The marketplace was already overcrowded. Swirling colors and cacophonous noises echoed against the temple wall. Pungent smells melded into each other; earthy root vegetables wilting in the sun, body odors and fish odors mingled with the smoky ever-present scent of burning flesh with overtones of incense. Weaving through the mass of people and animals, Lemek set his eye on the outer gates of the temple. It was later than he had planned, and his velvet robes had become hot, heavy and cumbersome by then. Nonetheless he swept the ground with the hem, swishing his way through the Court of the Gentiles, past the signs of Soreg, warning the unworthy against entry. He scooted past the money changers and into the Middle Court. His servant followed him, humped over with the weight of his master’s offering. Tiny brass bells jingled from the fringe of the bag, He shifted the weight from arm to arm, shuffling behind his master’s sweeping robe. Finally, they stopped, planting themselves in a line strung against one of the tables outside the temple doors. Coins clanged on the table tops, falling from bags and boxes and pockets.
Three times a year Lemek brought his gift to the temple, diligent in the least that was required of a faithful Jew. This day he stood in line because he was late, his servant bowed quietly beside him. Standing in front of him at the table was a waif of a woman. Her linen shawl was pulled around a sleeping child tucked against her breast, the stretched weave revealing patched fibers and lost fringe. Her shoulders cupped around her lowered head and a few stray strands of her long dark hair fluttered out from under her veil. She was not dirty, nor did she stink, yet her presence was repulsive to Lemek and he stepped back, trying to create a little distance without forfeiting his place in line. When she stepped up to the table her hand brought forth two mites, and as she did the child awoke. She lifted him to her shoulder, trying to subdue his hungry wail while she completed her offering, but the baby strained his face, his toothless cries bouncing off the holy walls. The child’s dark liquid eyes looked right into Lemek’s. Turning his head toward the temple gate, Lemek tried to ignore the cries, but the baby’s gaze was magnetic and he could not resist staring at the child. The priest at the table mumbled in glottal tones “Two mites, from the widow of Hadar.” With that she lowered the child to her empty breast and turned from the temple wall, sifting like a grain of sand into a sea of strangers.
Lemek’s shoe had caught the hem of his robe and he stumbled slightly as he took his place at the table. He cursed at his servant in the process of righting himself, as if to say it had been his fault. “Give him the bag!” he shouted, sweeping his arm up into the air, arching his neck to see who might be watching. The servant hefted the bag onto the table top, the bells jingling against the stony top, coins falling onto the floor. The servant knelt to retrieve them, his head bowed to the floor, his forearms sweeping under the heavy table.
Eventually the priest, having counted the offering, stood and made his way to the temple steps. He climbed to the top, just outside the heavy doors, and boldly announced to the crowd the generous offering of the benevolent Lemek and his house. The pitch of the mass of people rose and fell and Lemek turned to bow.
Across the courtyard Jesus sat and watched, while in the distance, weaving in and out of the throbbing throng, a hungry infant wailed.
