Secret Magdalene (16 page)

By thinking all this, I recover my wit. I will repel him with foreign erudition. He will then go away and leave me to my sorrowful self. “As for prophets,” I say to him in my loftiest voice, “remember what the Greek Aeschylus wrote: ‘And, truly, what of good ever have prophets brought to men? Craft of many words, only through evil your message speaks. Seers bring terror, so to keep men afraid.’”

Yehoshua is looking at my sanctuary of sand and palm and rock, and seeing this, I see also that the three unchaste figures lie where I have left them. Quickly, I pop them into the pot I still hold in my hand. But instead of retreating, he seats himself in my bowl of stone. Seated he says, “Do you believe that?” And when I say nothing, he asks again, more firmly this time. “Do you believe that prophecy is an evil craft meant to keep men afraid?”

I look at him and find I have no idea. Do I believe it? I have not listened to what I have said. I have only quoted the playwright Aeschylus because his were the first words that came to mind about prophets. But has this Zealot really asked such a thing of me? Men such as this man do not question prophecy. They live by it. Therefore, as this could not be a question, it must be a challenge. I am alone here. He is a stranger. He stands between me and the path down to the settlement. I answer, “I do not know.”

To which the Galilean then says, “But if what this Greek says is true and this is all there is of prophecy, is God then mute?”

Again, I answer that I do not know. It is a difficult thing, measuring dismissal against civility. But it is as if I had said nothing. This one persists.

“If God is mute, can we still assume he concerns himself with us? And if God remains mute, how do we know he exists? And what then of prophets? If God is mute, are they charlatans?”

By now, I barely look at him, but I admit I do listen. How could I not? This kind of thing is to me as rain to the grasses.

“Is my cousin John what some say he is, a deceiver? Even with such a death as you once died, are you?”

This is interesting. More, it is surprising. What kind of a man is this to pose such knotty questions? He sounds a lawyer, yet I know he is no scribe. I see I have made a mistake. He is not repelled by erudition, not even the erudition of a Greek. He is not repelled by incivility. Not only is he not repelled; his being here is no accident. He has not stumbled on me in this isolated place—he has sought me out.

“Are you afraid of me, John?”

Yes! I hiss to myself. Yes, I am afraid of you. What is it about you that makes me afraid? How would you harm me? I know there is a confusion in you, a whirlwind of contrary feeling that blows you every which way as a blizzard blows sand. You are not an Addai with the most settled of hearts. You are not a Seth with the most composed of minds. You are not a Simon Magus with her talent and her comforting conceit. Or even a Tata with her strength and her pride. Who
are
you? “No. Why should I be afraid of you?”

In answer, he leaps from his place on the curved stone, saying, “Because I am afraid of you. Men who fear each other are a danger to each other.”

Even though by his leaping he has startled me through and through, I hold my ground. Is this honesty? In the world as it is, a dark place where the mind of man is hobbled by fear and awed by unquestioned and dreadful Powers and therefore ruled by priests, where a place like the Great Library at Alexandria is as a small lamp in a cave of utter blackness, I do not have the freedom to be honest—many would do more than shun or banish me, I should be stoned. Other than with Salome, I have never been truly honest, and even with Salome, lately I have kept my own counsel. With Father, I hid my interests and my opinions. With Tata and Addai and Seth, I do not hide my opinions, but I hide my feelings. With all others, I hide my sex as well as my origins and opinions and feelings. I am not what I seem and I envy this man his honesty. And I admire it. Or is he clever? Do I walk into a trap? Once more I lie, saying, “I am no danger to you.”

His reply is as swift as his leap. “I have never met a man more dangerous, even as you are a youth. Would you know where the danger lies?”

Here, I must respond honestly because I must know his answer. “Yes, I would know this.”

“The danger lies in being known. I think you might know me.”

“I do not know you.”

“I think you do. As I know you.”

He is right. This is a danger to me. It must be, else why am I now more afraid of him than ever? He turns away, walking toward the small seeping spring where Eio is sucking in water and making a tremendous racket as she does so. He clucks his tongue. On the instant she follows him. Eio, who obeys no one but me and Addai, obeys him. They are now both at the head of the path that twists and turns down through the rocks of the
nahal
toward the settlement below. Over his shoulder, Yehoshua calls, “As you know me and I you, come meet my sisters and my brothers.”

