Secret Magdalene (47 page)

I watched her leaving until she was gone, and still I watched.

I understand the choice Simon Magus has made; in my bones I know it is more than worthy. But I cannot choose it, for I have chosen Yeshu.

And now, as I trail behind he whom I have chosen, birds sing as they sing each spring, the waters of the rivers flow away to the sea, the sun rises and the sun sets. I leave behind my beloved Addai. I leave Tata whom I cherish. I leave Nyx to Tata. Salome leaves me. But to leave Seth who blesses what Yeshu would do, though he cannot share his terrible need, yet begins his own part in Yeshu’s plan…I could not know how it would feel to leave Seth. I am cut in two.

Yeshu and Jude go with covered heads, and speak to no one, nor catch any man’s eye. By this, it is all but certain that Yeshu shall not be found out, for by now the search for him has lost its edge and its vigor. Other matters have taken precedence in the thoughts of Herod, whose troubles with the King of Arabia tax not only his powers but also his mind.

I walk on, Eio under my hand; Babel, almost grown, trailing behind. In the rough warmth of Eio’s blessed hide I take some comfort, but nowhere else.

We have arrived in Cana in the midst of a wedding; a large house is taken up with it. And here we find Simon Peter, for the bride is a younger sister, Leah, a frightened young woman who is to marry a fierce young man of this town. We find also Joazar, Simon Peter’s brother-in-law, the fisherman whose boat we once so often used, and the Sons of Thunder. Here too is every other Galilean who last year followed Jacob to the wilderness, all, that is, but Leah’s second brother, Andrew, who is dead, and the once-bandit Timaeus, who is taken by Pilate. We find also Simeon, who of them all makes little of my being female, and Joses, who, like most, does not allow me to know him. But we do not find Yeshu’s brother Jacob, for Old Camel Knees is become strong in the wilderness and gathers his own Judaean followers who are ferocious for the Law.

It seems, though, that even if the Galileans had not come away from Jacob for Yeshu, still, they would have come away. With their rough ways and their rough accents, and without John or Yeshu to calm them, they have felt out of place in Judaea. While we conspired on the sacred mountain of Carmel, they grew homesick by the Sea of Stink and would come home again, for who would choose barren Rome-infested Judaea over green Galilee?

One by one they have learned that Yehoshua the Nazorean intends entering Jerusalem; throughout the wedding in Cana, they talk of little else.

In this house too are the women. It is sweet to be greeted by Perpetua. Sweet to be stared at by young Mark. Sweeter still is the sight of frail Mary; I embrace her. I embrace Miryam and I smile at Maacah. And there is Jude’s Veronica, whose Norea reaches now to my knee. I am greeted by Naamah, whose house this is; she is older sister to the bride and therefore to Simon Peter, and her husband is a prominent man of Cana. It pleases me to see Babata, even to see Bernice. It is not pleasing to see again Salome, the daughter of Zebedee and the widow of Judas of Galilee. Though all who intrigue would wish it were, the news cannot be kept from her. Her sons have told her what they understand of things, which, fortunately, is little. So soon as she spies Yeshu, speaking quietly with Jude and myself, she herds poor Simon and poor Jacob away from the wedding wine, calling out, “Master! You must do what I desire!”

Yeshu has what I do not have: infinite pity given to all. He can turn, therefore, a mild face upon the unfavored mother of his favorites, saying, “What would you that I might do for you?”

“Grant that these my two sons may sit, the one on your right hand, and the other on the left, in your Kingdom.”

There is a moment, fleeting as a thought, when I look at Jude and he at me, and I know, for once, we think as one. Is the woman mad? By her disastrous marriage to Judas of Galilee, has the loss of her father’s money and position driven all sense from her mind? But Yeshu answers her, “You know not what you ask. Have you walked with me these many days, and still you do not know the Father’s Kingdom?”

Salome, who suspects a trick, squints up at him. “I know you will be king in this Kingdom, and a king can raise up even a peasant to high place.”

Yeshu smiles on the suffering Simon and the squirming Jacob, both speechless with shame, and who each stand a head taller than this mother they must endure. He asks them, “Tell me, are you able to drink of the cup I drink of?” Neither knows what he means, but both glance at the goblets gripped in their hands, and sincerely wish they did. Yes, they say by the nodding of their heads, we are able. “Then it is enough. For a man who
would
drink of the Living Water
will
drink. But as for sitting on my right hand and on my left, this is not for me to give, but for the Father, whose table is round, and all who sit there sit as gods.”

Again, neither understand him, but they are satisfied. Their mother is not, and I hear her think to run for explanation to goitered Martha, who is her particular friend.

