Chapter 6

After a wretched night of tossing about, of laboriously taking the puzzle to pieces and reassembling it in patterns equally perplexing, and of fantastic dreams—in one of which Johnny, pretending lameness, limped up to the Carpenter and had himself healed—Simon roused dully and prepared for breakfast. His head ached and he was very much out of sorts.

His place alone was laid at the table, which meant that Andrew had eaten and gone and that Hannah too had breakfasted. As for the Idumean ragamuffin, Simon hadn’t given him a thought since leaving him yesterday in Hannah’s care. Doubtless the youngster was well on his way by this time.

Seating himself, Simon folded his huge, hairy arms and rested them on the table. He knew that Hannah was aware of his arrival in the little dining-room, for he could hear her gentle voice in the kitchen monotonously reciting the Shepherd’s Psalm, by which measure she habitually timed the boiling of his eggs precisely to his liking.

Presently he heard the door swing open behind him. That would be Hannah bringing him the eggs and a platter of wheaten bread and a large mug of spiced pomegranate juice. He did not look up. By that sign Hannah would know that he didn’t want to talk and would slip quietly out again to wait until he summoned her. She already knew, of course, that he was disturbed about something. She was ever quick to perceive his moods; much too quick, indeed. Their close comradeship made it difficult for him to withhold confidences from her.

Now that the bread and butter plate had been put down before him, and the small earthenware bowl containing the eggs, Simon stared hard at the hand that served him. It was not Hannah’s hand; it was younger and smaller. He slowly turned his head and gazed up into a stranger’s face, his mouth sagging open in bewilderment. Whoever she was, the girl was beautiful, the most beautiful he had ever seen.

She smiled down into the Big Fisherman’s dumbfounded eyes, a mischievous little smile that she seemed to be controlling with some difficulty.

‘Are you surprised, sir?’ she asked, in a throaty tone that he remembered having heard before.

For a moment Simon continued to stare at her, unsmiling and speechless. He shook his big, shaggy head. Something queer had happened to the world. Miracles could be had now for a penny a dozen. Cripples walked. Water became wine. Dirty and ragged camel-boys were transformed into comely young women. He lowered his eyes, blinked rapidly, and rubbed his fingers through his hair. Hannah came in from the kitchen, beaming.

‘Joe turned out to be a girl,’ she said unnecessarily.

Simon nodded, and gazed at his mother-in-law as if he had never seen her before.