Mary finished eating. She took the bowls outside to wash them, but not the bowl used by the beggar. There are now two lights in the house, that of the oil lamp struggling valiantly against the darkness of night, and the aura from the bowl, flickering yet constant, like a sun that is slow in appearing. Seated on the floor, Mary waits for her husband to resume the conversation, but Joseph has nothing more to say to her, he is mentally rehearsing the speech he will make tomorrow before the council of elders. How frustrating it is, not to know precisely what transpired between his wife and the beggar, not to know what else they might have said to each other, but he decides to question her no further. He might as well believe the story she has now told him twice, because if she is lying, he will never know, while she will know and almost certainly be laughing at him, her mantle covering her face, just as Eve laughed at Adam, but behind his back, for in those days people did not wear mantles. One thought led to another, and Joseph soon convinced himself that the beggar had been sent by Satan. The great tempter, aware that times had changed and that people were now more cautious, was offering not one of nature's fruits but the promise of a different, luminous soil, counting once more on the credulity and weakness of women. Joseph's mind is in turmoil, but he is pleased with himself and the conclusion he has reached. Unaware of her husband's tortuous thoughts about Satan's intrigue, Mary is troubled by a strange feeling of emptiness now that she has told him of her pregnancy. Not an inner emptiness, to be sure, for she knows perfectly well that her womb, and in the strict sense of the word, is full, but an outer emptiness, as if the world has receded and become remote. She recalls, but as if evoking another life, that after supper and before unrolling the mats for the night she always had some task in hand to fill the hours, but now she feels no inclination whatever to rise from where she sits gazing at the light that glows back at her over the rim of the bowl, gazing and awaiting the birth of her child. If truth be told, her thoughts are not that clear, for thought, when all is said and done, as others and we ourselves have observed before, is like a great ball of thread coiled around itself, loose in places, taut in others, inside our head. It is impossible to know its full extent, one would have to unwind and then measure it, but however hard one tries or pretends to try, this cannot be done without assistance. One day, someone will come and tell us where to cut the cord that ties man to his navel and thought to its origin.
The following morning, after a restless night in which he was constantly disturbed by the same nightmare, where he saw himself falling time and time again inside an enormous upturned bowl as if under a starry sky, Joseph went to the synagogue to seek the advice of the elders. His story was extraordinary, though more extraordinary than he knew because, as we know, he had not been told the whole story. Were it not for the high esteem in which he was held by the old men of Nazareth, he would have had to go home with his tail between his legs and the reproachful words of Ecclesiasticus in his ears, To trust a man hastily shows a shallow mind. And he, poor fellow, would not have had the presence of mind to reply with words from the same Ecclesiasticus, regarding the dream that had haunted him all night, What you see in a dream is but a reflection, a face in a mirror. When he finished telling his story, the elders looked at one another and then at Joseph, and the oldest man there, translating the silent mistrust of the council into a direct question, asked, Is this the truth you have spoken, whereupon the carpenter replied, The truth, the whole truth, as God is my witness. The elders then debated among themselves while Joseph waited at a discreet distance, until finally they summoned him and said that they would send three envoys to question Mary herself about this mysterious event in order to discover the identity of the beggar whom no one else had seen, by learning what he looked like, the exact words he used, and if anyone could remember seeing him beg for alms in Nazareth or provide any information about the stranger. Joseph was pleased because, although he would never admit it, he did not want to confront his wife alone. Her habit in recent days of keeping her eyes lowered was beginning to disconcert him. There was modesty in it, but also, unmistakably, something provocative, as in the look of a woman who knows more than she is prepared to disclose or wants others to notice. Verily I say unto you, the treachery of women knows no limits, especially when they feign innocence.
And so the envoys depart, Joseph leading the way, and they are Abiathar, Dothan, and Zacchaeus, names recorded here to forestall any suspicion of historical inaccuracy in the minds of those who have acquired their version of the story from other sources, a version perhaps more in accordance with tradition but not necessarily more factual. The names having been revealed and the existence of the men who used them established, there can be no remaining doubts. The unusual sight of three elders moving in solemn procession through the streets, their robes and beards caught by the breeze, soon drew the local urchins, who gathered around them and began aping their walk as children will, jeering and shouting and chasing after the envoys all the way from the synagogue to the house of Joseph, who was much put out by this boisterous parade. Attracted by the noise, women began to appear in the doorways of the neighboring houses and, sensing something amiss, they sent their children to find out what such a delegation was doing at Mary's door. To no avail, because only the elders were allowed to enter. The door was firmly closed behind them, and no woman of Nazareth, however inquisitive, learned or knows to this day what took place in the house of Joseph, the carpenter. Forced to invent something to satisfy the hunger of their curiosity, they accused the beggar, whom they had never set eyes on, of being a common thief. A great injustice, because the angel, if angel is what he was, did not steal the food he ate, and even delivered a holy prophecy in exchange. While the two senior elders interrogated Mary, the third, the youngest, Zacchaeus, went around the immediate vicinity gathering any details people could remember about a beggar who answered the description given by the carpenter's wife, but none of the neighbors could help, No, sir, no beggar passed this way yesterday, and if he did, he didn't knock at my door, it must have been a thief passing through, who when he found someone at home pretended to be a beggar and then left in a hurry, the oldest trick in the book.