Secret Magdalene (35 page)

This last thought has roused me from my habits as John the Less, and from those I knew as a person of privilege. If there are wonderful parts to being thought a man, there are parts that shame me. Why would I sit when all mourn the death of John, women as well as men, and expect only the grieving women to tend to me and to my needs? I am Mariamne, and I will tend to myself and to those I love.

Though Helena would as well, I make myself solely responsible for Salome. I make sure of Eio’s needs. I do whatever it is Tata would ask of me, and more if I notice a thing before Tata does. I sit by the hour near the side of the woman Sarah, and I bathe her hot skin with aromatics. I listen to her feverish mutterings. Plainly, having her son-in-law once again in her home and also the brother of her son-in-law, has done her no good. Sarah is frightened of them both, and I sympathize, poor woman. They are fearsome men, or they mean to be.

It happens that on the evening of our seventh day in Capharnaum, as the neighboring fishermen push their boats out into the sea so they might fish all night, and Salome is mercifully freed for a moment of the pain of John by sleep, and as Tata brews something over our fire, I am sitting by one side of Sarah and Perpetua sits on the other. Helena sits at her feet. We have been talking as we bathe her, Helena and I. We have been telling the wife of Simon Peter all that we can of Egypt, of Alexandria, of our time there. I have been saying that I mean to return, that I mean to found a school, and Perpetua has been listening, her dreams of far lands and exotic sights shining in her eyes. The child Mark too listens, and I am careful not to look his way, and by this, more and more of his eager wondering face appears, as he would not miss a single word. It is at this point that I notice that Tata starts and looks up. Therefore, I too start and look up.

Yeshu has joined us. As has Simon Peter and Seth.

My hand, in which there is a dripping sponge held over the bowl of Tata’s aromatics, freezes. The scented water seeps down my arm, and the words I have intended to say rise no further in my throat. I am sure my eyes have grown as round as the eyes of the child Mark at the sight of Yehoshua, but I have no skirts to hide in.

Though Peter does not come close, Yeshu and Seth walk across the courtyard, Yeshu to seat himself at the head of Sarah’s pallet, Seth to remain standing. Where he stands is directly behind me.

Yeshu does not look at me; he looks at Perpetua, saying, “How long has she suffered?”

Perpetua is too frightened to raise her eyes to this once Sicarii, perhaps even more than she is of her Sicarii husband himself, but still she finds the courage to answer. “Why, sir, for many weeks, and I tell you, I fear she dies.”

Yeshu touches Sarah’s weathered cheek, very softly and very tenderly. At his touch, the old woman’s eyes fly open like the lid of a hinged box. They are red with fever and blurred with confusion. “Sarah,” says Yeshu, “can you hear me?”

Though she seems to have heard no one else, it is obvious she hears Yeshu. “Yes,” she answers, clutching her sheet to her breast, “I hear you. Are you a demon?”

Yeshu leans so close to her face his red hair brushes her heated skin. “Sarah,” he whispers, “mother of Perpetua, as you can hear me, do you think there is a demon in you?”

At this, I come unstuck inside. All the things I have not allowed myself to feel, I feel now. To be so close to the friend of my heart and not to speak. To breathe the air my friend breathes and not to look into his eyes. All that we have said to each other, all that he has told me and no one else, and all that I know of his Glory, and he of mine, and here we sit in the house of Simon Peter of Capharnaum who did not love me when I was John the Less and who affects not to know me now that I am Mariamne, the castaway daughter of a rich Judaean. I have heard my friend ask a woman if she is possessed by a demon, and only I of all who know Yeshu know that he knows there are no demons. Yet he will act the role of
gazer;
he will be an exorcist. For as he has said, the people make a demon of their illnesses, and of their troubles, so that they might have a thing to blame. If they believe a thing, it is as magic. Which means if they think a thing is in them, then it is in them. And if they think a thing cast out, cast out it will be. Only I know this is what is in his mind.

