Daughter of Jerusalem (38 page)

A large crowd had assembled by the time our procession arrived, pushing us farther away from the Master. The Temple guards and some of the Roman soldiers went up the hill with him while the horsemen
remained behind to keep the crowd under control. People were shrieking, and children were crying.

Children
, I thought in horror.
How could anyone bring a child to a crucifixion?

Mary said to John, “We have to get through. I have to be with him.”

John made a battering ram with his elbows and pushed through the crowd. The people he shoved out of his way cursed him, but Mary and I held onto his belt and followed him through.

As we reached the front, we saw the Romans raise the middle cross.

Mary’s hand closed on my arm so tightly that it would leave bruises.

John said to the horseman in front of us, “Let us through. We’re friends of Jesus of Nazareth.”

“No one gets through,” the guard returned, swinging his horse’s haunches toward us to keep us back.

I stepped forward boldly and said, in the aristocratic Latin I had learned from Julia, “You must let us through. This is Jesus of Nazareth’s mother.”

The guard gave me a sharp glance but repeated his refusal, this time in Latin.

I summoned up my most arrogant expression. “I don’t believe you understand. I have friends in Rome—highly placed friends. They won’t be pleased to learn you denied my request.”

The guard looked at me suspiciously, taking in the way I was dressed. “You don’t look like a Roman. You look like a Jew.”

“What I am is a close friend of Marcus Novius Claudius. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stop wasting my time and let us through.”

“How do you know a man like that?”

I narrowed my eyes. “Stop asking me useless questions, and let us go stand by the cross. Now.”

He grumbled, but he backed his horse up and let us pass.

I couldn’t look at him.

This is unbearable
.

But Mary moved forward, and John and I followed behind her. He was so thin. He was like a skeleton covered with a thin layer of flesh as he hung there under the brilliant sun. His eyes were closed. We stopped at the foot of the cross, and Mary reached up, put her hand on his bloody foot, and said, “Yeshua, I am here.”

His eyes opened. She looked up at him, her spine straight, her face concentrated, willing him to see her, to know that she was with him, to know that he was not alone.

He said nothing, but for a long moment they looked at each other. He was the Son of God, but she was his mother, and I knew he was glad for her presence.

We remained there beneath him, Mary, John, and I, as the clouds covered the sun and the sky grew dark. When Mary could no longer keep her arm up to touch his foot, I took her place. Then, when I tired, she took mine.

It was unspeakable. Jesus was silent, acknowledging us only once, when he asked John to take Mary into his care. She was incredibly strong. She stood with him until the end, once or twice murmuring to him so he would know she was still there.

I thought,
There is more bravery in this small woman than in the entire army of Rome. Jesus didn’t get his strength only from his Father.

I felt as if it would never end, that we would stand enduring this agony until the end of time. It was late in the afternoon when Jesus whispered in a cracked voice, “I thirst.”

“Get him something to drink,” I snapped in Latin to the soldiers around us.

They dipped a sponge in the bucket and held it to his lips. After he had tasted the drink, he looked up to heaven. This time when he spoke his voice was clear.

“It is finished.”

His head dropped forward, and all his muscles, which had been concentrated on bearing him up against the tearing of the nails, relaxed.

“He’s done for,” one of the soldiers said.

I looked at his chest, to see if it was moving. It wasn’t. He was dead.

Thank God
.

They lowered him from the cross, and we ran to kneel next to him. There was blood on his face, but he looked peaceful, as if asleep.

“He is with his Father,” Mary said, brushing his hair away from his forehead with a steady hand.

“Yes, he is.” I took off my cloak and settled it over him gently, as if afraid that, even in death, he might feel it on his poor wounded body.

The Temple guards who had been watching with the crowd came up to us, and one of them said to John, “The Sabbath begins at sundown. You must take him away before then.”

John and I looked at each other, the same thought in both our minds. Where could we take him?

The crowd had grown bored with the spectacle and dispersed. The two other men were still hanging in their agony, watched over by the soldiers. The sky was gray, and it was growing cold.

“We have no place to put him,” John said.

The Temple guard shrugged in supreme indifference. “We cannot have a dead body lying here on the Sabbath. Take him away.”

Then, as I looked wildly around for some kind of help, I saw Nicodemus and another man toiling up the hill.

Neither the Roman nor the Temple guards attempted to stop them. Nicodemus fell to his knees next to Jesus, and tears ran down his cheeks. “They are evil men,” he said. “Evil men.”

I didn’t think he was speaking of the Romans.

Mary was still kneeling beside her son, and Nicodemus said to her, “Don’t worry, dear woman. I have with me one of the Master’s followers, Joseph by name. He’s recently purchased some land over there.” He gestured toward the area north of Golgotha. “There’s an empty tomb on the property, and Joseph wants you to have it for the Master.”

