Mary of Nazareth (19 page)

CHAPTER 13

M
IRIAM
was listening to the comings and goings in the house, the murmurs of the women, sometimes even their laughter. The regular blows of the pestle reducing the grains of rye and barley to flour echoed through the walls, like the beating of a peaceful but powerful heart.

She wanted to get up, join the handmaids, and help them with their work. She did not feel tired anymore. She was weak, of course, but only because she had eaten very little in the last few days. Her anger, though, had not abated.

She refused to accept the words Joseph had spoken. The mere thought of Obadiah's body in the ground brought a pang to her heart, and she had to clench her fists not to cry out.

In addition, her mind was still clear enough for her to know that she was not welcome in this community. She had seen it in the eyes of the brother who always came with Joseph. The sensible thing to do would be to gather her strength and willpower, leave Beth Zabdai, and do what she had already decided to do back in Magdala: join her father.

But this thought rekindled her anger. To leave this house and Damascus meant abandoning Obadiah for good, bidding his soul farewell, perhaps even starting to forget him.

“Are you really awake this time?”

Startled, Miriam turned. A woman of indeterminate age was standing near her bed. Her hair was as white as snow, and there were hundreds of fine wrinkles around her lips and eyelids. But her skin looked as fresh as a young woman's, and her very clear eyes sparkled with intelligence—and perhaps a touch of cunning.

“Awake and very angry, I see,” she continued, coming closer.

Miriam sat up in bed, speechless with surprise. She was not sure if the unknown woman was mocking her or being kind.

The woman also seemed uncertain. She looked at Miriam, her eyebrows arched, her lips rounded in a pout. “Being angry on an empty stomach isn't a good idea.”

Miriam stood up too quickly. She felt dizzy, and had to sit down again and put both hands on the bed to stop herself from falling.

“Just as I was saying,” the woman said. “It's time you stopped sleeping and started eating.”

Behind her, the handmaids were crowding into the doorway, burning with curiosity. Drawing on her reserves of pride, Miriam jutted out her chin and forced a smile. “I feel fine. I'm getting up. I'd like to thank you all for—”

“I should think so too! As if we didn't already have enough to do without having a stuck-up little thing like you moaning in our ears.”

Miriam opened her mouth to apologize, but the tenderness on the unknown woman's face made it clear there was no point.

“My name's Ruth,” the woman said. “And you don't feel fine, not yet anyway.”

She took her under the arms and helped her to her feet. In spite of this support, Miriam swayed.

“Well, it really is time we got you better, my girl,” Ruth said.

“I just have to get used to—”

Ruth signaled with her eyes for one of the handmaids to come and help. “Stop talking nonsense. I'm going to feed you, and you'll like it. No one turns her nose up at our cooking, it's far too good!”

         

L
ATER,
as Miriam was nibbling at a buckwheat pancake filled with goat's cheese, which she dipped in a platter of barley boiled in vegetable juice, Ruth said, “This house isn't like other houses. You have to learn the rules.”

“There's no point. I'm leaving tomorrow. I'm going to see my father.”

Frowning, Ruth asked Miriam where her father lived. When Miriam told her that she was from Nazareth, in the mountains of Galilee, Ruth pulled a face. “That's a long way for a girl on her own….”

She stroked Miriam's forehead and ran her worn fingers through her hair. Moved by this unexpected gesture, Miriam quivered with pleasure. It was a long time since a woman had last stroked her with such motherly tenderness.

“Get that idea out of your head, my girl,” Ruth resumed, gently. “You're not leaving here tomorrow. The master has ordered that you stay here. We all obey him and you must obey him too.”

“The master?”

“Master Joseph of Arimathea. Who else would be the master here?”

Miriam did not reply. She knew that was what they called Joseph. Even in Magdala, some of the women had used that title for him as a mark of respect. But obviously here, in Beth Zabdai, Joseph was a different man than the one she had met in Nazareth, the one who had taken her to Rachel's house.

