The Gospel According to Jesus Christ by José Saramago

BETWEEN THE MONTHS OF TAMMUZ AND AB, WHEN GRAPES were gathered in the vineyards and the figs began ripening amid the dark green vine leaves, certain events took place. Some were normal and commonplace, such as a man and woman coming together in the flesh, and after a while she tells him, I am carrying your child, others quite extraordinary, such as an annunciation entrusted to a passing beggar whose only crime seems to have been that peculiar phenomenon of the bright earth, which is now safe from prying eyes thanks to Joseph's mistrust and the prudence of the elders. The dog days are fast approaching, the fields are bare, nothing but stubble and parched soil. During the oppressive hours of the day Nazareth is a village submerged in silence and solitude. Only when night descends and the stars appear can one sense the presence of a landscape or hear the music of the heavenly planets as they glide past one another.

After supper Joseph sat out in the yard, to the right of the door, to get some air. How he loved to feel the fresh evening breeze on his face and beard. Mary joined him, squatting on the ground like her husband but on the other side of the door, and there they remained in silence, listening to the sounds coming from the neighboring houses, the bustle of domestic life, which they, too, would experience once they had children. May God send us a boy, Joseph had prayed throughout the day, and Mary, too, kept thinking, Let it be a boy, dear God, but she had other reasons for wanting a boy. Her belly was slow in growing bigger, weeks and months would pass before her condition became visible, and since, out of modesty and discretion, she saw little of her neighbors, there would be general surprise when she turned into a balloon overnight. Perhaps the real reason for her secretiveness was her fear that someone might connect her pregnancy with the appearance of the mysterious beggar.