I put down the pot and come away.

THE EIGHTH SCROLL

The Fourth Man

I
hear the women
before I see them.

There is a great commotion near a small grove of thorn acacias, much louder than the busy assembly of collared doves and babbler birds who live among these thorns. Eio’s ears flicker at such tumult, her stump of a tail twitches.

In this blistering heat, the family of Yehoshua has set up its tents on stony ground between the yellow cliffs and the wilderness gardens. As we come closer, the women change from colorful mirage to colorful Galileans.

“This, John, is my aunt Martha,” says Yehoshua. Martha, who makes much of this noise, has a goiter, a great bag hanging under her chin. Small children and chickens underfoot, she shrieks at a tall red-faced girl who chases a small red-faced boy, and the bag swings on her neck as a full udder swings on a trotting goat. “And that is my sister Maacah,” says Yehoshua of the tall girl.

Maacah reminds me of Salome when we were young, and I am instantly charmed, though as a youth of substance, I do no more than glance her way. Yehoshua has now come to the acacia trees. Seated on a shaded mat of woven reeds is a woman spinning wool; she seems frail in all her parts. Around her, gather all others that are female. These do not spin, but prepare food.

Yehoshua points from one to another. “These are Babata, wife of my brother Joses; Bernice, wife of my cousin Simeon; Veronica, wife of my brother Jude; and Miryam, also my sister.”

I acknowledge the wives of Simeon and Joses and Jude, as well as this second sister, though they, of course, cannot look me, an unrelated male, full in the face. I take note that the wife of Jude holds a suckling babe. I note also there is a last woman seated alone, far under the deepest shade of the bristling trees, and that Yehoshua, seeing her, merely nods in her direction, saying only, “Salome, daughter of Zebedee, the mother of Jacob and Simon.” The mother of Simon and Jacob must hear him, but she does not look up. It is as deliberate a thing as I have ever seen.

It is only now that he comes to the frail woman who spins, and at whom he also nods, though he does not smile. “And this is Mary.”

And so I meet his mother.

Mary seems a bloodless thing, too tired to do other than briefly lift her eyes to mine. The eyes are as faded by the years as her mantle is faded by the sun, but I see she was once comely. Under her head cloth, her hair, though shot with gray, is black. The red hair in two of her sons does not come from the mother, and it does not come from his cousin John. All those I have seen of his family are dark of hair and eye. I wonder, Where is the father? And why is this mother of so many mentioned last among women?

“Mother, this is John the Less, the young man I have taken as a friend.”

Swiftly working fibers through her hands, Mary inclines her head, and while I am acknowledging her with great courtesy, as befits a youth meeting the mother of a friend, I catch the eye of the youngest sister, Miryam. I am not more than five years above her age. I am well bred and well spoken. I am unmarried. Miryam flushes from round forehead to round bosom, and so do I. Before she can lower her glance, I suddenly understand what it is to be thought a man.

To my horror, Yehoshua notices. “Come, John. We are done with the women. Now you will meet my brothers and my cousins and my friends.”

Eio and I following, Yehoshua pushes his way through a confusion of goats. Lifting a sharply divided hoof from off my foot, I walk toward these brothers and friends alone. Beyond the goats and the tents and the women and children and chickens under the acacia trees, the sheer yellow cliff rises into the thin blue sky. Here at the foot of the cliff there is a shallow cave, wide enough and deep enough to provide needed shade from the relentless sun. Yehoshua walks toward this cave, and when we come near, I can make out the shapes of those inside. It seems all within are seated, that they face outward and watch us come. But not until we too are in the cave can I see that it is the brother Jacob who leans forward, that it is he who has quickly covered the ground before him with a cloth. Before the cloth settles, I see the lines he has drawn in the dirt. It is not one of Salome’s problems in geometry, but what it is, I do not know. Is it a map?

