According to Mary Magdalene (11 page)

M
ary stayed in the pergola as the evening wind blew in from the sea, cooling the house and garden. She was thinking how strange it was that it had not surprised her when she had realized Jesus knew her thoughts and all her memories.

Wherever he was, everything became natural.

She closed her eyes and could suddenly see it all in front of her, image after image, how they went back home, she and Setonius Euphrosyne receiving them in the kitchen with pleasure and hot food. At table, Mary described her visit to Naomi, the child on her arm and another in her womb, and how full of fear she had been that some neighboring woman would catch sight of Mary.

Euphrosyne sighed.

The entire household in Tiberias was decamping, some of the furniture already gone to Corinth, other pieces sold, packing cases stacked on top of each other in the big hall. In only a few months’ time, they themselves would be on their way to the new house in Greece.

As they talked, Mary could feel her heart fluttering. How could she explain what had happened on the way home? And that she simply had to go to Capernaum?

“I need to talk to you.”

“We'll go to my bedroom as soon as we've eaten.”

There was nothing left in the room except the big bed. Euphrosyne sat down on it and Mary sat on the floor in front of her.

“Something strange has happened to me.…”

She made an effort to be truthful and detailed. Euphrosyne listened and smiled.

“You met a man and fell in love,” she said. “That's not as strange as you seem to think. And it'll pass. That you should marry a Jewish fisherman in Capernaum is unthinkable. Think for yourself, think what you told me just now about Naomi and her life in the village.”

Mary shook her head. She had not even considered marrying.

“He knew everything about me,” she said.

Euphrosyne smiled again and said that you could imagine things like that at the moment you fell in love. All that business of the flowers and the stream had probably added to the atmosphere.

She doesn't understand, Mary thought. She'll never understand. I must tell her as it is.

“Anyhow, I want to go to Capernaum and see him again.”

Euphrosyne rose to fetch an oil lamp and its light showed Mary her stepmother had aged, that she looked tired. And lonely.

I can't do this to her, Mary thought in despair. But I must.

“I suppose you can go to Capernaum then,” said Euphrosyne. “A short trip.”

“Yes.”

“Did he have a name, this young fisherman?”

“He was called Jesus and was from Nazareth.”

Mary saw Euphrosyne's face at once turn white as she stood there by the lamp. She took a few uncertain steps toward the bed, flung herself down on it and called out to all the gods of Olympia—help us, help!

Mary had never before seen Euphrosyne lose her head, not even in the most critical moments over the past years. She was frightened.

“Go and fetch some wine, strong wine,” whispered Euphrosyne.

Mary raced down the stairs and found Octavianus in the kitchen.

“Euphrosyne wants some wine,” she said agitatedly.

Octavianus also grew anxious. In his world, his mistress was never upset. His hands trembled as he gave Mary the large jar of the best wine the house possessed.

By the time Mary got upstairs again, Euphrosyne had calmed down and was lying still with her eyes closed and her hands folded over her chest. Mary poured out wine and Euphrosyne took the goblet and emptied it in one draught.

“More,” she said. “And some blankets. I'm cold.”

Mary tucked her in.

Euphrosyne took a few more gulps of wine, then sat up in the bed, propped up against the pillows. She was still pale, but her voice was now quite steady.

“Now Mary, you must listen carefully. These insane Jewish people have a great dream. The Messiah is to come, the man of god who is to free his people. Over the centuries, one savior after another has maintained he is the one. But the Jews have always been disappointed.”

Mary nodded. She knew more about the Messianic dreams that Euphrosyne did.

“I'm sure,” Euphrosyne went on, “you understand that this dream, or myth, or whatever you call it, attracts young madmen who take on the role and fill it with fair speeches, great promises, and new prophecies. I don't think they are impostors, not all of them. The most insane almost certainly believe they have been chosen.

“In a few years they are generally exposed and executed as rebels. That isn't unusual, believe you me,”

Mary nodded.

