According to Mary Magdalene (7 page)

T
he cook took very seriously his task of persuading Mary to eat. He created delicious dishes that gave off exciting aromas and glowed in lovely colors. Then he sat down opposite her and watched every spoonful going to her mouth. When things went slowly and she stopped, he resorted to blackmail.

“You hold my destiny in your hands,” he said, and as Mary snorted, he went on in a trembling voice. “Don't you see, if you don't eat and get better, Euphrosyne will sell me on the slave market. Can you take the responsibility for that?”

After a dramatic silence, he managed to make his eyes fill with tears before digressing into voluble descriptions of the horrible fates ahead of him. He would be flogged and humiliated by a grim Roman matron and he would be made to cook barbaric food.

“Did you know the Romans eat snakes? And pelicans with fish sauce!” he shuddered.

Then he almost wept as he described how he would have to spend his nights in a sooty corner of that Roman kitchen, bitten by dogs and kicked by all the other slaves in the house.

Mary was profoundly moved, obediently chewed the food, and swallowed.

But the next time he started on the story of the terrifying future ahead of him, she had had time to think, and she told him that Euphrosyne had a warm heart and would never sell her cook, a man she liked and greatly valued.

“You're more childish than I thought,” said Octavianus, his dark eyes glowing like burning charcoal as he went on.

“Euphrosyne has a heart of ice. Didn't you know she has never loved anyone before? Now she's fond of you and the gods alone know how it will end.”

Long silence again, then that terrible question. “What happens when a heart of ice melts?”

Mary was struck dumb. But she could see it, a lump of ice in a breast suddenly beginning to trickle away. “I don't know,” she whispered.

“No, you see? No one can imagine that. I lie awake at night wondering about it.”

Out of sheer terror, Mary ate up every crumb on her plate. That gave her a stomachache, so she had to run to the privy, and as she sat there, she felt an unexpected joy. That afternoon, she knocked on Euphrosyne's office door.

“Have you got a heart of ice?”

Euphrosyne smiled her strange unsmiling smile. “Like everyone else, I have a heart of flesh and blood,” she said.

“I thought so,” said Mary, and then she dared do the unheard of—she threw herself into Euphrosyne's arms and hugged her. Euphrosyne flushed with delight and held tightly on to the girl.

“I hear you're eating as you should,” she said. “Your cheeks are getting rounder, but you're still very pale. We must try some fresh air. When you were small, you always liked helping Setonius in the garden.”

“I'd love to do that.”

Setonius had always liked the child for her gravity and the unerring feeling in those fingers for every tender root as she weeded around the plants and roses. But now she was almost adult.

He soon found that she had not severed her link with what could not be spoken. She knew flowers had thoughtful dispositions, and that no plant was as unaffected as it pretended to be. She said she loved the old trees down on the edge of the lake, simply consuming time. In that way, she considered, they made time cease.

She had gone on asking questions, as children do, not like adults, who are seldom prepared to listen to the answers. That was how she came to hear so many stories.

He had a story for every plant in the big garden.

The day she arrived to be a gardener's laborer, he was just about to cut open the fruits of the sycamore. He showed her how the flowers grew inside the fruit, hidden from the outside world. Like the fetus in the womb, he said, and he told her that the sycamore was the tree of the Egyptian goddess of love. Her name was Hathor, and she helped everyone secretly suffering from unhappy love.

Then he sliced into every fruit to drive out the insects trying to lay their eggs inside the hidden flowers. Mary thought it endless labor, and messy. But she climbed the ladder and soon learned how to make the cut correctly and a few sweaty hours later, the fruits were freed of their intruders.

“In six days, you'll see,” he said. “Now we've helped Hathor, and soon she'll reward us with fruit as golden and sweet as the cheeks of the goddess.”

He smiled at her, but as they washed at the well, he noticed a small worried frown.

“Do you believe in lots of gods?” she asked him as they took a rest in the shade of the great terebinth.

As he did not understand what she meant, he began to tell her about his childhood on a windy island in the Ionian Sea.

“In our village, we had a wealth of gods,” he said, his voice warm with melancholy and longing. “There was Apollo, as beautiful and strong as the light over the sea. In the fields in spring, we sang hymns to Demeter and thanked her for her fecundity. At the grape harvest, we held feasts in honor of Dionysus and we danced like madmen.

“A fantastic feast,” he said, smiling at the memory.

“We had a mountain with a view over the endless blue sea,” Setonius went on. “We had raised a statue of Zeus there. On the edge of the great forest was Artemis, the many-breasted maiden queen. I loved her most of all.”

