Secret Magdalene (45 page)

I drop my smile as I once dropped my magic pots. I stare at him, horror full in my eyes.
Yea Balaam!
Does he call
me
the wondrous child? Seth knows my alarm but takes no pity. “Have you never wondered why I came again and again to the house of Heli bar Nehushtan? Why I awaited you in the wilderness? Why I name you Magdal-eder, She of the Temple Tower, or why I went with you into the Land of Egypt, and there was so changed, I could not return to the beliefs of my youth?”

I stare at him. Yes, I have wondered. When younger, I wondered often. But as the years passed, my wonder grew less as I grew as accustomed to Seth as I was accustomed to my hand. By now I grip the stones of the wall.

“Did Socrates not hold that ignorance is all there is of evil, meaning evil to be that which harms the soul? No matter what it gain a man; if he harms others, he harms his soul. Therefore, how could I follow those who would kill for a god? Or call themselves the Elect, thereby sentencing all others to be outside the love of a god? How could I, knowing John of the River, call myself Carmelite? How could I, knowing Philo, call myself Nazorean? For each of these fears the world and would set themselves apart as God’s chosen. Each of these would see the world destroyed so that they alone might inherit its ashes. Even for the love of Philo, I could not call myself Therapeut. And as for the Essenes, these are more rabid than any, and place no value on mind or the feminine. This is what I have learned, Mariamne: that beliefs are the masters of the world and that all masters are tyrannical. I find therefore that there is no sect, no teaching, in which I might place my heart. There is nothing but what I myself hear within.”

“But Seth, you agree there is no
one
wondrous child? Yeshu names us all wondrous.”

It is now that Seth looks at me as he has never looked at me. It is as if he gazes for the first time at the Great Library of Alexandria. “Have you never wondered why, when I overheard Tata speak of your Death, and hoping to hear more of it, I asked also the man Yehoshua the Nazorean to hear of it too? And have you never understood the zeal of my affection for you?” At this, I flush and hang my head. For the world, I would not hurt Seth. He lifts my chin so that I must look at him. His touch is as soft as carded wool. “Then learn it now, Mariamne of the Temple Tower. I was mistaken to think we might wed. Because he is called, there is One who appears as the Shepherd among Lambs; but there is one who has come to herald that Shepherd. By the Voice within you and by your very life,
you
are that wondrous child. And though I once thought it John of the River, now I see it is Yehoshua of the Nazoreans who stands forth as a lion. Yeshu is the Messiah. And I pity him.”

Turning my head so that I might not see, I look straight into the unblinking eye of Nyx. It is as cold as obsidian, as mad as Herod. She clacks her beak at me, cocks her head and ruffles her feathers of glossy black.

If even Seth believes this thing of Yeshu, surely all is undone.

T
he Elect have sent for us. They would hear she whom Seth calls the wondrous child. They would hear too Salome who walked with John. But most of all, they would hear Yehoshua the Nazorean.

In this world of perpetual silence, Seth assures us that nothing short of Yeshu being called the Restorer could have done this.

And so it is that on this early day in the month of Tevet, when the hard rains come in the valleys, and soft snow falls on Carmel, we stand before the Carmelites for the first time, and this after descending deep under the Temple. Just as the wilderness, here in this secret place, there is a further secret place.

Despite my cloak, it is cold here. Despite my supper of boiled vegetables, I am hungry. Though deep in shadow, I know this shadowed room holds nothing. The fire would not warm a hand, much less the whole of a person. The lamps do not light more than the small space between us. But I become accustomed to cold and to hunger and to darkness, as I become accustomed to all else. All seven Carmelites, men and women, are older by years than John of the River, save one, who is no older than Seth. This one shares with Yeshu the unusual length of his hair, which falls below his shoulders, though he does not share the color. With Seth, he shares his beauty and his evident wealth. There is a lifting of his nostril as if he might catch our scent and, by this, know us.

Where all these would sit, we four would stand.