“I have a Jewish shoemaker,” Euphrosyne went on. “As you know, at least some of the people in the Jewish quarter have become more friendly toward me since I ceased my activities.
Well, old Sebastiol and I can actually talk to each other. I went to him a week ago to order new shoes for the journey. The old man had changed. It shone from him.”

She paused briefly.

“When I asked why he was so happy, he told me the Messiah had been born, in Nazareth of all places. His name was Jesus and he wandered between the villages talking so that people were amazed, making the blind see and the lame walk.

“Don't you see! Your Jesus is one of these mad barefoot prophets trudging around uneducated people saying he is a messenger of God. And like all the others, he'll face a cruel death.”

Euphrosyne at last fell asleep very late that night. Mary stayed beside her, strangely cool and clear-minded when she reminded herself what he had said, word for word. “My mother is afraid I'll go mad.” “I obey the voice of God. I have always heard it.”

At dawn, she wrote a letter to Euphrosyne. “I'm going to Capernaum now, to see him through your eyes. Do not worry, I'll soon be back.…”

When Euphrosyne read the note, she shook her head and when Setonius noticed her despair, she said, “Mary's Jewish heritage has caught up with her.”

Mary could remember her long walk northward, every meeting and almost every step. She had dressed in worn gray clothes and had pulled her headcloth low over her forehead. Despite the early hour, there were a lot people out and about, simple people who greeted each other. Shalom. Once an old man stopped, raised his hand and summoned God's blessing on to her journey. They spoke in Galilean Aramaic and she answered in the same way. She had not forgotten the language of her childhood.

When the sun was at its highest, she took a rest by the lake and ate the bread she had brought with her. Her feet were not used to walking distances and they hurt her, her sandals chafing her heels, and the soles of her feet burning.

She sat on the shore with her feet in the water, thinking calmly and clearly about what Euphrosyne had told her. In her dreams of the day before, she had seen herself running straight into the arms of Jesus, laughing and saying here I am. Now she decided to keep to the edge of the crowd of people surrounding him and listening without revealing herself.

That would not be difficult, for the old Jew in Tiberias had said people flocked in great numbers around him.

Nevertheless she was astonished when she got to the town on the northeast point of the lake. There must have been many hundreds around him, a wide circle of people with solemn faces, all their eyes turned toward the center.

What surprised her most was the silence. It was so still you could hear the waves of the Gennesaret striking the stones on the shore.

As if they were all holding their breath.

She could not see what was happening. Cautiously, step by step, she started slipping ahead through the dense crowd. People were friendly and made way for her.

She finally caught sight of him. He was kneeling, his arms around a man who had collapsed in front of him. Rigid with terror, Mary watched, thinking it could not be true. But there was no mistaking it. The terrible pus-filled sores on the ravaged face and the bells around his wrists. He was a leper.

She was not close enough to hear what Jesus was saying, but could see only his lips moving as he put his face against the sick man's. Time passed, no, thought Mary, time stood still, but was anyhow lengthy, and in the end Jesus got up and pulled the sick man up with him.

It's not possible, Mary thought.

But she saw that the ravaged face was clean and the man's movements full of strength as he ripped off the despised bells. Jesus said a few more words to him and then turned around to speak to the women behind him. They nodded and went over to the man, and Mary realized that he was to be washed and given new clothes.

Jesus was swaying slightly as he stood there. He's tired, thought Mary. He raised one arm in farewell to all the people and went up the road to one of the houses.

The crowd of people sprang into life, some calling out loudly to God, others praying in chorus, and here and there hymns of praise were being sung. Many people were weeping. As they finally dispersed into smaller groups to disappear in different directions along the mountains and the shore, their voices rose higher and higher in rejoicing, but not screams of excitement.

Mary wept, the tears making white streaks down her dirty face. After a while she found herself alone and clearly visible. But she found it hard to move, her body stiff and cold. Her legs trembling, she finally walked over to the women busy with the sick man.

“Can I help?”

An older woman smiled at her.

“My name's Salome. You're new here?”

