The Nails

He was just a lad of about seven or eight; thin, small and clothed in rags because his widowed mother could not afford anything better. From his nostrils, just on the edge of his perpetually parted lips, hung twin yellow columns of mucus, which he would brush away with the sleeve of his shoulder when it was impossible to sniff up anymore. His hair was a mass of unruly curls, thick and black, hanging over his forehead and almost concealing the dark, round and bright eyes that peered out, ever enquiringly, ever searchingly. Because his lips were always parted, probably because he was always catching cold and therefore breathing through his mouth, his rabbit teeth could be seen more prominently than the rest. Even at that hour in the day, when the sun was just reaching its zenith, he appeared energetic, picking up the wood shavings from beneath the plank that an older boy was sawing under the supervision of his father.

“Watch out for his hand my son,” said the kind carpenter as the ragged boy plunged forward for the shavings, unmindful about the rapidly working tool. “The tip of the saw might nick him badly.”

“I am watching Father,” replied the older boy with an indulgent smile at the youngster and paused in his task so that his little friend might collect the chips.

“Are those for your fire then?” he asked as small, dirty hands rapidly collected the shavings into a sack nearby.

“Yes young master,” he replied with a sniff, which sent the lines of mucus shooting back into his nostrils. He always called the older boy ‘young master’ even though there was not much disparity in their ages. The older boy was tall, and was perhaps twelve or thirteen, certainly not more, for his cheeks were still smooth and pink and there was no sign of a moustache over his finely detailed lips. The eyes were very blue and deep, under a broad forehead and his hair was of a reddish brown, curling slightly at the nape of his neck. His work clothes were modest and though faded, were neat and clean and his whole physique looked healthy and tough. But what captured any onlooker was the utter beauty of his young, boyish face! The eyes were wise for his age, looking deep and seeing much, ever smiling in their brilliant blue depts. His demeanor was friendly and kind and his brow was not furrowed by a single frown of childish anger or impatience. Even at that moment when his young friend hastened to pick up the wood shavings, making more than three quick rounds in order to pick up every single scrap, he waited, turning his father’s attention to the window frame already completed, so as to subtly check the carpenter’s growing impatience.

“You may go on sawing Young Master,” the little lad finally said, sniffing hard so as to emit a deep, bubbling sound from his nostrils. He dusted his hands and rubbed his nose with his shoulder and added. “I will carry the sack home so that Mother can build a fire for our lunch.”

“What a good idea,” said the older boy’s father. “Now be off!”

“When I come back, will you teach me how to hammer nails into wood?” asked the boy to the carpenter.

“Well, we shall, if there is time,” answered the man, taking some measurements from the window frame nearby. “Now run along boy; you don’t want to keep your mother waiting, do you?” and when the little one had departed with a beaming smile, added to his son, “I like the little chit – but he’s a great disturbance my boy.”

“They’re poor Father. His mother is too poor even to be able to get a little wood for their fire. And with no father, it is very hard for them.”

“Mmmm, I know,” said the boy’s father with a nod. “It’s good that he is interested in the trade. He should keep at it so that one day he will be able to keep his mother in comfort.”

“He will be a carpenter one day,” murmured the boy, watching the little lad with the sack on his humped shoulder, his tiny bare feet scurrying like a mouse along the sidewalk. For a long moment, he continued to stare at the retreating image of his friend and then, with a slight tremor continued with his work.   

A quarter of an hour later the lad was back smiling hugely, the grime from his face having been cleaned off by his mother.

“Was your mother happy then?” asked the older boy with a smile as he worked.

“See, she gave me this bit of sugar,” said the child exhibiting his prize with a jubilant jump.

“You are a good little boy,” said the carpenter, softening from the displeasure of the disturbance when he saw the child’s joy over the bit of sugar. “Here’s a block of wood and some nails,” he continued offering the little intruder the said materials. “See that small hammer there? Well sit in the shade there and hammer the nails into the wood so that they all go in fully and straight.”

The boy set about his task with gusto, the block of wood between his legs and the hammer banging away at the nails.

“Mind, don’t hurt your fingers,” cautioned the carpenter and chuckled at his son while they continued with their sawing.

“I mean to be as good as you are Sir,” came the tiny voice amid the banging and the carpenter sighed and shook his head.

               

“See what I mean when I say that he is a great disturbance?” he told his son softly.

“He’s so small and innocent,” replied the boy wisely and his father raised his eyebrows in astonishment. “Let him dream father.”

“One day I will make doors and windows and furniture and build houses and things like the way you do,” the boy continued and produced the block of wood before his mentors with its nails hammered in haphazardly. “See, I have done as you asked me to.”