Sarah, the mother-in-law of Simon Peter, struggles to sit up. So eager is she to know her demon so that it might be blamed for what she endures, she would sit up in her bed, not lie. I place a firm hand on her back to help her, as does her daughter. Together, we cradle Sarah until she can hold herself. “Oh, yes, Master,” she cries as she struggles, “I am sure I am possessed of a demon. He tears at me.” So saying, she points at her belly and at her heart.

“What is its name?”

“Its name?”

“By what name would it be called so that we may demand it go away?”

“Ah!” Sarah brightens so visibly, even Peter who is scowling in the doorway is astonished. “I do not know its name. Do you?”

Yeshu smiles down at her, places his left hand on the back of her head and his right hand on her brow. Sarah has closed her eyes. She has given herself over to his touch. I know what it is he thinks at this, for we have talked of it long into the night. The woman believes in her demon, and now she believes that Yeshu believes. And if he, as a proper magician, should also know its name? Surely by knowing its name, he has the power to send it away.

Yeshu now shouts so that all might hear, and so too that the demon might hear. “Its name is Dread. And I cast it out! Begone Dread! Leave this woman in peace.”

At the moment Yeshu utters the word
peace
he releases his hands from her head, and in this same moment, Sarah rises from her bed, stumbles a step toward me, and then a step toward Helena, crying out, “It is gone! There is nothing left of it!”

Perpetua, who has watched all this in first fear and then awe, covers her mouth with both of her hands so that she might not scream, and by screaming cause the demon to flee back into her mother. As Sarah has done, Simon Peter has taken a step toward us, then another step, on his face a look of dawning wonder, and then of—what? Cunning? Ambition? I find I do not wish to know. Seth has not moved at all. And neither have I. But Tata comes forward to catch Sarah before she can fall on her knees and do as the man Ismael, father of Matti, had done, clasp Yeshu’s legs and kiss his feet.

Yeshu, too, has risen. He looks at Perpetua. He looks at Simon Peter. He says, “Tell no one of this.”

And with that, Yeshu leaves us. But not before glancing over at me, and not before I see that in looking at me, there is a light in his eyes of such strangeness I am almost alarmed. It is not broken, but then neither is it clear.

Y
eshu had said, “Tell no one of this,” and no one has, or so I think until the morning comes that we are finally to leave this place.

I support Salome, as Tata steadies Eio to take her weight. Rhoda packs the last of our provisions into the baskets Eio also carries. Eio grumbles throughout. We are traveling first to Jerusalem so that I might claim my mother’s bequest. It is determined that I shall also claim Salome’s from her father, Coron. Salome, who has been asked about this, has replied with silence. I have replied to her silence with chatter. I take both our parts, talking as we used to talk. If I could be heard, I am sure I would seem half mad. I
am
half mad.

Tata is turning Eio’s head toward the door leading out from the yard where the animals are kept, when Seth steps from the shadows.

“I would travel with you,” he says to Tata, and to Addai, “Izates, who is called back as king, returns to Adiabene. Ananias is already gone about his business. Dositheus thinks to remain here with Yeshu. But I must return to Jerusalem.”

I do not smile. I barely look in his direction. My friend, who would wed me, looks as he always does, composed and collected. I think I shall always admire how removed he is from human cares, and I shall learn to emulate him. I have already begun by making no gesture for or against his traveling with us. But inwardly, how I rejoice to see him! My heated pain must surely cool in the shade of his tender regard.

Of course, Helena chooses to follow Salome and not go with Dositheus and Yeshu, so that by counting Eio we number nine as we move away from the house of Perpetua and Simon Peter. Coming from a side door onto the larger street that passes through the center of Capharnaum, I see there is a small knot of men waiting at Simon Peter’s door. I recognize none of them, though they are surely the worthy of Capharnaum, by which I mean affluent in one way or another. Each of them wears something of mourning for the loss of the prophet John. Simon Peter is with them, and as we pass by, we all hear him say as clearly as if he were speaking to us: “I swear what I have said is true. He can make the blind to see. He can pluck back the body from the brink of death. I, Simon the son of Jonah, who has always lived among you, being born among you, saw it with my own eyes. He has cured Sarah. You all know how the mother of my wife suffered.” Pulling on their beards, they all nod, yes, Sarah certainly suffered. “And you all know she was nigh unto death.” Yes, they know this too. Simon Peter leans toward them as if what he said was for their ears only, then yells, “This morning I have asked that she serve me, and what do you think? She straightaway did. In this very time, I would not wonder to find she commands my wife and scolds my son.”

