Author’s Note: Bible Backstories stories follow an almost journalistic pattern—a straight narrative line that strips away whatever extraneous, maybe emotional, reverberations. Consequentially, even heroes rarely seem conflicted about what they are told to do, or what someone else was told to do that has a direct effect on the other guy. As a result, it gets harder to think of Mary or St. Paul or Elijah as neighbors, people in the store, or getting gas. Hence, a series of re-imagined, familiar stories about people who live next door.
Read part 1 of this narrative.
The next Thursday more than a dozen of us trooped over to Uncle Meshulam’s. His vineyards marched down the hillside on either side of a great terrace. Lake Galilee was a little blue sliver off in the distance. Tables had been set around the perimeter of the terrace with long curtains making the mechitza to divide the men and women. There was still plenty of room for dancing on either side. Miriam came with her neighbor, Rachel. Peter’s wife and mother-law came with my mother. Once the women were settled, we headed over to an empty table.
It was all good — dancing erupted between the grilled fish and a really excellent roast lamb. The wine was fair and the steward made sure the pitchers were kept full — most of the time. After it got dark, torches were lit and we sang for a while, fireflies flickering among the vines. Overhead the stars were so thick they looked like they were being swept toward the door of the universe. The young women who attended Toibe sang song after song from our desert times. Old, old tunes…maybe sung in front of the tents of Moishe and his sister, Miriamne. I started to pour another cup of wine and found the pitcher was empty.
“Peter, you have any wine? This is gone.” He shook his head and in a very short moment the question traveled down to the next table. We looked for the steward. He was standing behind Uncle Meshulam who was emphatically shaking his head.
No wine? What kind of a feast was this?
I muttered “Uncle Meshulam hasn’t changed, not even in front of his young wife. Yeshua was whispering, “Don’t make a scene…” when one of the serving boys came up and said, “Sir, your mother wishes to see you.”
Yeshua actually groaned as he swung off the couch. I followed him, and Judas, who’d been on the other side, joined us. We headed for the end of the mechitza, where Miriam was standing. She smiled and nodded as we arrived.
“Son, Meshulam is out of wine.”
“I noticed, Mother. Everybody has noticed.”
“You can fix this. You know you can fix this.”
He dropped his head. “This isn’t about me. If Meshulam wants us all to go home early, we should just go.”
“What would Yussef say? You know what he would say.”
“He would say that Meshulam knew exactly what he was doing.”
“And then, he would put his hand on your shoulder…”
“Mo-ther…”
“Yeshua?”
It was suddenly a little too quiet. People had started to pay attention to this little group of men with one woman who was clearly giving orders.
Yeshua stared up at the sky—at that great sweep of gleaming light, at the great torch of the moon that lit the hillside and turned all the torches into feeble flickers. “Always so much,” he said. “Always an excess of life.
“All right, Mother. All right.” He sighed and pushed his shoulders back, looking around the arbors across the top of the terrace.
“Bunch of stone water jars over there,” I said.
“Just saw them. Let’s give the old man a lesson.” He nodded, leaned over and kissed Miriam on her forehead. “Go on back with the women. We’ll take care of this.”
She patted his arm and turned to steward who was standing with the boys. “Whatever he says, you tell your boys to do it.” And she disappeared behind the mechitza.
Check back for part three.