The carpenter patted the little boys head and gently told him to sit in the shade and watch them. They worked with such synergy – the carpenter and his son – the older instructing the younger in one task or the other, or advising him against this or that. The little boy, seated on a stump of wood, his chin supported in his little hands, watched them and wondered why he did not have a father. Perhaps he thought, he would ask mother…but she always wept when he asked her about his father.

She sometimes said that he didn’t have a father; then at times she’d tell him that his father was a great builder in some far country over the seas and that he was extremely successful and rich – but then, if all this was true, why was his mother not happy?

He forgot all about it when the older boy’s mother stepped over the threshold of their home and called out to her son and husband for lunch.

“Oh! Our little neighbour is here as well,” said she with a smile, when her kind eyes fell on the tiny one seated in the shade. “I am sure you have had nothing to eat from the morning my darling,” she told him sweetly. “Come and have something to eat with us.”

The years that followed were to take the little ragged boy and his desolate mother far away from the carpenter’s neighbourhood, where he worked hard in the profession that so interested him that by the time he had reached the age of thirty, he had a successful furniture shop, which attracted the rich from far and wide. A builder and carpenter himself, he designed intricate woodwork, built expensive homes for the rich, at times carved statues for heads of state and laughed in contempt at the ragged little boys and girls who ran up to his work table to collect wood shavings.

He had no friends, or none close enough whom he could term as ‘friend’. People he considered clients or providers of some sort of service. Time for him meant work and work meant money. He was a hard man to work for but an honest one, recognizing hard work and paying or being paid no more or no less. Often when he was in his workshop carving away at a block of wood or sawing a plank, he would remember the carpenter and his young son, the only people who had befriended his mother and himself, and if one were to catch him at that moment, they would find a glow of tenderness in his eyes. He had lived a hard life, beaten by most boys as a child, laughed at by most girls and scoffed at by most adults. Even his mother had not been spared, for she had been young then, with a little boy and no husband. This family had accepted him and his mother with no judgement and no conditions and the days he had spent in that little town were still vivid and warm in his memory.

He could never understand why his mother moved away from there, but he had been a little boy then. Perhaps it was because she had found a job as a handmaid to one of the rich ladies in this city and being offered a handsome wage for the post, took it with no question. Whatever the reason might have been for his mother to leave that little town, he had benefited by it and had climbed the ladder of society where he had reached such a height that, all who looked upon him, cowered in awe at his success. But on many nights, when he lay upon his bed, staring up at the ceiling he would think of the kind family and wonder what had happened to them.

He had never seen them again.

He had grown into a big, strong man with florid cheeks and hard, black eyes which only seemed to soften when he watched his ageing mother rock herself on the chair that he had made for her as a young apprentice. There was no trace of the cold that he always seemed to contract, except for the iciness that his gaze emitted when he was annoyed or upset. He liked to watch the ships out at sea and often wondered when he would build a vessel much like those upon the horizon.

“Your hard work has made you successful my son,” his old mother would say feebly, “and has given me a comfortable life in my old age. You must stop now and begin to enjoy life. There is my friends daughter…”

“I have prepared a design of a ship Mother,” he would invariably reply dreamily and his dark eyes would hold a faraway look. “I will become famous at the palace if I am fortunate enough to build it.”

               

“You are already famous!”

               

“Caesar does not know about me. Herod has never heard of me. I want to be known by kings Mother.”

               

And that would end the conversation between them, because to be famous at court was a privilege that was desired by all and which was only allowed to a select few.

It was a hot Friday afternoon and the big builder was hurriedly following his cart filled with planks of wood on foot, for he wanted to get home to start preparation for the Passover. A roaring crowd arrested his attention and he stopped for a moment to watch them. A band of soldiers, some on horseback and some on foot led the mass with a tall man, falling under the fury of a whip and the weight of a long solid plank of wood across his shoulders.

“A prisoner sentenced to be crucified,” said the builder in disgust and hollered to his man who led the cart, to move on. “We don’t want to get tangled in this riot!” he shouted. “Move on! Move on!”

The cart began to move down the alley with its master following indifferently and the angry mob following in their wake. He had hardly proceeded a few steps when a thundering of hooves behind him warned him of a soldier’s approach.

“Hold it right there,” said the man on horseback to the carpenter. “What might be your trade man?”

“All of the town knows me,” replied the big man looking up arrogantly at the soldier who stopped him. “I am a builder…”

“A carpenter?”

“The best that this city can…”

“Come along then for we are in need of one like you,” and with that he was thrust into the crowd, beside the condemned man who was just rising from having fallen under the blows of a soldier. He protested and shouted in anger, hurling heated words at the soldiers and demanded to know the reason for his being treated in, what he thought to be this degrading manner.

