Secret Magdalene (40 page)

Thus we set off, on a day I think sharp but not windy, cloudy but not clouded, no more so than on many another day in Galilee. And not more than ten boat lengths from shore, Yeshu seems to fall asleep. Though, of course, he does not sleep, he goes where he goes, into the rapture of gnosis. I sit where I sit and trail my fingers in the water, its surface much nearer than I am used to because we are so many. But not until we are well away does the wind freshen, and small waves lick and lap at the boat of Joazar, and not until we are far out into the sea does it begin to seem that a great turmoil builds overhead, with such a slow roiling of clouds that become weightier and weightier with dark, and such a rumbling and a grumbling of deep voices above us, and the wind catches first one side of our snapping sail and then it catches the other. I have long since huddled into Simeon and then into Jude, and then Simeon again. It is now that Joazar’s boat rides up the back of a wave much higher than any come before, reaches its crest, and there it seems for one long breathless moment to hang, when at last it tilts down the other side, slapping its keel hard on the water, and by this, rattling every tooth in my head.

Some of us grow concerned, some of us grow very concerned, in particular, Zaccheus, who is a
publicani,
not a fisherman. As for “Lazarus,” poor, pale, green boy, if ever he regretted a thing, he regrets his pleading to sail. In truth, I too am not entirely calm.

There are only two fishermen aboard, and these are Andrew and Simon Peter. Andrew holds fast to the tiller and Peter works with the sail, skills I understand but little. But by their covert glances each to each, I know this much—they too are very concerned. Yet here is something: in this boat, Simon Peter is become quick and he is become clever. The ropes run through his hands and the sail answers to his will, and if there is a man here who will see us safe, it is Simon Peter. And if there is another, then it is Andrew, for he would not lose his brother-in-law’s boat. But even so, even so, we toss and we heave and now and again the sail snaps with a terrible crack on the ear.

More than this, we take on water. Comes a wave that washes over the side, and then another, and another.

I think to look at Yeshu—he still “sleeps”! I am astounded. For now we ride up a larger wave, a much larger wave, and we do not ride up it prow first, but in a sort of a sideways wallow, and all aboard are thrown one against the other, and some cry out. I would not be surprised to know I was one of these. But he who cries loudest of all is my cousin. “Master, save us! We perish!”

And Yeshu comes awake on the instant, to look about and to see the tossing sea, and to see that all eyes are fixed on the prow of the boat in which he sits, at this moment higher than any of us, for at this moment, the boat rides up the back of yet another wave. From here, he heaves a great sigh, almost as great as the sighs of the heavens above us, and looks down on Eleazar, but I know he looks also at us, saying, “Why are you fearful, Lazarus? What is it you fear?”

“Dying! I fear dying, Yeshu’a.”

“But as you are alive, you can never die. For the self is eternal, and eternally changing. Where is your faith?”

Eleazar, who now has a grip on James, the son of Simon bar Judas, not even death could break, rolls his eyes. For how can he hear when the only self he knows might be plunged into the troubled waves at any moment? Eleazar cannot swim. Few of us can, and even if we could, we are so far from shore few of us have such strength.

And if I know this, so too does Yeshu. In this moment, he stands, and standing, he shouts out over the sea and up into the sky, “Father! As we hear you, now hear me! Lazarus is in distress.”

And now, because of Yeshu or in spite of him, the wind begins to die, little by little, and the skies to clear, little by little, and the sea to settle, little by little. And Yeshu, looking around and finding himself heard, sits down in the prow of the boat once more and returns to rapture.

I am not sure what I see in the faces of some of these who follow Yeshu, even in the faces of his very brothers. Do they think him so great a magician that he might be Pythagoras come again, to raise the dead and still the winds? In this moment, I think some learn even to fear him. And I grieve to see this. If this is what they think of him, how shall they hear what he teaches? And what shall they say of this to others? For they will speak of it, this is certain. If they think he is so unlike themselves as to have power over the sea, how shall they know their own power, and how shall they pass on the teaching?

And so we come to the land of the Gadarene.