He blushed as he remembered how the many-breasted goddess had enriched his fantasies.

“You asked about beliefs,” he said. “But I don't understand you. All these beings were there in nature and made our dreams understandable.”

He fell silent and they listened to the thrush singing at the top of the terebinth tree.

“It was a practical religion, too,” he went on. “Every god and goddess had his or her field of responsibility. Seamen had to appease the god of the sea, and they did that in the rocky cave by the harbor, where Poseidon resided. The peasants worshipped Demeter before sowing, and the women went to Aphrodite when they were in love. They all considered they had been helped. Greek islanders are a sensible people. They have to be to survive.”

Mary spent the whole afternoon on her knees, weeding the herb beds until Setonius came and stopped her.

“Up you get and take a run before your legs stiffen,” he said. She got up and trotted off, but he laughed at her. “Run,” he said again. “You're as young and beautiful as Aphrodite and you should fly over the ground.”

She laughed, too, but she learned eventually, at least so that she felt she were flying, as if her feet were scarcely touching the grass. Euphrosyne came to see what they were doing, and said quietly to Setonius that this was just what the girl needed.

A little later, Octavianus brought their meal in a basket, and for the first time since Leonidas had disappeared, Mary was hungry and devoured the food.

Everything might have gone well. Mary was always to remember with pleasure the years when she was between thirteen and fifteen. Euphrosyne's plans became firmer as she reduced her activities with the aim of leaving altogether, then she would go back to Corinth with Mary, the two slaves and the two oldest courtesans.

But then Mary fell in love.

Q
uintus.

It began quite innocently, the eighteen-year-old Roman a new guest at the pleasure house one evening, and he was terrified. Euphrosyne noticed the symptoms. She had seen them before. The boy was frightened of women as well as of this adventure that had filled his feverish fantasies for so long. Timid and ashamed, he retreated further and further away from the wine and laughter and talk in the main hall, then turned scarlet when a friend laughed at him, making him want to spew. So he headed for the privy, but too late, and turned his stomach inside out just outside the kitchen. As he wiped the sweat off his forehead, his eyes fell on a girl in the light in the kitchen. Never before had he seen a more beautiful sight.

A goddess with long golden hair, standing there chopping an onion.

Was she a slave? No, that was not possible.

Quintus stood stock still for what was perhaps an hour. The girl looked up once and for the first time he saw those amazing eyes, blue eyes, bluer than the sky on a summer's day.

He was now so cold he was shaking. He had to meet her and find out who she was. And he was in luck. The door at the side of the house led straight into the kitchen. He tried opening it without making a sound, but it screeched like an affronted cat and a large man in a chef's cap spun around.

“What do you require, sir?” he said. “This is no place for the guests of the house.”

Quintus was about to tell a lie and say he had lost his way, but found he could not.

“You smell of vomit, sir,” said the cook. “You may wash in the bath out here if you like.”

Those amazing blue eyes were now gazing at him, and in his confusion, he wondered how eyes that are light blue could be so profound.

She was laughing at him.

He was ashamed.

In the bath, he washed his face and hands rather unsuccessfully tried to rub the stains off his toga.

But he found the courage to go back to the kitchen. “I just wish to apologize,” he stammered.

“That's all right,” said the cook, then eased him over toward the door and out into the garden.

Quintus again took his courage in his hands and whispered, “Who is she?”

The cook smiled, shook his head and put him right. “She's Euphrosyne's daughter and not for sale.”

When Octavianus went back into the kitchen, he shrugged his shoulders. “Idiot,” he said.

“But he was handsome,” said Mary.

“Handsome! A drunk smelling of vomit.”

Quintus was back again early the very next morning. The house was asleep, closed and locked. He slipped along the outer wall, following it as it swung down toward the lake. Down on the shore, he climbed over the wall and found a hiding place in among some prickly bushes. It was an unusually big garden, well kept and blooming. But it was also asleep, only the birds awake. Quintus was cold and gabbled some prayers to Venus, then to his great surprise found that she must have been listening. The girl from yesterday was coming straight across the grass toward him.

What should he do?

She stopped a few steps away from him, picked up a rake and started to work. He dared not even breathe, but his heart was beating so that she must have been able to hear it.

That seemed to be true, too, for the girl suddenly looked straight at him, surprised but unafraid. “It's only me,” he said.

“I can see that,” said Mary. “What are you doing here?”

“Up to now, I've only been praying to the gods that you would come.”

“They appear to have been favorably disposed,” she said, her laughter ringing over the garden and silencing the surprised birds.

