Eli Part Two of Three

by Donna Poole

“Bubbe, what do you think the king is doing?” the child asked a hundred times a day.

The old one tried to be patient. She remembered the words of the man they’d met on Sunday, the one Eli insisted was king, the Messiah come to free Israel from Roman Rule. The man had leaned down from his donkey and had spoken to her about Eli:

“Martha El-Bethel, God will use this lad in His kingdom. You have loved him well, but fewer ear boxings and more hugs would please the Father.”

She had boxed Eli’s ears only once since that Sunday. Not only had she boxed Eli’s ears, but she had also cuffed the ears of the ancient one, her own father. She shuddered and covered her face with her wrinkled hands, remembering.

Eli had begged to put the ancient one at the table with them instead of at the little table where she usually sat him. His hands shook so; he spilled every other bite, and watching him eat destroyed her appetite. For years he’d eaten at his own table in silence.

What had come over Eli that he insisted the ancient one sit next to him at their table? She still didn’t know.

She gave in, tied the ancient one’s bib around his neck, and helped him to a chair. She avoided looking at him eat, but she could hear his noisy chewing with the few teeth he had left, and it was driving her mad; still, she said nothing. But when the ancient one’s trembling hands knocked the cruet of goat’s milk into the loaf of bread she had worked so hard making, something snapped. She screamed at both him and Eli, slapped Eli’s face, and ears, and then turned her rage on her own father, doing the same to him.

Even as she beat the ancient one’s face, she remembered words from the Law about honoring one’s parents, but they did not stop her. Eli’s crying, pulling her robe, and begging her to beat him instead of the ancient one did not stop her. What finally stopped her were the tears of despair running down the wrinkles in her father’s swarthy cheeks and his prayer to Jehovah.

“Let me die, merciful One,” he begged. “Let me die.”

She paused fist raised and cried out to Jehovah herself, “Let me die too, or make me a new woman. I despise this person I have become.”

She bathed both their faces with a cloth dipped into warm water as her tears dripped down over her hands. Now they both ducked when she raised a hand to fix their hair, a gesture that cut her to the heart, but one she knew she deserved.

Eli stopped sleeping on his own mat. Each night when he thought Bubbe was sleeping he crept to the ancient one’s mat and curled up close to him. Grandmother heard him talking about the king.

“He is going to free us from the Romans, I know he is! And I think he is going to do more than that. I think he is going to change people. Maybe he will make even Bubbe kind, and then your life will be better. Do not cry! Are you cold? Let me cover you with my robe. I do not need it. Little boys do not get as cold as old ones.”

Grandmother half expected Eli to refuse when she asked if he wanted to go to market with her on Friday.

“Will the ancient one be alright alone, Bubbe? He has been sleeping a lot lately.”

“He will be fine. He has happy dreams of better days when he sleeps. Perhaps he dreams of your king.”

“I will come to the market! Maybe we will see the king again! I only saw him once, Bubbe, but I love him with all my heart!”

Eli slipped his hand in his grandmother’s as they walked, and for the second time that week, she felt something she had not felt in more years than she could count. She’d felt it when the man Eli called king looked at her. It was hope.

Eli heard the faint shouting and jeers before his grandmother did.

“King! King! King!”

Eli cried, “That’s coming from Golgotha! Bubbe, I think they have crucified the king!”

He started running.

“Eli! That hill is no place for a child! You will never unsee what you see there. Return to me at once!”

But Eli ignored her, and her old legs could not keep up with those of a seven-year-old.

As they got closer, they could hear the words of the crowd.

“He said he was the king. Let him come down from the cross. We’ll believe him then.”

“Look at him! He saved others, but he cannot save himself!”

“If you really are the king of the Jews, save yourself!”

By the time the grandmother reached the top of the hill she found a cluster of sobbing women comforting her little grandson who lay in a heap on the ground.

She reached down and touched him. “Eli! Come! We must leave this terrible place!”

The stench of blood and sweat was making her sick, and the laughter from those close to the three crosses sounded like a chorus of devils.

Eli jumped to his feet. Sobbing, he pointed at the middle cross. “Look, Bubbe! Look what they did to our king!”

Unwillingly she looked at a man who no longer seemed human; his flesh was so torn and beaten. A crown of thorns had been pushed deep into his head. Huge spikes pinned his hands to the cross, and to get a single breath of air he had to push up with his feet that had also been nailed to the wood. She had never imagined such a nightmare of suffering.

“Eli, that man looks nothing like the king you saw on the donkey. Perhaps he is another man. They only crucify criminals.”

“Bubbe, look at the sign!”

She read the sign nailed over the man’s head: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.

“Eli, surely he is someone else.”

One of the crying women who had been comforting Eli gently touched her arm. “The lad is not mistaken. They have rejected and crucified their Messiah. I know it is him; he is my son.”

“Your son?”

She looked into the woman’s eyes.

“Yes, my son, and the son of God.”

Bubbe’s head swam. She could not have heard those words.

She looked around for Eli. She heard more laughter at the foot of the cross where Roman soldiers surrounded a small lad who was shouting at them.

Heart sinking, the grandmother hobbled as quickly as she could toward the boy.

“You Roman swine! You are killing the best man who ever lived. I hate you! When I grow up, I will find you, and I will kill you!”

The soldiers shoved him back and forth between them like he was a toy, laughing and mocking.

“Oh, we tremble with fear, you small Jewish zealot. Do you want to end up like this man, your king?”

The tallest soldier picked him up and held him high over his head so he could see the face of Jesus.

The soldier threw Eli to the ground. Not going into battle, the man wore no greaves to protect his legs. Furious, Eli wrapped his arms around a leg and bit until blood filled his mouth.

“Why you little son of Neptune!”

He shook Eli loose and drew back his foot to kick him in the head with murderous force, but two things happened.

Bubbe threw herself at the soldier, holding him and begging, “Please, no; he is but a lad.”

And a voice strong and sweet came from the middle cross, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.”

The soldier gently disentangled the old woman and said, “Take the lad home.”

Then that soldier stepped back, stared long at the middle cross, and thumped his heart once with his fist.