Eden Page 3

  The great horses looked down their long noses and warned the dogs in no uncertain terms, “We’re bigger, you’re smaller. Now keep out of the way.”

  And the village dogs knew better than to nip the hocks of the great warhorses, but still dashed up and down the line as the Romans tramped through the streets of Nazareth. After all, the dogs knew their business—

  “No water here! No water!” they barked over and over. Warhorses had memories longer than their noses so they always remembered the yapping hounds of this village. The big animals whinnied to one another as they passed, “No reason to stop. No water here …” And for years it went on like this, the column of men and horses marching along, the dogs coming out to bark, until the endless stamp of feet and hooves passed the last stone house, the dust settled and the troops wound into the hills.

  All village dogs bark, and the dogs of this village were no exception.

  Every dog but one: the dog of the carpenter’s shop.

  The dog called Eden.

  Eden’s first memory was not her mother’s warm belly in the straw, but the hand of the young man upon her head, smelling of sawdust, apricots, cinnamon and fresh hay in a manger. From that first scent Eden always knew whether the young man was close by or beyond the town gate. No distance seemed beyond her reach when it came to his scent.

  Sensing him on the barest breeze, knowing where he’d walked and how long he’d tarried by the hem of his sleeve or the sandals on his feet. Ah yes, by the date trees … and then talking to a caravan of grain merchants, oxen carts, the cattle dung, the sweat and the sound of a whip. He had bid the merchants not to beat their animals so—but the hard men ignored him, the echo of their laughter still clung to his robes.

  Perhaps that’s why Eden didn’t chase wildly up and down the narrow dusty street with all the other dogs. She knew where her master was … so why run about? Instead, she lay under the shop awning out of the noonday heat. Quietly she contemplated those who passed her front door, as sparrows fluttered in the street. The name Eden seemed to fit her as she stared out at the world, her peaceful eyes reflecting that pleasant place everyone knew from ancient legend, but none had ever seen.

  She was not a large dog, but not a small one either, and perhaps the most ordinary of the village with her silvery fur and black inquisitive nose. One ear stood up at attention while the other folded down, so it always looked like she was listening. And when both ears stood up straight, Eden became as keen as any hunting hound that ran down rabbits for a living.

  The dog, stretched on out her mat, watched humanity passing before her paws on a thousand errands. Gazing from every point of view: straight on, sideways or even laying on her back, all four feet in the air—the world appearing upside down, as though people walked standing on their heads.

  But that did not change the scents of coming and going, one from the Tanner’s shed, two from the Oil Seller’s row of jars, three from the Carders heavy with the aroma of wool wax as they lugged large roles of yarn to the dyers.

  As the afternoon shadows crawled up the plaster walls and the passersby dwindled to a few foot pads, Eden rose to make her rounds of the village, poking her nose into every doorway, looking in on every family and shop. She would pause to listen to the women gossip at the village well where she learned all there was to learn: Ah, the barber’s wife left him, gone back to her sister’s again. And did you see that young hussy, that Rachel making eyes at the olive merchant’s son and every other man in the street? The rabbi will have something to say about that—

  Finally her rounds ended at the racks of dried-fish sellers on the edge of town, where she watched the weary men herd their flocks home from the fields and orchards. The sheep in their pens mostly talked among themselves, while the shepherds’ mongrels were too busy overseeing them to pay her much mind. The shepherds’ dogs dismissing her: “Village dog,” they snuffed. “Lays around licking her paws all day.”

  Ah, what did those mutts know? All they did was talk to sheep.

  On cool evenings families gathered on their flat roofs sharing food and chatting with their neighbors. The square houses were so close, many ran planks and bridges between the roofs so people could cross without having to go down into the stifling dusty streets. The carpenter’s family had built many of these plank bridges between the houses and was often called upon to repair the boards as they loosened and spread.

  When the sun set, the village children delighted in running like wild things from house to house along the gangways. And the mothers were forever shouting at them to “slow down, be careful, don’t run!” as they bounded from roof to roof. At that time of day Eden came alive, barking at the children, Don’t run! Listen to your mothers! Don’t run!

  But children never listen, so Eden followed, nipping at their heels to keep them on the straight and narrow planks. And the children chirruped and laughed but never fell.

  In the spring when all the men tilled the fields Eden left her place under the shop’s awning and followed the young carpenter and his father into the fields. There she oversaw the work of the seasons as the men sowed the rows and the flocks wandered in search of early grass … at dusk, finally leading the young master and his father home for the family meal.

  At harvest time she helped the men glean and gather the sheaves. During the rainy winter months, Eden sat on her hind legs on the shop’s stone doorstep as the street turned to mud.

  From the very first, Eden had always understood her master was not like the other men of the village. For unlike the village dogs she always slept in the house instead of with the other animals in a shed or in the street. Her bed was a warm, dry pile of shavings in a corner of the shop, and Eden always had food to eat, for her family shared alike. A clay bowl of water sat by the door—the first vessel in the house to be filled from the village well each day.

