Son of Mary

by R. S. Ingermanson

  Rabbi Yeshua comes into the kitchen. “Marta, I would not beg favor unless I had a big need. There is a matter I am concerned on, and I think only Miryam Big-Heart can explain it to me. Please, you will give me this favor, yes?”

  Marta’s hands twitch.

  I never saw her hands twitch.

  Elazar comes in. He is eight years younger than Marta, and usually he is cowed by her, but today he has a face that says he is the man and he will tell what will be. “Marta, you will give Miryam Big-Eyes leave. Miryam, you will go with the rabbi.”

  Marta opens her mouth, but no words come out.

  I never saw her without ten thousand words sharp on her tongue.

  Rabbi Yeshua takes my hand and tugs me away.

  I follow him into the courtyard and through the receiving room and out.

  We walk down the street together, side by side, as we are friends. My heart beats in my ears, and my eyes sting, and my mind whirls.

  I never heard such a thing, that a rabbi walked alone together with a woman, and a shamed woman at that. Any other man would be dishonored to walk with a woman, for they say women are full of lewdness, but I do not think I am full of lewdness, but it must be so, for everyone says so, but Rabbi Yeshua is a tsaddik, and he does not fear to walk and talk with a woman, whether she is full of lewdness or not full of lewdness, and all my heart is a big confusion.

  We reach the brow of the Mount of Olives. All Jerusalem spreads out before us. The golden Temple gleams like fire in the morning light.

  “I wish to go to Elazar’s olive press, if you will walk so far with me,” Rabbi Yeshua says. He still holds my hand.

  I would walk many ten thousand miles with him. I clutch on his hand, and we begin our descent. I can hardly breathe. I think I might faint. I wish …

  I am a fool. A rabbi would never marry a divorced woman who is barren.

  But he could take me as concubine. He should take a woman. I do not understand why he has no woman. It must be on account of the smirch on his name, the cruel tale his village tells, that his mother played the zonah. Yoni told me the smirch is a foolishness, for Rabbi Yeshua is not a mamzer according to the rulings of the rabbis. I would long for him to take me for his woman, even if he was a mamzer. He is a good man, and kind. He is not a eunuch. He is a man, and a man needs a woman. I would give him a good happiness. I am barren, so I could not give him sons, but a man does not take a concubine to get sons.

  We walk in silence all the way down the hill. The road is packed with people, for tonight begins Rosh HaShanah, and this is the best time of year, and all Israel is here for the holidays. Nobody says no that the rabbi holds my hand.

  At the bottom of the hill, we turn off the main road on a path through Elazar’s olive grove. Quickly, we are a hundred paces from the road, and it is quiet. It is still a month until the olive harvest, and there are no workmen about. We are alone.

  We come to the olive press. There is a cave near it, and a stone bench beside the cave. Inside the cave, my brother has another olive press to do the second pressing.

  We sit in the cool shade. My heart beats faster than a sparrow’s wings.

  Rabbi Yeshua still holds my hand. “Elazar says you know the man who gives the feast tonight, this man Shimon the Pharisee.”

  “Elazar knows him also. He is Elazar’s friend. You should ask Elazar on him.”

  “Elazar speaks well on him. But when I look on Shimon’s face, I do not see the things Elazar tells.”

  “He is a Pharisee. Pharisees are good men. What more is there to tell?”

  Rabbi Yeshua looks on me with sad eyes. “Perhaps I read this man wrong, but let me tell you what I see in his face when he looks on me.

  “He sees a man who comes from a small village of no account. Nazareth is a village of sheep-men and farmers and leather-men and men who work in stone and wood and metal. It is a village where no Pharisee ever set foot. A village where even a man who can only read halting and slow is asked to read the scroll on Shabbat. A village where not one man can write his own name.

  “That is what I see in his eyes when Shimon the Pharisee looks on me. I do not know why he invites me to a feast at his house. I asked Elazar, and he says all men speak well on Shimon the Pharisee. I asked if all women speak well on Shimon the Pharisee. Elazar said that all do except one. He said that you have words to say against the man. I have heard parts of the matter from others, but I never heard it from you. Tell me the whole matter.”

  “I …” Tears bubble out of my eyes. I cover my face with my hands and lean forward and wail.

  Rabbi Yeshua leans close to me. He wraps his arm around me. I hear him weeping with me. I feel his body shaking.

  I never heard such a thing, that a man would cry with a woman. I cry and I cry until all the tears have come out of my head.

  Then I tell the whole matter to Rabbi Yeshua. How I was married to Shimon the Pharisee. How he threw me off like an old rag because I was barren. How he married some other woman. How I have lived six years in shame on account of this man.

  Rabbi Yeshua listens until I have told him all. “This man is a hard man, yes?”

  “You should be wary on him. If he thinks you are some low person, he will dishonor you.”

  Rabbi Yeshua’s breath hisses in his throat.

  My heart seizes. I do not know if Shimon the Pharisee knows the matter of the smirch on Rabbi Yeshua’s name. But if he knows it—

  Rabbi Yeshua says, “Elazar is a good man, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he a man brave of speech?”

  “He is not.”

  “Marta is a woman brave of speech, yes?”

  “She is.”

  “Is she brave of speech to women only, or to men?”

  “To women and to most men.”

  “Most men?”

  “She is not brave of speech to Shimon the Pharisee.”

