I turned and looked at James. Why this prayer?

"May the Lord forgive me my envy. May the Lord forgive my sins, and may I be cleansed. Let me not be afraid. Let me understand. I repent of all."

The priest was suddenly standing tall in front of us, and the blood spatters were on his beard and on his face. But he was beautiful in his white linen and his miter. The Levite stood beside him. The priest held the golden basin. With very narrow eyes he looked at James, and James nodded and gave over to him the two birds.

"This is an offering for sin," said James.

I was pushed forward and bent over to see, but the priest was soon lost among the other priests and I couldn't see what they did at the altar. I knew from the Scriptures what they did. They would wring the neck of one bird and pour out its blood. That was the sin offering. And the body of the second bird would be burnt.

We were not there very long.

It was finished. Paid in full.

We made our way back, pushing and almost shoving, and soon into the mob of the Court of the Gentiles. This time we walked not in the very middle of everything but along the colonnade called Solomon's Portico.

Teachers sat back under the porch, with many young men gathered around them. Women stopped to listen as well. I heard one teaching in Aramaic and the next one who had a very large crowd was answering a question in Greek for one of a great gathering.

I wanted to stop, but the family kept moving, and every time I went slow to look at the teachers, to catch a single word perhaps, someone took my hand and led me on.

Finally, I saw the great stoa coming up ahead. The crowd was easy now.

We passed the stairs for leaving and then I saw why.

Old Sarah was under the roof, seated beside one of the columns in the shade, with Bruria, our sad refugee, and also Riba playing with her little baby. My mother and my aunts were there.

I'd forgotten all about them. I hadn't even known we were to find them. Old Sarah at once received James in her arms and kissed him.

As we were all very tired, we sat down there with them. And I soon saw that many people were doing the same, even though the stonemasons were working not far off on the back wall of the colonnade. We kept very close together so as not to be stepped on by others.

Many were leaving the Temple. Even two or more of the merchants had packed up their birds in their cages and were going down the stairs. But still there were others complaining and even shouting at each other, and some people were backed up at the tables of the money changers.

The Levites who sold the oil and flour for sacrifice were folding up their tables. And then I saw the guards, perhaps the men who are called the Temple Police, coming near to the stairway to watch the flow of those leaving.

The evening sacrifice of the lamb would very soon be over. I didn't know for certain. There was so much to learn. It would all come in time. I wasn't worried about it.

Nearby I saw a blind man seated on a stool, a man with a very long gray beard, and he was talking in Greek to no one, his arms out, or maybe he was talking to everyone. People threw coins in his lap. Some listened for a moment and then moved on. I couldn't hear him too well over the noise. Finally I asked Joseph if I might give him something and go listen to him.

Joseph considered and then gave me a denarius, which was quite a lot. I took it and ran at once to sit down at the feet of the man.

It was beautiful Greek he was speaking, smooth as Philo would have spoken it. He was reciting from the Psalm:

" 'Let my cry of joy come to you, Lord, give me understanding as you promised. Let my plea for favor reach you; rescue me as you've promised...' " He stopped to feel the coin I'd laid in his lap. I touched the back of his hand. His eyes were pale gray, covered with film.

"And who is this who gives me so much, and comes to sit at my feet?" he asked. "A Son of Israel or one seeking the Lord of All?"

"A Son of Israel, Teacher," I said in Greek. "A student who seeks the wisdom of your gray hairs."

"And what would you learn, child?" he asked, staring forward. He slipped the coin into his girdle beneath the fold of his woolen robe.

"Teacher, tell me please who is Christos Kyrios?"

"Ah, child, there are many anointed ones," he said. "But the anointed one who is Lord? Who do you think it would be, if it would not be the Son of David, the anointed King come from the root of Jesse to rule over Israel and bring peace to the Land?"

"But what if angels sang when the anointed one was born, Rabbi," I asked, "and what if magi came following a star in the sky to give him gifts?"

