The Galilean Secret: A Novel (24 page)
Read The Galilean Secret: A Novel Online
Authors: Evan Howard
No longer naïve about the power of sexual attraction, Gabriel was trying to forgive, as the letter counseled. His desire to find Judith and Dismas would eventually fade, he thought, unless Judith was in danger. His heart began to beat double-time. He measured Judas with searching eyes. “When you last saw Judith, was she all right?”
Judas gave him a shrewd smile. “It depends on what you mean by ‘all right.’”
Gabriel sensed dishonesty in this man, as if he were hiding something behind his smooth talk and breezy swagger. Why would a man who seemed vain and hostile want to follow the prophet of peace? Gabriel wiped sweat from his brow with the back of a hand. He didn’t have an answer, but this man was his only source of information about Judith. “Please tell me everything you know.”
Judas avoided eye contact as he answered, “I saw Judith about a month ago. She was safe at the time, but quite unhappy.”
Judas’ darting eyes made Gabriel wonder if there were more to the story. Could he trust this man? Perhaps Judith was unhappy, perhaps not. Maybe Judas was playing on Gabriel’s emotions so he would promise not to deter Jesus. If so, why was Judas so adamant that Jesus go to Jerusalem?
Gabriel pressed his hands together, struggling with his many thoughts. How could he let Jesus go where Pilate might kill him? On the other hand, how could he not, if he had the chance to find Judith? Gabriel glanced at the sun climbing higher in the morning sky. He interlocked his fingers and pushed them together and pulled them apart. His head ached as if it had been slammed to the pavement.
Judas was staring at him, waiting. “Why are you so interested in your brother’s wife? Maybe you care about more than her safety—I can understand why. I, too, found Judith attractive.”
Gabriel held Judas’ gaze and ignored the remark. He had done all he could to turn Jesus back. Now he must know where Judith was. “All right,” he told Judas. “I won’t try to deter Jesus any longer.”
Judas widened his smile. “The last I knew, Judith and Dismas were at Qumran near the Dead Sea, but they were planning to go to Jerusalem.”
When Judas had finished speaking, he ran to catch up with the crowd. Gabriel followed, wondering where Judith and Dismas might be hiding in Jerusalem, and considering what to say if he found them.
L
ater that morning, when Jesus and his disciples stopped to rest at a spring beside the road, Mary Magdalene wandered downstream by herself. Still distraught over the confrontation with the soldiers, she tried to calm herself. She despised the Romans as much as any Jew, but she had no need to humiliate the soldiers as Judas had. She had been presented with a side of him that she had never seen—a side that was hostile and dangerous, not charming and affectionate.
Splashing water on her face, she acknowledged that her plan to make Jesus jealous had failed, and now she might be entangled with a violent man. A memory surfaced of her former husband coming home late one night. She had suspected that Jonathan had been with another woman, and when she confronted him with her suspicion, he had slapped her, knocking her down and causing her face to swell. Then he fell into bed in a drunken stupor. She ran a hand over her once-bruised cheekbone.
Why would Judas be any different?
Gone was the sensitive man who had kissed her by the headwaters of the Jordan. He had been replaced by a warrior seething with rage, ready to maim and kill. Will he turn violent when I tell him that I don’t love him? She rehearsed her words, knowing that she would not find peace until she spoke them and made a clean break with Judas.
She walked back toward the group and began to search for him. There were more than thirty other travelers also drinking from the spring and filling their wineskins with water. Among them were numerous families, their donkeys and pushcarts stacked with fruits, grains and vegetables for the sacrifices and celebrations of Passover.
Children were wading and splashing one another in the shallow area near the bank. Amid the chaos, Mary saw Judas at the water’s edge eating dried figs. She approached and touched his arm. He smiled up at her. “I must speak with you,” she said.