He is rewarded by hoots of laughter, but these are short-lived, for Yeshu, followed closely by Jude, has just stepped out a main door. By now, we who travel to Jerusalem this day have moved away, shaking our heads as we go. If there is one man in all creation who cannot hold his tongue, that man is Simon Peter of Capharnaum.

As all have, Yeshu has heard every word, and his face is dark with anger. He shoots his rock a look that ought to shrivel his gizzard. But Simon Peter is rushing toward him, saying, “Yehoshua! Yehoshua! All these would bear witness to what you have done.”

Addai and Seth and I exchange glances. What will Yeshu do about this? But before we can know, “Yehoshua the Healer” is swallowed in the midst of the men of Capharnaum, and then, as if by some signal, others, more men and now women and children, though they still mourn, come streaming out of their houses or away from their nets or their fish shops, and they each make their way toward Yeshu. And some of them carry their ill, and some of them are themselves afflicted in one way or another.

I watch this in horror. If Yeshu is thought a healer, if he is hailed as a magician, there will be no end to their coming. They will not push themselves forward to hear of the Kingdom; they will come instead to be healed in body. At the promise of a healer, there is nothing else in them, nothing, but the fervent need to be well. I look at Addai who must ride in a wagon, and whose precious hands are destroyed. I look at Salome who is slumped on Eio’s back. Isis, Queen of Heaven, if I thought Yeshu could heal Addai or Salome, I too would push forward, calling, Master! Master!

The last I see of him, Peter stands to the side of the clamoring and the calling, of the hands reaching out, and the piteous supplications, and on his face is nothing but prideful satisfaction. I close my eyes in sorrow. Simon Peter is a passionate man. Under all his foolishness, he means well. But does he not know what he has silenced in Yeshu by not silencing himself?

THE THIRTEENTH SCROLL

Mariamne Magdal-Eder

H
ow right Father
was, and how wrong. He said I should not be a child when once again I saw him. This is true. He said also I should be a wife. I am no man’s wife. Nor shall I ever be.

We are in Father’s house in the town of Bethany, Salome and I. Bethany is sited no more than half an hour’s walk east from Jerusalem on the road to Jericho, but to me it seems more remote than Gaulanitis. Each night since I have returned I have dined with Father. He does not ask Salome, but all here know he would not turn her away. Nor, as our traveling companion, would he turn away Helena. He allows, as few Jews do, women at his table.

Seth has accomplished our being here in Bethany. I do not know how and I do not ask.

Three months have passed since the death of John the Baptizer, and not once in all these terrible days and terrible nights has Salome smiled, nor has she willingly moved, nor does she seem to feel even to the extent of boredom. Semne the Egyptian does not speak, nor does she eat more than will keep breath in her body. Simon Magus believes he has killed John. And where before John died, Simon was sure the death he walked toward was Holy, now that John is truly dead, and he a witness to its horror, Simon is much surer still John’s death is on his head. For who but Simon Magus taught John the meaning of the godman? Who filled him full of the thoughts and the dreams of men like Philo Judaeus? Who prophesied his great effect on the people, greater than he had already had? Who encouraged him to be not only a voice crying in the wilderness, but as Osiris? And who was it, when the soldiers came a second time, and again in the darkest part of the night, could not stop them from taking his life?

I tell Salome that John acted as he would. I tell her that John knew what he knew. I tell her that if she is guilty of these dire things, so too is Dositheus of Gitta. Perhaps also Seth of Damascus. But she does not listen. She does not even hear.

