Daughter of Jerusalem Read Free

tried hard to do everything the way Esther wanted, but I had learned little about housekeeping or cooking from Judith. Nothing I did had pleased her, and she banished me from her kitchen.
    Aunt Leah gently tried to show me what to do, but I was miserably homesick for Lazarus and Martha. I would often slip away into the courtyard to play with the young children. It was much more satisfying than trying to carry out tasks that everyone scorned me for doing poorly.
    Eventually Esther settled on the jobs most suited to me. I would rise early and prepare the day’s bread, do the weeding in the vegetable garden, and help look after the children. I didn’t mind doing any of these things and tried to go about my work as quietly and competently as I could.
    My biggest misery of the first few months in Magdala came from the girls my age, the daughters of Benjamin and Joses. They all slept together in one of the big upstairs rooms, and none of them was nice to me. Fortunately, I got to sleep in a small room with my Aunt Leah so I didn’t have to put up with their snide comments at night, but they kept it up in the daytime. Or they just turned their backs and ignored me. I knew I shouldn’t respond, but it was hard to keep a quiet tongue.
    I explained this to Daniel one day, when he came home from the synagogue. He saw me in the vegetable garden viciously pulling weedsand came to speak to me. He was the only male in the family who did not work in the family business of salting, packing, and shipping fish. Instead he went into town every day to study with the rabbi. Lord Benjamin’s plan for his brilliant youngest son was to send him to Jerusalem when he was sixteen to complete his studies at the Temple and become a scribe.
    On this particular afternoon I watched him making his way along the narrow garden paths, and I smiled. He was twelve, two years older than I, tall and slim and elegant looking in his immaculate white linen tunic and cloak of fine blue wool. Its ritual blue tassels swung rhythmically as he strode along.
    It was not the first time we had talked together in the garden, and he grinned as he came up to me. “You are certainly attacking those weeds, Mary.” He looked around. “Where is Rachel? I thought she was supposed to help you today.”
    “She said she had a headache and went to lie down.” I ripped out another weed and tossed it into my basket.
    Rachel was Joses’ daughter and my chief tormenter. I thought the rest of the girls might be friendly if not for Rachel’s influence. They seemed to be afraid of her.
    “Come and sit down,” Daniel said, gesturing toward the wooden bench that was nestled in the shade of the house.
    I sat next to him, licking the perspiration from my upper lip. I poured a cup of water from the jug I had brought with me and offered it to him. He took a sip and then gave it back to me. I drank thirstily.
    “Is Rachel still making life difficult for you?”
    I put the cup down on the seat next to me with a loud click. “She hates me. I have tried to be nice to her, Daniel, but she goes out ofher way to be mean. And she makes all the other girls act mean too. I don’t know what’s wrong with her.”
    “She’s jealous of you,” Daniel said.
    I frowned. “What does she have to be jealous about?
She’s
the granddaughter; I’m only a poor cousin.”
    “You’re prettier,” he replied and stretched his legs comfortably in front of him.
    “Much good that does me.”
    He turned his head to look at me. “Before you came, Rachel was the prettiest of the unmarried girls. You’ve taken her place, and she resents you for it. Give her time, and she’ll come around. She’s spoiled, that’s all.”
    “I don’t care about Rachel,” I said with a sniff. I turned my face away so he couldn’t see my expression and regarded the sparkling lake that lay beyond the walls of the house. “I just want the other girls to like me. I have to spend so much time with them, and they’re either