The Galileans: A Novel of Mary Magdalene (21 page)

“The Buddha? What do you mean, Jivaka?”

“A man named Siddhartha Gautama lived in India about six hundred years ago,” Jivaka explained. “He taught much the same things that Socrates taught later, and many of my people believe he was the Buddha.”

“But what is the Buddha?” Mary asked curiously. “I never heard the word before.”

“An ancient legend among the Indian people teaches that Wisdom returns to earth from time to time in human form, called the Buddha.”

“Then your people, too, believe in a god who sends wisdom to earth,” Joseph said triumphantly.

“Perhaps our religion is the same as yours in principle,” Jivaka agreed. “We believe in the Buddha, you wait for a Messiah. Our Buddha might even have been your Messiah in a different form.”

“But the Messiah will be a Jew!” Joseph insisted. “He is to be sent only to the Jews and will come in the fullness of glory, not through ordinary birth.”

“Siddhartha Gautama did not claim to be divine,” Jivaka told them. “He lived and died like any other man. But some, refusing to believe that one so wise and considerate of man’s foibles could have been born of an earthly father, wove fanciful tales about his birth. They said he was miraculously conceived when his mother dreamed of a white elephant, which is also sacred with my people. Some even insist that Gautama was a god, but I have found no record that he so much as claimed to be the Buddha.”

“What did he teach?” Mary asked.

Jivaka smiled. “Nothing that even Joseph could not subscribe to as a physician, such as that the miseries and discontents of life come from our own selfishness. We see that often enough in our work with the sick.”

“I remember Demetrius once said something like that in Magdala,” Joseph admitted.

“The babblings of an old man are hardly worth remembering,” Demetrius objected. “He says one thing today and another tomorrow.”

“We were talking of the
mazzikim,
” Joseph reminded him, “and you said,
‘The demons that possess man are born within himself, children of his own desires.
’”

“Truer words were never spoken, I suspect,” Jivaka agreed. “Thinking men everywhere seem to be searching for the same truths and often they arrive at the same conclusions by different routes. Gautama also taught that suffering is an inevitable punishment for greedy desire and an overpowering need to be greater than others,” he continued. “These are the cravings he listed: sensuousness, a gratification of the senses; desire for personal immortality; and the desire for property or worldliness.”

“But no one wants everything to end with death,” Joseph protested.

“To overcome man’s baser cravings, Gautama taught that he must no longer live for himself. Is the desire for eternal life anything but the wish to preserve self?”

Joseph was silenced. No one could deny such a simple and fundamental truth.

“Cannot a man so deny self that he would be worthy of eternal life?” Mary asked.

“Gautama’s teaching is very close to that,” Jivaka admitted. “He said that when man has removed
I
from his thoughts, he reaches a higher wisdom called nirvana.”

“But that is no different from our idea of heaven,” Joseph pointed out. “The Pharisees believe that those who love God and the law will live with Him there forever.”

“The Nirvana of Buddha is achieved on earth,” Jivaka explained. “Through it life itself is so complete and full that there is no longer any need for a life after death. The good a man does thus lives after him, forever immortal.”

Joseph shook his head. “It is hard to put away the things you have been taught since childhood, Jivaka. I am afraid I shall never be a philosopher.”

The Indian smiled. “You think so now, but only because you Jews in Judea have so studiously avoided contact with those you call the ‘heathen.’ Philo and I have discussed this many times. He thinks the Jews in other cities of the empire than Jerusalem are losing the narrowness of thought that has kept your religion from being more widely spread. Both of us think your people will be the better for this emancipation. And the world will certainly be better off for being given a chance to worship the God of the Jews.”

Joseph smiled. “I live in the center of what you call the ‘narrowness.’ And I can tell you there will be no revolution in our thinking without considerable turmoil.”

“When was there not turmoil among the Jews?” Demetrius asked. “Sometimes I think they are bound to destroy themselves.”

The color in Mary’s cheeks heightened then, and Joseph knew she understood that the barb in Demetrius’s observation was directed partly at her. The discussion broke up shortly afterward, for Mary had to get ready for the theater. But as Joseph was preparing to leave, she said, “Come into the garden with me a moment, Joseph. I have something to tell you.”

