The Journey
Miriam was tired, and sore, and resentment was building up in her like foam on yeast left to warm by the fire. The journey to Bethlehem should have taken only four days, except that she couldn’t walk far, and so she’d alternated going on foot with perching uncomfortably on the donkey, jolted by the stones on the road, the swaying motion making her feel sick. Her ankles were swollen, her belly round and heavy as a pitcher of water. The neighbours they’d come with from Nazareth had left them behind on the second day, and each day since they’d joined different travellers of the house of David, and been left behind again. The whole world was on the move, every wayside inn full of people heading for what the Romans had decreed was their ‘home town’: bearded patriarchs, harrassed grandmothers, fathers and mothers shepherding a brood of children.
The Romans! They were everywhere in their short tunics and leather overskirts, crop-haired and clean shaven, casting sneering looks at the people their census had forced out on the roads. Just so that their Emperor Augustus could boast of how many people his empire held under their swaggering overlordship! Well! She clasped a hand over her belly, and held her head up high, face triumphantly proud behind the sheltering veil. The Messiah was to come and beat them out of Israel. She, Miriam, the ordinary daughter of Anna and Joachim, had seen the face of God’s angel, and received his promise. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will rule over his people.
Only, Lord, why this journey at this time? The Lord was a man, a voice inside her said bitterly. He’d never experienced this tiredness, a body heavy with water and the discomfort as the child shifted within her each time the donkey stumbled. She longed with all her heart to be home. It had taken seven days to come, and no doubt there would be long queues for registration, perhaps two days or even three in Bethlehem, seven more days of this jolting and swaying before she could rest, rest and wait for the child to be born. Her mother and the town’s wise woman, old Rebecca, would be with her – oh, how she longed for her mother now, but her father was of Levi’s race, and had been sent to Hebron, by the Jordan river.
A troop of soldiers clattering by them jolted back the fear that had grown in her as the birth date grew closer. She had been overshadowed by the Most High, had conceived of the Holy Spirit. What was growing in her, taking her flesh, was no human child that she could hug to her breast, whose first unsteady steps she would guide. He was the Messiah, the king who was to come. He would be a warrior like these stiff-backed soldiers, his long lance held with casual expertise. Discipline and hardiness would be ingrained in him, a man to lead men, grand and glorious, but of heaven, not of earth, alien to her... she was afraid of his birth.
The donkey plodded on. A man beside her shouted in triumph: ‘Bethlehem!’ Miriam felt the ripple of eagerness run through the party. She lifted her head and saw it through the dust-thick veil, a cluster of white houses on the olive-green hill. Rest at last, and then homewards.
Rest? The town was filled with travellers like bees thronging a hive. Women’s voices hummed from the windows. Men overflowed from the houses into the streets, sitting at tables or squatting on the ground. Joseph threaded the donkey between them, directed from inn to inn, and from the last inn to a private house that might just have a bed to spare. The world swayed around her as she bumped over cobbles and waited in courtyards. She thought the first pain was just her tiredness, until there was another, and a third that made her gasp aloud. The donkey’s rough mane cut into her fingers. Panic seized her then. When Joseph came out of the house, shaking his head, she grabbed at his sleeve. ‘The baby’s coming.’ She slid off the donkey and leant against its side, fighting to stay upright, hands clasped to her belly. ‘It’s coming now.’
He looked at her, then darted back into the house. Through the waves of pain she heard his voice pleading, and then there were women around her, busy, efficient strangers supporting her, leading her out of the sun into cool darkness that smelt of cattle. She recoiled on the threshold. A stable? Her mother’s face, the whitewashed room they had prepared, wavered before her. She felt her eyes fill with tears. She was to have her child here, alone with strangers, among animals? Lord, was this what you intended for the Son of David? As the pain gripped her again, the memory felt like a mad dream. How could she have seen an angel? Who did she think she was, to give birth to the Messiah? The hands urged her forwards. There was a rustling noise and a sweet smell as someone laid fresh straw for her. She lay, obedient, and then the pain took over, and she could no longer think, only endure, until the last tearing push thrust the baby free of her and she could let herself go limp, spent. Five long breaths, then through the haze of exhaustion she opened her eyes and held her arms out for the child.
She looked at him, and loved him. What monster of glory had weariness made her imagine? He was just a baby, her baby, red forehead puckered into her father’s thoughtful frown. His cloudy blue eyes looked straight into hers. His tiny hand closed on her finger; his head turned, mouth open and seeking her breast. Her arms tightened around him. What nonsense of angels had she filled her mind with! This was her own child, who would sleep in her lap and hold her hands for those first unsteady steps into her arms. She bent her head down to rest her cheek on his velvet-soft head. All was well...
She was startled awake in the dark by rough voices outside, arguing over whether this was the place. Joseph sprang to his feet beside her, staff at the ready. She was struggling to sit up when the door burst open, and the men surged in, shepherds dressed in layers of dark clothes, with sheepskins flung over their backs to keep out the cold. A shaft of clear blue light showed her their faces dazed, as if they had seen something so strange, so glorious, that it could not be understood, only believed; and their eyes were fixed in wondering awe on her baby, wrapped in swaddling bands, and lying in a manger.