Setonius then appeared, rather slowly and stiffly, as always early in the mornings. “So you've started already, Mary,” he said, yawning.

“Yes. And can you guess what my rake found?”

Setonius was not inclined to mysteries at that time of day, so he just crossly shook his head. “A Roman soldier fallen off the wall.”

Setonius woke with a start, strode forward, and took a long look at Quintus. Then he started laughing. “I'd very much like to know how you fell off the wall,” he said, and his laughter spread along the graveled paths. Then he examined the boy more closely and decided that despite his confused expression, he seemed quite pleasant.

“I was young once myself,” he said at last. “So I know what it feels like when your body burns. Mary is beautiful, indeed, but we can't have randy tomcats running around here, which I'm sure you understand. If your intentions are honorable, you must go to her mother and politely ask to be allowed to meet her.”

Quintus bowed and straightened up. “I'll do that,” he said.

“Good, now please leave the way you came.”

Quintus climbed back over the wall, stopping at the top to wave to Mary. “We'll meet again,” he said.

“We'll see,” said Mary, but he could see she was not as indifferent as she was pretending to be.

Quintus was on guard duty until the eleventh hour. He marched to and fro, rehearsing in time with his footsteps the words he would say when he spoke to Euphrosyne. She was a stately lady and even the night before, he had been frightened of her.

“My name is Quintus Petronius. I am the son of the centurion Gallus Petronius of the Sixth Legion in Syria. My mother and my sisters live in Rome. We are not rich but we manage. I have come to ask for the hand of Miss Mary.”

The whole speech was soon firmly fixed in his mind as if nailed there.

Yet his mouth was so dry, he was unable to get a word out as he bowed to Euphrosyne. As usual in the afternoon, she was in her office counting her takings with some satisfaction. She nodded in a friendly way. “And what do you want, good soldier?” she said.

Not a word came from him, so she was forced to go on before the silence became painful.

“I've heard from both my cook and my gardener that you seem to have a strange tendency to fall through rear entrances, through kitchen doors, and over walls.”

The corners of her mouth twitched, and he was suddenly made aware of the comical side of everything he had done. He flung out his arms and attempted a laugh. “I'm not in the habit of behaving like an idiot,” he said.

“Then I hope it won't happen again. As far as Mary is concerned, she is a decent girl. If you wish to meet her and she agrees, then it would be all right if you paid a visit.”

He fell to his knees, flung out his arms and at last managed to get out the rehearsed words.

He's as theatrical as Octavianus, thought Euphrosyne, who couldn't help laughing, which she noticed made him feel he had been slapped, so she pulled herself together.

“It is good that Quintus Petronius has honorable intentions,” she said. “But before you start talking about marriage, perhaps you should get to know each other, or…?”

“I have known her through a thousand lives,” said Quintus, who had been brought up in the spirit of Plato. But that had no effect, for Euphrosyne did not believe in transmigration.

“Everyone who falls in love becomes a trifle mad,” she said. “Do not worry, soldier. It will pass.”

“Never,” said Quintus, so convincingly she almost believed him.

She was looking stern as she went ahead of him into the garden where Mary was working in a drift of flowering crocuses as golden as her hair. She was wearing a thin tunic, a new one as far as Euphrosyne could remember, and as blue as her eyes and the sea glittering in the background.

Disquieting signs, Euphrosyne thought. “Mary,” she said aloud. “I have come to introduce you to a young man who is burning to be introduced to you. But you yourself must decide.”

Quintus was once again quite speechless.

“As you see,” Euphrosyne went on. “He is not exactly voluble, and to be honest, nor does he appear to be particularly gifted.”

She knew at that moment that it had been a stupid thing to say, but she was amused by the solemnity of the boy and the girl's expectations. “The young idiot,” she went on angrily, “goes by the name of Quintus Petronius and has come to ask for your hand.”

She snorted audibly before continuing. “I have said he may speak to you, but only if Setonius is present.”

She turned to Setonius. “You are responsible,” she said, “for the honor of my daughter.”

Then she turned on her heel and went back to her office with an unpleasant feeling that she had already lost the battle. She had seen it in Setonius' eyes and there was no one's judgment she relied on more than her gardener's.

Mary was far away from her stepmother's disapproval, and took Quintus' hand in hers. “Perhaps you'd like to see our garden?”

He had grown up in an alley in Rome and was not interested in flowers. Yet he brightened with anticipation and tried to pay attention as she showed him the flower beds and told him about the flowers, shrubs, and trees. But he saw nothing but her and was listening to nothing but that light girlish voice.