But no matter if she hears or if she does not hear, I will stay with her. I shall wait by her side as long as it takes, and when Salome lives again—and she will live again, she
must
—we will go home to Alexandria. When that time comes, we will do what we once meant to do, travel throughout Egypt, even unto Kush and the land of the Black Queens where we shall find the dark people of the shadows, the Ethiop. And we shall take with us Salome’s shadow, Helena of Tyre, who, for all we know, may
be
an Ethiop.

But for now, we recline as Romans at Father’s table, which was his brother-in-law’s before him. It is nothing like as big or as finely made as the table in our house in Jerusalem, but it is grand enough, as are the rugs on the floor beneath me. I see Father has brought along his Persian rugs. By my right side, I have had one of Father’s slaves place the listless Salome, and by hers is placed the faithful Helena. I speak only when spoken to. I do not flash my eyes as I would if I were John, but I do not keep them cast down as I might if I had never been John. Oh, but how cruel these years have been to Father. He does not stand so straight, nor does he recline so effortlessly. His eye is not as keen, his laugh as sure, his hand as capable. Over the whole of his body, down to his toes in their Greek slippers, he has gained a thick layer of fat. But most startling of all, he is as clean shaven as Seth and Izates are clean shaven; Father has cut off his beard. But then, the Roman fashion has spread since I last sat with Father, and many of his friends are also bare of chin. Not so Nicodemus. Nicodemus is ever as he was, full bearded and craven before the Lord. But beardless or no, Father is as ever Josephus, and he is as ever a member of the Sanhedrin, and he dominates his table as he is used to.

Looking upon his hairless face, his chin is like mine, his jaw softer, I find myself as fond of him as ever I was, even though he once called me whore and proclaimed me possessed of demons. By the last count of Ananias, the number rose as high, I think, as seven. But then, as Joor no doubt still teaches, because of the signs and the stars, if it is not twelve, then seven is always the number of anything: worlds, netherworlds, sins, sisters, wonders, spirits, and demons. But that he remains fond of me at first unsettled me. On the instant I appeared before him, clothed in the person of the maiden Mariamne and doubting my welcome, we looked into each other, my father and I, and as we did so, I knew Josephus rejoiced at the sight of me; for am I not all that remains to him of his beloved Hokhmah—and am I not the prodigal daughter?

He has asked me no questions. If I should stay here, I think he never shall. I know Father. He will act as if I have never left, as if he never demanded my leaving, as if these ten years never were. Because I will not stay here, and because I would not hurt him as he has hurt me, I will allow him this.

Seth reclines on Father’s right just as the omnipresent Nicodemus of Bethphage, whose eyebrows have grown as tangled as brambles since last I saw him, reclines on Father’s left. The presence of a Maccabee both flatters Father and Nicodemus, as much as it alarms them. Nicodemus, especially, is flustered. So far, he has spilled his honeyed wine twice.

Rachel, my mother’s sister and the widow of Pinhas ben Yohai, is placed near the foot of the table with Father’s wife, Naomi. Time has done nothing to my aunt Rachel. She was never comely, and she is not comely now. But she is as presentable as a man could wish of a brother-in-law’s widow. Or a wife. As yet, I do not know her status here. Time has not been half so kind to Naomi. The black antimony round her eye and the mulberry juice on her cheek is now more a mask than an adornment, and I think it meant not only to hide the marks of age but of discontent. It cannot be want that causes her sulks, for both she and Rachel are gowned in Coan silks, costly as gold, and they wear their hair as ornately as the richest Roman matron.

Salome and I are placed with Martha, my once cousin, and now perhaps also my sister. Martha, who is seventeen and betrothed for more than a year to a man older than Father, seems as discontent as Naomi. Staring at her plate of red clay—I see Father has also brought along his fine Italian plate—her tiny features are, just as I remember, drawn together into the middle of her broad face as a rope is drawn into a knot. Martha does not speak to me any more than my aunt or my stepmother speak to me.