The elders have silently taken their places on benches, have silently arranged their clothing, have settled and become more silent still. And when all this is done, still there is silence. The moments stretch behind us as shadows stretch before the sailing moon. We wait. And we wait. Until, finally, there comes a movement. The oldest male among them turns to whisper into the ear of his neighbor. Who then whispers into the ear of her neighbor. And then there is a veritable hiss of whispering. And when all are silent again, the male, who names himself Matthat of Jamnia, lifts a thin finger to point at Seth, holds it for a moment, and then, in a voice as eager and as piping as a child’s, says, “This one is always a tumble of questions, and how he would read! So much lamp oil.” Matthat shakes his head as if such things were impossible of understanding. Behind him, others shake theirs. But I understand and am amused. As is Yeshu. As is Salome. Could there be four together so capable of such “a tumble of questions”?

From among them another speaks up. This one names herself Ammia, and is older by far than any here, older, I think, even than the age of the Ptolemaic doctor Sabaz. She looks directly at Yeshu. “I hear that you call yourself Messiah.”

Not the young man, but every elder in the room leans forward to hear Yehoshua the Nazorean respond, he who has amazed them now for many days. The young man has leaned not forward, but back.

Yeshu does not flush and he does not tighten in all his parts, but answers in the low and musical voice I now so love, “I do not call myself this.”

“But others do?”

“So I am told.”

“Well, then, are you the Messiah?”

Yeshu smiles. Do I alone see the bleakness in it? “Tell me, old woman, what do you think to call me by calling me Messiah?”

In her person, which is small and as spare as a stool, in the severity of her regard, which is as the iron nails of Cleopas, and in the way she does not turn away from the clear regard of Yeshu, Ammia puts me in mind not of Sabaz, but of Theano. “As for myself, I do not know what to call you, but if I were to name you Messiah, I would mean you were the Restorer of the Elect.”

“And what would I, if I were your Restorer, restore you to?”

All but the young man move to protect themselves from such blasphemy. Ammia is made of sterner stuff. “It is written that One comes who will defeat the Archon, which has formed this world, and that he will make the fallen to walk again.”

Hearing this, I think: it seems that Dositheus is far from alone in his philosophizing. Hearing this, Yeshu asks, “And are you fallen?”

In my struggle to contain the Loud Voice—in this place of silence, oh Isis, it would come
now
after its own long silence?—I catch the thoughts of Ammia. She asks herself if, after all, Yeshu is simple? Consider what he does each day. Consider his laughter. She decides he is simple; therefore, she will speak to him very slowly. “We are fallen into a world of sorrow and of pain. There is no man and no woman who is not fallen, save the Restorer. What god of goodness would make such a world? What god of goodness would place us here? Therefore, no god of goodness has made this place.”

“Is there, then, no goodness here?”

“There is goodness, but it is beaten back again and again by the Archon, and by his lesser deities who are the
nephilim.
We are taught and we believe there is no hope for us until the Restorer comes from Baal Jehoshua. And just as the prophet Elijah, who sleeps under this very mountain, waits, so too do we who are the Elect wait for him here in perfect silence and perfect faith.”

Salome moves against me. Though the names change, is this not as the many Nazorean believe? All look to a messiah sent to redeem those who would believe in him, and do his bidding. And the Essenes and the Zealots, do they not increasingly assist their coming savior in acts of violence and outrage?

Yeshu’s voice is lower still. “And if your Restorer does not come?”

“If you are not he, still he will come.”

“Until then, you do no other thing?”

The old woman shakes her head. “What other thing would you have us do? We would do harm to no man, no matter how odious that man to us. We would not cause the people to suffer more from their oppressors. Until the Redeemer comes, we are trapped in the flesh. Nothing but his coming will restore us. Answer me, then, by your acts, by your words, by your very name, Yehoshua of Galilee, which is as our Jehoshua of Gilgal, which in Greek is Galilee, are
you
the Messiah?”

