Song of the Magdalene (10 page)

Judith cleared her throat. “Hello, Abraham.”

Abraham didn't even blink.

Judith waited. Then she pulled me to her and closed me in her arms like a small girl, though I stood a head taller than her. My breath floated lightly above her shoulder. “Let him be. He has so little peace as it is. Please, Miriam. Sweet Miriam. Let him be.”

“You could at least have talked to her.”

“It's better that she thinks I'm an idiot.”

“You always say things are better your way!” I got on my knees and faced Abraham head-on. I wanted to cry to him the sorrow in my heart. For he was my friend, a comfort to me. I wanted to rail and rave at him. For he was my enemy, the origin of my pain. But I hadn't the courage to do either. I spoke only the mentionable. “You always want secrets. I'm so sick of secrets I could scream. Judith is good. We can trust her. I'm going to tell her everything.”

“Do you know what they'd think — how they'd feel — if they knew I was locked inside this body?” Abraham's voice was full of foreboding.

“If they knew you were in there, they'd talk to
you. It's like Father said to Jacob — some of us are fortunate and others of us aren't. They know that in their hearts. If you would only talk to them, they'd realize you were just like them.”

“That's exactly it, Miriam. As long as I'm an idiot, they can bear to have me around. They can tell themselves they are generous of heart and ignore me. But if they know I can see things and understand them, if they know I'm like them inside, it's too much. It's too horrible. They fear it could happen to them. Who I am, Miriam, who you are — what has happened to us, it could happen to anyone.” Abraham's voice caught. “They won't allow themselves to think that way. They'll find a reason, for random misfortune terrifies. If they know I'm in here, they'll say I'm evil. They'll say it's not me who speaks, but the evil within. They'll fear even more that whatever has possession of my body can leap out and take possession of theirs. My only hope is that they do not see me as a person. Then they will not need to banish me.”

I shook my head. “You can't be right. If you spoke to them as you speak to me, they would hear. People can't be so stupid.”

“You were stupid, Miriam. You thought your fits came from demons. You've had three fits now. That would mean three demons live inside you. But you know in your heart you are pure.”

My chest went cold. Did I know in my heart I was pure? I was not even being honest with Abraham now. I was hiding my feelings, pretending I'd never declared my love for him. Was that pure? But this was not a moment to argue the point. I knew in my heart that Abraham was pure. I knew that as well as I knew the Creator was pure. “You taught me who you are, Abraham. You can teach them.”

“They won't learn.”

“How can you say that! How can you know?”

“Because I saw it happen.”

“What?” I shook my head in confusion. “What did you see?”

Abraham hesitated. “I was in Safed. I was very young.” He spoke slowly, as though each word took effort. “I saw a man with diseased limbs. He could walk. He begged. And he had a bowl for alms.” Abraham let himself roll onto his back. He looked at the ceiling. “A young boy ran by and scooped from the bowl. The beggar stumbled
after him. He caught the boy by the arm and scolded him, shaking him roughly. A crowd gathered. Not many people, maybe six or seven. But they gathered quickly. They told him not to touch the boy. They told him not to touch anyone. They told him to leave. And he argued. He pleaded his case. He'd been robbed. It was clear who was in the right and who was in the wrong. One by one they left. I thought he had convinced them. I was close to a wall, with Daniel. I wanted to go talk to the beggar, to congratulate him. I asked Daniel to carry me over close to him. But the people came back. Their hands were full. They threw stones at him.” Abraham closed his eyes. He shivered. When he opened them again, he spoke quietly. I had to strain to listen. “Daniel shouted, and soon other men shouted. They stopped the crowd. But do you know how they stopped them?”

I shook my head wordlessly, though Abraham wasn't looking at me — he couldn't see my shaking head.

“They said that the Romans would get involved if there was a death. They said stoning was a judicial sentence and no one could do it
without the court's approval. So the people dropped their stones out of fear. That's the only reason.”

My breath filled my hands, which covered my face. I waited for the rush of blood to slow. After many minutes, I could speak again. “Abraham, the people who stopped the stoning were decent. And the decent people prevailed.”