Simon Peter, the brother of the bride, passing near, has heard this conversation and is much displeased. Simon Peter would not have others take a place he means for himself, and so situates himself behind Yeshu, scowling at poor Simon and Jacob, and I see Yeshu look toward Jude and Jude toward Yeshu, and I know they each of them wonder at Simon Peter, who, so used to the weight of Andrew, is now somehow unbalanced as he is unburdened.

In the house of Naamah and her husband, watching Simon Peter compete for place, I wonder if it is Simon Peter, Yeshu’s rock, who must do what needs be done for prophecy? No one of us doubts that Simon Peter in his eagerness and his folly—and now in his loss—can be counted on to be suitably untrustworthy…but untrustworthiness can fall either way.

When the Sons of Thunder have required their mother to come away, Jude quietly says, “Brother, after this I will hold my peace, but do we rely too much on what a man
is
? For if that man should falter?”

Ah, they
do
think as I think. Perhaps it will be Simon Peter.

Yeshu answers, “There is more than one who sleeps and, in sleeping, does not dream.”

By this, Yeshu must mean there is always another if Peter balks or fails.

Jude sees this, but must still say, “Those who are awake are laughed to scorn, and those who dream are stoned.”

For a wonderful moment, no words pass between Jude and Yeshu, but the look they share speaks of more than all that Philo has ever written, or that Dositheus will ever write. Simon Peter, who listens with all of his ears, cannot understand a word of it.

At last, Jude shakes his great head, saying, “So be it. Who am I to think myself, or even you, a pearl cast before swine?”

Here Yeshu laughs and laughs, and what the mother Salome has left of ill taste is washed from my tongue by his laughter.

And now, a worried Mary, so much smaller and so much darker than her firstborn sons, appears from behind Peter, and from behind Mary comes the sour Bernice. “Yeshu’a, so many are come to the wedding, Naamah says she has no more wine.”

Yeshu, who still laughs, says, “Mother, what have I to do with this? My hour is not yet come to turn Water into Wine.”

Jude and I know what he means. To turn Water into Wine is as Raising the Dead: it is a way of saying that to experience gnosis is to be reborn into Life, to make what is only water into wine. But Mary does not know this, nor does Bernice, whose brows are beetled with peevish confusion. Mary wrings her hands. “But you
can
make of water wine?”

“Mother, hear me with your heart; if they would have wine, all they need do is ask.”

“I ask it.”

“Then even this very day you shall have wine.”

Bernice rolls her eyes, but Mary does not know whether to smile or to cry. And neither does Simon Peter. And yet, this is the truth of it: understand him or no, they will all follow, no matter that Yeshu leads them to Jerusalem and to certain mortal danger.

And so shall I follow.

THE SIXTEENTH SCROLL

The Die Is Cast

F
or days we walk,
many hundreds strong, from Cana in Galilee to Bethany in Judaea, and through all of these days, Yeshu does not heal nor does he teach, asking those who come with him to keep their peace for so long as he should require it. And, for once, his disciples hear him, silencing those who would shout, “Pity me, son of David!” For by this, the people would call him king, and for this sedition they would have Yehoshua the Nazorean taken by Herod, or by the Sanhedrin of Judaea, or perhaps even by Rome, before his time.

Only once as we travel south does he do a thing, and that only because he cannot avoid it.

In the town of Ephraim in Gophna, from which came the bandit Saul, we have stopped to rest at the home of Saul’s mother and father. But while we are here, comes to us a group of grim and virtuous men who are certainly Pharisee, if they are not the Poor. In their midst they drag a young woman, her clothing torn and darkened by dirt, her face white with fear. “Master,” one among them cries out. “See! We have caught this woman in the act of adultery. You know that Moses commands us to stone such a one as this. But before we obey, we would ask, what do you say?”

And Yeshu, looking from one to the other of their excited faces, and knowing what is in their hearts and, further, what stirs their loins, says, “He that is without sin among you, let that man cast the first stone.” At this, he bends down as if he would find a stone, but instead traces a thing in the dirt, and as he does so, like seducers in the night, each man of them makes his silent escape, until only the poor woman stands before us.

“Woman,” says Yeshu, rising up from the ground, “where are your accusers? Is there no one left to condemn you?”

Only then does she lift her head, and on her lovely face is the same loving look Megas had worn, and wears still. “No man remains, sir.”

“Neither do I condemn you. Go and err no more.”

He then turns, meaning to be on his way, and I look down to see what he has made there. It seems as the letter
Y.
Is it meant, or is it idle? To the Pythagoreans,
Y
is the symbol of the two paths open to man in life and in death. In life, the left hand path leads to dissolution and the right to virtue. In death, the left hand path leads to Tartarus, which is the deepest hell, below even Hades, and then to rebirth. The right leads to the Elysian Fields.

