Chapter 12

‘If you like, we can go out and see him,’ suggested Fara. ‘Hannah may want to go with us. You will have a chance to form your own opinion.’

‘So you would rather not tell me any more until I have seen him?’

‘I can tell you this much, Voldi,’ she replied, measuring her words deliberately; ‘his voice is not like that of any other man, and the things he says have not been spoken—just that way—ever before. He does not scold or condemn or threaten: he quietly takes possession of your whole mind…You shall see for yourself, my dear…The man does not belong to this world, at all.’ Fara’s voice had lowered to a mere whisper as she added, ‘He is from somewhere else!’

There wasn’t anything much to be said in response to that strange remark. Voldi studied her eyes with candid anxiety.

‘I wonder,’ he murmured gently, ‘whether you realize what you are saying. Surely you don’t think that this Carpenter is a god!’

‘I don’t know,’ she mumbled vaguely; and, after a long interval. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me—if that were true.’

They had come now to the northern outskirts of Bethsaida and were turning off the busy highway into a quiet leaf-strewn street where Fara pointed to the cottage shared by Hannah and the fishermen Simon and Andrew.

‘The men will not be at home,’ she said. ‘I wish you might meet Simon, who is the master of his fleet—a gigantic fellow. He has no learning and knows nothing beyond his occupation, but one can’t help feeling that if he had had any advantages at all he might be a very forceful person.’ Arriving in front of the cottage, Voldi said he would wait at the gate while Fara inquired whether her friend was prepared to receive them.

There was no response to her knock at the front door. She stepped into the hallway and called cheerily. A weak voice bade her come in. Hannah, fully clothed, was lying on her bed. She tried to smile a welcome.

‘Hannah!’ cried Fara. ‘You are ill!’

‘It is nothing, dear,’ protested Hannah feebly. ‘I am very tired; that is all.’ She made an effort to sit up, but slumped back upon the pillows. Her grey eyes were cloudy, her cheeks were flushed, and an agitated pulse pumped hard at her temple. ‘Give me your hand, Esther,’ she muttered thickly. ‘Perhaps I can get up now.’ But a sudden seizure of faintness swept her and she made no further protest when entreated to lie still.

After what seemed like a long delay to Voldi—and Darik, too, whose restless capers were bringing elderly neighbours to their doors and windows—Fara reappeared at the gate, her serious face warning that something had gone amiss. Hannah, she reported soberly, was ill, perhaps very ill indeed. Voldi had better go quickly down to the business district where, hard by the Synagogue, he would find the old physician Gershon.