When the fat little king knew nothing I was not surprised. We smelt his fear: fear of that which he could not rule. I laughed to know that this was not the place. The end of a pilgrimage, my friend, is to know how to go on. And there was no knowing here; only a little tinselled pomp and show. That we had left behind us as we set out.
And truly that had been no hardship to me. Though it was not so easy as I had thought; things clutch, you know? Yet as we set out, I had not felt such lightness of spirit since I was a child; and that for me was a token of the truth of our journey. We made an odd trio, I am sure. Star-gazing makes for strangeness.
And it was between us that we carried the knowledge. None singly could have come to the place, for the heavens are mapped like the seas; so one captain knows safe passage to the Indies, another the long draught to Cathay; another the inland waters perhaps. But we were not looking for an imagined continent, nor even a lone island but rather a single place and point. The pattern above, mirrored below. A place. A time. A birth.
It seems ridiculous now that we set out in search of that which we did not know. But it was so. We suspected, merely. Is not all research thus my friend? The common man determines his goal and strives towards it. Our striving is in the darkness, catching a glimpsed light merely.
There were things each of us had noticed. Melchior first had gone to Balthasar, who sought me out, who brought Melchior to me. I did not make it easy for him. Why should I have? He had been a schoolboy, newly come up to the University at Sippar when the Great Comet made its passage. What could he know of the dispute which blazed with that star's rising, burning with equal ferocity between Melchior and myself? He was a child. That he should seek to make light of that which did not concern him astonished me beyond measure. I listened to all they had to say, and sent them away.
By then, it was well into the middle watch of the night, and I went up onto the tower to wrap myself in darkness; to take comfort in the dark beauty of the heavens. Of course I knew of that which they had come so graciously to tell me. I am yet neither blind nor imbecile, thank God. I was well aware that Jupiter was passing out of Aquarius towards Saturn in Pisces. Am I less of a Jew than Melchior? Do I know nothing of the sign of the guardian of Israel in the heavens.
Should I not see as propitious it's coming together with Regal Jupiter in Pisces? Do I need to be told, as a child, the significance of the constellation of the Messias?
But to expect the fulfilment of such hope is to speak God's name.
As dawn came near I looked again to that quarter of the sky of which we had spoken. When the heliacal rising came I cried out.
Still, I tried to make it all my imagining and theirs. A second night I watched; in disbelief and wonder. The third day I sent to Balthasar a single word. Agreed. By nightfall he returned. Together we went up to the tower; where it was for him to be surprised, to find another dark figure, stood against the eastward sky; Melchior.
Together we watched. As dawn wiped the last of the starlight from the sky we made our morning orisons together, and went below to where I roomed.
To Melchior, what was incumbent upon us was quite clear. If conjunction was to occur, then we must go immediately to the court at Jerusalem, there make obeisance and offer ourselves in service. Always he was given to such things.
There might be conjunction. But that we should respond to it by going walkabout like beggars was an unthinkable vanity. The Messiah, blessed-be-he, shall not wait upon our presence to make his appearing. The sun does not hope for my glance. It is for the stars to move: for us to sit still. Yet even as I said these things, the notion of such a journey had caught hold of me.
Look upward only: shall I not guide thy steps as may best for thee be?
Within a week we set out; upon the new moon. It was propitious. But I tell you my friend, it was not an easy journeying. I had thought a pilgrimage to be a thing of resolution . But this was bitter: more gall than wine eh? But our journey is recorded elsewhere. What of it?
Leaving Jerusalem, we came at last to Bethlehem in Judah. sorry place of drunkards and revellers, mindless. asked for a child, a boy newborn.
Was there such a one? Many such. The innkeeper with whom we lodged showed us every brat under ten. Had we not come so far at such bone-wearying cost we should have turned and left. It was eventually the third night we were there, word came of a poor couple, lodged in a miserable inn, the far end of the town. We went. Not hoping; expecting only more greed and deception. An idiot boy met us; an agricultural half-wit full of a wild tale. When he led us to a stable behind a pub we suspected a trap: though, truth to tell, we had little enough to steal. Scholars are not merchants.
It was dark there. A single lamp lit the girl's face. She was younger than her husband, who seemed an honourable man. And the child? I cannot tell... what was truly in itself, and what was in my looking. All I can say is that it was a child like any other, and yet the seeing of this child changed my seeing of all things. Is not the miracle to see that in each new birth there is such mystery, such holiness. Is not my life, even, a miracle? It became such, that night. We knelt. In the straw and muck we knelt and said the Baruch ha ba B'Shem Adonai. What then? Some offering seemed apposite. I had a ring, Melchior bore incense, Balthasar some costly bitter spice. Infinitely less than that we had received we gave: and left.
It was eventually such an ordinary thing. Yet it seems to me my friend, that one's own life, and the infinite, are not as separate as I had thought. As if perhaps they had become one. We would not be going back the same way; nor the same people.
Author: Roger Quick