The Book of Longings: A Novel (26 page)

Father’s face, too, was nearly lost to me.

J
ESUS MET US
,
holding the tool for rolling the roof thatch. He’d been fortifying the surface before the fall rains. I wiped a splotch of mud from his chin.

“Meet my brother, Judas,” I said. “He came to tell me my mother has died.”

Jesus placed his arm about my shoulders and gave me a tender look. “I’m sorry, Ana.”

“I can find no tears,” I told him.

The three of us sat on mats in the courtyard and spoke not of Judas’s zealotry, but of common things—Jesus’s work on the synagogue in Magdala, the childhood Judas and I had shared—and finally of Mother. She’d cut her hand on a powder box, leaving a wound that filled with poison. It was left to Shipra to see her buried. Even then, I sat dry-eyed.

When the light began to leach away, Jesus led Judas to the ladder that
went to the roof. I followed, but Jesus said quietly, “Would you leave us to talk awhile?”

“Why shouldn’t I come up, too?”

“Don’t be offended, Little Thunder. We only want to speak as one man to another.”

His stomach rumbled, and he laughed. “Perhaps you could hurry my mother and Salome to prepare some food.”

He’d meant no slight, but I felt slighted nonetheless. He’d banished me. I couldn’t recall it ever happening before.

Not long before this, four strangers smelling of fish had accompanied Jesus home and we women had had to serve them supper, too. I’d not asked to join in the men’s conversation, but I’d watched as they huddled beneath the olive tree and spoke intently until dark. When they departed, I asked Jesus, “Who were those men?”

“Friends,” he said. “Fishermen from Capernaum. It was their boat I was on when you gave birth to Susanna. They’re on their way to barter in Sepphoris.”

“What were you talking about for so long? Surely not fish.”

“We spoke of God and his kingdom,” he replied.

That same night, Mary, who must have overheard them while serving their supper, muttered to me and Salome, “These days my son speaks of nothing but God’s kingdom.”

“They talk about him in the village,” Salome added. “They say he speaks with tax collectors and lepers.” She looked at me and lowered her eyes. “And harlots.”

I said, “He believes they have a place in God’s kingdom, that’s all.”

“It’s said he confronted Menachem,” she said. “The one who came to our gate. Jesus admonished him for condemning the poor who carry wood on the Sabbath. He proclaimed his heart to be a sepulchre!”

Mary set down a bowl of wine-soaked bread with a thwack on the oven stone. “You must speak to him, Ana. I fear he will find trouble.”

I feared he would not just find trouble, but
make
trouble. Associating with harlots, lepers, and tax collectors would stir up more rejection, but so what? I wasn’t bothered that he befriended them. No, it was this new habit he had of speaking out against the authorities that worried me.

Now, as I watched Jesus and Judas climb the rungs, the same ominous feeling I’d had that night returned to me. I slipped to the side of the house, where I was unlikely to be seen, and there beneath the stick canopy over the workshop, I waited for their conversation to dribble down to me. His stomach would have to rumble awhile longer
.

Judas was speaking of his Zealot exploits. “Two weeks ago in Caesarea we tore down the Roman emblems and defaced a statue of the emperor that stands outside their temple to Apollo. We could find no way to desecrate the temple itself—it was heavily guarded—but we stirred up a mob that cast stones at the soldiers. We’re usually not so brazen. More often we look for small contingents of soldiers on the road, where they’re easily attacked. Or we rob the rich as they travel in the countryside. What we don’t need of their coins, we give to villagers to pay their taxes.”

Jesus’s back must’ve been turned to me, for his voice was faint. “I, too, believe the time has arrived to be rid of Rome, but God’s kingdom won’t come by the sword.”

“Until the Messiah comes, the sword is all we’ve got,” Judas argued. “My men and I will use our swords tomorrow to make off with a portion of grain and wine en route to Antipas’s warehouse in Tiberias. I have a worthy source at the palace there who has informed me . . .” The rest of his words faded.

Hoping to hear them better, I edged around the house and pressed myself into the shadows, where I listened to Judas recount the splendors of Tiberias—a vast palace on a hill decorated with graven images, a Roman stadium, a shining colonnade that ran from the Sea of Galilee all the way to the hillside. Then Judas said my name, causing me to stiffen to attention. “I’ve told Ana her father isn’t well. He will die soon, but
he’s as treacherous as ever. I asked to speak to you without her presence because I’ve learned news that will disturb her. She might be compelled to . . . well, who knows how she’ll respond? My sister is impetuous and too fearless for her own good.” Judas chuckled. “But perhaps you’ve learned that for yourself.”

