The Galilean Secret: A Novel (37 page)
Read The Galilean Secret: A Novel Online
Authors: Evan Howard
Joseph presented the soldiers with Pilate’s written order that Jesus’ body be released to him. One of them examined the document carefully and then told Joseph, “All right, you have permission to take the Galilean’s body, but only his.”
Judith went to Nicodemus and whispered, “Please, sir, may we also bury Dismas?”
Nicodemus glanced nervously at the soldiers, who were sternly keeping watch. “You heard the order. We dare not.”
Using the soldiers’ ladders and ropes, Joseph, Nicodemus and John lowered Jesus’ body from the cross. When they had laid it on the ground, his mother cradled his head in her arms one last time. She tossed aside the crown of thorns, touched his eyes and kissed him tenderly. Joseph unrolled the shroud and said, “Not all of us on the Sanhedrin approved of your son’s execution. The least we can do is give him a proper burial.”
The men placed Jesus’ body on the shroud, and Nicodemus asked the women to help with the embalming. At first Judith drew back, sickened by the body’s bloody, mangled appearance. Then she steadied herself and, along with the others, began to wash it. She rubbed gently around the wounds inflicted by the whip, the nails and the spear; then she took the myrrh and aloe from the jars and spread the spices on the pallid torso, the limp arms, the bloodstained legs.
Sorrow weighed on her. Each movement required such energy that she thought it would be her last, but her love for Jesus gave her the strength to go on. It seemed that she had just begun when Joseph of Arimathea noticed the sun setting, barely visible on the darkened horizon. “The Sabbath is about to start; we do not have time to finish the embalming. We must get Jesus’ body to the tomb immediately.”
As Nicodemus was straightening the body, Judith told him about the centurion taking the letter.
Nicodemus glared at her and frowned. “We must find him and get the letter back. We need it now more than ever.”
Mary Magdalene, Jesus’ mother and several of the other women from Galilee went to the tomb with the men; Judith stayed behind with Susanna, Joanna and a few other women she hadn’t met. When her group started back toward the city, she paused for a moment and stared up at Dismas’ swollen face and bruised legs, wishing there was more they could do for him. She gazed into the marbled purple sky and remembered how the stars had looked on the night they had first made love. How different everything was now. How passion had led to death and despair.
Judith stood motionless. An eerie silence had fallen on the dark afternoon. Not the renewing quiet of a peaceful night, but the haunting silence of a battlefield after a war. A dog howled in the distance. The plaintive sound pierced her heart and reminded her that she was alone: love had ended; hope had ended; happiness and freedom and dreams had ended.
The dog howled again. Judith fell to the ground, one ear crushed against the pitiless earth, the other covered with a trembling hand. She pushed hard, desperate to shut out the howling, which reminded her of Dismas’ moaning. But she knew that the terror of his anguished cries would be with her forever, as would the memory of her betrayals. His body had been crucified, so had her heart.
Only the memory of Jesus’words gave her the strength to stand again: “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” Her vision blurry with tears, she placed a hand on her abdomen. Someday, when her child asked about Dismas, those were the words she would speak. Whatever he had done, however tragically he had died, in the end, those were the words that mattered. She turned to follow the other women, confident that she would carry the words with her always, and remember them each time she thought of Dismas.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Present Day
Heartbreak tempts us to give up on love, to withdraw and vow never to love again. In this way the pain can be stopped and the risk minimized. But we can never withdraw far enough to be perfectly safe. A better strategy is to stay engaged. Love may lose many battles, but even its losses are victories for hearts that refuse to grow cold. In the end these hearts will win. As God lives, they will win. And have already won.
—Brother Gregory Andreou’s Journal
Jerusalem
Wednesday, April 17
THE MARCH FOR PEACE DREW A LARGER-THAN-EXPECTED CROWD, BUT DESPITE THE OUTWARD SIGNS OF ITS SUCCESS, KARIM FELT DISAPPOINTMENT. The feeling surprised him as he and Rachel moved with the masses toward the plaza in front of the Wailing Wall. He had just whispered a prayer of thanks that Kenyon had freed her and that a passing motorist had taken them to the monastery. But the sight of the Wailing Wall and the Dome of the Rock above it turned his gratitude to gloom. He groped to understand why.
He wasn’t disappointed in the thousands of people who were marching around the walls of the Old City. The flags of nations from Africa and Asia, Europe and the Americas lifted his spirits, as did the colorful banners, which inspired him to keep believing in peace. The mingling of families and college students with priests, rabbis and imams reminded him that all people can get along. The diversity of the marchers had exceeded his expectations—Jews draped in blue and white prayer shawls, Russian Orthodox priests in long black robes, Muslim men with
kufi
prayer caps and Muslim women wearing the
hijab
on their heads.
He reflected further and identified the source of his disappointment. Jerusalem meant “city of peace,” but never did a name resound with more biting irony. This city of prophets and sages, kings and pilgrims, scholars and poets was also a city of generals and crusaders and suicide bombers.
Surrounded by holy sites, he sensed the clash between the dream of divine blessing and the nightmare of warfare and squandered potential, of grand possibility compromised by the endless cycle of brutality and revenge. Jerusalem struck him as a lovely bride with the heart of a prostitute. She seduced you with lofty promises of peace, only to leave you wailing when the promises were dashed upon the rocks of bloodshed and death.
The talking and laughing of this raucous swath of marching humanity teemed with multicolored richness. But Jerusalem’s dominant color was beige—its walls, its streets, its sidewalks, its buildings. The scene spoke of religion itself—that when it promoted justice and compassion, religion pulsed with color and life, but when it inspired hatred and violence, it was as beige as the bones decaying in hundreds of graves in the Kidron and Hinnom Valleys.