  From her own safe corner of the shop she watched the young master year in and year out, working his trade. The carpenter’s son patiently measured and cut, sanded and planed, fitting piece by piece as he slowly grew from youth to manhood and Eden grew with him. From young pup to wise old dog.… Some winter days her young man left his father’s shop to wander alone and Eden followed, walking the hills and pastures under cloudy winds, never more than three steps behind or three ahead. Those times she slept when he slept, woke when he woke, sheltered in the same cloak throughout the night. They drank from the same rocky stream filled with winter’s water and ate those same apricots she smelled on his hands when she had first opened her eyes to life.

  On one such wander, they came upon a merchant and his camel. The poor beast knelt in the middle of the empty road, refusing to rise, burdened with bales of straw and baskets of goods too heavy even for its strong back. The merchant tugged at the camel’s halter, begged and urged it to rise, but the beast refused to budge. The camel’s reluctance only infuriated the merchant more, and as Eden and her master came upon them the man raised his whip to strike.

  “Help me,” the camel said weakly to Eden. “I am old and this straw is too heavy.”

  When the merchant saw Eden and her master, he fell silent and lowered his crop. The dog watched her master approach the camel. Without speaking he took a rolled carpet from the camel’s back and put it aside. The merchant, suddenly afraid, said nothing.

  “Does that help?” Eden asked.

  “Yes,” the camel replied. “But not enough.”

  Indeed, the rolled carpet was not the only thing her master took from the weary camel. He removed also and set aside a basket of eggs and long bolts of leather. His eyes held the merchant fast; as if to say, these I shall carry, if you do the same.

  Then waited for the merchant’s reply.

  The merchantman, now more ashamed than ever, stared at his short crop, as if to wonder, what are you? Yet as Eden’s master steadfastly gazed, the crop seemed to burn the merchant’s hand and he dropped it on the ground. He reached across his camel’s back and removed two sacks of grain held together wi
th loops of rope. The loops went over the merchant’s head and rested on his shoulders so that he now wore sacks of grain front and back. He looked to his camel, hoping this would be enough.

  “Does that help?” Eden asked again.

  And the camel replied, “Yes. But not enough.”

  And this Eden’s master seemed to understand. Lastly he removed a dozen strings of dried figs from the camel’s back. The figs were strung together with cords. Eden brushed up against his legs and her master laid the strings of figs across her back. The dried fruit was not heavy and Eden wondered what little difference it would make, surely not enough.

  And so she asked the camel, “Is this enough?”

  But the camel did not reply.

  Clumsily her master lifted the rug to his own shoulders, then took the basket of eggs in one hand and the long bolts of leather in the other. They were ready to go. Yet the camel did not rise. The merchant stared at his beast still burdened with bales of hay. There were four bales, two on either side. At last he sighed … then removed half the burden, putting two of the four bales by the wayside.

  “Perhaps we shall return for them,” he said to no one. “Perhaps not …”

  And Eden saw the camel’s eyes had brightened. It struggled to its knees.

  “Yes, it is enough.”

  The Essene

  But more often than not those cool winter days found Eden outside the bare one-room temple where the village prayed. The old teacher with his white goat-like beard taught the young men in that single, dark room what he knew of scrolls and history, bleating in a high, dry voice the story of the known world and the ways of the Almighty’s mind:

  “I said in mine heart concerning sons of men that they might see that they themselves are beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.”

  Yet like the beasts of the field and the beasts of burden in the street, and even like the women of the village, Eden was not allowed inside the temple but huddled out in the street during prayers and teachings. Yet here too, the young master refused to part with her, shunning the room of scholars.

  Instead, he sat with her by the open door, listening as the old, dry voice recited the laws and ancient tales. For the young master did not wish to learn alone without his hand upon her head and her head upon his lap, and feared nothing of what the others said when he sat among the women. As ever the dog and man shared his mat, and to anyone who cast a suspicious eye, he told them he could listen just as well in the shadow of the temple wall as inside a bare, dark room.

  On more than one occasion, another teacher joined them. This new teacher came from a settlement deep in the wilderness, an outsider, a man of the desert cliffs that overlooked the Dead Sea. On his garments Eden saw the dust of limestone and smelled the scent of caves where men and women lived, staring out over blue saltwater.

  The stranger brought his wife and was unlike the people of the village. For though he came out of a harsh place by the lifeless water, his words were softer than those of the rabbi of the town’s. And he seemed to smile a little as he left his woman outside with Eden, her master and the others.