It had rained that morning and the trees and flowers were shining with moisture. A stone bench stood beside a small pool and the sunlight had already dried it. “Sit here with me a moment,” she said. “I hardly see you anymore.”

“You asked me to go back to Jerusalem, remember?”

“It would still be better for both of us if you did. I am like your friend said of the Jews. Wherever I am, there is bound to be turmoil.”

“I am also a Jew,” he reminded her.

“But you are wise and tolerant, while my emotions are as fiery as my hair.”

“The girl I knew in Magdala was loved by all who knew her, but her emotions were fiery too.”

Mary laughed, the same cynical note he had heard more than once here in Alexandria. “You forget easily, Joseph. The women in Magdala hated me because their husbands stopped to look after me in the streets. They knew what was in the men’s thoughts, as I did.”

“Does that give you a right to hate when men wish to possess you?”

“No,” she admitted. “I suppose not. But I hate only Gaius Flaccus and the Romans.”

“Remember what Demetrius said in there about Socrates?” Joseph reminded her. “Goodness is an end in itself. Our ancient prophets taught the same thing for thousands of years. You should remove hate from your mind.”

“How can I as long as he is alive?”

“Killing Gaius Flaccus and forcing Romans to ruin themselves because of their desire for you will never bring you peace, Mary,” he argued earnestly. “I know the real Mary of Magdala, and she is not like that. If you do this thing you will regret it always, if you do not lose your life in the doing.”

“What would you do in my place then?”

“You can only find peace through forgiving Gaius Flaccus.”

“Forgive him!” Color surged into her cheeks. “How can you suggest such a thing and still claim to be my friend?”

“Because I am your friend I know it is the only way. Give up this insane plan, Mary,” he begged. “Gaius Flaccus is a favorite of the Emperor Tiberius and a nephew of Pontius Pilate. You could not kill a prominent Roman like him and live.”

“Not even when it is my right under the law?”

“What law gives you the right to kill?”

“It is written in the laws of the Jews:
‘If in the open country a man meets a young woman who is betrothed, and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die.’”

At the moment Joseph had no answer, for as she said, that was the rigid law of the Jews. “But it does not say you yourself have the right to kill,” he protested lamely. “Execution of the law is the province of the council and the judges.”

“The law says the life of the guilty man belongs to him to whom the damsel is betrothed. You did not take Gaius Flaccus’s life, Joseph, so I must do it.”

“That would have been murder,” he protested.

Mary stamped her foot angrily. “I was your betrothed!” she cried. “But neither you nor the Jewish authorities would have dared to kill Gaius Flaccus because he is a Roman and you were afraid. The law of our people says he must die, and I am not afraid, so I will carry out the sentence myself.”

She was magnificent in her anger and her determination, and yet he knew that what she proposed was folly, a rash act which could only end in her death, whatever she thought the justification might be. And then he thought of a way he might prevent her. If somehow he could get her to reveal her plans, he might be able to foil her and save her life, although it would mean that her hate would be turned on him. Even that, however, was not too high a price for saving the life of the woman he loved.

“How do you propose to do it?” he asked.

Mary tossed her head. “Do you think I would tell you now? But my plans are made, and all of Alexandria will know the hour of my vengeance.”

“Alexandria? I thought Gaius Flaccus was in Rome.”

“What do you think I have been working for these past months?” she asked tartly. “Remember, I told you Plotinus would have Gaius Flaccus transferred to Alexandria. He is due here in a few weeks to serve as
praefectus vigilum,
in command of all Roman troops in the city.”

Knowing that he could do nothing to turn Mary away from her firm resolution to be revenged upon Gaius Flaccus, Joseph was tempted to do what she had advised, leave Alexandria and return to Jerusalem. But first he had to treat the cataract in Demetrius’s other eye, and when the operation was followed by an inflammation that threatened to destroy the eye, he was forced to make daily visits to Mary’s luxurious home on the shore of Lake Mareotis until the inflammation subsided. It was a month before Demetrius was able to leave the house, and then he moved with difficulty because of a plethora and dropsy that caused his body to swell.