“I have to go to the graveyard, to see where Obadiah is buried,” she said. “I have to say prayers for him and bid him farewell.”

Ruth looked surprised, and then worried. “No, you can't. You're in no fit state to fast. You have to eat…the master says so!” She spoke quickly, her cheeks flushed.

“Are there brothers watching over his grave?” Miriam said. “If not, I have to go myself. I'm the only person Obadiah has to see him on his way.”

“Don't worry. The men of this house do their duty. It is not for us women to do it in their place. You must eat.”

The noise of the pestles echoed behind her, silencing them for a moment. The women's refectory was a long room with a low ceiling. Sacks and baskets of fruit and dried vegetables were lined up along the sides, as well as what looked like benches with holes in them to support jars of oil. The door at the far end, which was wide open, led to the kitchen, where the oven was kept constantly stoked.

A few handmaids were grinding grain for flour on a stone with the help of an olive-wood mallet, while four women were kneading and stretching pastry for biscuits. From time to time, they raised their heads and glanced curiously at Miriam.

Mournful but satisfied, Miriam had nearly finished her platter. Ruth hastened to refill it. “You're much too thin. We have to fill you out again if you want men to like you.”

It was said affectionately, the way such things were always said by an older to a younger woman. Ruth was taken aback by Miriam's reaction: the stiffening of her body, the glaring look, the ferocity of her tone.

“How can we want men to look at us when we know how much the men who live here hate us?”

Ruth threw a cautious glance toward the kitchen. “The Essene brothers don't hate us. They fear us.”

“Fear us? Why?”

“They fear what makes us women. Our wombs and our blood.”

This was something that Miriam knew only too well. She had had the opportunity to discuss it many times in Magdala, with Rachel's companions.

“We are the way God wanted us to be, and that should be enough.”

“I'm sure you're right,” Ruth said. “But for the men in this house, it takes us away from the path that leads to reach the Island of the Blessed. That's what matters more than anything else in the world to them: reaching the Island of the Blessed.”

Miriam looked at her, uncomprehending. She had never heard of this island.

“It's not for me to explain,” Ruth said, embarrassed. “It's too complicated, and I'd only say something stupid. We don't receive any teaching here. We sometimes hear the brothers talking among themselves, we pick up a few words here and there, and that's it. The one thing we know is that we have to follow the rules of the house. That's all that matters. Thanks to the rules, the brothers purify themselves so that they can gain admittance to the island. The first rule is to stay in the part of the house reserved for us. We can go into the courtyards, but the rest of the house is out of bounds. Then, it's forbidden to speak to a brother if he hasn't spoken to us first. We have to bathe before baking bread, which happens every day before dawn….”

The chores consisted of preparing semolina soup and making biscuits filled with cheese twice a day, washing the brothers' clothes, and making sure their linen loincloths and tunics were immaculately white.

“Another thing: we mustn't spoil anything. Not the food, not the clothes. As far as the food is concerned, we must cook only what's needed, neither too much nor too little. The ordinary clothes, the brown work tunics, the brothers don't throw away, even if they're full of holes. They only part with them when they're in tatters. Which is not too bad, because it means less work for us.”

The advice continued. The most important thing of all was that they were not allowed to go near the brothers' refectory. It was a sacred place, reserved for men. To the Essenes, meals were like prayers. Eating and drinking were a gift of the Almighty, and in return for this gift they had to love him. So, before each meal, the brothers took off their coarse brown tunics, put on white linen loincloths, and bathed in absolutely pure water to wash away the stains of life.

“Of course, I've never seen them do that,” Ruth whispered, with a wink. “But you can't be here as long as I have without picking up a few things. The bathing is really important. After they've bathed, the master blesses the food, and they eat, all sitting at the same table. Then they put on their ordinary clothes again, and we have to wash the tunics they've been wearing for the meal. When it snows, the water in their bath may be freezing, but they don't care. The well they draw it from is in the house itself. Our well, where we get the water for cooking and washing, is outside. As you see, there's plenty of work to do. You'll soon fit in.”