  Then in the dark, bare temple the Outsider told of his life in the empty desert. “Where we live one cannot separate one grain of sand from the other, and in time we have come to see that any rock can be a temple. Would you sit and not ask your wife to sit beside you? Has she not come as far as you, has she not toiled as you have toiled? Has she not tended you when you were sick, as you tended her with child? Would you not wish her to pray with you as we pray now? Does not God hear those who whisper as well as those who shout? Does he not see those outside the room as those within?”

  And then as the students began to murmur in confusion and objection, the teacher from the Dead Sea raised his hand to quiet them—and told the same tale as the old rabbi told, but in a different way:

  “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

  A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

  A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

  A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

  A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

  A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

  A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

  A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.”

  The teacher from the Dead Sea paused as he left the bare room of the temple and looked down at Eden’s master and his dog. The young man rose and bid the man of the desert come under the shop roof for the night before returning with his wife to the settlement of sky and bare rocks. In the house of the carpenter the two spoke long into the night. Eden lay at her master’s feet in her soft pile of shavings. She raised her head only once when the man of the desert showed the younger man two small stones he took from his purse. The stones were each of equal weight and size. One stone white, the other black. And the man of the desert asked, “Can you really tell the difference between the two?”

  And thereupon he struck one stone against the other and behold, the dark stone was white within and the pale stone black.

  “Judge not in haste,” the man of the Dead Sea told her master, letting the broken stones fall from his fingers, “unless you know the hidden center of every stone.” And he took from his small pouch two more stones, one white, one black, and put them in her master’s hands. “The trick is how to find out without breaking them.”

  Eden sniffed the broken stones that lay on the floor.

  Just stones, nothing more.

  “Something to think on,” the man of the desert told her master.

  “Until we meet again.”

  The River

  Fleeting years and many lambs later, the youth had grown a beard and Eden had grown old. Whiter around the muzzle, and along her paws, her silvery fur all had turned to white.

  One day she watched Maryam carefully as the woman of the house packed many things in a traveling sack. Often Maryam would pack her son’s midday meal along with his carpenter tools, as he walked to nearby villages to repair a door or a bed. But on that day the woman packed no tools, only the supplies he’d need on the road: flint and tinder, water skin, bread and olives and cheese. And his rolled mat of woven reeds wrapped in his cloak which he carried over his shoulder.

  Eden felt the unspoken words of parting between mother and her master. Maryam would miss her son for every day hereon. From the shadow of the carpenter’s shop the dog saw Maryam’s husband Yosef pause at his workbench and stare silently at the open door. The men had said their good-byes in private and nothing was left to say.

  Maryam simply pressed her son’s hand to her forehead, then let his hand fall, neither bringing it to her lips nor kissing him farewell. “Come back when you can,” was all she said.

  But Eden had no intention of watching her master wander off. That day the dog and her young man walked farther into the green hills than Eden had ever been before. And they did not turn back as night fell, but slept upon the young man’s mat of reeds, curled up in their shared cloak till daybreak.

  All that next day they marched. The food in the young man’s sack vanished bit by bit. By nightfall they were tired and hungry. The man and the dog found shelter in a cluster of rocks by a running rivulet of water that gathered in a small pool no bigger than a few hands wide. Eden lapped gratefully at the stone bowl. And as the sun set Eden stood guard as her master found twisted sticks for a fire.

  At first Eden didn’t see or smell the stranger’s approach. Unannounced, one of the desert people had come out of the wilderness with hardly a soun
d and no wafting scent on the wind. Once more, the stranger smelled of nothing but sand and stone, his body so thin and gaunt, leaving only the barest essence of a holy man on his threadbare robes. Yet as he sat, she recognized him as the very same who had spoken at the temple, the very same who had spent the night talking in their house and told the story of the stones. The Outsider. The man of the Dead Sea.

  So it was not necessary for her master to say, it’s all right. He’s one of us.

  Instead he welcomed the man of the desert into their shelter of rocks and bade him sit.

  “Indeed, well met.”

  They lit a fire and shared the last handful of the food from the master’s sack. For a long time the three sat in silence, but at length the man of the desert spoke. “Have you been thinking since last we talked? How to discover what lives inside the stone without breaking it?”

  Eden looked up at her master, but he did not reply. Instead he loosened his purse strings and removed the two stones, the white and black given that night in their house those fleeting years ago. Her master’s fingers turned each over in the light of the fire. Over time each stone had rubbed against the other and in so doing had worn away its outer layer—the dark stone showing its white center and the white stone its dark one.

  “Time is the answer,” her master said. “Time and familiarity, like friendship. Time and close proximity, like family. Time and close affinity, like marriage. The stones sit in the purse, they rub each other’s sides, and over time their surface fades and the stones’ insides are revealed without breaking.”

  The Outsider looked in astonishment at his old friend. Then he laughed like a man with twice the belly—the sound rose from their rock shelter into the night.

  “I never would have thought of that,” he said with a glint in his eye. “After all, it’s just a question we ask, how to see inside without breaking? No one ever expects an answer!”