When the old Greek musician was able to be up long enough, Joseph took him to the theater to see Mary dance. From a seat back of the
tribunalia
Demetrius was able to see fairly clearly, since his vision was much better at a distance than closer up. Mary seemed to be inspired that night; never had Joseph seen her dance more spiritedly or with more grace. And watching her beauty, the slender loveliness of her body as she moved about the stage in the expressive rhythm of the dance, he felt a deep sense of depression and foreboding grip his soul. She had embarked upon an insane course, he was sure, and yet he could do nothing at all to stop her. She was truly possessed of a demon, but he knew no way to drive it out. And his depression deepened when he glanced at the box usually reserved for the Roman governor of the city and saw Gaius Flaccus sitting there, as handsome as a Greek god.

When the performance was ended, they made their way to Mary’s dressing room through the corridors beneath the great theater. She still wore the costume in which she had danced and was sitting before her dressing table when they entered, while her maid, a dark-skinned slave from Cyrene, brushed her hair. Mary got up and ran to kiss the old musician. “I was dancing for you, Demetrius!” she cried. “Did you like it?”

“There has never been one to equal you, child.” Demetrius’s voice was thick with emotion. “This is the crowning moment of my life.”

“We will have other moments,” she promised gaily, “many of them. The director has agreed to present the
Bacchae
of Euripides at the Great Dionysia, and I am to lead the dancers.”

“I know you will triumph,” Demetrius told her. “You have everything you wish for now.”

“Not everything,” Mary said, suddenly serious, “but I am very near.” She turned to Joseph. “You saw him?”

“Yes. How long has he been in Alexandria?”

“Only a few days. Plotinus is arranging a dinner in his honor tomorrow night.”

“What is all the mystery about?” Demetrius demanded.

“Gaius Flaccus is in Alexandria,” Mary explained. “He was in one of the
tribunalia
tonight.”

“How will you keep the two of them from flying at each other’s throats?” Joseph asked. “Plotinus is bound to be jealous if you show much attention to Gaius Flaccus.”

Mary laughed confidently. “I have learned a lot about handling men in the past five years, Joseph. You simply tell each of them that he is stealing your affections from the other.”

“But suppose they compare your statements.”

“When each distrusts and is jealous of the other? Hardly.”

Joseph shrugged. “We had better go, Demetrius,” he said. “Doubtless the lady called Flamen will have suitors wishing to visit her.”

Mary flushed at his tone, but before she could say anything, a sharp-voiced challenge came from the guard outside the door. A moment later the curtains were thrust arrogantly aside, revealing a tall man in the uniform of a Roman tribune. It was Gaius Flaccus.

For a moment Mary was like a marble statue, then as the young Roman strode forward and lifted her hand to his lips, color came into her cheeks and she relaxed. “I could not wait until the dinner tomorrow to meet you,” Gaius Flaccus said, kissing her hand. “Such beauty and talent deserve a more spontaneous tribute.” And then, as his eyes met hers, a puzzled look came into his face. “Your face seems familiar.”

“Does it?” Mary asked, still smiling, but her eyes were hard and cold.

Gaius Flaccus seemed to realize for the first time that there were others in the room. He turned to them, and his eyes widened in surprise. “Are you not the leech, Joseph of Galilee, that I knew in Tiberias and Magdala?” he asked.

“I am Joseph of Galilee,” the young physician said quietly.

“And my name is Demetrius,” the old musician added, “a lyre maker of Magdala, lately come to Alexandria.”

Gaius Flaccus looked from them to Mary, and his eyes widened with amazement. “But you couldn’t be the little dancer,” he cried. “The one I knew in Tiberias.”

Mary’s voice cut him short. “In Alexandria I am called Flamen,” she said proudly.

“Mary of Magdala,” Gaius Flaccus said softly. “And the streets of Tiberias. You have come a long way, my dear. And you are more beautiful than ever. No wonder they tell me the men of Alexandria are at your feet.”

“And you?” Mary asked. Her voice was soft, almost coaxing. Hearing it, Joseph could understand her power over men.

The tribune smiled fatuously and lifted her fingers slowly to his lips once more. “No doubt I shall be there too,” he said softly. “Dare I hope one day to be first among your admirers?”