Mary of Nazareth (15 page)

“She is right,” Miriam said. “Beauty does exist, and God certainly doesn't want us to forget it. It's a good thing, a wonderful thing, that creatures like Mariamne exist. And she's also right when she says I'm too serious! I'd like to—”

She broke off. She was trying to find a way to tell Rachel that she wanted to leave her house and either go back to Nazareth or join her father. Birds passed above their heads, chirping noisily, and she looked up to watch their flight. From the other side of the house came the sound of Mariamne laughing with the handmaids, the rolling of the wagon being put away. Before Miriam could resume speaking, Rachel took her by the wrist and led her down below the terrace and into the orchards.

“There's something else I wanted to tell you before Mariamne interrupted us,” she said in an urgent voice. She took a sheet of parchment from the little pouch in the belt of her tunic. “I've had a letter from Joseph of Arimathea. He won't be able to come here anymore because these visits are causing a scandal in his community. The new brothers who've joined recently to study medicine with him are demanding that he distance himself from us ‘women.'…He doesn't say it, but I think we can see Giora's hand in this. He's probably afraid of Joseph's influence over the Essenes. He and his disciples in Gamala have an intense hatred of women.”

“Not only women,” Miriam said indignantly. “The
am ha'aretz,
foreigners, and the sick, too! The fact is, Giora hates the weak and only respects force and violence. He isn't a pleasant man, and in my opinion, he isn't even a wise man. I met him in Nazareth, with my father, Joseph of Arimathea, and Barabbas. He didn't agree with anyone except himself….”

Rachel nodded, amused. “That's another thing I wanted to talk to you about: Barabbas. His name was on everyone's lips in Caesarea and Tarichea, and on the road coming back.”

Miriam felt a shiver down her back, and she stiffened.

Sensing her anxiety, Rachel shook her head. “No, I'm not bringing bad news—on the contrary. They say he's raised a band of more than five or six hundred brigands. And that he's formed an alliance with another bandit—”

“Mathias, I'm sure,” Miriam said.

“I didn't find out his name, but the two of them have gathered about a thousand fighters. It's said they've routed the cavalry two or three times, taking advantage of the fact that Herod, in his madness, has imprisoned his own generals.”

Miriam smiled. More than she would have liked to admit, she was relieved, happy, and even envious.

“Yes,” Rachel said, responding to her smile, “it's nice to hear that. Of course, there are people in Caesarea and Tarichea, and even in Sepphoris, who fear for their own riches. They bandy words like ‘brigand' and ‘ruffian,' and call Barabbas ‘the henchman of terror.' But I was told that the good villagers of Galilee pray for him. And that he always finds a hiding place among them when he needs to. That's good….” She fell silent, staring into the distance.

“I'm leaving,” Miriam declared suddenly.

“Are you going to join him?” Rachel immediately asked. “Yes, of course. I suspected as much as soon as I heard the news.”

“I'd already decided to leave before I heard any of this. I wanted to wait for your return, and for Mariamne's birthday.”

“She'll be sad without you.”

“We'll see each other again.”

“Of course.” Rachel's eyes had misted over.

“I love both of you with all my heart,” Miriam went on, with a quiver in her voice. “I've had times in this house that I'll never forget. I've learned so much from you.”

“But it's time for you to go,” Rachel said without bitterness. “Yes, I understand.”

“My mind is no longer at peace. I wake up at night and tell myself I shouldn't be sleeping. It's true, I'm fine, I learn so much, receive so much, your love and Mariamne's…but I give so little in return!”

Shaking her head, Rachel tenderly put her arm around Miriam's shoulders. “You mustn't think that. Your presence is a gift, and that's enough for Mariamne and me. But I understand how you feel.”

They were both silent for a moment, united by the same sadness and the same fondness.

“It's time something happened, but what?” Rachel said. “We don't know what we want. Sometimes it seems to me there's a wall in front of us, which keeps getting higher and harder to get over every day. Words, books, even our most just thoughts seem to make the wall thicker. You're right to go back to the world. Are you going to join Barabbas?”

“No. I doubt he needs me for his fight.”

“Perhaps we're wrong and he's right. Perhaps the hour for rebellion really has come.”