The woman of Ephraim does not leave us. She follows on now as Megas of Ephesus follows, and no one has learned her name.

Those who love Yeshu are quarrelsome with one another, high strung and confused. Many are afraid. In Cana, Yeshu told them little of what he means to do, though he did not disguise where he would go, or what might happen once we got there. This he said for all to hear, “He who comes will be betrayed into the hands of men, and they shall kill him, but on the third day he will rise again.”

As we walk, it seems he would push one among them to act, so that over and over he tells them one of his own will betray him. And Simon Peter looks to Salome, the daughter of Zebedee, who looks on Menahem who looks on Bernice who looks on the tax collector of Jericho, who being so small had once climbed a sycamore tree to see Yehoshua the Nazorean, and all who look are appalled, for who would do such a thing? They could not understand him in Cana; they do not understand him now. Even Simeon seems afraid to ask his meaning. And though Yeshu has clearly said, “I am not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them,” some are convinced he goes to make himself king. They believe they shall be part of a violent uprising. Some are sure he will announce himself the Messiah, that he will punish the priests who defile the Temple. Many think this is one and the same thing.

And somewhere on the way south, Yeshu pauses by the side of the road and looks out over a field of stones. All who follow pause with him, waiting, until beckoning some certain disciples draw near, he asks them, “Who do men say I am?” And his cousin Simeon, whose nature would have him laugh, answers without laughter, “Some say you are John the Baptizer.” But his brother Joses says, “Some say you are Elias, and others say you are Jeremiah, and others say some other prophet.” But Simon Peter, who seems to study each stone in the field, lifts up his eye, and says, “You are the Messiah.” And none but I who stand near to him, know how Yeshu shivers in his skin, though he answers Simon Peter, saying, “Until such time as I will it, tell no man what it is you tell me.”

And in time, we come up to Bethany, and though there are those who began with us who do not finish with us, there came many more as we walked. It seems there are hundreds now, perhaps tens of hundreds. Most of these camp now near the village of Bethphage, Nicodemus’s village, waiting—hopeful, anxious, eager, exalted—for what will be. All around them are the tents and the animals and the fires of other small groups who come for Passover and find no room to stay within the walls of the city.

Tomorrow there will be more. And in the week to follow, more still.

Yeshu will stay in the Bethany house of my father along with certain of us meant to bring about his intent.

O
n the Mount of Olives stand a mere handful of us and, of these, fewer still who know what will be. We have come to Jerusalem from Bethany to do what my beloved will do, and once again, we have come by night. As before, we approach this sacred city from the east. Above Yeshu, Wisdom, who is the moon, rises as a cobra rises, sending down her cold light. But to the Temple she lends a light so fulgent, we must shade our eyes.

I alone tremble in the chill of early spring, and just as the night we came for Addai, I alone tremble at what we will do. Beside me stands Yeshu, who does not tremble. What he comes here to do I can imagine no man willingly doing. Yet I know we are as set on our path as Wisdom is set in the sky.

But here is something I should never have imagined: my father is with us. Though he would fear to do so by day, Josephus of the Sanhedrin, who is well acquainted with Pontius Pilate, walks under cover of night. Father comes because he can no longer
not
come. Some terrible thing has occurred in his heart since last we saw him, some violence of feeling he cannot put away. My father Josephus struggles with the life he knew, and the Life he would know, and daily the rift grows wider.

As he would not be left behind, Eleazar is brought with him, who is fatter and, perhaps, wiser. Certainly he is become quieter.

So it is that on this night, in the hour past the Sabbath, those closest to Yeshu pause on the flank of the Mount of Olives. In silence, and filled with such thoughts as I would not dream of touching, Yeshu stands between his twin, the faithful and eternal Jude, and Mariamne, who has come as John the Less. Like a wound freshly cut, this thought opens in my mind: Can we not turn back? There is time yet to avoid this thing. For not until Yeshu walks into Jerusalem openly, with crowds acclaiming him, calling out Hosanna! Hosanna!—save us, save us!—will the die be cast.

I do what I seldom do. I seek Yeshu’s hand with my own. He takes my hand in both of his, and under their warmth, I feel thin of heart and small of bone. “Have you not been my teacher, John? Have you not taught me the Passion of Osiris?”

“I have, just as Salome taught John of the River, and did John rise on the third day?”

“What need John of rising when he knows the Father?”

“As you
know
the Father, what need you of dying?”

“My need is my brother’s need.”

There is nothing more to say, and somehow I find the wisdom to say nothing.