Karim coaxed Rachel through the crowd in order to catch up with Brother Gregory, thankful that after much wrangling—and in response to pressure from Washington—the Israeli government had eased permit restrictions for the day. They jostled their way through the crowd, surrounded by IDF soldiers with tear gas at the ready.
Karim rotated the ring on his finger—his mother’s ring. Last night had been a turning point for him and Rachel. They had talked through what was left of the night, sharing their hopes, their dreams, their fears. He had comforted her when she cried, and she had fallen asleep for a few minutes, wrapped in his arms. The experience had convinced him that he wanted her there forever.
That he would ask her to marry him.
He turned to look at her, amazed at how she had recovered from her abduction. In spite of having nearly no sleep, her wholesome beauty seemed undimmed. Her resilience captivated him. “Are you nervous about your speech?”
“Of course.”
“Keep focused on your message and you’ll do fine.” He led her forward, eager to see the scroll, but even more eager to steal a moment when he could ask the question that was burning through him: Will you marry me? He pushed the question aside as they neared Brother Gregory and the scroll. Public demonstrations had applied pressure on the Government Antiquities Agency to allow the scroll to be displayed at the march. Fearing a popular revolt, the GAA had relented and entrusted the scroll to Brother Gregory. It rested on a wooden pallet, carried by four monks and protected by a sealed Plexiglas cover and Israeli guards armed with automatic weapons. He glanced around but didn’t see Ezra.
With Rachel at his side, Karim prodded and cajoled his way through the raging sea of marchers until he reached Brother Gregory and the pallet. Television crews were filming the scene, beaming video and audio of the event to millions of viewers around the world. Karim hoped that the images of tens of thousands of people praying for peace would inspire support for the two-state solution.
A memory of the encounter with Kenyon surfaced just then, sending a shiver through him, despite the heat of the noonday sun. He hoped that Kenyon was done causing trouble. Now that the rogue archaeologist had Brother Gregory’s laptop and translation materials, he could accuse Karim of stealing the scroll and send him to jail. Karim had nowhere to hide. Alienated from his father, he couldn’t go home. Nor could he stay at the monastery indefinitely or in Jerusalem without a permit. He was a man without a country.
“I’m nervous about being here,” he said.
Rachel dodged a heavyset man. “Don’t worry. Where could you be more inconspicuous than in a crowd of thousands?”
He fingered the ring, longing for the day when he could take her out for dinner, walk under the stars, share tender moments. He wanted her by his side always, to marry her and create a family together.
But marriage seemed impossible. Their families stood between them. The animosity of Muslims and Jews stood between them. The checkpoints and pass system and separation barrier stood between them. And yet he was determined not to give up. Although his chances of being happily married to Rachel seemed as remote as lasting peace, he vowed to try. Remembering the letter’s teachings about the meaning of true love, he led her out of the crowd. The only quiet place was an unoccupied set of stairs located on the plaza’s upper boundary. They moved away from the marchers and climbed the stairs. “I can’t imagine life without you,” he said.
“If you return to the West Bank and I stay in Jerusalem. . .” she trailed off.
“My father will never forgive my defying him. I can’t go back.”
“Can you stay at the monastery?”
“Not forever.”
“I would let you stay with me, but it would be too dangerous. We were lucky last night at the monastery, but we’d be fools to tempt fate again.”
He drew her close. “I can think of something even more dangerous.”
“What would that be?”
He paused. “If we were to become husband and wife.”
She stared at him, surprise etched on her face. “Are you proposing to me?”
He turned the ring and remembered where it had come from, what it represented. He nodded.
For a moment her eyes searched his and she became still. “You’re right—marrying
would
be dangerous but not just because of our differences. We haven’t known each other long.”
He reached for her hand and intertwined his fingers with hers. “Doesn’t the letter say that love is always a risk?” When she stared at the passing marchers and didn’t respond, he realized how true the statement was. He hadn’t planned to propose quite that way. The words had tumbled out spontaneously, surprising him as much as her. Now the feeling of risk settled over him like one of Ezra’s threats. If she said no, Karim would be crushed, but he had to take the risk. He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb.
Perhaps he should have waited. Perhaps he should have chosen a quieter place, a more romantic setting, a more opportune moment. But with all the dangers they faced, would he get another chance? He longed to take Rachel away from the strife and oppression of this land, to find a place where they would be accepted as a couple and allowed to live in peace, but if they didn’t stay here and work for change, no such place would ever exist. He would never have chosen the middle of the march as the time—and the Wailing Wall plaza as the place—to propose. He sensed that they had chosen him. With Rachel’s eyes expressing all the warring emotions he felt, he couldn’t turn away.
She stared down again. For him time was passing as slowly as . . . eternity. How could he have dared hope that she, an Israeli Jew, could love him, a Palestinian Muslim? But he did hope, and now she was about to break his heart.
Finally she met his gaze and with a teary smile surprised him by saying, “I would be proud to be your wife.”
A surge of relief and joy rushed through him as he took her in his arms. He wanted to marry her here and now, before she changed her mind, before their world exploded into violence again. “When can we set the date?”
“As soon as we can find a rabbi to perform the ceremony.”
He kissed her tenderly. “And an imam?”
She pulled back and laughed. “Yes, of course, and an imam.”
Karim slipped the ring off his little finger and held it up. “This ring belonged to my mother. I want you to wear it.”
Rachel hesitated, eyeing the ring as if caught off guard. “But the way your mother died . . . there are painful memories associated with that ring. Are you sure you want me to wear it?”
He took her hand. “The best way to forget sad memories is to replace them with happy ones.” He slid the ring on her finger. “Let’s make the future better than the past.”
She admired the ring. “How would your mother have felt about having a Jewish daughter-in-law?”