The Gospel According to Jesus Christ

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NIGHT IS FAR FROM OVER. HANGING FROM A NAIL NEAR THE door, an oil lamp is burning, but its flickering flame, like a small, luminous almond, barely impinges on the darkness, which fills the house from top to bottom and penetrates the farthest corners, where the shadows are so dense that they appear to form a solid mass. Joseph awoke with a fright, as if someone had roughly shaken him by the shoulder, but he must have been dreaming, because he lives alone in this house with his wife, who has not so much as stirred and is fast asleep. Not only is it unusual for him to wake in the middle of the night, but he rarely opens his eyes before daybreak, when the gray, cold morning light begins to filter through the chink in the door. How often he has thought of repairing the door, what could be easier for a carpenter than to cover the chink with a piece of wood left over from some job, but he is now so accustomed to seeing that vertical strip of light when he opens his eyes in the morning that he has reached the absurd conclusion that without it he would be trapped forever in the shadows of sleep, in the darkness of his own body and the darkness of the world. The chink in the door is as much a part of the house as the walls and ceiling, as the oven and earthen floor. In a whisper, to avoid disturbing his wife, who was still asleep, he recited words of thanksgiving, words he said each morning upon returning from the mysterious land of dreams, Thanks be to You, Almighty God, King of the Universe, who has mercifully restored my soul to life. Perhaps because he had not fully regained the power of all five senses, five unless at that time people were not yet aware there were five or, conversely, had more and were about to lose those that would serve little purpose nowadays, Joseph watched his body from a distance while it slowly was occupied by a soul making its gradual return, like trickling waters as they wend their way in rivulets and streams before penetrating the earth to feed sap into stems and leaves. Looking at Mary as she lay beside him, Joseph began to realize just how laborious this return to wakefulness could be, and a disturbing thought came to him, that this wife of his, fast asleep, was really a body without a soul, for no soul is present in a body while it sleeps, otherwise there would be no sense in our thanking God each morning for having restored our souls as we awaken. Then a voice within him asked, What thing or person inside us dreams what we dream, and then he wondered, Are dreams perhaps the soul's memories of the body, and this seemed a reasonable explanation. Mary stirred, could her soul have been near at hand, already here in the house, but she did not awaken, no doubt in the midst of some troubled dream, and after heaving a deep sigh like a broken sob she drew closer to her husband, with a sensuousness she would never have dared indulge while awake. Joseph pulled the thick, rough blanket over his shoulders and snuggled up close to Mary. He could feel her warmth, perfumed like a linen chest filled with dried herbs, gradually penetrate the fibers of his tunic and merge with the heat of his own body. Then slowly he closed his eyes, stopped thinking, and, oblivious to his soul, sank back into a deep sleep.