Abraham twisted until he faced me. “And if they hadn't been there?”

“Decent people will always be there.”

“You speak nonsense, Miriam.”

I couldn't imagine the people of Magdala with stones in their hands. I couldn't imagine the people of Israel anywhere with stones in their hands. But maybe that was because I refused to. I looked into Abraham's sea eyes. The Sea of Galilee was also called the Lake of Kinneret because it was harp-shaped, like the kinneret that my mother used to play. Abraham's eyes didn't move; the Sea was still today. “I will never tell people about you, Abraham. I will never betray you.”

•  •  •

And so it passed that Judith and Father married and I danced with the women at their wedding
feast and Judith came to live with us. I didn't speak again of marrying Abraham, nor did I ever speak of Abraham's true self.

I often wondered if Abraham thought about my conversation with Judith that day. We never spoke of it. Abraham never acknowledged that I had told Judith in his presence that I loved him. Yet we seemed to be more careful in how we touched each other after that. When I'd pull him into the cart, I'd lift him from behind and hold him far enough from my body that my breasts wouldn't press against his back. Whenever his right hand reached for me, it was my hand he touched, never higher up on my arm, or my face, or my hair. We hadn't been so physically distant before that. Before that our bodies had been facts no more compelling than the fact of stones and trees and dirt. They had a size and shape and texture that simply were. Now our bodies were ideas. They could enter the mind and fill every crevice. They were to be avoided.

Our talk seemed more guarded, too. We read the Torah together now, whenever we had the privacy we needed. I could have counted on my
fingers and toes the number of times up till then that I had touched the sacred scrolls that made up the books of the Torah. Now suddenly I was touching them almost daily. Exhilaration made me dizzy the first time I carried one across the room and unrolled it beside Abraham.

Abraham delighted in discussing with me the great women leaders of Israel. But now he didn't talk of Daniel and the women Daniel had spoken of who lived in our times. We turned, instead, to a higher authority — to the scriptures. We told each other the ancient stories of Deborah, the judge and leader, who commanded the people in battles with the Philistines. We spoke of how Barak, the man leader, turned to Deborah for guidance. We reveled in Jael's pounding a nail though the soft temples of King Sisera's head as the Philistines slept, and thus saving her people. And Abraham loved most reading with me the tales of Miriam, my namesake, who was called a prophet.

A woman prophet. A woman with a voice that would be heard. A woman who sang a war victory song. Would that I could take a timbrel in
my hand and place a crown of olive wreaths on my head and celebrate victory over the battles of my life, as Miriam had done.

Abraham and I spoke of other things, too. We spoke of my vegetable and herb garden. We spoke of birds and trees. We spoke of the people of the village. But we never spoke about each other anymore. We never spoke our fears. Nor our hopes.

Maybe Abraham had no hopes. I wasn't sure I did.

I missed Abraham, though I was with him in the same house day after day. In my dreams we were close again. In my dreams we climbed the hills that surrounded the Sea of Galilee. We followed the River Jordan south. We sat among the flowering mustards that grew as tall as trees. And nothing, nothing kept us apart. But when I'd awaken, we'd keep our respectful distance once again.

Sometimes I didn't want to wake. Sometimes the distance of Abraham during the day left me lost and disoriented. At those times I'd study the Torah most intensely. I wanted help in this passage through life.

Judith was true to her word. She taught me new and intricate dances. My eager feet couldn't learn fast enough. They demanded more, and Judith taught more. But she watched my face closely. She said my mouth moved in silent song. She played a reed flute and three months after her wedding to Father she bought me one, saying I needed to make music with my mouth. I remembered sitting beside Mother as she played the harp. Father had given that harp to one of her sisters when she died. My hands had itched with the desire for those strings as I watched them carted away.

The flute didn't have the same attraction. Flutes to me meant Mother's funeral. So my hands, which had been so greedy for the harp, were now reluctant on the flute. My fingers touched the holes gingerly. Yet the notes that came forth were not mournful. They rose light and gay, and soon I came to trust them and my fingers moved more quickly and my lungs were happy to swell.

