Read Online The Handmaid and the Carpenter by Elizabeth Berg - Free Book Online Page B

named—”
    “Jesus,” she said. They said it together.
    “He said the child was conceived by the Holy Spirit.”
    Mary clapped her hands together and raised her eyes to the sky. “Then you believe! I thank God.”
    Joseph shook his head sadly. “Ah, Mary. What shall I make of these exotic fabulations? For, in truth, these things seem more fit for stories that children might tell than as direction for our lives. Are they dreams, these angels? A shared vision? Are they true? Are they false? Are they the miracles you and others say they are? Or are they Devil himself, come to dissuade good men from a righteous path? I tell you that by God, I know not. I know not!” He looked at her with great love and deep sadness. “I know nothing for certain but that my love for you abides. And so I shall take you unto me as my wife after all.”
    “Oh, Joseph! My heart is lifted up.”
    “But hear me now. We shall be married tomorrow, in secret. We shall have no feast to which we invite the village. It would not be proper.”
    Mary hung her head and nodded. One who did not know her as Joseph did might think she was disappointed. But Joseph knew she hung her head to hide her smile. It was Joseph’s mother who would rend her garments and wail. But no matter his mother’s tears; it would be with them as he had said. In the morning, in a small, legal ceremony, they would be wed.
    For now, he stood and held out his hand to her.
    “Where do we go now?” she asked.
    “Ask no questions. Come.”
    She followed him back toward the village, then to one of the streets opposite the area where Mary lived. There, he pointed to a house at the end of a row of houses like it. But this one was obviously new; the white limestone shone hard in the sun. Trying to suppress his feeling of pride, he watched Mary walk toward it. It was a fine structure, though he did say so himself! Two stories and four rooms, a large oven in the corner. Steps even and wide leading up to the roof, windows properly spaced high along the outside walls. Mary reached the door and stopped, then turned to Joseph, her face full of a pleasure so rich it looked like pain. He had carved birds into the door, hundreds of them. Some were aloft, some were nesting, some sat on branches in groups. And one, eye level with whomever came to the door, offered an olive branch.
    He reached past her to open the door, and she went inside. After Joseph came in, she closed the door behind them and reached for him, putting her arms around his neck. But he stepped away from her, saying, “Not now, Mary. Nor tomorrow, nor the day after, nor the day after that. Only when it has left your body will I know you.”
    Mary moved her hand to her stomach and spread her fingers wide. “He is not an it.”
    Joseph shrugged. “For now, we shall go back to the houses of Anne and Joachim, and Rachel and Jacob, to tell them the news. We must not stay here; it is improper until we have had our wedding ceremony.”
    Mary looked around excitedly, then spoke, her voice earnest. “I honor this and all our traditions.” She gestured for Joseph to go out before her, and took one last look around. Then she closed the door behind her gently, as though it might break. As though it had been crafted not from sturdy wood but from spun glass, and required great care in the handling.
    She took his hand and walked closely beside him, and he looked down on her black hair, her perfect shoulders, the rise of her breasts grown larger with pregnancy. She moved with indescribable grace, and he thought of how he would lie with her someday. But not now. Not yet. Not until her womb was again empty and they were, in that way, back to where they’d started. And it was from there, he thought, that they would begin again.

    ON THEIR WEDDING NIGHT Joseph lay on his side, turned away from Mary.
    “Joseph?” she said.
    “I am weary, my wife.”
    “Yet I am full of thoughts and so many feelings! Can we not speak? Have you no words at