"Oh, that old story, child," he said. "The story from Bethlehem, the story of the babe born in the manger. So you know it. Almost no one talks about it anymore. It's too sad. I'd thought it was forgotten."

I was speechless.

"People say 'Here is the Messiah,' and 'There is the Messiah,' " he went on, saying the word "Messiah" in Hebrew. "We will know when the Messiah comes, how can we not know?"

I was too excited to think what to say.

"Tell me the words, child, from Daniel... 'One like the Son of Man coming.' Are you there, child."

"Yes, Rabbi, but what is the story, Rabbi, of the child in the manger, in Bethlehem?" I asked.

"That was too dreadful, and who knows what really happened? It was so quick and so terrible. Only Herod could have done such a thing, a bloodthirsty and evil man! But I mustn't say these things. His son is King."

"But Rabbi, what did he do? We're alone here, there's no one near us."

He took my hand.

"How old are you, child? Your hand is small and rough from work."

I didn't want to tell him. I knew he would be surprised.

"Rabbi, I must find out what happened in Bethlehem. I beg you, tell me."

He shook his head. "Unspeakable things," he said. "How did we come to be ruled by such a family? These men, given to rages, murdering their own children? How many of his own children did Herod destroy? Five? And Caesar Augustus, what did he say of Herod after the man had slain his two sons? 'I'd sooner be Herod's pig than his son.' " He laughed.

So did I out of respect for him, but my mind was racing with thoughts.

"Child, answer for me," he said. "In my blindness I can no longer read my books and my books were all to me, my consolation, and it costs for me to have someone to read to me, and my books are my treasure. I will not give them up to pay for a boy to read to me what is left of them. I cannot give up those I copied myself, or those copied so carefully according to the Law. Tell me, Zechariah: 'On that day ...On that day...' the last line, child ...?"

" 'On that day there will no longer be any traders in the house of the Lord,' " I said.

He nodded.

"You hear them?" he asked.

He meant the money changers, and the people who disputed with them.

"Yes, I hear them, Rabbi."

"On that day!" he said. "On that day."

I looked at his eyes, at the thickness of the film. It was milk over his eyes. If only, but I had promised. If only I knew that it was right, if only, but I had promised.

His fingers tightened on mine, dusty, soft.

And I held tight to him and I prayed in my heart for him. All merciful God, only if it is your will, grant him consolation, grant him some relief...

Joseph stood beside me. He said, "Come, Yeshua."

"May God bless you, Rabbi," I said, and I kissed his hand. He was waving to me, though I was gone.

As soon as Old Sarah was on her feet, and Riba had the baby securely tied up to her, we started on our journey out.

At the top of the stairs into the tunnel, Joseph stopped. He held my hand. James had gone on.

The blind man ran towards us, his eyes dark and fierce with light. He squinted, looking to left and right and back at Joseph. It couldn't have been more startling to see a dead man back to life.

My heart pounded.

"There was a child here!" the man said. "A child!" He glanced over me and down the stairs and over the crowd. "A boy of twelve or thirteen," he said. "I heard his voice just now again. Where did he go?"

Joseph shook his head, and picking me up with a strong right arm, he swung me up against his shoulder and carried me down and through the tunnel and away.

Not one word did he say to me on the way home.

I wanted to tell him the words of my prayer, that my prayer had come from my heart, that I had not meant to do what was not right, that I had prayed, and put it in the hands of the Lord.

Chapter 24

The following days were cheerful and rich days for the family. We went to the sprinkling in the Temple, and bathed after the second time as was required. And during the period of waiting, we wandered the streets of Jerusalem in the day, marveling over the jewels, and books, and fabrics for sale in the marketplace, and Cleopas even bought a little bound book in Latin, and for my mother, Joseph bought some fine embroidery which she could sew to a veil to wear to the village weddings.

At night there was much music and even dancing in Bethany among the camps.

And the Feast of Passover itself was a great marvel.