               

“How dare you,” he sputtered. “Do you know who I am? I will have the law on you for what you are doing!”

“We are the law,” laughed the soldier who had ordered him and the others guffawed at the astonished expression on the builder’s face. “Give him that pail of nails and the hammer!”

The said articles were thrust into his numb hands and the soldier shouted again, raising his sword and pointing it forward:

               

“Now, onward to Calvary!”

               

“I won’t stand for this,” spluttered the builder but someone thrust him forward, to follow the prisoner with the plank across his shoulders. “I am no prisoner! I will not be disgraced in this way…to walk beside a convict and to carry the nails by which you are to crucify him.”

The prisoner turned once and a pair of deep, blue eyes looked upon the builder for a moment. His face was calm, even under the hair matted with blood and a crown of thorns that someone in base humour had placed upon his brow. His back and sides were ribboned with red whiplashes and his shoulders were bruised from the burden that he staggered under. 

“Be at peace,” he softly said and proceeded on shaky, bruised feet past a crowd of crying women, one of whom rushed forward and wiped the blood and sweat from his face. Through all of this the builder walked, dazed, the pail of nails in his hands and a huge hammer shoved in his waistband.

By mid-afternoon the crowd had reached a mound called Golgotha where they gathered around to watch the proceeding, shouting and chanting in their madness. The prisoner was freed of the plank and was beaten until he had fallen to the ground. Then a shoulder roughly pushed the builder forward and thrust him to the dust, where lay another longer plank of wood.

“Nail this plank to that one to make a cross!” came the order and the mob yelled loudly:

“Crucify! Crucify!”

With a few hard blows, the nails went in perfectly into the wood, joining the plank that the prisoner had carried to the one that lay there to form a cross. As he hammered he thought back to the time, years ago when he collected wood shavings from under that young boy’s plank, recalled the afternoon when the carpenter, the boy’s father gave him a block of wood and a few nails to practice on and remembered the years of success that had followed.

“Has it all come to this?” he wondered silently as he did what he had been ordered to do. “Has all my hard work only to result in this disgrace?”

When he had completed his task he looked up at the soldier. “It is done,” he said.

“Will it hold the weight of this man?” asked the soldier and the builder shook his head in doubt.

“Well then man, do something about it. You claim to be a carpenter or a builder or whatever…Go on you fool! Get to work!” A whip lashed with a crack against his shoulders and with a scream of pain, he set about reinforcing the join in the wood with rope. When he was done, someone pushed him aside and laid the prisoner across the scaffold, spreading his arms across the plank.

“Tie his arms to the wood,” ordered the soldier to the builder, “and then nail his wrists and feet down…Stop gaping at me man. Do as you are told!” A second crack of the whip resounded and with gritting teeth and tears flushing his eyes, the builder brought the hammer down onto the nail where it pierced the wrist of the condemned man. There was a cry of pain; the builder trembled; then another hoarse cry as the second nail tore into muscle and ligament, sprouting a fountain of blood. He hesitated with the third nail, but the whip across his back sent him a clear message; gritting his teeth and sobbing he hammered the third nail into the crossed feet of the prisoner, securing them to the wood under the hot, pulsating blood that now gushed freely.

Then someone roughly pushed him aside, and with the help of ropes, the soldiers raised the cross into position, while the builder stared in awe at the scaffold before him. He trembled again and recalled once more the carpenter and his son many, many years ago.

A sob behind him turned his attention and he saw to his astonishment, a familiar woman weeping softly at the plight of the prisoner on the cross. Even in the moment of her extreme agony to see the prisoner suffer so in his last moments of life, she seemed not to waver and though she wept, she stood strongly at the foot of the scaffold till the end came.

He looked...then he looked again. Time had crossed her beautiful face with lines and had grayed her one time dark hair, but it was the same face and those very kind eyes. Long ago when he was little, he had always wondered why her face was so lovely and so smooth and why his mother’s was not – why she always seemed to smile in the face of the most trying times and his mother always lamented. He always wondered why this lady was so different from his mother.

               

He looked up at the man hanging on the cross and saw the deep blue eyes looking down at him, where all the wisdom of the ages appeared to have converged. Time had given that calm face the features of a man, but the builder recognized the smooth forehead, which the lines of impatience and anger had never the power to crease.

As recognition dawned, he dropped to his knees in almost a swoon and the tears came again, but this time it was not because of the pain of the whip or the disgrace he had suffered.

It was because he had helped to crucify the only friend he had ever known.