Aside from Seth, there is only one here who has looked my way, and this is Eleazar, who might and might not be my brother. Eleazar, once as silent as the deep, is now as noisy as surf. Is this because his father is dead? Alive, Pinhas ben Yohai cast as dark a shadow over his household as a high priest casts over his treasury. Or Yahweh over his people.

I raise my eyes from my place at the bottom of the table. We who are women eat in silence, but those who are men, by which I mean Father, seem to talk louder than Eio can bray. At the moment, Josephus speaks to Seth of the Roman governor. He is saying that not only the Pharisee, but also the Sadducee themselves, fret under the rule of Pontius Pilate. If it is not one outrage, it is another. By now, his killings, if not his grievous insults to Jewish sensibilities, must number more than a thousand. There are secret meetings among the priests and the Sanhedrin. There is talk of a delegation of the most prominent men being sent to Rome to present a case to the emperor Tiberius. Father himself has been to see Pilate more than once. “Mark my words. There will come a day when he will kill one too many Jews, and on that day, when Tiberius finally tires of Jewish complaint—” Father draws his hand across his neck; I see the imagined blade so clearly, I wince, but of course I do not speak. Then Father laughs. “I begin to like the fellow, though his teeth are much too white and his Greek much too poor.”

Nicodemus clears his throat to gain attention, not once but thrice, and when finally Seth dutifully attends, says, “I, myself, will be among these men who go to Rome. But I am more afraid of what Tiberius will do to us than eager to see what he might do to Pilate.” Seth nods his head at this, and Nicodemus is encouraged. “Mark
these
words, more than any ten Pilates, it is our own people who endanger us. The Romans can only kill so many, but the Sicarii with all their crazed talk of righteousness and Holy Wars will kill us all. They are lunatics. Whatever brains they once had, dried up long ago in the sun of the wilderness they rave in. And they court disaster to every man who calls himself Jew, for though they preach that when they rise, God will rise with them, even a fool can see the truth of it. When they rise, Rome will rise higher, as high as a great wave in the sea, and when this wave falls, it will fall as the rain of God falls, alike on the unjust and the just. No day goes by that I do not expect the Poor to ignite the ignorant. Any day now, especially with the death of that fool, John the Baptizer, they will throw themselves against the swords of Rome.”

I writhe with the desire to speak. There is a truth in what Nicodemus says, even if how he says it grates, but to call John fool is nothing less than the work of a fool.

It is Eleazar who now launches into the excited speech that I am denied. Where once I could say whatever it is I might say, now, as a woman, to men I would seem a hyena finding voice. Perhaps as Mariamne, and only as Mariamne, I might have been able to bear this, knowing nothing else, but as I have been John the Less close to half my life, it is slow poison in the veins. Each day that passes, I remind myself that no matter the beliefs of men, I shall make of Mariamne a great person. I shall be as the Delphic priestess, Themistoclea, she who proved to Pythagoras that the female is every bit as worthy as the male, if not more so. I shall be as Diotima, she who taught Socrates. Or as Korinna who bested Pindar at contests of poetry. I shall be as the glorious Sappho who was not silenced: “Although they are only breath, words which I command are immortal.” I shall be as the seventh Cleopatra and use the men around me as they would use me.

Listening to the chatter of Eleazar, but not heeding it, I remember what Philo once said: “A man is like a house, and is therefore a thing of many parts.” I tell myself that I am more than a house; I am a palace, and here, in the palace of myself, I am as much a queen as Helen is of Adiabene. I tell myself this, but it is hard to believe it when I look into the faces of men, and know I am nothing to them, but that I would be if I were John once again. There comes a cry of excitement from the men’s end of the table and I am jerked from my fretful reverie. By the stars! Do I hear right? What is it that Eleazar says at the top of his voice?

“How I should have liked to have seen the death of John the Messiah! Think of it! Beheaded and his head on a platter!”