It was Joseph who slit the throat of the lamb before the priest and the Levite who caught the blood. And after it was roasted, we dined according to the custom with unleavened bread, and the bitter herbs, telling the story of our captivity in the land of Egypt, and how the Lord had ransomed us from Egypt and brought us through the Red Sea and to the Promised Land.

The unleavened bread we ate because we had had no time in fleeing Egypt to make bread with leaven; the bitter herbs we ate because our captivity had been bitter; the lamb we ate because we were free now and could feast for the Lord had saved us; and it was the blood of the lamb on the lintels of the Israelites that had caused the Angel of Death to pass over us when that Angel had slain the firstborn of Egypt because Pharaoh wouldn't let us go.

And who among us, in our little gathering, could not attach a special meaning to all of this, since we had a year ago come from Egypt, through war and suffering, and found a peaceful Promised Land in Nazareth from which we'd come joyfully to the Temple of the Lord?

The day after the Feast, when many were leaving Jerusalem, and the family was talking about when to go, and what should we do, and was Old Sarah ready to make the journey, and thus and so, I looked for Joseph and couldn't find him.

Cleopas told me he'd gone back into Jerusalem with my mother, to the marketplace, now that the crowds were gone, so that she might buy some thread.

"I want to go back to the Temple, to hear the Teachers in the portico," I said to Cleopas. "We won't be leaving today, will we?"

"No, not at all," he said. "Find someone to go with you," he said. "It's good for you to see it when it's not so full of people. But you can't go alone." He went back to talking to the men.

Now all this time Joseph had not said one word to me about the blind man. What had happened with the blind man had made him afraid. I hadn't known it when we hurried down the stairs that evening, but I knew it now.

And I didn't know whether he could see the change in me or not. But I was changed.

I knew that my mother saw it. She marked it, but she didn't worry. After all, I wasn't sad. I had only given up running with the other boys. And because I saw things with different eyes, I was quiet but not at all unhappy. I listened to the men when they talked. I paid attention to things that before I would not have noticed. And I kept to myself most of the time.

Now and then I knew the temptation to be angry, angry with those who wouldn't tell me all the things I wanted to know. But when I remembered the blind man's unwillingness to say these "terrible things," I understood why I wasn't told. My mother and Joseph were trying to protect me from something. But I couldn't be protected any longer. I had to know.

I had to know all that others knew.

I went to the road now that led down to the Temple. Joseph Caiaphas was on his way down with several members of his close family, and he nodded to me and smiled.

I fell in behind him.

He looked back once or twice, calling me by name, which surprised me, and motioned for me to come up beside his party, and I did do it but still kept a little behind. After all, I was very dusty from the camp, and he was in his usual fine linen, and so were those with him who must have been priests as well.

But I was doing what Cleopas had told me to do. I was going with someone. I was not alone.

When we reached the Temple Mount, I slipped away.

The crowds in the Court of the Gentiles were loose and free, and for the first time I could really see the great size of the Temple, and the scale of the adornments. It was just as Cleopas had said.

But it was not this that I wanted to see.

I went to Solomon's Portico to hear the Teachers.

There were many there, some with larger crowds than others. But I was looking for a very old man, a man who was frail with years as well as white hair.

Finally I came upon the very oldest, a man who was gaunt, with deep glowing eyes, and no hair on the top of his head beneath his shawl, but gray hair flowing down over his ears. He was well dressed and he had his blue threads sewn in his tassels. He had a fair crowd of young boys around him, some much older than me.

I watched him and I listened to him.

He threw out questions to the eager boys. He looked carefully into the face of each boy who answered him. He had a quick laugh that was friendly and kind; but there was a sharp authority in him. He said what he had to say. There were no wasted words with him. And his voice had the quickness of a young man.

His questions were questions our own Rabbis might have asked us. I came in close and I gave back answers. He was pleased with my answers. He gestured for me to come closer. The boys made room for me to sit at his feet. I didn't even think about James. I offered answer after answer to the questions. Rabbi Berekhaiah had trained me well. And soon, the Rabbi passed me over with a smile, to let the other boys have a turn instead of me.