“Yes. I'm Mary from Magdala and have walked here from Tiberias to see him.”

“You certainly look as if you needed help yourself.”

They were friendly to her, took her down to the shore, bade her sit on a stone and wash off the dust from her journey and cool her feet. After a while, one of them brought her bread and a beaker of wine. Mary did as Euphrosyne had done the evening before, emptied it in a single draught. Then she washed her face and arms and lowered her feet into the cold water.

It was pleasant, but she was incapable of thinking.

Or did not dare.

As dusk fell, Salome came back. “We women have a tent on the slope up here. Come with me and you can sleep there tonight.”

Mary obeyed like a child.

She fell asleep the moment she had settled down on the sleeping mat in the tent, the low voices of women all around her like a lullaby. She woke sometime during the night but the
calm breathing of the women all around her soon sent her back to sleep. When she finally opened her eyes, dawn had not yet come but the tent canvas was lighter and she realized morning would soon be there.

She was still unable to think, however much of an effort she made. She kept remembering Euphrosyne, her grief and everything she had said, but that served no purpose. She tried to remember her long walk the day before, but that had gone from her memory. Whenever she tried to concentrate on the miracle she had witnessed, the whole event turned away.

If he is mad, then I am also going mad.

Suddenly the light was yellow, the canvas of the tent a golden cupola above their heads and one after another the women woke. Mary had taken off her headcloth and they looked at her hair with wonder.

“It's like sunlight,” one of them said with delight. “Are you a Jewess?”

“Yes,” said Mary firmly. “I was born in Magdala just across the bay. My father was crucified during the rebellion and my mother and brothers were all killed by the Romans. I managed to escape.”

Her new friends cried out with dismay, poor child.

They did not ask any more and she was grateful to them for that. They all hurried to dress for morning prayers. Mary had difficulty putting her hair in order, so was late, but at last she was with the others out in the courtyard of a large house and in quiet calm prayer with them.

They were many, about twenty men and as many women.

But Mary had no time to count. Jesus arrived, stood in the center of them all and started to pray, a simple prayer, in clear words asking God to bless the day and the work they had to carry out.

When he opened his eyes and looked around, he caught sight of her. His smile was like the sunrise and he called out aloud: “Mary Magdalene, you came!”

His joy was so evident, they all had to share it. He went straight to her, took both her hands in his and pulled her toward him.

“This is Mary, a woman I met and came to love.”

A surprised murmur ran through the disciples as he took her in his arms and kissed her.

Mary knew then that there was no longer any decision to be made.

W
hen they had all again assembled in the pergola the next day, Paul firmly took the floor.

“I've thought a great deal about what you said about his love including everyone at every moment and on every occasion. But there are contradictions that are hard to comprehend in what he was preaching. When he received the message that his adherents had come to see him, he said—‘Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?' He said to the man who wished to go and bury his father—'Let the dead bury the dead.’

“And they say he said—'Think not that I have come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace but a sword. For I have come to set a man at variance against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.' Have you also heard him say this?”

“Yes.” Mary's voice was clear and unhesitating.

“How do you explain that?”

“I can only tell you how I see it.”

Paul nodded and Mary went on. “I have previously told you of his wanderings in the desert. He said it was not until he first went there that he realized other people could not hear the voice of God in the way it constantly spoke to him.”

“That must have been frightening?” Paul sounded thoughtful. Mary nodded and went on.

“Yes. But it also provided him with important knowledge. He said he at last understood why people had made so many regulations and laws. Perhaps another insight also came to him. And he came to see that strong family ties entail a danger.”

She hesitated before going on.

“With us it is an almost total blending with our parents, and a tremendously stern demand for obedience. That in all layers in life, honoring your father and mother can lead to us remaining…immature.”

She went on hesitantly.

“But most of all, I think he turned against the way we reduce love to personal ties. He also said it is easy to love your nearest, but hard to love your nearest when you met him as a shabby beggar or a criminal.”

Paul looked doubtful, but suddenly Simon Peter spoke up.