Mary held out her hand, stained by her son’s blood. “Thank you, sir. With all my heart, I thank you.”

I tried to think practically. “He’ll have to be washed and anointed.”

“I have servants coming after me with burial cloths and oils.” Nicodemus looked toward the city and then pointed. “There, do you see?”

I looked and saw two men approaching the base of the hill.

John said, “We will carry him to the tomb, and your men can follow us. We must get him away from here as soon as possible.”

Nicodemus agreed. “The three of us can surely carry him. It isn’t that far.”

“No,” said John, his voice adamant. “I will carry him myself.”

He bent and lifted Jesus into his arms as if he weighed no more than a child, and we started off. A Roman soldier and a Temple guard followed behind.

It was a long walk, but John never faltered. Joseph’s property turned out to be a small garden dotted with almond trees at the end of their bloom. The delicate pink flowers lay scattered all over the ground, dying. A rocky hillside formed one of the property lines, and carved into the hillside was a cave. It was there that we carried him.

Nicodemus’ servants caught up to us, and as John laid Jesus on a rocky shelf inside the cave, I said to Mary, “Do you want to help me with the anointing? Are you able to face this?”

“I think so,” she whispered.

I put my arms around her. She was shivering. “Go with John. You’ve borne enough. I will see to this for you.”

As we were speaking, the Temple guard came into the cave. “You must clear out now,” he said. “The Sabbath will begin within the hour and you must be away from here before then.”

“I am not leaving until I’ve prepared his body!” My voice shook, I was so angry. If I had been a man, I would have punched him in his broad flat face.

“You can come back when the Sabbath is over,” and he gestured impatiently for us to leave the tomb.

The Roman guard said, in Latin so the Temple guard couldn’t understand, “I will roll a smaller stone in front of the entrance, one you can remove easily when you return. Don’t give your friend’s enemies a reason to take his body someplace where you can’t get to it.”

I stared at him, uncertain.

“Be smart,” he said softly. “You can come back and perform your rites tomorrow.”

The Temple guard was scowling. “What did you just say to her?” he demanded.

The Roman shrugged. “I told her she had better do as you asked, or she would be arrested.”

“He’s right,” the Temple guard said to me. “You don’t want to end up under guard at the Antonia, do you?”

My fingers twitched. I wanted so much to slap his ugly face. But I said to the others, “We must leave. We’re no good to the Master if we are arrested.”

Nicodemus instructed his servants to leave the oils and burial cloths, and the Temple guard herded us out of the cave, telling us to get to our homes before the Sabbath began. As John, Mary, and I
looked at each other in bewilderment—where should we go?—Nicodemus said, “I’ll take you to the others.”

John nodded and beckoned to us to follow, leading us back into the now-empty streets of Jerusalem.

Nicodemus told us the disciples were gathered in the room where they had celebrated Passover the night before. It was located in the Upper City, near the house of the high priest. Like Nicodemus, the owner was a secret follower of the Master.

We walked quickly through the silent streets until we reached the house. Nicodemus led us through a side door and up a flight of stairs. As we ascended, I heard the sound of men talking, but once we knocked at the door the voices stopped.

“Who is there?” I recognized Peter’s voice.

“It’s Nicodemus. I’m here with John, Mary of Magdala, and the Master’s mother.”

Peter opened the door and closed it quickly behind us. I looked at all the pale faces staring at us. They were all there except Judas.

Peter spoke first, his booming voice no more than a husky whisper. “Is he dead?”

Nicodemus answered. “Yes. We brought him to a nearby tomb, but the guards forced us to leave because of the Sabbath. It was too late for the women to return to Bethany.”

Peter began to sob. I saw tears in the eyes of most of the others, and suddenly I was furious. “Where were you while the Master was being crucified?” I shouted. “John, Mary, and I were there. Where were you?”

No one would look at me.

Mary said, “I would like to sit down.”

The long, low table at which they must have celebrated their Passover supper last evening took up half the room. Andrew hurried to push one of the couches against the wall, and Mary and I sat.

Nicodemus said, “Let me find the owner and see if he has a room the women can use.”

After the door closed behind the Pharisee, John said, his face grim, “Who is going to answer Mary’s question? Where were you?” His gaze fixed on Peter. “You were supposed to be in the high priest’s courtyard, but when we arrived, you were gone.”

Peter began to cry again and tears continued to rain down his cheeks as he told us his story. At last night’s supper, here in this very room, Jesus had told him that, before the cock crowed twice this morning, Peter would deny him thrice. And that’s what happened. The servants in the high priest’s courtyard kept asking him if he was a follower of the Master, and Peter kept saying he didn’t know the man. The last time Peter denied knowing him, he heard the cock crow for the second time.

“I betrayed him,” Peter sobbed. “I loved him, and I betrayed him.”