The Last Supper: And Other Stories (20 page)

And as a matter of fact, all of these people of so many trades and ages were remarkably alike, in a community of skinniness, hunger and thirst, as if none of them had eaten or drunk to his belly's desire in as long as he could remember. And the wine merchant cursed the fact that of these people, for one who bought wine, there were twenty who bought water, and yet they crowded close to the wine jugs, sniffing and licking their lips, and at the same time making such a dirty, high-smelling knot of humanity that good customers with hard money could hardly be expected to break through to his wares.

And there were good customers, for on the road were not only those who worked with their hands and endured the heat of the noonday sun, but stout merchants in covered litters, and priests in long white robes, whose full beards lay comfortably on round, fat stomachs, jogging along on curried and scented donkeys. There were rich landlords, affluent regional wardens, painted kept women, dancing girls who sold their charms at top prices and who lay comfortably among silken cushions on their litters, tax collectors, slave dealers—a full representation of the best, the most upright and the most vigorous souls in any community.

They were the ones who took the most authoritative position in the discussion that went on all day in front of the wine stall. Even though they too were uncomfortable traveling in a land that had none of the simple necessities a man requires when traveling, they could understand the need for all this moving back and forth. Being men of property, they could understand that people were also a form of property, and a very valuable property indeed, and what is the use of a man having property if he can't estimate it and know where it is and know what income it will bring?

A heavy-shouldered blacksmith said that it seemed to him that he, brought the same income wherever he was, because wherever he was he ended up each week with just enough to keep from starving, and the, rest went for taxes, and how was he going to increase that by showing up at the place where he was born and hadn't been for twenty years?

That was it exactly, a merchant explained; a man who never had any property could hardly understand the tremendous complexity and responsibility of the, administration of property, and that was hard to answer because most of the listeners were carrying all their property on their backs; but a shepherd said he thought he knew about the administration of property, since he had a small flock of sheep and had to follow them around picking up their droppings, since everything else they produced went to the government. Most of the people there took this so matter of factly that it did not even produce a ripple of laughter, though a priest growled that this kind of talk did more harm to the
true faith
than out and out godlessness.

“Trade is the life of the people,” a tax-collector said, ignoring a peasant's remark that he would rather have a little bread now and then. “Look at me,” the tax collector said. “For twelve years I've collected taxes in the north. Now I'm bound for the south, where I was born, to collect the taxes there, while a man from the south goes up to the north and collects taxes there. It is not only proper, it is logical. I must be counted where I was born, regardless of where I am afterward—and if I am not counted, how can there, be a check on the taxes—which are unquestionably the life blood of the people?”

An olive-picker asked whether trade wasn't the life blood of the people?

“Both—both, and as we move, trade flourishes. The country is shaken up and it is alive again. And we in the government finally have accurate facts at our fingertips, how many people, how much wealth, how much revenue.…”

While this discussion was going on, two more travelers had reached the edge of the group around the wine stand. These were a man and a woman, and the man walked while the woman rode a small, undernourished donkey. In some ways, they were a striking pair, for the man was very tall, with a great black beard falling over his chest, and the woman was very lovely, dust-stained as she was and so heavy with child that surely it was almost the moment of birth. She carried her head bent over, her mouth tight with pain, except when her husband spoke to her, and then she looked up at him and forced the pain-drawn mouth to smile her love and concern for him. At that moment, she seemed to be saying to the whole world, “Look at this man of mine, and how tall and strong and handsome he is!” But he was tired too, and lean, with the bones of his face protruding, and he seemed to be weighed down by the hammer and adz and bag of nails that hung at his waist.

He looked anxiously at her, and asked her how she was. There was an olive tree nearby, and he thought it would be good for her if she sat in the shade for a little while and rested. Was she in pain now? She had pain before, but she said that it had stopped. In any case, he pointed out, they would be at the inn by nightfall, and she acknowledged that it was because of her that they had to move so slowly, and thereby the, journey was so drawn out and uncomfortable.

There were a dozen people in the shade of the olive tree, but when they saw how heavy with child she was, they made room for her, and some of them spoke of the blessing of birth, and others said what a filthy shame it was that a woman in her condition should be dragged half across a land to satisfy an emperor's insanity and greed. This started a political discussion, and immediately the dozen people took sides. The big bearded man, however, made his wife comfortable and then asked her whether she wouldn't like a glass of wine, which would be good for her stomach and ease the pain if the pain returned.

“Wine is expensive,” she protested.

“We'll see about that,” and then he went down to the crowd around the wine stand, moving with his slow, heavy steps, searching meanwhile in his pouch, until four tiny silver coins lay on his broad, callused palm. He was not an aggressive man, and he worked his way through the crowd gently and apologetically, until he was close enough to ask the price of a cup of wine. When he was told, his face fell, and he stared at the four little coins in his palm helplessly and hopelessly.

“Either buy or move back,” the shopkeeper said. “Don't you see that customers are waiting, and with a brute your size in the way, no one can get near the stand.”

The big man explained that he was a carpenter—a good carpenter, he said almost apologetically. A good workman, with his own tools and his own nails. Wasn't there some work he could do in return for a cup of wine? The whole shed was leaning. He could set it right, and make it strong enough to stand the next twelve months.

“All day long, I've had offers like that,” the shopkeeper complained. “This is a land cursed with carpenters and bricklayers, and they're all as rag-tag as you are. Either buy or get out of here.”

