sacks of grain front and back. He looked to his camel, hoping this would be enough.

“Does that help?” Eden asked again.

And the camel replied, “Yes. But not enough.”

And this Eden's master seemed to understand. Lastly he removed a dozen strings of dried figs from the camel's back. The figs were strung together with cords. Eden brushed up against his legs and her master laid the strings of figs across her back. The dried fruit was not heavy and Eden wondered what little difference it would make, surely not enough.

And so she asked the camel, “Is
this
enough?”

But the camel did not reply.

Clumsily her master lifted the rug to his own shoulders, then took the basket of eggs in one hand and the long bolts of leather in the other. They were ready to go. Yet the camel did not rise. The merchant stared at his beast still burdened with bales of hay. There were four bales, two on either side. At last he sighed … then removed half the burden, putting two of the four bales by the wayside.

“Perhaps we shall return for them,” he said to no one. “Perhaps not …”

And Eden saw the camel's eyes had brightened. It struggled to its knees.

“Yes, it is enough.”

The Essene

But more often than not those cool winter days found Eden outside the bare one-room temple where the village prayed. The old teacher with his white goat-like beard taught the young men in that single, dark room what he knew of scrolls and history, bleating in a high, dry voice the story of the known world and the ways of the Almighty's mind:

“I said in mine heart concerning sons of men that they might see that they themselves are beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all
is
vanity.”