Miriam hesitated for a moment, then said, “I haven't had any news of my father or mother for a long time. I'm going to look for them. Then…”

“At least stay until tomorrow. Then Mariamne can say good-bye to you properly. You can borrow my traveling wagon….”

Miriam tried to protest, but Rachel placed her fingertips on her lips. “No, let me at least help you with this. The roads are not so safe that a young girl can venture out on them alone.”

CHAPTER 10

T
HAT
night, as on so many other nights, Miriam woke up when it was still pitch black outside. She opened her eyes. Mariamne was sleeping nearby, breathing regularly. Once again, she envied her friend's calm sleep.

Why was it that every time she opened her eyes, she had the guilty feeling that she was not entitled to sleep? Anxiety seemed to be suffocating her, as though a wet cloth had been stuffed down her throat. She regretted having promised Rachel that she would stay in Magdala for an extra day. It would have been better to set off for Nazareth or Jotapata at the first light of dawn.

Silently, she got out of bed. In the adjoining room, she walked around the bed where two handmaids were asleep and came out into the large vestibule.

Barefoot, a thick shawl thrown over her tunic, she left the house, treading without hesitation on the damp grass. On the shore of the lake, vague shapes could be made out in the light of the quarter moon. She advanced cautiously. She had so often walked here at night during these last few weeks that she could find her way guided only by the rustle of leaves in the breeze and the lapping of waves.

She headed for the low wall that served as a landing stage, where the boats belonging to the house were moored. She trailed her hand over the stones until she found one that was wider than the others and sat down on it. Before her, the rushes rose in opaque walls, leading into the lake like a corridor. The sky, by contrast, appeared clear. On the other shore, the darkness was tinged with blue, announcing that dawn was near.

As she sat there, she started to feel calmer. It was as though the immensity of the sky relieved her of the weight that had been pressing on her chest. There was as yet no birdsong. The only sound was the water subsiding on the shingle or breaking up among the rushes.

She sat like this for a long while. Motionless. A shadow among the shadows. Her anxieties, her doubts, even her reproaches, all vanished. She thought of Mariamne. She felt happy now that she was going to spend the day with her. Their farewells would be full of tenderness. Rachel had been right to stop her leaving too quickly.

She gave a start. There was a regular noise coming from the surface of the lake. The dull thud of wood on wood. The knocking of an oar against the gunwale of a boat, she realized. A regular, powerful but unobtrusive movement. She peered out at the waters.

Worried, she wondered if she should go and wake the handmaids. Could a jealous husband have sent some ruffians to do something nasty? That had happened before. Several threats had been made against Rachel and her “house of lies” by men who had discovered her influence over their wives.

Cautiously, Miriam backed away along the wall and hid beneath the branches of a tamarisk. She did not have long to wait. The sky in the east was clear now, and where it was reflected on the surface of the lake, a narrow boat appeared.

It was gliding smoothly toward the shore. A man stood in the prow, plying the long oar. When he reached the middle of the corridor of rushes, he stopped. Miriam guessed that he was trying to make out the landing stage.

With a skillful stroke, longer and more forceful than the others, he turned the boat, and headed it straight toward Miriam.

Once again, she thought to flee, but she was rooted to the spot with fear. As she peered at him, something in his figure, in his hair, in his way of throwing his head back, struck her as familiar. No, it wasn't possible….

Soon, the man stopped pushing the boat, merely guiding it with the oar. There came a thump; the prow had hit the wall. For a moment, the man vanished in the shadow, then he suddenly reappeared, bending to tie a rope to the ring on the landing stage. The boat swayed, and he moved quickly to avoid falling. There was more light now, and his profile appeared clearly. Miriam knew she had not been mistaken.

How was it possible?

She emerged from her hiding place and walked forward.

He heard her light footsteps and leaped onto the wall. A metal blade flashed in the half-light. Taking fright, she stifled a scream; perhaps she had been wrong after all. For a moment, they both stood motionless, mistrustful.

“Barabbas?” she said in a barely audible voice.

He did not move. He was so close, she could hear his breathing.

“It's me, Miriam,” she said, trying to sound at least a little assured.

He did not reply. He turned back toward the boat, and crouched to make sure that the rope was securely tied. Again, his profile appeared clearly in the wan light. There could be no doubt now.

