The Handmaid and the Carpenter by Elizabeth Berg Page B

and Gaspar spoke quickly, saying that in addition to being used to anoint the dead, myrrh might also be used as a painkiller.
    “We cannot accept these gifts,” Joseph said.
    “We cannot,” Mary echoed.
    “We bid you take them,” Balthasar said. “We have journeyed far to give them to you.” He looked at Jesus, lying still in his mother’s arms. “Blessings be upon him,” he said. He moved one step closer, then another. Mary stood still, but her arms tightened around Jesus.
    Balthasar stopped and held up his hand. “I shall come no closer. I mean only to admire the gift you have brought forth into the world.”
    Now Mary softened, and tilted the baby slightly toward him.
    Joseph stood watching, wondering if this were a dream. He had heard of wise men from the east, but that they were here in Nazareth! Come to visit them!
    Everything about these men was different: their dress, their speech, their movements and ways of speaking. They were like the very wealthy people Joseph sometimes saw in Sepphoris, who were
separate
by virtue of their station, by their very being. Yet these men were more exotic still. It was as though if he were to reach out and touch them, they still would not be touched. Looking at them, he could almost hear a strange kind of music, winding and enticing. They did not belong here in this humble village they had journeyed so far to find. Joseph tried to imagine how they traveled, where they stayed, to whom they spoke along the way. How many people now knew of the birth of Jesus? What could it mean?
    Had Mary brought all of this on them, with her strange yearnings and desires, with her dreamy discontent? Why could she not be more like a normal girl, content to sit in the courtyard or go to the well with her mother and her friends, content to gossip and laugh and care for her family, to attend weddings and funerals and help with the harvests? Most important, why could she not have been pregnant at the proper time by the proper person? Ever since she had come back to Nazareth as an unwed mother, his world had been turned upside down. Would these odd and difficult occurrences never end? Would he and Mary never enjoy the life he had wanted for them, a life that would properly emulate that of their parents?
    The three wise men had gathered now around Mary and Jesus, and they gazed with adoration at the baby. It was enough! He would no longer cooperate with the strange things being thrust upon him. This was his house, and he was the master of his own house! “I fear your presence here may attract unwanted attention,” he said. “I must ask that you leave now.”
    They all turned to him, the men and Mary. Then Balthasar said quietly, “Yet you were already in danger, without us. I tell you once more, we are come only to pay our respects.” He stepped back from Mary and nodded to the other two men. “But we shall go. For we ourselves must also flee Herod.”
    Gaspar said, “We were warned in a dream not to go back to Jerusalem but to return home by a different route.”
    Joseph put the gold back in the sack and held it and the other two sacks out to the men. “I shall ask you again to take back your gifts.”
    None of them moved to take the sacks. Finally, Melchior said, “Peace be with you,” and they bowed and departed.
    Mary and Joseph stood at the door and watched them mount their camels. On a command from one of the men, the camels rose, and then the men headed off into the night, their heads bobbing from side to side in their slow ride. Joseph could hear the bells on the camels fade away until they could be heard no more. He closed the door, dropped the sacks onto the floor, and turned to Mary. “We shall not go.”
    She began to weep, and Joseph did not know if it was from fear or joy.
    “We shall stay here in our home,” he said, hesitantly now.
    “Oh, Joseph,” she said. “I am so relieved to hear you speak those words! It is well known that the wise men have supernatural vision