All I can do if I have walked into a trap is turn and run straight into a herd of goats, for as Eio and I have followed Yehoshua, the goats have followed us. I keep my face straight and my wits sharp. I do not look at the cloth on the ground. I look at Jacob’s head. By the stars, he has shaved himself bald! Why? Meanwhile, all but one looks up at me, and the one who does not look is Jude. Jude keeps his gaze on his twin. I feel into him for only a moment. Jude thinks me an effete, a youth of no substance, no heat, no blood. For Yehoshua’s sake, Jude will allow me small room in this world, but grudgingly. Of the thirteen we find in this cave, in one way or the other, I know six. There are the two brothers from Capharnaum, Andrew and Simon Peter. There are Yehoshua’s four brothers, the newly shaven Jacob (who is spoken of as Jacob the Just), Jude, Simon, and finally the youngest brother, Joses. Of the remaining seven, there are two I have never seen before, but know from an awed Tata that they are men of fame, or ill fame to such as Father. I would not stare, but I am struck with the wonder of it. These are the sons of the woman under the tree, the sour Salome, sprung from the loins of Tata’s champion, Judas the Galilean, the famous bandit who came out of the hills to lead a revolt against the taxes of Rome. These are Simon and Jacob bar Judas!

Simon and Jacob were with their father Judas on that day in Galilee; they were with their father’s friend, Zadok the Righteous One. When the Roman general Varus caught the father and killed him, he did not catch the sons, nor did he catch the mysterious Zadok, who with Judas became heroes to a whole people.

As for the others who sit farther back, Yehoshua introduces these as the three sons of Jacob bar Judas: young James of Salome’s age, the younger Jair, and the even younger Zoker, who could not be above ten years. The fourth is the son of Simon bar Judas, and named Menahem. I hear this one think John the Less should stay in his place. If he should say it aloud, I would not dispute him. The last of the five is a huge man, larger than Peter, with a nose as hooked as an Arab’s; this one is Yehoshua’s cousin, Simeon the Zealot.

Yehoshua puts his hand on my shoulder, urges me forward. “I have brought the young one who has taken my heart.”

Jacob the Just keeps himself between the cloth he has placed on the ground, and me. Alone of them all, Simon of Capharnaum stands and walks toward me. For the third time in my life, he thrusts his face in my face. “Have I not seen you before?”

“Of course you have seen him before, Simon Peter, my rock,” Yehoshua answers for me. “Do not bully. This is John the Less, kin to Seth of Damascus. It is my intention that he join us.”

On the instant, all are as alert as a vixen with kits. “Join us?” snaps Peter. “How should he join us? He has no—”

Yehoshua places a hand on his arm. “Join us in conversation, Peter. What else could I mean?” His eyes are bright with mischief. “Simon bar Judas? Jacob bar Judas? Can my two Sons of Thunder think of nothing worthy to discuss?”

They stare up at him, anxious and eager to understand. The mood of Yehoshua matters to them, that much is obvious. I can hear them trying to think of something worthy to discuss, by which I know that though they are men of violence, they are yet simple men, and sweet in nature.

“Or perhaps I interrupt something?”

Jacob the Just speaks now. “I have no stomach for this, Yeshu’a. We have waited for you. Where have you been? There is serious business up in Jerusalem.”

“I know.”

“You know? And yet—?”

“And yet I have time to talk of other things. We shall have a skinful of all this soon enough, for there is ever a surfeit of serious business.”

Jacob half rises. “This is why we ourselves must be serious.”

Yehoshua holds up his hand, which stops Jacob in his rising. “Do you think God is forever serious?”

“God? There is nothing more serious than God.”

Yehoshua smiles on his brother. It is a tender smile. Even Jacob must feel it as tender. “There is nothing less serious than God. Consider the ass.” He pulls on Eio’s ear. “God could not have been serious when he devised the ass.”

He has made them laugh. This man has the gift his cousin John has; he makes the way smooth with laughter. It is as if air is let out of a bladder, all laugh, even Jacob with his red lips and his bald blue head.

Yehoshua rubs Eio’s cheek and she shuts her unfaithful eyes in bliss. “Take comfort, Jacob. What is to be done will be done. And as there may be some here we cannot trust, which means nothing can begin until the setting of the sun, it is useless to continue so serious while the sun yet shines. Jude?”

