THE OTHER TWIN

The old soldier remembers that twins were born by the light of his oil-lamp.

When your old nag's dead, thought the crippled old soldier, and your legs no longer work then it's time to think of hitching a lift.

And he stood by the side of the beaten old track that looked as if it might go from nowhere to nowhere, and waited. Someone would come along, and that someone might offer him a way out of Bethlehem and he would, with luck and a following wind, end up back in Nazareth and his comfortably familiar piece of wall to huddle against. Then he would be able to resume his satisfying self-appointed task of watching the world go by.

He had noticed secretly as the small family left the stable. Maria had ridden on her donkey, holding Jesu, the baby, and Jo-Jo had boldly walked in front, guiding the steed. The image had been heart-warming, a family slowly weaving its way across a desert, but he knew it ran deeper than that. They were in danger and were fleeing to safety in a foreign land they might struggle to find.

The crippled old soldier, still carefully out of sight, had felt that warm feeling a man gets when he knows his guidance has been right. It had been he (and he alone) who had suggested the journey to Bethlehem in the first place, and he who had erected the huge oil lamp so that it guided the youngsters to the safety of the stable. It had been he who, admittedly through good fortune rather than the outcome of a devious plan, had nudged the three rich travellers from the East towards the stable. It had been he who had manipulated the drunken shepherds to donate a fine fleece to the fledgling king (aren't all babies kings or queens, he thought) and it had been he who had diverted Herod's men away from any idea that a prince would be born in as lowly a place as a stable and sent them on their way.

Now the little family was on its way out of his tale and, he hoped, would arrive in Egypt safely and with enough coin to buy their stay there. Now it was time for him to forget about the little episode that had held his attention for so long, and seek other events in the endless and often intriguing story of the folk of Nazareth.

If I get a lift, that is, he thought wryly.

The tiny boy-child would be safe enough. He was with his mother and a rather useless carpenter who, with luck, would make a decent enough father over the coming years, and might even learn to master his own trade given long enough, It was the other baby that still troubled him. The girl, the one the Inn-keeper's wife was caring for.

I must keep an eye on her, he thought, and, much to his own surprise, he found himself walking slowly and painfully down the crooked track back into Bethlehem, and to the Inn, instead of returning to Nazareth.

“I need a room,” he said, bluntly when he got there.

“You have coin?” asked the Inn-keeper.

“I gambled with the Eastern princes, and won,” he retorted. “I have coin enough for this dump!”

“Then you can have their room,” mumbled the Inn-keeper. “Guests are few and far between these days now the census has been dusted and done with.”

“It's the town,” grumbled the crippled soldier, “it's a grotty little place, and there's precious little reason for any traveller to pass this way.”

“And now we have a baby to scare the punters off,” growled the Inn-keeper. “And a girl baby at that. Squawk, squawk, squawk all the time! Girls are useless, unless they learn to scrub and have babies of their own!”

“A girl can be a delight,” muttered the old soldier, wincing at the pain in his leg. All his recent exercise had not been good for him. “But this girl, the one in your bed, may well be special. Mary Magdalene, they called her, and Mary Magdalene she will be. Remember that because its her name, and names are precious things. For I have seen, in a dream I had but the other night when the moon shone brightest, that she may yet have a part to play in the affairs of the world.”

“That's nonsense,” growled the Inn-keeper. “Tell that to the fairies, but don't try to convince me! There never was a child born without a willy who was anything but trouble. It's that organ, the one that signifies man rather than woman, that makes all the difference. It gives, when the child is older, a deep and manly voice and helps him father a tribe in his own likeness! Women are merely the chariots in which our sons ride towards life! It’s all they’re good for. Even the scriptures say that!”

“I've seen the bloody side of life and know that damned willy creates arrogance and wars, death and bloodshed " and widows,” growled the old soldier. “I fought in wars, remember, and I was always on the winning side until Nazareth yobbos set about me one dark night. I saw some of them off to their promised land before they smashed my legs! But before then, when I was soldiering and conquering and making my masters great I saw exactly what the bad men do when they believe that they’re invincible. And remember, it was the masters who gained greatness and not the poor sods bleeding in foreign fields!”

“There will always be wars,” nodded the Inn-keeper. “It keeps our race pure and true and sorts the men from the boys.”

“You Jews are all the same,” scowled the soldier. “Fight and conquer, that's all you know, you're as bad as my Roman masters! But that is not what I came to debate. When your new girl-child is older I will tell her about herself...”

“You're not going to be here that long, surely!”

“Who says? I'll be here for as long as it takes since I have the coin to pay you! The boy is on his way to Egypt and may well stay there and lost to help and advice from his countrymen. But the girl-child, she may fall by the wayside if she doesn't have an old fool like me to tell her the story of her life.”

“And what story may that be?”

“She is half of a whole.”

“Now you're talking in riddles!”

“Not at all. She is half of the birth the other night. The boy is with his parents and, for the moment, safe enough. And the girl is here. They say the boy is the son of their god, but that's nonsense unless the girl is that same Lord’s daughter.”

“It is?” The Inn-keeper was curious.

“It is. And we must almost remember that the light of my star first shone on the girl child, not the boy: he came second, an afterthought you might say. Your god, old fool had much more than a son.”

The distant sound of a baby clamouring for food swept into the tiny room.

“He had a daughter, and I hear that daughter crying now, even as we speak!

“And that daughter is the issue of your god. The son in Egypt ... men may remember him down the years if he achieves anything, which is doubtful in the land of Pharaohs ... but the daughter: she's the one that matters, and long may you remember it!”

THE END

© Peter Rogerson 28.11.12, revised 01.12.16