Of those who stream out for our passing, there are more and more who clearly mean harm. As Yeshu has already said, out from Jerusalem come the spies of the Temple priests and Father’s Sanhedrin. Out from the cities come some of the Pharisee and even certain members of the Poor and the Yahad and whoever else feels a grievance for a man who seems not to follow the Law. These ask themselves, Is this new prophet not worse than John? Does he not walk with whomever he likes? Is he not a glutton and a drunkard? And are there not women who eat with him and drink with him and laugh with him, and to whom he is not related? Does he not preach on the Sabbath?

As example, this: Yeshu sat by a well in Taricheae, surrounded by the clamoring piteous, when a Pharisee had pushed his way to the front. “You there, son of man!” cried the Pharisee. “If you would please God, you would keep the Law! Know you not this is the Sabbath!” Without pause in his healing, Yeshu turned a mild eye upon this one, for he harbored no ill will toward the Pharisees, neither those who followed the strict and rigorous Shammai, nor those who followed the milder and sweeter Hillel. For had they not labored hard for upward of a hundred years to teach people to obey the Law so that they might merit God’s favor and salvation? And, according to their beliefs, did they not mean well? Laying hands on a woman who could not walk, he said, “Does sickness keep the Law? Does death honor the Sabbath? I say to you that Jews keep the Law for misunderstanding the Father. But I do as I do as One with him.”

By this, the Pharisee was so scandalized, he could not choose between taking a step back, so that he might not be contaminated by such blasphemy, and taking a step forward, so that should he throw one, he might not miss with his stone. “Are you saying you are like unto God? Do you claim divinity for yourself?”

“What I do, shall you do also, and greater things than these shall you do, for I claim divinity for all.”

Being only one, the Pharisee could do nothing but stalk away in high dudgeon. But later he could complain bitterly of this man to all who would listen, and there were many who listened. Who was Yehoshua the Nazorean to undermine all they had done, and how could they stop him?

And everywhere there are men sent by Herod Antipas, lately disgraced and defeated by the Arab king and constantly pleading with Tiberius to come kill his once father-in-law. Herod also asks of any who will listen, is Yehoshua, John the Baptizer come again?

There are always these in any crowd, and at any time any one of them might strike. And how should Yeshu not know this, being once Zealot himself? Therefore if Jude is not by Yeshu’s side, then Simeon is. Or Simon Peter. Or the Sons of Thunder. Even Mariamne goes armed with the Persian dagger of John the Less. For Yeshu would give the world the Father’s Kingdom, which is beyond any price, but what would the world offer Yeshu? All know what it offered John.

And this is why in Gadarene I find my knife in my hand sooner than Jude finds his.

We are making our way up a narrow path from Joazar’s boat, Jude as ever in the lead, Yeshu just behind, his head turned as he speaks with his youngest brother, the scarred Joses, and I am talking with Eleazar a few steps behind these, when suddenly, there is a great snarling and roaring, and comes rushing out from the mouth of an open tomb in Gadarene a very beast in the shape of a man. Foam flies from its shapeless mouth, blood streams from long curving wounds on its thighs and on its arms, and all of the man-thing is as naked as the day it was born, but nothing like as hairless, and it would surely have bitten deep into the arm Eleazar raises to defend himself, save for the chain that binds it to the rock of the tomb. I could not see before, but when what is surely a madman reaches the whole of the length of the chain, it is stopped in midair and then is yanked straight back, to fall into a quivering growling thrashing heap at Eleazar’s feet.

Frozen to the spot, Eleazar stares down at it, his own mouth open in abject horror. As do I, as is mine. Flushing with fear and with shame, Eleazar turns away, only to catch sight of the knife in my hand, and though his mouth cannot open farther, his eyes can and do. As swiftly as it is out, Simeon’s gift is back in my belt.

In a heartbeat, Jude and Simon Peter are also upon us, and upon the poor fierce creature struggling on the ground, chained to an ancient tomb, the skin of its hairy belly and hairy neck abraded away by the rusted links in the chain. With its teeth and its nails, and with the stones near the tomb, the man-thing has cut at its own arms and its own legs.