“Look at our oleanders,” she said. “They're an unusual variety and they'll soon have a thousand pink flowers.”

He looked at the prickly bush and had never been happier.

But time was flying and the cook intervened, feeling far greater responsibility for the course of events than Setonius did. He sought them out and briskly pointed out to the young couple that the evening meal was served and the visit over.

Tomorrow,” said Quintus.

“Yes, tomorrow.”

“There's not much we can do,” Setonius told Euphrosyne.

“Probably not,” she admitted.

He appeared every afternoon at exactly the eleventh hour. Euphrosyne's courtesans fluttered around him like butterflies—“such a sweet boy, such a sweet little boy.”

“They're only teasing.” said Mary comfortingly. “Come on, and I'll show you my secret grotto.”

The women's chatter rose—“So you've got a grotto, have you, Mary, a grotto, a secret cave?…”

Peals of laughter.

Neither Mary nor Quintus could make out what was so funny.

The cave was as round as a blown egg, the walls polished over the centuries by the waves as they surged in on stormy nights. Setonius used to dry herbs and spices in it, so it smelled of thyme and rosemary.

The light was soft, a shadowy twilight, and it was quiet, too, the only sound that of the gentle waves as they broke on the rocks. Best of all, the opening of the cave faced the sea, so no one could see them.

Holding hands, they sank on to the soft bed of leaves, and then, neither of them knowing who began and where it would end, they started kissing. Mary, that sensible earthbound creature, lost her head. What is happening to me, what is happening? But when she whispered those words into his ear, he became guarded and withdrew.

“Mary, we must stop.”

“Why?”

“Because soon we won't be able to. Let's sit on the rocks and talk.”

Once up on the rocky ledge above the lake where everyone could see them but no one could hear what they were saying, he began to talk. Now he had a thousand words for his love. He had dreamed about her for many years, but had never dared hope he would ever meet her.

When he had seen her in the kitchen that evening, he had almost fainted, and kept telling himself it could not be possible, he was seeing sights, he was dreaming.

“I was drunk,” he said, and she smiled indulgently, her mind on his mouth, how finely sculpted it was, and how sensitively it reflected every shift of his emotions. Then he repeated what he had said to Euphrosyne, that they had known each other through a thousand lives; they had met, loved, and been parted by cruel fate. Didn't she feel that? Had she forgotten?

Mary was far too busy studying the shell of his ear, the most perfect she had ever seen. She leaned over to whisper something into it, but kissed and bit it instead.

“Mary, we're losing control.”

“I lost control long ago. To be more precise, an hour ago.”

“Setonius,” he said. “Euphrosyne.”

She nodded. She understood.

But then she felt the pull in her loins, a tension greater than she had ever felt just before her menstruation. That was when it dawned on her what the girls had been laughing about, what had been so very funny in that talk about a secret cave.

Then the cook was suddenly down below, calling out that the evening meal was served.

“Maybe you can eat with us,” Mary whispered as they climbed down.

“No,” he said, terrified at the thought of all those cheerful courtesans. “I'll come back tomorrow.”

Mary managed to have a moment alone with Euphrosyne after the meal. “I can't resist it.”

“Then you'll have to give in, won't you?” said Euphrosyne crossly.

The next moment she regretted what she had said, and ran after the fleeing girl. But Mary had disappeared and the house had begun to fill up with the evening's guests.

A violent squabble broke out in the kitchen that evening. Octavianus threw frying pans onto the stove so that the hot oil spattered, broke eggs with a crash as if they were stones, and yelled at Setonius that he would hit him with a meat cleaver if for one single moment he let those two young idiots go to the cave.

“It's your responsibility,” he shouted.

Setonius tried to say that no one can fight against his destiny, but the cook just shouted that he, Octavianus, was both able to and had to. Also, that he hated all those damned Greeks for their damned belief in destiny.

“A randy soldier and a flattered young girl—what kind of destiny is that?”

Mary was a child, and if he had any say in it, he would lock her up. Until she came to her senses. “She's spoiled. She's not been thrashed enough,” he shouted.

Setonius looked unhappy. Neither of them noticed the girl hiding behind the kitchen door.

Uneasily.

For a while she tried hating the dramatic cook, but in vain. Then she tried to think about Quintus, and her breasts ached and again she felt that pull below.

The two young people walked along the shore the next few days, whenever they were not sitting fully visible on the rocky ledge. One day, he talked about God, the foolish tribal god of the Jews. He quoted a Roman philosopher who had rewritten the beginning of the scriptures of the Jews. “In the beginning the Jews created God and made him into their image.”