I close my throat. I bite back the words that would come shouting forth. I will not be a spectacle before the Carmelites, for all Seth thinks me the wondrous child! But Yeshu is stopped before he can answer, and I see he is as grateful for this as I am grateful, though my relief is blunted by some cold thing that chills me as nothing has ever chilled me. Not the coming of the Loud Voice, not Father banishing Salome, nor his calling me whore; not the crippling of Addai or Salome inexorably leaving me; not Yeshu learning my name, not even Herod come for Yeshu, it is this thing: Yehoshua the Nazorean does not know the answer to Ammia’s question. Yeshu does not know if he is the Messiah.

I would turn here and now to him. I would look into his eyes and into his mind and into his very heart, but the young man, whose clothing is linen and linen only, and whose hair is loose and long, stands suddenly. Something here has so moved this one, he can no longer sit.

He takes a step toward Yeshu; he holds up his hand, saying, “I know you.”

Yeshu turns to face this third speaker. “As you know me, sir, might I then hear your name?”

“I am Apollonius of Tyana.”

My jaw has dropped, Salome gives an audible gasp. This is the traveler who calls himself Pythagoras come again? This is the celebrated seer of Cappadocia whose beauty and learning, as well as his healing and his miracles and his raising of the dead, is so great it is proverbial now to say, “Whither do you hurry? Are you on your way to see the young man?” He must be as learned as Seth; certainly he has traveled farther. The lands of Greece, of Asia, of Egypt, even of Babylon: all these have felt his unshod foot.

Yeshu says to him, “I know of you, Apollonius, and I would be as you are. I would be free to wander as the wind took me, but for what the Father would have me do.”

Seth and I are as one at this; we would know what Yeshu must do. And so too would the council of the Carmelites. Even Salome, for whom the One was John, must know. But it is Apollonius who speaks. “Though I have never seen you, Yehoshua, yet I knew so soon as you came who you were.”

Yeshu lifts his eyes to this one whose own eye is fire itself, and the moment that passes seems forever. The young man, Apollonius, would hold his eye. He is heroic in his attempt but he cannot, for if he is as fire, Yeshu is as deep water.

Yeshu asks in a voice as remorseless as the sea, “Who am I?”

In surprise, Apollonius blurts out, “Do you not
know
who you are?”

Yeshu opens his arms, and does not take his eyes from the face of Apollonius. “Last night I dreamed I stood in the Temple of Herod and all around me it was cast down, stone upon stone. The great men of Jerusalem tore at their beards, they rent the fine robes they wore, and the tears that stood in their eyes blinded them with grief. Yet I did not feel sorrow, but a great joy, greater than any I have ever known, save for breathing in the breath of the Father. As you know dreams, tell me of this dream.”

Hearing this, a great shudder goes through Apollonius, and when he speaks, he speaks to the shadows. “Last night I too dreamed, and in my dream a voice came to me, saying, ‘Apollonius, though you travel far, and though you learn much, and though you seek the glory of the ages, it will not come to you in this life. Instead, the words and the deeds of another will burn like a living flame deep into the hearts of men, and you will be cursed and forgotten. This is so, even though you share his sorrow, for he will be a thousand times more misunderstood than you, a thousand times worse betrayed. But be not disheartened, for nothing of the good that a man has done, and nothing of the good that he has thought, is lost, even if he is imprisoned or crucified for that good.’”

Apollonius looks at Yeshu, and his face is as if it was burnt away and the bone beneath revealed. “I think you are that other.”

And it is now that the Voice rises up in my throat, burns as bile burns, tastes on my tongue as poison might taste—and I cannot stop it as I could not stop my life. The dark room of stone is filled with the sound of me, which is not me. “
LO
!
THOUGH THE WAY BE FRAUGHT WITH DREAD
,
AND THE WAY BE STREWN WITH SORROW
,
YET THE ONE SHALL SURELY STAND FORTH FOR ALL MEN
.
THROUGH HIM
,
I HAVE MADE MYSELF KNOWN TO THEE
.
HAVE I NOT SPOKEN AND HAS HE
NOT
HEARD
?”