Miriam silently pushed away her platter.

“Eat!” Ruth said immediately. “Eat more, even if you don't feel like it. You have to get your strength back.”

But Miriam did not even lift the spoon.

“You are staying, aren't you?” Ruth asked, her voice as anxious as her face.

Miriam looked at her in surprise. “Why are you so determined that I stay? There's nothing for me here. That's obvious.”

Ruth sighed. “You're a stubborn one. Master Joseph says so, that's why. He asked me personally. He said, ‘She won't want to stay, but you have to persuade her.' You see, he loves you and wants only what's best for you. There's no one better than him!”

“I came here so that he could treat Obadiah, and he did nothing.”

“You really are mad, aren't you? You know perfectly well the boy was dead! In fact, he'd been dead for a while. What could the master have done?”

Miriam seemed not to hear this reproach. She had closed her eyes, and her lips were quivering again. “I don't like this house,” she murmured. “I don't like these men, and I don't like these rules. I thought Joseph could teach me how to fight evil and suffering, but I won't learn anything here because I'm a woman.”

Ruth sighed and shook her head in disappointment.

“Obadiah was an angel from heaven,” Miriam went on, in a voice that was both subdued and intense. “He should have been saved. There's no justice, none at all! Barabbas shouldn't have let him fight. I should have known how to look after him, and Joseph should have known how to bring him back to life. We're all at fault. We don't know how to bring about goodness and justice.”

Ruth was starting to wonder if the master was wrong and Brother Geouel, alas, was right. This girl from Nazareth had not recovered. On the contrary, she had well and truly lost her mind.

Miriam saw the doubt on Ruth's face. The anger that had overwhelmed her in the last few hours came back, throbbing in her temples and throat. She stood up abruptly and stepped over the bench as if about to go.

In the kitchen, the handmaids had stopped work and were watching them, on the lookout for a quarrel. Miriam had second thoughts. She bent toward Ruth and said, “You think I'm mad, don't you?”

Ruth blushed and looked away. “There's no point in coming to a decision now. You can make up your mind tomorrow. Rest a while longer, and in the morning—”

“In the morning, it'll be another day, exactly the same as today. I'm not mad, and you're too pleased with your own ignorance. I'm going to tell you who Obadiah was.”

In a toneless voice, she recounted how she had met the young
am ha'aretz
in Sepphoris, how he had saved her father, Joachim, from the cross in Tarichea, and how Herod's mercenaries had killed him and spared Barabbas.

“Obviously, it was a mercenary who planted a spear in his chest. And, of course, it's Herod who pays the mercenaries to bring suffering to the people. But we were the ones, all of us, who thrust Obadiah in front of that spear. Through our weakness. We tolerate those who humiliate us and don't react. We've grown accustomed to living without justice, without love or respect for the weak. We do not refuse the burden of the evil that weighs on our necks. When an
am ha'aretz
dies for us, the evil is all the greater, the sin all the graver. Because no one thinks about him, no one cries vengeance. On the contrary, we all stoop a little lower in our indifference.”

Miriam had raised her voice. Ruth had not expected this flood of words and looked at her openmouthed, as did the handmaids in the kitchen.

“Where is goodness?” Miriam roared. “Here? In this house? No, I don't see it anywhere. Am I blind? Where is the goodness generated by these men who are trying to be pure so that they can get onto the Island of the Blessed? The goodness they're offering all of Yahweh's people, where is it? I don't see it.”

Ruth stared at her in horror, with tears in her eyes. “You mustn't talk like that! Not here, where they come in their hundreds to be relieved of pain by the master. Oh no, you mustn't! There they are with their children, their old relatives, and every day the master has the door opened and lets them in. He does all he can for them. Often, he cures them. Sometimes, they die in his arms, but that's how it is. The Almighty decides.”

Miriam had heard this argument once too often. “The Almighty decides! But I say that what is unjust is unjust, and we shouldn't simply bow our heads and accept it.” With an angry snort, she walked away.