Jude reacts almost before he hears his name, his hand clasped to the hilt of his knife.

“Come with John and me. We will return to this serious business when we have eaten. And you!” Yehoshua means Eio. “You come too.”

Eio moves as if I had bid her. And Jude is up off the ground and by Yehoshua’s side while he still speaks. As for me, if I have walked into the lion’s den, now I am about to walk out. It is good to be alive, though I should not have thought so earlier in this day when life felt nothing but pointless. As we four, the look-alike brothers and Eio and I, turn to walk away, I glance back just once. The others have returned to that which is drawn in the dirt, all except Simon Peter. He stares straight at me, and the look on his face could turn flesh to salt.

Y
ehoshua lies in the bowl of warm rock that is usually mine. From it he can see back down the path as far as the carob trees. Above the tops of the trees, there is the sky and the sea and the mountains. Under the simmering sun, they all seem as one. Jude has taken the soft sand under the largest date palm that would be Salome’s if she were here. I sit, leaning back on Eio.

“This is a good place,” says Yehoshua. “Do you remember where we would sit, Jude, when we were boys?”

Jude has closed his eyes. He lies on his back, his arms crooked under his head, and all the while the knife at his belt glints in the sun. He looks asleep, but he could not be for he nods, yes, he remembers.

I must listen carefully. Yehoshua’s accent is so thick, he speaks so softly, and Eio’s belly rumbles so loudly. “My brothers and sisters and I once lived on a hill and from our hill we could look down on the Plain of Jezreel where so many battles from scripture were fought. We would pretend it was we who had fought them, making swords of sticks and knives of shale, we fought valiantly and we died gallantly. Remember, Jude?”

With another nod, Jude remembers.

“From our hill we could see another far hill and on that hill stood Sepphoris, Herod’s city of marble. At night, we would watch as the hundreds of palace lights were lit. I would imagine being the man who lit those lights. I would imagine being the man they were lit for. How endless the distance from our darkness to Herod’s great palace of fire. When we were older and our sticks and our stones replaced by the tools of a trade, we still sat on our hill talking of the world in the shadow of Herod’s lights. Did you do this, John?”

Caught out struggling to hear, I have no answer.

“Between you and your brother, Simon, what talk there must have been! Seth has told me of you. I think you were what I as a youth might have wished to be.” I see that Jude opens his eyes at this. “What trade did your father follow?”

“My father was a maker and merchant of glass.” Long ago it was decided that I would not change who my father was or what he did, all that should be changed is that he and my family were dead at Roman hands. “I was a merchant’s son. Seth and Addai raised my brother and me, and though we have learned much, we learned no trade.”

From his place in the sand, Jude grunts.

Yehoshua cocks an eye at his brother. “Pay no heed. Jude has always found it hard to know how a man might live without a trade.”

Once again, Jude grunts.

“How he lives with himself, that is.”

I watch this performance with much interest. All my life I have known the thoughts of others by hearing them, but this one knows his brother’s words from grunts and shrugs and glares. Does Jude speak at all? Is he mute? I lie back against Eio and share her flies. The mood I awoke with is gone; the irritation I have lived with since Egypt is gone, which means I feel fit to argue. Live without a trade? I cannot imagine living
with
one. I am a philosopher; I am select of the earth. It is enough that I have learned to tend my trees and my poppies.

Because Jude is mute and perhaps also deaf, I say this, “Tell him I live easily with myself, for there is more to the world than a trade.”

“Oh, I have often told him this, especially now that neither of us follows our own. We were once carpenters working for our uncle, the builder Cleopas. We worked on much in Sepphoris, the very theater itself. We built the stage building, and what a splendid stage building it was. The back wall alone had doors and openings enough to satisfy the busiest playwright. Is this not true, Jude?” Jude makes no sound, but Yehoshua seems satisfied that his brother agrees the stage building was splendid and the back wall satisfying. “Old Camel Knees demands we shun the ways of those he claims walk in the footsteps of Roman or Greek—”