She moved farther down the spring, out of earshot of the others. Judas joined her. She dipped her wineskin in the water. “I am concerned about how you treated those soldiers in Jericho. I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Judas kept his distance. “Why should you be concerned? You saw that I am capable of defending myself. The way the soldiers demeaned us, we had no choice but to fight back.”
“You did more than defend yourself. You humiliated them.”
Anger flared in Judas’ eyes. “You should support, not condemn me. If Jesus hadn’t interfered, I would have killed those soldiers.”
Mary finished filling the wineskin and stood up. “So Jesus was wrong?”
Judas could not disguise his belittling tone. “Of course he was wrong. If he were really the Messiah, he would be brave, not cowardly. In Jerusalem he’ll have one last chance to prove himself. If he doesn’t rally the masses to war, we’ll know he’s an impostor.”
Mary stepped to one side, ready to leave. “If you are so skeptical about Jesus, why do you stay with him?”
Judas blocked her way, preventing her from going. “Because being with him means I get to be with you.”
“Not any longer. I never should have let you kiss me, and I won’t make that mistake again.” He reached for her, but she brushed past him. As she walked away, he spoke words that made her gasp:
“If you choose Jesus over me, you will both be sorry.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Present Day
The only way to find love is by loving. Stay connected to people. Get involved in activities that foster contact with them. Never become too cynical or jaded to be awakened to, by, and for love. This awakening and the relationships that grow out of it bring true happiness. Even when sacrifices are required. Recognition, success, financial gain, physical beauty: none of these satisfy without love. Practice giving and receiving this greatest of gifts, and you will possess everything that really matters.
—Brother Gregory Andreou’s Journal
Jerusalem
Friday, April 5
THE ANCIENT NICHE IN THE CAVE OF GETHSEMANE MADE A PERFECT HIDING PLACE FOR KARIM AND RACHEL. They slipped away from the last tour group of the day and squeezed into the squarish, tomblike enclosure. Located in the back of the sprawling cave’s chapel area, the niche provided storage space for the monks who held services here.
As the tourists snapped pictures and talked among themselves, Karim reached for Rachel’s hand and found her palm moist. The memory of her hands steering the Jeep through Bethlehem reminded him of how expertly she had kept them safe. After getting Brother Gregory treated at the hospital, she had driven them back to Holy Angels Monastery and then returned to her apartment. They had rested overnight and through the day until she picked him up at the monastery in the late afternoon.
“Where did that young couple go?”
A man’s voice among the other tourists posed the question. Karim’s throat went dry. He pressed against the wall, his backpack chafing against his shoulder blades. His knees were bent and head bowed beneath the slanted, low-lying ceiling. Rachel had wedged herself in beside him, her head tucked below the uneven limestone. They could see into the main body of the cave because light flowed into it through a hole in the roof. But the niche they were sequestered in was dark; no one could see them without peering inside.
“The couple was here a minute ago,” a woman’s shrill voice said.
Karim heard footsteps moving toward them. Then abruptly the steps stopped.
“They must have already left,” the man’s voice said.
Karim exhaled with relief, listening to the conversations. He remained still and thought through the plan that he had devised with Rachel and Brother Gregory. The monk would withdraw the scroll from the vault at the Bank of Bethlehem, take new photos of it and begin a second translation. It wouldn’t take him long since he could remember most of what he had already done. He would first translate the section in which Judith of Jerusalem spoke of Judas’ note being buried here. Meanwhile Karim and Rachel would photograph, measure and sketch the spot that Mary had described, the northeast corner. With these materials in hand, they would approach a prominent museum or university to elicit support for an excavation.
Karim’s cheeks grew hot. It was likely that the thief also saw the note as the missing piece of the puzzle—the piece that would reveal and confirm the secret of Jesus’ relationship with Mary Magdalene. They could not let anyone beat them to it. At this thought, Karim noticed two women standing outside the niche. He and Rachel froze. If the women looked inside, he prepared to tell them that he and his friend were just exploring.