Impetuous and fearless.
Once I’d been those things. But that part of me seemed like one of the forgotten women in the stories I’d written, diminished by years of chores, Susanna’s death, and those long famines of spirit when I couldn’t write.

My brother said, “Ana’s father has concocted one last plot to convince the emperor Tiberius to make Antipas King of the Jews.”

How predictably disappointing Father was. But this was hardly news that would alarm me in the manner Judas predicted.

There was an uneasy silence before Jesus’s voice resounded. “It’s prophesized the
Messiah
will bear the title King of the Jews—it would be a mockery for Antipas to steal the title for himself!”

“I tell you, his plot is cunning—I fear it could work.”

Across the compound, Mary, Salome, and Judith walked toward the little courtyard kitchen to prepare the evening meal, leaving Berenice to tend the children. I worried that any moment they would call me and when I didn’t answer, they would seek me out.

“Matthias wrote out the plot in meticulous detail,” Judas said. “His servant, Lavi, is unable to read, so he passes me as many of Matthias’s documents as he can. I was shocked to come upon the one that lays out his plan. Antipas will travel to Rome next month to make an official appeal to the emperor to be named king.”

“It doesn’t seem likely Tiberius will grant such a thing,” Jesus said. “It’s widely said the emperor opposes giving Antipas the title. He refused to do so even after Antipas named his new city Tiberias.”

Across the way, the chatter of the women made it difficult to hear. I crept back around to the ladder and climbed halfway up.

Judas was saying, “Antipas is hated. The emperor has denied him being king in the past because he fears the people will rise up. But what if there was a way to lessen that possibility? That’s the question Matthias put forth in his plot. He wrote that we Jews oppose Antipas as king because he has no royal bloodline, because he’s not from the line of King David.” He snorted. “That’s hardly the only reason, but it’s a paramount one, and Matthias has conspired a way around it. On Antipas’s way to Rome, he will stop in Caesarea Philippi to visit his brother Philip, but what he’s really after is his brother’s wife, Herodias. She descends from the royal Hasmonaean line of Jewish kings.”

Antipas would take a new wife? Had something tragic befallen Phasaelis, my old friend? Confused, fighting a sickening feeling in my stomach, I climbed two rungs higher.

Judas said, “Herodias is ambitious. Antipas will have an easy time convincing her to divorce Philip and marry him. He will promise her a throne. When Antipas arrives in Rome, it will be with the assurance of a royal marriage. If this doesn’t win him the kingship, nothing will.”

Jesus asked the question that burned a hole on my tongue. “But doesn’t Antipas have a wife already?”

“Yes, the princess, Phasaelis. Antipas will divorce her and incarcerate her in secret somewhere. Most likely he’ll quietly do away with her and claim the cause of her death to be a fever.”

“You think Antipas would go so far?” Jesus asked.

“Matthias claims if she lives, she’ll incite her father to take revenge. As you know, Antipas’s own father executed his wife, Mariamme, and I doubt Antipas would hesitate to follow in his footsteps. You see, don’t you, why I wished to keep this news from Ana? Phasaelis was once Ana’s friend.”

Dazed, I laid my forehead against the rung. While I’d been holding on to the ladder, night had closed over us. A voluptuous moon dripped light everywhere. The smell of bread curled through the darkness. They went on conversing, their voices like bees whirring far off in a broom tree.

As I started down the ladder, my hands, slick with sweat, slipped momentarily from the wood, causing the ladder to jar against the house. Before I could descend farther, I heard Jesus say, “Ana, what are you doing there?” His shadowed face peered over the edge of the roof.

Then Judas’s face appeared beside his. “So you heard.”

“Your supper is ready,” I told them.

K
NEELING BE
FORE THE CHEST
of cedar in my room, I removed the contents item by item—bowl, scrolls, pens, ink, the red thread in its tiny pouch. The hammered sheet of ivory that had gotten me in such grave trouble lay at the bottom, pearl white and shining. I didn’t know then, nor do I fully know now, why I’d never written on it or bartered it away. It had seemed like a relic that should be preserved—without it my marriage to Jesus would never have happened. Now it seemed I’d kept it for this moment. Besides, there was nothing else on which to write.

