I noticed him straight away. As the
well came into sight, round the curve of the path, he was there,
alone, sitting on the stone wall.
It was another baking hot day. I hated
the daily chore of collecting water from the well; the dusty trudge
out, the effort of hauling the overflowing bucket up from the depths
and the struggle, carrying the full stone pot back to the village. And all on my own at the hottest part of the day, a stupid time for such a hard task, but so much better than suffering those knowing looks from the other women. I
hated it all, but like so much, like my life, that was just how things
were, just what had to be endured.
Close up I could see he looked weary.
His clothes, hair and feet were dusty, the marks of a traveller who'd
been on the road all day, maybe longer. I lifted the bucket and threw
it down the hole. After a moment there was a splash from deep below.
I began to pull the heavy load back up. The rough rope was harsh
against my hands. Sweat soaked my brow.
As expected he didn't offer to help.
This was women's work and, anyway, decent men don't talk to strange
women, to any women really. So it surprised me when he spoke, just as
I pulled the overflowing bucket over the lip of the well and set it
down on the baked earth.
“Will you give me a drink of water?”
he asked. His accent gave him away immediately, a northerner from
Galilee; and so a Jew, talking to me a Samaritan women, too many
taboos broken in one sentence. I'm not naïve. I have lived life. A
man, so obviously breaking the rules, probably has more rule breaking
in mind. I supposed I should have been shocked, rejected this
advance, but I was certainly no angel and life was drab enough. So I
dipped a toe in the water, so to speak.
“Sir, how come you are asking me, a
Samaritan woman, whom you Jews look down on so intently, for a
drink?” My tone was knowing, showing him I understood the subtext,
understood what he was after. So his reply caught me completely off
guard.
“If you knew who I am you would ask
me for the water of life.”
To be honest I was slightly annoyed. He
had just watched me drag the bucket up from the well without raising
a finger to help and now he was saying he could give me water.
“Water from where?” I replied.
“This well is the only source of water around here, dug by Jacob
our ancestor. You haven't even got a bucket? What are you going to
do, magic some up?”
He pointed at my bucket. “That water
will only quench your thirst for a while,” he said, “then you'll
need more. But the water I can give will satisfy the thirst that you
have deep down inside of you, satisfy it now and forever, like a
fountain.”
Something about what he said made me
uneasy, so I tried to laugh it off. “Yeah, right, I'll have some of
that if it means I wouldn't have to come out here every day. That
would make my life so much better!”
“It is not about making your life
better,” he answered. “It is about starting a new life. Go, get
your husband.”
The lie came so easily, because it
wasn't really a lie. If he knew I was living with someone, married or
not, it would probably scare him off, and there was something inside
me that did not want this conversation to end. “I'm not married,”
I said.
He paused, looking at me intently, eye
to eye. Yet the looking was not unnerving but warm, open, accepting.
As he spoke again his eyes seemed to sparkle, but the words he said
stunned me. “So true. You're sleeping with a man you are not
married to and it is not what you really want. You know it will fail,
just like those five other relationships you've had.” It felt like
I had been punched; not because of the tone of his words. There was
nothing harsh or judgemental in the way he said it, just matter of
fact. But how could he know?
I try to hide my shame at my past, my
failed relationships, even from myself, but just at that moment it
gushed up, like blood from an open wound. I was floundering,
completely off guard. I mumbled out some stuff about religious
differences between Jews and Samaritans to try to change the subject.
But he wasn't having it.
“None of that is important,” he
answered kindly. “You don't find God in temples. The time is coming
when people will see the truth, that you can know God and worship him
in your spirit, in your heart, in every moment of your life.” And,
at that moment, I knew there was nothing I wanted more in the world.
“I know that God will send a special
one to teach us all of this. I can't wait to hear it,” I replied
with longing in my voice.
“You don't need to wait,” he
answered easily. “I am here.”
I had no doubt he spoke the truth, but just then we were disturbed by a crowd of people arriving at the
well. They called out to the man as they drew close, clearly his
friends, but I was not ready to give him up to them yet.
“Don't go anywhere,” I told him
firmly, “I will be back. I have to get some people. I'll be back as
soon as I can.” He smiled warmly and nodded, as I leapt to my feet.
I noticed the strange looks his friends gave me as I ran past them in
the direction of the village, but I didn't care one bit.