The women turned toward the niche.
Karim’s stomach rose and fell.
Then an authoritative male voice said, “All right, everyone. Time to go.”
The footsteps began to recede. Karim waited until the cave was completely quiet and then led Rachel out of the niche. “We have work to do.” When they reached the northeast corner, he bowed reverently and then went behind the altar that had been erected for religious services. He bent down to examine the floor. “This modern stone will make an excavation difficult. Brother Gregory says that the first-century surface is at least a meter down.”
Rachel held the digital camera up and took pictures of the crypt-like area. “It makes sense that Mary Magdalene buried the note in Gethsemane, the place of Judas’ betrayal.”
Karim withdrew a small shovel from his backpack and stabbed at the floor. The stone was too hard for digging. He put the shovel away and took out the tape measure. “If Judith’s diary is accurate, when Judas realized that Mary Magdalene didn’t love him, he began to lose his way. He reached his lowest point when he gave Jesus the kiss that betrayed him. It may also have been an act of revenge. Since Judas no longer shared Mary Magdalene’s kisses, he betrayed the man she loved—with a kiss.”
Rachel put the camera in the backpack. “I can’t begin to imagine what he wrote to her before he hanged himself.” She withdrew a legal pad from the pack and began to sketch a diagram of the area behind the altar. “Do you think Mary hoped the note would be found someday?”
“She must have. Otherwise why wouldn’t she have burned it?” Karim took some measurements. “Maybe she buried the note because it contained important information—information too personal to share while she was living. Or maybe she wanted to reveal the real Judas.” He returned the tape measure to the backpack. “Even if we find the note, we may never know her reasons.”
Rachel approached Karim in the center of the cave, put the pad into the backpack and zipped up the bag. “We’d better go. The Sabbath will begin soon.” She squeezed his hand.
Her touch sent a shiver through him. How lovely she looked, slender with a proud profile. She turned and glanced up at him, flashing eyes that conveyed undying optimism. Thoughts of refugee camps and checkpoints and separation barriers faded into the background of Karim’s mind. The early evening air carried a chill that smelled of springtime, fresh with possibility. The sun’s last rays filtered through the hole in the roof, creating a luminous glow.
He leaned toward her, testing how she would respond. When she moved toward him, neck tilted back and eyes closed, he took her in his arms and kissed her. Her upper lip quivered, mirroring the rapid beating of his heart. He wished they were somewhere else—her apartment, a quiet room at the monastery. But he pushed those thoughts from his mind and said, “Forget that I’m Palestinian, that you’re Israeli. Forget that I’m in Jerusalem illegally. Forget even why we came here.” He drew her closer. “All that matters right now is that I love you.”
Rachel studied him with tears in her eyes. “I’ve been afraid that loving you would betray my family, my country. Now I know that denying my true feelings would betray my heart.” She seized him by the arms. “When I believe in something, I fight for it. That’s why I went to medical school, why I joined the peace movement. I’m not afraid to fight for my right to love you.”
He touched his cheek to her forehead. “If I live for decades or die tomorrow, I will never forget you—never take your love for granted. If our love is real, all the barbed wire and electric fences in the land won’t keep us apart.” He saw warmth in her glistening eyes and kissed her again with soft, adventurous lips. She returned every kiss and caress, their bodies as close as the line of the horizon.
She caressed his forehead. “If the extremists on both sides could feel what we feel right now, they would lay down their arms.”
Karim took her hands in his. “The Jesus letter brought us together. If only it could do the same for other Muslims and Jews. . . .”
“That’s why we must prove that it’s genuine.” She buried her face in his chest, and he felt the warmth of her tears. They stood that way for some time—until he heard a noise.
Footsteps
.
He scooped up the backpack, grabbed Rachel’s hand and ran for the niche. They wedged themselves in and hid in the dark. The footsteps grew louder. He caught a glimpse of a large man entering the cave, using a walking stick.