When he woke again, the cock was crowing. A dim, grayish light seeped through the chink in the door. Having patiently waited for the shadows of night to disperse, time was preparing the way for yet another day to reach the world. Because we no longer live in that fabulous age when the sun, to whom we owe so much, was so generous that it halted its journey over Gibeon in order to give Joshua ample time to overcome the five kings besieging the city. Joseph sat up on his mat, drew back the sheet, and at that moment the cock crowed a second time, reminding him that there was another prayer of thanksgiving to be said. Praise be to You, O Lord, our God, King of the Universe, who gave the cock the intelligence to distinguish between night and day, prayed Joseph, and the cock crowed for a third time. Usually, at the first sign of daybreak all the cocks in the neighborhood would crow to one another, but today they remained silent, as if their night had not yet ended or was just beginning. Joseph looked at his wife's face, puzzled by her deep slumber, since normally the slightest noise awakened her, as if she were a bird. Some mysterious power appeared to be hovering over Mary, pressing her down without completely immobilizing her, for even in the shadows her body could be seen to tremble gently, like water rippling in the breeze. Could she be ill, he wondered, but he was distracted from this worrying thought by a sudden urge to urinate, and this, too, was unusual. He rarely felt the need to relieve himself at this early hour or with such urgency. Slipping quietly from under the sheet to avoid waking his wife, for it is written that a man should do everything possible to maintain his self-respect, he cautiously opened the creaking door and went out into the yard. At that hour of the morning everything was gray as ash. Joseph headed for the low shed where he tethered his donkey, and there he relieved himself, listening with dreamy satisfaction to the explosive sound of his urine as it spurted onto the hay scattered on the ground. The donkey turned its head, two huge eyes shining in the dark, then gave its furry ears a vigorous shake before sticking its nose back into the manger, foraging for leftovers with thick, sensuous lips. Joseph fetched the large pitcher used for washing, tipped it sideways, and let the water pour over his hands, then, drying them on his tunic, he praised God who in His infinite wisdom had endowed mankind with the essential orifices and vessels to live, for if any one of them should fail to close or open as required, the result would be death. Looking up at the sky, Joseph was overwhelmed. The sun is slow to appear, in the sky there is not even a hint of dawn's crimson, no shade of rose or cherry, nothing except clouds to be seen from where he stands, one vast roof of low clouds like tiny flattened balls of wool, all identical and the same shade of violet, which deepens and glows on the side where the sun breaks through, then across the sky is increasingly dark until it merges with what remains of the night on the other side. Joseph had never seen such a sky, although old men often spoke of portents in the skies that attested to the power of God, rainbows that covered half the celestial vault, towering ladders that connected heaven and earth, providential showers of manna, but never of this mysterious color, which might just as easily signify the beginning of the world as the end, this roof floating above the earth, made up of thousands of tiny clouds that almost touch one another and reach in all directions like the stones of a wasteland. Terror-stricken, he thought the world was ending and he was the only witness of God's final judgment, the only one. Silence reigns in heaven and on earth, no sounds can be heard from the nearby houses, not so much as a human voice, a child crying, a prayer or curse, a gust of wind, the bleat of a goat or the bark of a dog. Why are the cocks not crowing, he muttered to himself, and repeated the question anxiously, as if the cocks, crowing might be the last hope of salvation. Then the sky began to change. Pink tinges and streaks gradually, almost imperceptibly crept into the violet on the belly of the clouds, until finally it turned red, then was gone, and without warning the sky exploded into light, many shafts of gold that pierced clouds no longer small but now formidable, enormous barges that hoisted blazing sails and plied a sky that had at last been liberated. Joseph's fear subsided, his eyes widened in astonishment and wonder, and with good reason, for he alone was witnessing this spectacle. In a loud voice he praised the Lord of all creation for the eternal majesty of the heavens, whose ineffable splendors leave men struggling with simple words of gratitude, Thanks be to You, O Lord, for this and for that and for that. As he spoke, the tumult of life, whether summoned by his voice or rushing through a door that had carelessly been left open, invaded the space previously occupied by silence, leaving it scarcely any room, a patch here and there, such as those tiny marshes that the murmuring forests engulf and hide from view. The sun rose and spread its light, a vision of unbearable beauty, two enormous hands sending into flight a shimmering bird of paradise that opened its great tail with a thousand iridescent eyes, causing a nameless bird nearby to burst into song. A gust of wind hit Joseph in the face, caught his beard and tunic, eddied around him like a tiny whirlwind moving across a desert, unless he was imagining things and this was nothing more than the blood rushing to his head, a shiver going up his spine like a tongue of fire and stirring a quite different urge.

Moving as if inside a swirling column of air, Joseph went into the house and shut the door behind him. He paused for a moment, waiting for his eyes to become accustomed to the dark. The lamp cast scarcely any light. Wide awake, Mary lay on her back, listening, staring into space, as if waiting. Joseph quietly approached and slowly drew back the sheet. She averted her eyes, began to lift the hem of her tunic, and 110 sooner had she pulled it to her navel than he was on top of her, his own tunic hitched to his waist. Mary's legs now were open, perhaps they had opened by themselves as she dreamed and she did not close them out of this sudden lassitude, or else from the premonition of a married woman who knows her duty. God, who is omnipresent, was there but, pure spirit that He is, was unable to see how Joseph's flesh touched Mary's, how his flesh penetrated her flesh as had been ordained, and perhaps He was not even there when the holy seed of Joseph poured into the holy womb of Mary, both holy, being the fountain and chalice of life. For in truth, there are things God Himself does not understand, even though He created them. Out in the yard, God could hear neither the gasp that escaped Joseph's lips as he came nor the low moan Mary was unable to suppress. Joseph rested on his wife's body no more than a minute, and perhaps less. Pulling down her tunic and drawing up the sheet, she covered her face with her arm. Joseph stood in the middle of the room, raised his hands, and, looking up at the ceiling, gave the most heartfelt thanksgiving of all, which is reserved for men, I thank You, Almighty God, King of the Universe, for not having made me a woman. By then, God must have already abandoned the yard, for the walls did not shake or cave in, nor did the ground part. All that could be heard was Mary saying, in that submissive voice one expects from women, Thanks be to You, O Lord, for having made me according to Your will. Now, there is no difference between these words and those spoken to the angel Gabriel, for clearly anyone who could say, Behold the handmaiden of the Lord, do with me as You will, might just as easily have said, instead, this prayer. Then the wife of the carpenter Joseph got up from her mat, rolled it up together with that of her husband, and folded the sheet they shared in common.