Not only has my cousin-brother said this, but he slices open a pomegranate as he speaks, holding up the fruit so that we all might see it bleed its rich red juice onto his hand. My absorption in self shatters as glass on tiles. Does Salome hear this? Does she see it? Helena has placed her hand on Salome’s ankle. Yes, I think Salome is aware of Eleazar. And it does not end here. Now we are privileged to hear Nicodemus’s indignant reply.

“All this talk of messiahs is the most perfect nonsense.” Father’s oldest friend pushes away his plate in a splendid show of exasperation. He rolls his eyes toward a heaven that as a Sadducee he does not believe exists, and then, addressing this heaven, he tolls, “How many times have I said that this John was not the Messiah but was surely the Deceiver? Have I not said this, Josephus? I have said it, and I say it still!

His own face bright red with excitement, young Eleazar prattles on, and still he holds up the bleeding pomegranate. “Imagine! The wife of Herod Antipas asked for his head, and right in the middle of a great feast in the Fortress of Machaerus the head of John the Baptizer was carried in on a platter, dripping with blood!”

I am outraged, I am horrified. I cannot bear it. I am on the verge of standing up, of shouting at Eleazar, of saying something that will surely be a mistake, but Seth is there before me. “Eleazar!”

If I were Eleazar, I should go quiet on the spot. Certainly, everyone else does, even Naomi, who has been hissing at the slave who pours more wine into her cup of Father’s finest glass. To his credit, my cousin or brother does at least become redder of face, and though his mouth continues to work, nothing comes from it.

“Who tells you such things, Eleazar?” demands Seth, who is angrier than I have ever seen him. “Where have you heard such a story?”

Because it is Seth, Eleazar answers with respect, though it is obvious he would squeak out his wounded indignation if he could. “Why, sir, I have heard it everywhere. Everyone is saying that because it was asked of him by his wife, Herodias, Herod Antipas had John the Messiah’s head cut from his body and brought to him on a platter.”

Again, I look to see how Salome fares. Her color is higher, her gaze fixed on a spot above the head of Eleazar. Should I be glad she hears at all?

When Seth speaks next his voice is low and flat with warning. “Herod has no stomach for feasting. What you have heard is not so.”

Eleazar is not Simon Peter, nor is he the merchant Ananias. He senses his error, though he could not say where it lies. He counters, but he counters cautiously. “But if it is not so, then why is it said?”

And here it is that Father joins in, calling for a slave to take away the pomegranate whether Eleazar wishes to eat it or not. “If our guest says it is not so, young man, it is not so. We shall speak of other things.”

If I did not pity Salome, and if I did not pity myself, perhaps I could pity poor thoughtless Eleazar for what he says next, and I imagine he thinks he is speaking of other things. “Well, then…what, sir, of
this
thing? Have you heard of the new messiah, the one some say is the prophet Elias?”

“Piffle,” says Nicodemus, and contents himself that he said quite enough.

Father is engaged with Naomi, calling for a slave to mop her spilled wine. Seth peels an orange, which I think he does to calm himself. Eleazar therefore turns on his couch, seeking an interested eye, but the only eye he finds is that of his mother, Rachel. Poor Rachel stares at her son, unable to decide how best to act, encourage, or insistently hush him? “Have you heard of Yehoshua the Nazorean?” he asks her. “He who goes about making the blind to see and the dead to rise? I have heard that he drives out demons and that he calms storms and that he can feed thousands with a few fishes and a loaf of bread. He even heals ten lepers at a time. It is said that the mother-in-law of one of those who follow him was dead and already decaying, but that he laid his hand on her and her body was instantly as new and her spirit once again in it. On the spot, she jumped up and prepared food for a hundred men!” Eleazar pauses for breath, though not for thought. “It is said that Herod Antipas greatly fears he is the risen John, that Herod becomes as mad as his father, Herod the Great, was mad, and goes about ranting that he is beset by enemies. If not the King of Arabia, he is said to shout, then prophets returned from the grave, and he will kill this one—”