Before Simon Peter can do whatever it is Simon Peter might do to such a wretch, Yeshu is also upon us. And at the sight of him, the madman ceases its growling and its thrashing, and instead, cringes, holding up its chained and blooded hands to shield the eyes in its head, round and red and running with pus and with tears. Immediately Yeshu kneels down, pushes away the matted hair from its face, traces along the length of the chain with his hand, looks back to where this is fixed, and is horrified at what he finds, the leavings of what is fed the creature, and its own excrement attended by a kingdom of flies. It is only now that the smell of this visits us. Who could doubt the madman has been chained here for many months, perhaps years?

“Why is this?” asks Yeshu. “Why is this done?”

And Zaccheus, looking on, answers, “I have seen such a thing in Jericho.”

Yeshu turns on him, eyes flashing. “I too have seen such things. We have all seen such things. But
why
do we see such things?”

“If he were not chained,” continues Zaccheus, who does not understand what is being said to him, “surely he would harm others as he harms himself.”

“What harm is in this man?”

Zaccheus shakes his small head. Again, he does not understand. “As all can see, there is a demon in him, teacher.”

“Is there?” Saying this, Yeshu looks deep into the madman, so that I think it must shatter the poor thing’s skull. It pulls away, pushing out its arms, filthy with blood and with dirt and with unnamable muck, so that Yeshu will not come nearer. Bearing its blackened teeth so that Yeshu will fear it, it screams, “What would you do with me? I pray you, by your god, torment me not!”

Still, Yeshu does not take his eyes from the madman. “Is there a demon in you?”

“A demon!” howls the man-thing, “I am home to an army of demons. My demons are legion!”

Hearing this, Zaccheus shows the palms of his hands. By so doing he means to say, you see, I am right.

“Why do they torture me, who am only Yair, son of Akiba? I have done nothing. I wish them gone! You! Get away from me! Leave me and my demons be!”

His screaming tears at my heart, even as he revolts and repels me.

It is now that down the path we have started up, come three men, no doubt from the nearest town, each stopping short when they note what happens here, all murmuring among themselves in exquisite horror. Yeshu does not look up at them, but I do, and Eleazar does, as does Menahem, and I know what it is they murmur. The three push at each other, offer reasons to prove that not themselves, but another among them, must take the lead and voice their surprise and outrage.

“Peter,” commands Yeshu, and Simon Peter is there on the instant.

“Master?”

“Break this man’s chains. I have come here to meet one who would hear me. I have met him in this man.”

Without a word of protest, Peter sets about beating away the chains, no easy task though they are rusted with age. In moments, Jude settles in to help him. All this, while the three at the head of the path are joined by a fourth and a fifth, and all the while, Yeshu speaks softly, but with authority, into the ear of Yair, son of Akiba, who claims his demons are legion. I cannot hear what it is he says, I catch only a word here and there, but I know what it is he intends. He means to set this one free, and not only from his chains. If he can drive away Dread, the demon of Sarah, who is the mother of Perpetua, can he not drive away Legions? But first, he must gain the man’s trust, and I see that the limbs of the madman go quiet, and I see that the madman’s hands unclench themselves. It seems, if not demons, certainly the fierceness goes out of him.

But the men above us have determined one who would speak for them, and this one takes a step forward, calling down, “We know you. You are Yehoshua of the Nazorean. Why do you loose this man? He is unclean. He would frighten our women. He would attack our beasts. Surely, you would not free him to go on in this way?”

Yeshu does not raise his sight from the face of the madman, but he raises his voice. “I would set him free of all that binds him, as I would set you free. I see what he has done to himself, and I see what you have done to him, but what is it he has done to you?”

But the men hear only that Yeshu would free the madman, and if Yeshu has raised his voice, their voices are raised all the louder. “He is unclean! Demons find room in him. Leave this place!” they call down. “Go home to Galilee where such as you are welcome.”

And I see two of them bending where they stand, their hands reaching out for the stones on the path, and I know they will straighten and when they do, they will throw these stones. Simeon knows this too. He stands forth from Simon Peter and Jude who beat on the chains of the madman, and behind Simeon stands Joses and Menahem and Andrew and the Sons of Thunder. Simeon shouts up at the men of Gadarene, “If this man holds demons, you contain swine, for only pigs would treat another man so!”