“That was what he demanded of my brother and me. He said, ‘Follow me' and we did. We abandoned Father and his fishing boats…no one should think that was easy. Mother wept and Father raged. He needed us in his work, but we betrayed him and that was a shameful deed. Nearly everyone in Capernaum despised us.”

Mary gave Paul a warm look and said: “It was the same for me. I had to write a letter to my stepmother to tell her I was not coming back. She had been good to me, a foundling she took care of as if I had been her own. And I knew she needed me. She was just moving back to Greece and I was to be her support in her loneliness and old age.”

Mary's eyes filled with tears, but pulling herself together, she went on. “It's hard to explain what power Jesus had.”

“You think he meant that you have to defy your family to be free?”

“Yes. Be adult and independent. And that couldn't happen without strife or, as he put it: ‘A son shall be set against his father, a daughter against her mother.…’”

Paul shook his head.

“It's true, what you say that he was both God and man. But I knew him only as a human being. As God he was as incomprehensible as God is. When we were wandering together, I didn't even try to understand. But afterward, over all these years, I have thought much about it.”

They fell silent. Paul was deep in thought when they suddenly heard the courtyard door slam and a voice calling: “Mary, Mary.”

The three men saw Mary take off like a bird and almost fly down the steps. “Leonidas, Leonidas.” The tall Greek took her in his arms and twirled her around, both of them laughing out aloud.

“I thought you weren't coming for another few days.”

“We had a good following wind north of Cyprus.”

Peter was disturbed. The two of them were indecent. He ought to have known he was in a heathen house. Paul's face also seemed to crumple more than usual. If he had imagined anything about Mary's husband, he had thought of a plump moneygrubber. But here was a Greek man of the world, superior, educated as heathens often are.

Only Rabbi Amasya was pleased and unsurprised.

Leonidas put his wife down and looked with surprise toward the pergola. “Have we guests?”

“Yes, come and meet them.”

Leonidas greeted Rabbi Amasya with a warm embrace and then turned questioningly to the others. The rabbi introduced them, first Simon Peter, then Paul.

“We've met before,” the Greek said to Simon.

“Yes,” said Simon. “You were one of those…foreigners who came and went, I remember.”

To Paul, the Greek said: “I've read one of your letters and was impressed by your insight and clarity.”

Then he turned to Mary. “We have distinguished guests and you haven't even offered them wine and fruit.”

“I'll do that,” said Mary, and hurried off, but at the door, she turned to the rabbi. “You can explain,” she said.

While Amasya was speaking, Paul had plenty of time to study this Greek, a tall, gangling man, graying slightly but not bowed. His face was captivating, with its unusually heavy eyelids easily concealing his observant gaze. But his mouth would always betray him, finely drawn and ultrasensitive.

“I understood from Peter that you also knew Jesus? I'm very interested to know how he seemed to you?”

“He changed my life,” said Leonidas simply.

Then Terentius appeared with wine, fruit, and cakes. Mary served them and Leonidas mixed his wine with water before drinking it. “The dust from traveling makes you thirsty,” he said apologetically.

The three Jews took a cake, drank wine, and departed. The Sabbath was approaching and they had much to do.

“I hope we may come back,” said Paul as they made their farewells.

“You're welcome the day after tomorrow.”

Mary arranged for a bath for her husband, who had gone out to the kitchen to greet the servants. He found a boy there with a large glass of milk and some bread.

“And who are you?”

“I am Marcus, Paul's scribe.”

The boy was scarlet with shame as he explained. “There wasn't much to write today. And I was hungry.”

Leonidas laughed and said that hunger went with his age, and he was welcome.

Then he greeted Terentius and his wife. At that moment, Mary came into the kitchen and looked with surprise at Marcus.

“They've gone,” she said. “They must have forgotten you! Why didn't you take any notes today?”

“I only write when Paul gives me a sign. And the moment you started speaking, he sent me away.”

“Did he now?” said Mary, looking thoughtful.