I lifted the last vial of ink to the flame on the clay lamp and shook the sluggish black liquid awake. The fearless girl had not left me entirely. I wrote quickly in Greek, not bothering to perfect my letters.

Phasaelis,

Be forewarned! Antipas and my father plot against you. Your husband conspires to marry Herodias, whose royal line may convince the emperor to crown the tetrarch king. With confidence I tell you that after Antipas departs for Rome, he will divorce you and make you his prisoner. Your life may be endangered as well. I’m reliably told Antipas will leave within the month. Flee, if you can. My heart yearns to see you safe.

Ana

I raised the hem of my tunic and fanned the ink dry, then tied the letter in a piece of undyed flax. When I entered the courtyard, Judas was already at the gate. “Brother, wait!” I ran toward him. “Would you sneak away without saying goodbye?”

He offered me a guilty look. “I couldn’t risk you doing what I believe you’re about to do this moment. What’s inside the cloth?”

“Did you think I would do nothing? It’s a letter of warning to Phasaelis.” I thrust it at him. “You must deliver it for me.”

He put up his hands, refusing to take it. “You heard me say I’m traveling to Tiberias, but I won’t venture into the city itself and certainly nowhere near the palace. We plan to intercept the caravan of grain and wine outside the city.”

“Her life is at stake. How can you not care?”

“I care about the lives of my men more.” He turned toward the gate. “I’m sorry.”

I grabbed his arm and shoved the package toward him once again. “I know you can find a way to avoid the soldiers in Tiberias. You bragged yourself that none of you have ever been caught.”

He was taller than either Jesus or I, and he gazed over the top of my head toward the olive tree, where Yaltha, Jesus, and the others sat eating, as if hoping one of them would come and rescue him. Glancing back, I saw Jesus gazing at us, letting me have this moment alone with my brother.

“You’re right,” Judas said. “We can avoid the soldiers, but you haven’t thought this through. If your letter is found and you are identified as the sender, you would be in danger. Did you sign your name to the letter?”

I nodded. I didn’t bother to inform him that even without my signature, Antipas and my father would likely guess the sender. Had I not stolen the ivory sheet while they looked on?

“I need you to do this for me, Judas. I sat for Antipas’s mosaic in order to gain your freedom. Surely you can do this much for me.”

He threw back his head and let out a groan of resignation. “Give me the letter. I’ll put it in Lavi’s hands and ask him to see that it’s smuggled to her.”

J
ESUS WAITED
FOR ME
in our room. He’d lit not one but two lamps. Light and shadow flitted about his shoulders. “Am I right that Judas is carrying your warning to Phasaelis?”

I nodded.

“It’s dangerous, Ana.”

“Judas said so as well, but don’t admonish me. I couldn’t abandon her.”

“I won’t reproach you for trying to help a friend. But I fear you’ve acted impulsively. There might have been another way.”

Overcome with exhaustion, I stared at him, feeling hurt by his reproach. I could feel something mounting in me, too, that had nothing to do with Phasaelis, some excruciating need I couldn’t comprehend. I swayed a little on my feet.

“It has been a day of suffering for you,” he said, and the words opened a ravine of sadness in me. My eyes glazed, a sob creeping up the back of my throat.

He opened his arms. “Come here, Ana.”

I laid my head against the rough weave of his tunic. “Mother is dead,” I said, and I wept for her. For all that could have been.

That fall, before the feast of Succoth, Jesus came home with news that a man from Ein Karem was baptizing people in the Jordan River. They called him John the Immerser.

Throughout the evening meal, Jesus did not cease speaking about this man who was wandering around in the Judean desert wearing a
loincloth and eating roasted locusts and honey. To my mind, this didn’t suggest a particularly alluring figure.

The entire family was sitting beside the cook fire in the courtyard as Jesus described the sensation the prophet was causing: great hosts of people flocking into the desert east of Jerusalem, so impassioned they waded into the river shouting and singing and afterward gave away their cloaks and sandals. “I met two men near Cana who heard him preach firsthand,” Jesus said. “He urges people to repent and turn to God before it’s too late. They say he condemns Antipas for his disregard of the Torah.”