He bought a cup of water and brought it back to his wife, and when she tried to make him drink some of it, he lied and said he had a cup back at the wine-stand. She drank the water and ate a piece of dry bread from a pouch on the donkey, and she savored every drop of it. “Water is so good,” she told him, and he said that one of the reasons he loved her so was the pleasure she took in simple things that people should have as a matter of course, if the land wasn't so cursed with leeches and bloodsuckers, squeezing the last ounce of life out of it.

“And do you mean,” she smiled, “that I should not take pleasure from my baby?”

“It will be a strong, healthy baby, and why not?” But one of the others under the olive tree remarked that the way it was with working people these days, maybe a baby was luckier not to be born …

When he helped her back onto the donkey, for them to continue on their way, she winced with pain. Was it the pains, he asked anxiously—the pains that meant the child was beginning to come. She answered that she thought not, but the truth of it was that she couldn't be sure. It seemed to her that she had a pain just like it about an hour ago, but she didn't want to tell him that and add to the burden he already carried. Also, she noticed now that the dry dust was beginning to pick up even where it was not stirred by the feet of the travellers, and the yellow grass began to twist back and forth. The hot wind was beginning, and if the wind grew into the wild blast of a dry storm, what would they do then, and how would her baby be born and how would she live through it? But her instinct was to protect her husband, feeling like a mother to him as well as the unborn child and vastly more knowledgeable and competent over the whole situation.

So they traveled on, and she was glad to hear her husband humming under his breath now, the way he hummed when he stood at his bench and there was enough work for his big, dexterous hands. But then his humming stopped, for he too had noticed the rising wind, and the whole company of travelers stretched out along the road quickened their pace, as if they too had suddenly realized that this was no time for the traveler to be caught out on the open road. And as if to make the matter more urgent, the sun began to set with the strange quickness that is a part of sunset in that country, and in the east, a dark band filled the rim of the sky. In that moment, the woman felt the third pain, and now she groaned aloud in spite of herself, and her husband cried,

“My darling, my darling, only a little while now—see, there is our birthplace,” pointing to a village that nestled in the valley below, but knowing too that his father and his mother were both dead and that strangers lived in his father's house, and was he to go to them to plead for floor-room, for a woman to give birth? Many things he had done in his years, but he was a man with tools, a carpenter, a man who had skill and cunning in his hands, and never in all his life had he pleaded for anything.

It was dark, wholly dark, with the hot wind and the hot sand singing in their ears when they reached the one inn the village boasted, and now her pains were coming twice an hour, and she could no longer even think of controlling her moans. He helped her off the donkey, and then, prodded by that terrible sense of the urgency of birth that is so frightening and strange to any man, put his arm around her and helped her to the door of the inn. But the innkeeper himself must have seen them and measured them, for he greeted them with his arms spread, but not in welcome. “My inn is full,” he said, and behind him was the smell of food, and the sound of men and women talking and laughing and even singing with the joy of being out of the wild wind.

“I am a man of your own people,” answered the carpenter, “and my wife is in a family way. Will you refuse me shelter?”

“Where are you from?” asked the innkeeper suspiciously.

“We are from Galilee, and down here to the South to be numbered and taxed, even as the emperor ordered.”

“That I might have known,” the innkeeper nodded, “for every scum and dirt and inequity breeds in Galilee. There would be peace in the land, were it not for you wild men of Galilee, who are never content with what is, but must always be dreaming your crazy dreams of something that can never be, and always screaming about the rights of people, when the only right you know is the right to hate the rich and love the poor. I see a hammer and adz at your belt, but I'll wager something that there's a knife under your apron, and I want no men of Galilee in my house.”

“There is a knife under my belt,” the carpenter thought, “and I would like to give you a touch of it, damn you,” but he said quietly and evenly, “I am a plain working man and a good carpenter, and if you give my wife shelter this night, so that she may deliver her child—being already in pain—I will be your debtor by much, and I will work a fortnight and fix whatever needs fixing about your house.”

“My house is full. Where shall I shelter her? Have you any money?”

The carpenter felt in his pouch and found the three silver coins that were left, and he held them out wordlessly. The landlord took them. “My house is full. I would not spit on this much money. I throw more than this to the beggars who come to my door. But because your woman is in pain, you can take her to the stable.”

The carpenter stood rigidly as the door closed in his face, and then without saying another word, he led his wife to the stable, and they went in with their donkey.

They were only in time, for now the sand was driving and whipping with wild fury, boding ill for whoever was without shelter, without cover; but the, stable was only the lesser of two evils, hot, humid with fetid smell of beasts and the droppings of beast. When she felt that smell, her stomach turned over, her body shook and then the pains began, one after another. By her side bided her husband, a slow and patient man, slow to anger, slow to resist, slow to raise his hand against those who harried him all his life …

That was the stable into which the shepherds came, driving their sheep into shelter, out of the wind that raged and killed. They said a prayer to God for his mercy, and then they heard the crying of a child, which frightened them, and one of them who had a lamp struck flint and steel until it burned the wick. They saw the child, new born, in the manger, but not yet did they see the mother or the father. They were simple people, terrified as their sheep were terrified by the sandstorm, full of superstitious awe for whatever could not be explained immediately, and therefor they said, one after another,

“It is a miracle!”

“A child is born among the beasts, and there is no mother!”

“Surely, this is the holy child!”

And then they whimpered with terror and turned to flee as the great dark form of the father rose out of the shadows; but he smiled tiredly at them, and they saw that it was just a carpenter, driven to shelter like themselves.

“Peace,” he said to them, and he lifted up the child.

“The holy child—”

The father said that all children were holy, and why did they single one out? And then they followed him with the lamp as he went into the shadows and gave the child to the mother to nurse; and then he explained to them that because there was no other place for them, the child of a carpenter and his wife was born here in the barn.