She walked toward him, hands held out. “Barabbas! Is it really you?”

This time, he turned to face her. When she was close enough to touch him, he exclaimed absurdly, in a hoarse, weary voice, “What are you doing here in the middle of the night?”

That made her laugh. It was a nervous but happy laugh. Carried away by a joy she had long thought dead, she drew him to her and kissed his cheek and neck.

She felt him tremble shyly in her arms. He stiffened, pushed her away and, before she could ask him any questions, said, “I need your help. Obadiah is with me.”

“Obadiah?”

He pointed to the boat. She made out a dark shape in the bottom of the boat, beneath a sheepskin.

“He's asleep,” she said smiling.

Barabbas slid down into the boat. “He isn't asleep. He's wounded. Badly wounded.”

The joy that had overcome Miriam faded abruptly. Barabbas lifted Obadiah's inert body.

“What happened?” she asked. “Is it very serious?”

Barabbas dismissed the question with an irritated gesture. “Help me.”

She crouched and slid her hands under Obadiah's back. It felt hot and damp to the touch.

“Sweet Lord! He's covered in blood.”

“We have to save him. That's why I came.”

         

I
T
did not take long for the house to awake. Lamps and torches were brought to light the room where Barabbas had laid Obadiah.

Rachel, Mariamne, the handmaids, even the coachman Rekab, all crowded around the bed. Obadiah's pale body seemed as frail as that of a child of ten, but his strange face, rigid with unconsciousness or pain, looked older and harder than before. A makeshift bandage, black with blood and dirty with solidified dust, had been wound tightly around his chest.

“We did what we could to stop him bleeding to death like a sheep,” Barabbas said. “But his wound keeps opening. I don't know anything about plasters. No one could help us in the place where we were. It wasn't so far from here, so…” He didn't finish the sentence, just waved vaguely in the air.

Rachel nodded, then assured him that he had done the right thing. She roused the handmaids, who were staring at the bandit they had heard so much about. In the lamplight, Barabbas's face looked gray with exhaustion, tortured with sorrow. There was no longer any of the fire and rage that Miriam had so often seen in his eyes. His arms were covered in big crusts where his wounds had not healed properly, and he kept shifting his weight from one leg to another.

“You're wounded, too,” Rachel said, worried.

“It's nothing.”

The handmaids brought hot water and clean linen. Miriam hesitated to take off the bandage. Her hands were shaking. Rachel kneeled and slid the blade of a knife underneath the dirty cloth. Little by little, she cut through the bandage, and Miriam moved it aside, revealing the wound.

The wound was beneath the rib cage, right at the top of the stomach. It was so large, you could see the innards. It had been caused by a spear, which the mercenary had twisted in the wound to make it even worse. Some of the handmaids groaned and covered their eyes and mouths. Rachel shooed them away. Bravely, Mariamne sat down next to Miriam, her lips quivering. She dipped a cloth in the water and handed it to her friend. Hard-faced and dry-eyed, Miriam started to clean the outside of the wound.

Once she had taken off the soiled bandage, Rachel turned to Barabbas. “It's worse than I thought. There's no one here skillful enough to treat such a deep wound.”

Barabbas let out a wild moan. “We have to save him! We must close the wound, put on plasters…”

“How long has he been like this?”

“Two nights. He wasn't so bad at the beginning. The pain kept him awake. I should have come before. But I was afraid of making the wound bigger. We have to save him. I've seen men survive worse….”

The words came out mechanically, as if he had repeated them to himself a thousand times, at every stroke of the oar bringing him closer to Magdala.

Rachel saw him start to reach out to touch Miriam's shoulder as she silently washed Obadiah's face. But then he let his arm fall, a bitter look on his face.

“Go and rest,” she said to him gently. “You need care, too. At least eat something and get some sleep. You're no use to us in here.”

Barabbas turned to Rachel as if he had not understood. She looked into his eyes: eyes haunted by the slaughter they had witnessed. She felt a shudder go down her back. Bringing it under control, she forced herself to smile.

“Go,” she insisted. “Go and rest. We'll take care of Obadiah.”