All is ready. All the careful planning is done. All that could be thought of, has been thought of. Tomorrow Yeshu will walk through the gates of the city of David. The brushwood on which he will walk is already to hand; the palm leaves, which herald a king’s triumph, or a godman’s arrival, and taken this day from the great Herod’s own groves, are already cut.

But for now, we slip into Jerusalem secretly, make our way quietly through her sleeping streets, so that we might visit the house of Josephus, the home in which Salome and I were children, and there do what must be done by the will of Yeshu.

Long abandoned to the spider and the bat, Father’s slaves and his servants have swept and polished and washed, so that the great house gleams as it did when last it was mine. I, who have changed body and soul, see it as changed not at all, and I run from room to room as bedding is renewed and stores put away, remembering.

By first light, we are back in Bethany to prepare for the coming day.

For Eio, it is bad enough to be tied; but to be tied all night and most of the day, surely no ass bore such insult. Eleazar, who has done this tying, tells me she kicked out, that she bit him, but that Babel, well named, brayed at the moon when he found himself tied, brayed until he made himself hoarse. My cousin whispers all this in my ear, as some cubits away, Yeshu selects two recently come with us, the scribes Matthew and Levi of Lydda, both necessarily innocent of what will be, saying to them, “Go to the village you see before you, and soon enough you will find a tethered ass, and her colt with her. Loose them both and bring them to me. And if any man say a thing, say to him, ‘The master has need of them,’ and he shall let them go.”

And, of course, from out of the village of Bethphage these men of Lydda bring Eio, who is unknown to them and they to her, with Babel trotting beside her. And there shines a naive wonder in the eyes of these new followers of Yeshu that he should know an ass would be tied with her colt and that they would be delayed by the “owner” thereof, namely Father’s barber, Timothy, who would say to them, “Stop! Why do you untie the beasts?” but who had stepped aside when Levi replied, “The master has need of them.”

It is not much, this fulfillment of the prophet Zechariah: “Rejoice, Daughter of Zion…for thy King cometh unto thee…lowly and riding upon an ass, and upon the colt of an ass.” But it is a splendid beginning, and one that any lover of Isis and Osiris would understand. Philo would know what he saw immediately.

As would a seeker of the Jewish Messiah.

All those around us, the many who follow: men, women, and children, these now murmur each to each as in triumph Simon Peter throws his cloak over the back of Eio’s colt, then murmur louder as Simeon the Zealot helps Yeshu to mount him. Where once in hope of being healed, the people would push forward to touch or be touched, now they push back so that they might not defile their true king. And it is now that such a thing passes through them, as well as it passes through me, that is like unto strong wine, or summer lightning, or an almost rapture…or poison.

Poisoned with joy, I look into the face of my beloved, who looks into mine.

And we stand on the brink of import. We do what we do by intention. In no time, it will be done. Yeshu will have taken the step that cannot be untaken.

Across the Valley of the Kidron, Jerusalem lies like a lover on its ancient mountain, and within and without the people come for Passover fill her as seed fills a womb, and somewhere within the Temple the holy and unblemished Paschal Lamb is readied for sacrifice. Near to hand are all those who love Yehoshua the Nazorean, and in their love have followed after that one that John of the River called the Lamb of God. Laying aside his head cloth, his hair red with bewitchment, Yeshu too makes himself ready. I also lay aside my head cloth and am seen again as John the Less so that none should be disturbed by a woman so close to their “king.”

And under the sun of this last late afternoon, Simon Peter, proudly taking hold of the rope round the neck of Eio’s colt, shines as brightly as Jude, as Simeon, as Megas, as Eleazar, as the unnamed woman of Ephraim, as do we all—for in this one brief moment there is such a joy among us, such a certainty that all will be as Yeshu wills it to be, that I could weep with it.

Does Eio too know what she does? If not, why then would she reach forward to nip Babel on the rump, so that without gesture from Yeshu all is set in motion?

At the tenth hour of the day, Yeshu descends from the Mount of Olives toward the city of David amid those who long have loved him, and immediately a great babble arises, as from all sides, as arranged, people come forth with their palm leaves, and people throw down brushwood from the fields or the garments from their backs, so that Eio and her colt might walk upon them. And Yeshu’s disciples raise up their voices, Simon Peter first and mightiest among them, crying, “Blessed be the king that comes in the name of the Lord, peace be in heaven, and glory in the highest!” Crying, “Blessed is he who comes!” And dozens, hearing this, reply, “Hosanna, son of David! Save me! Save me!” So that by the time we reach the gates that rise over the Gihon Spring, we are mighty in our numbers, and loud with triumph.

It is now that Yehoshua the Nazorean openly enters the Golden Gate of David’s city, and all around there are cries of Iao! and cries of Joshua! and cries of Messiah!

By the moon and all the stars—
alea iacta est
—the die is cast.