The Annunciation
She’s not much. That’s what the other wives in the village say behind her back whenever they see her going about her daily tasks. She’s younger than they are, and although she’s been married to the carpenter for almost two years, she hasn’t given him a child. They assume she’s barren, for the carpenter’s previous wife bore him a son who is now four years old. It was a hard birth, and the midwife could not keep her from bleeding to death. She’d been popular in the village, and the other women still miss her. They don’t blame the carpenter for marrying again, for it is a man’s duty to beget sons and daughters, but he should have chosen more wisely. The girl works hard enough, they’ll give her that, but she’s not very sociable, barely acknowledging their greetings as if she thinks she’s better than they are. Maybe she’s touched in the head – she’s got a moony look, like someone who sees things that aren’t there, or hears voices when no one is speaking.
She knows what her neighbors think of her, but she tries to ignore their opinions. Since she reached the age of reason, she has felt that fate has set her aside to play some special role in the world. It is not a feeling that gladdens her heart. She wants nothing more than to lead an ordinary life with her husband, bear healthy children, live to a ripe old age, and die contented. Instead, she has strange visions she doesn’t understand, and hears a distant voice whose words are too indistinct to make out. Maybe her neighbors are right about her being crazy. Even her husband regards her with a touch of fear. For on their wedding night he was unable to do the man’s part in bed, and he has been impotent with her ever since. So she remains a virgin. She and her husband still share the bed, of course, since it’s the only one in their small house – his son by his previous marriage sleeps on a pallet at the foot of it. And because the carpenter’s fondness for her outweighs his fear, when her visions turn into nightmares about the agonizing death of someone dear to her and she wakes up sobbing, he comforts her, putting his arms around her and speaking soothingly, until she calms down and goes back to sleep.
During the day she is kept too busy to brood over her visions. The carpenter cannot afford to pay an assistant, and the boy is too young to help him. So in addition to her usual chores – shopping for food, cooking it, keeping the house clean, washing clothes – her husband also asks her to assist him in the shop. The captain of the soldiers stationed in the village required timbers and planks to complete the construction of his garrison. Once a hotheaded young man attacked one of his soldiers and needed to be executed publicly, to discourage further acts of rebellion. The carpenter was ordered to make a sturdy wooden cross to which the rebel was lashed, naked, after being savagely whipped. It took three days for the poor wretch to die.
The captain was pleased with the carpenter’s work, and ordered more crosses for the execution of thieves and other common criminals. He hated making them, but of course he had no choice, and at least the overlords paid well. The girl wasn’t strong enough to muscle the heavy timbers around, but she helped her husband by making measurements and handing him saws, hammers, and nails. She also replaced all the tools when the work was done, and swept the sawdust off the shop floor and into the street.
Then it was off to the market to haggle over the price of meat, bread, and wine, home to make supper and serve it, wash and dry the dishes, and make a final trip to the village well with her ewer so that there would be water for the morning’s ablutions and cooking. By the time she got to bed, her husband was already snoring. And during the night, the visions returned
So it went, day after day. Her arms and back ached, her feet hurt, she barely had the energy to drag herself around. She felt a pain in her chest, and she found it hard to catch her breath. She wondered if she had caught some mortal illness, and if the nightmares about death referred to her own. One morning, totally wrung out after cooking breakfast and washing the dishes, she sat on the low wall of her little vegetable garden to rest for a moment. She placed her hands on her knees and lowered her head, overcome with misery. She let out a low groan, a sound more animal than human. It was at that moment that the Angel of the Lord appeared to her.