He hesitated, glanced again at Miriam, and left the room. Miriam seemed not to notice.

         

I
N
all the time they tended him, Obadiah did not regain consciousness. There was no sign of suffering on his face, only a sense of abandonment. Several times, Miriam moved her cheek close to his mouth to make sure he was still breathing. Whenever she washed the sweat-congealed grime from him, her gestures were more and more like caresses.

Obadiah's body was covered in wounds. His thighs were black with bruises, and the skin on his hips was torn. It looked as if he had been tied to a horse and dragged along the ground for a great distance.

Without admitting it to herself, Miriam was afraid that his bones were broken. Rachel came to the same conclusion. In silence, she gently felt Obadiah's arms and legs. Then she looked at Miriam, and shook her head. Nothing seemed broken, although it was hard to be sure about the hip.

The handmaids returned with a large quantity of clean linen. The coachman had gone to fetch the local midwife, who was well known for her knowledge of plants.

When she saw Obadiah, she retched and started to moan. Curtly, Rachel silenced her and asked her if she would make some plasters to treat the wound, especially to prevent hemorrhaging.

The woman calmed down. Mariamne handed her a lamp. She moved it close to the wound and examined the boy carefully, all fear gone now.

She straightened up. “I can certainly make a plaster,” she said. “And even a bandage to stop the wound rotting too quickly. I can also make a potion to sustain the poor boy, if you can get him to drink it. But I can't guarantee any of this will help him, let alone cure him.”

With the help of Mariamne and the handmaids, the midwife prepared a plaster made from clay and wild mustard seed ground together with peppers and powder of cloves. She sent the handmaids to gather downy leaves from the comfreys and plantains lining the garden paths, which she added to the mixture. Then she kneaded everything together until she obtained a sticky paste.

Meanwhile, on her instructions, Mariamne had boiled some garlic, root of wild thyme, and cardamom grains in goat's milk with added vinegar: a concoction used to help old people with weak hearts.

The midwife covered Obadiah's wounds with the plaster and put a new bandage around it. Then Miriam and Rachel gave him the concoction Mariamne had prepared. It was not easy; in his unconscious state, he kept regurgitating the liquid. They had to be patient and make him swallow it drop by drop.

It seemed to have an effect. As they turned him over to tighten his bandage, Obadiah gave a loud moan, which took them by surprise. They stood looking at him, not daring to move, and saw his fingers wriggling, as if he were trying to grab hold of something. Then, as they gently eased him onto his back, his breathing quickened and his eyes opened. At first he seemed to see nothing. Then it became clear that he was regaining consciousness.

He looked at Mariamne and Rachel, both unknown to him, and the expression on his gaunt, prematurely aged face was a mixture of surprise, pain, and fear. Then he saw Miriam, and he let out a faint sigh and relaxed, although he was still breathing with difficulty.

Moving her face close to his, Miriam gently squeezed his hand. “It's me, Miriam,” she whispered. “Do you recognize me?”

He blinked. There was a hint of a smile in his eyes. He seemed so weak that she feared that he would lose consciousness again. But he struggled and found the strength to murmur, “Barabbas promised me…I'd see you before…”

The words seemed to crumble on his lips. He could not finish the sentence. But his eyes said what his mouth could not utter.

“Don't tire yourself out,” Miriam said, pressing her fingers to his mouth. “There's no point in speaking. Keep your strength; we're going to cure you.”

Obadiah made a gesture of denial. “Not possible…I know…”

“Don't talk nonsense.”

“Not possible…The hole is too big…I saw…”

Sobbing, Mariamne stood up and left the room. Miriam picked up the pitcher containing the potion. “You must drink.”

Obadiah did not object. Miriam first moistened his cracked lips with a cloth, then delicately inserted the edge of a cup between his teeth. He drank a little, shaking with the effort. But he had no sooner absorbed a little of the mixture than he had to catch his breath.

After a few mouthfuls, Miriam moved the cup away and tenderly stroked his cheek. Obadiah groped for her hand and clutched it in his dry fingers. “I promised Joachim…I promised”—strangely enough, there was a hint of irony in his eyes—“I'd be your husband….”

“Yes!” Miriam cried passionately. “Live, Obadiah! Live, and you'll be my husband!”