Judith and I filled the house with birdlike melodies. Then we danced again. We laughed together and wove, side by side with Hannah,
mindful that woolwork kept a woman virtuous. We spun yarn at night under the moonlight. Judith told stories of our people's history as we worked, stories her mother had told to her. And every time the Israelites triumphed over an oppressor, we laughed. Judith came home from the well and told stories of the village children's antics that morning. And we laughed again. We laughed often. But my laughter was never wholly carefree. I think hers was not, either.

Yet we shared a kind of happiness that was new to me. I had helped Hannah all my life, so the details of household work were known to me. But I had never valued them highly. Now I learned to lose myself in grinding corn. I discovered the spirituality in being diligent, in creating a home in which faith could find firm footing. I saw the devotion in Hannah's eyes as she washed her hands or cleaned the dishes, following rituals that our people had kept for so many generations. I saw the glow of purity on Judith's cheeks when she came home from the mikvah, like a new bride. I thought of all the women of Israel everywhere renewing themselves monthly, offering themselves as pure gifts to their husbands,
ever optimistic, ever generous. Women formed the filament of continuity, and my soul spun itself out on that holy thread.

For the first time since my fits had begun, I could pay attention to the world around me as a member, not just an observer. I saw Hannah move with respect in Judith's presence. I listened to their careful words, one to another, and rejoiced when they finally talked freely without guarding themselves. Gradually, gradually I saw Hannah relax in the realization that she was still secure, that Judith accepted her and Abraham without question.

I saw Father step more quickly, his eyes shine more brightly. I noticed for the first time how large his hands were as they reached for Judith inside our home. I saw the color come to her cheeks and her lips part as she looked at him. I was careful to go to bed early on those nights. And if sleep did not come swiftly, I plugged my ears with my fingers and allowed Father and Judith their private world.

These were the people I belonged to, and we were growing together as a family.

The only one who did not seem to change with
Judith's coming was Abraham. He began by being silent in her presence and he persisted in that. She began by watching him. Then by doing her weaving near him. Then, finally, by addressing him. More than once I came into the house with dirt under my nails from working the garden to find Judith sitting beside Abraham playing her flute or recounting some event of the day before. Abraham's eyes wandered, never lighting on her, never acknowledging that her attention was directed at him. More than once Judith blew in from the outdoors like a wild wind and found Abraham propped against the wall, a scroll on the floor before him. She walked over and unrolled the scroll just a bit more, murmuring a word or two about the strength one gained from the holy scriptures.

Abraham didn't look at her. He stopped reading. He glanced vaguely at the flowing script, then away, as though the words on the page were meaningless — as though Judith's murmurs were undifferentiated from the sigh of the wind.

Judith didn't talk to me of Abraham so I never knew for sure, but I believed she realized he was
inside that body, I believed Abraham fooled no one. Judith spoke of him and to him with respect. And if she did it only for my benefit, she never let me know that.

But Abraham didn't relent. Sometimes I wondered if he was punishing me, if he refused to let Judith into his life because she had so cleanly come into mine. I tried to ask him once, but I couldn't say what I needed to say in order to get him to answer honestly. How could I ask Abraham if he missed me, if he was jealous for my care, without opening up the issue we had both tacitly agreed to ignore?

Still, despite my newfound friendship with Judith, I didn't give up my visits to the valley with Abraham. I couldn't. Being with Abraham, even in our now limited way, was my lifeline. We read or talked in the valley. I didn't climb the sycamores and sing anymore. The flute sang for me without the pain of words. But still I had to be outdoors, in the open. And I had to be alone with Abraham. Even if being alone with Abraham gave me the loneliest moments of my life.

Things defined themselves in contradictory
ways. Judith was ours now — an addition. Yet I, who had not been lonely before, was now terribly lonely in my womanhood. I shared with Judith and Hannah an aspect of femininity that gave dignity to my day. But I was aware of another aspect of femininity that suffered from lack of satisfaction, satisfaction only one man could provide.