  Rabbi Yeshua sighs deeply. “I gave promise to go to this feast. I would not dishonor Shimon the Pharisee by going back on my promise. But I do not wish to walk into a trap. And I am not brave of speech.”

  I am shocked. He speaks as he does not know what to do. But he is a prophet. I thought prophets always knew what to do. I thought all prophets were brave of speech, like Yohanan the immerser.

  “I do not think you are brave of speech,” Rabbi Yeshua says.

  I shake my head. If I am brave of speech, then a mouse is a lion.

  “And yet last night when Yoni choked, you were brave of speech.”

  “I had to, for my love of Yoni. Nobody saw except me. Big Yaakov treats my little Yoni as he is a fool and was paying no mind to him. If I had not shouted—”

  “But you did shout. You did. And so I still have Yoni, who is a big help to me. You did a mighty thing last night. Yoni will be great in the kingdom of HaShem, and I am in your debt. But I have a thing to ask you.”

  My belly pulls itself into a knot. I know what he will ask me.

  No. I cannot do it.

  Never, ever, ever will I serve at the feast of Shimon the Pharisee.

  Rabbi Yeshua looks on my face. His eyes are kind, but as they look on me, they pull together in sad lines. “I am sorry. I should not ask such a—”

  “Yeshua!” shouts a voice from the direction of the road.

  Four men walk toward us. Four men run toward us.

  Rabbi Yeshua stands. “Little Yaakov! Yosi! Thin Shimon! Yehuda Dreamhead!” He runs to them and hugs them and gives them each a kiss and a kiss and a kiss.

  He leads them back to me. “This is my friend Miryam Big-Heart. I was asking her advice on a matter.”

  The four men look on me in amaze.

  I do not know what to say. My face must be the color of fire. I look on the ground and wish I could hide.

  The biggest of the men tugs on Rabbi Yeshua’s arm. “Come with us. We arrived last night in Jerusalem. Imma sent us to find you.”

  Rabbi Yeshua nods. “One moment.”

  He takes
my hand and makes me stand. He gives me a kiss and a kiss and a kiss. “I should not have thought to ask you to do what you cannot. Please forgive me.”

  I cannot see for my tears. I never heard that a man should ask a woman to forgive. I kiss my fingers and touch them to his cheek. “You say you are not brave of speech, but I think you could be. Not for yourself, but you could be brave of speech for one you love, yes?”

  A shudder runs all through Rabbi Yeshua’s body. He wipes away the tears from my cheeks and looks deep in my eyes. There is a new thing on his face. “I am glad Yoni has such a friend as you. Blessed be HaShem.”

  His brothers pull him away.

  I sit and watch them go, and my heart feels crushed.

  I should have told him I would go to the feast.

  Now it is too late.

  If Shimon the Pharisee makes a mock on him, who will say no?

  Yeshua of Nazareth

  “Imma!” I run to see my mother, who stands out in the street waiting.

  Her face lights like the sun, and she runs to me.

  I seize her in my arms and lift her up and give her a kiss and a kiss and a kiss.

  “Yeshua!” Shlomi Dancefeet tugs on my sleeve.

  I give her a kiss and a kiss and a kiss and then hold her back to look on her. “You are well?”

  Her face glows.

  Her lord stands behind her wearing a big grin.

  I guess they have a thing to tell me. “You have a good news?”

  “I missed my bleeding!” Shlomi says. “I was not sure last week when you came through Cana. Now I am sure.”

  I hug her to myself. It seems only yesterday she was a baby, and I held her on my knee and played with her and kissed her fat cheeks. Now she is a grown woman of fourteen years, and soon she will be a mother in Israel. My heart is full with my joy.

  We go in the house, which is the same one we always rent for the big feasts.

  There is a stone bench there, and they make me sit on it, and they all gather around on the floor.

  I pull Shlomi Dancefeet up to sit on my lap. She is the only one of us who never knew our father Yoseph, for he died before she was born. I am her brother, but I am also the father she never knew, and I will not be denied one last chance to show her a father’s love.

  Shlomi Dancefeet nestles against my chest. “I was glad of seeing you when you came to Cana. Why have you not gone to Nazareth also?”

  I sigh with a deep sigh. I do not know why I have not gone to Nazareth. I have asked HaShem many times if I could go to Nazareth, and always the answer was no. But last night HaShem said I could go after Sukkot.

  Yehuda Dreamhead says, “A leper came to Nazareth three times asking after you. The last time, we told him you were in Tsipori. He went there, and we never saw him again.”

  I remember the man. He told me a good tale of Little Yaakov. It made my heart warm to hear that Little Yaakov did a kindness on a stranger.

  Thin Shimon says, “Imma sent us many letters all summer. The men who brought the letters told news on you in the village square. All Nazareth has heard big tales on what you did in Capernaum and Magdala and Bethsaida and Yodefat and Tsipori and Bethlehem and Cana.”

  My breath catches in my throat. “And what does the village say of those tales?”

  Yosi says, “They are angry on you on account of the tax-farmer. And because you never came to the village. They know you went to Tsipori, but you did not come to Nazareth. They say you think you have grown too big for your own village. They say you pretend in other villages that you have no smirch, but they know you have a smirch.”

  Thin Shimon says, “What will you do when they raise a stench on the matter? You should have done big things in our village before you made a name in other villages. Why did you not come and make a flattery on the village and show honor to them?”

  I do not have an answer. I did what HaShem told me, and I did not do what HaShem forbade me.

  Little Yaakov says, “Old Yonatan the leather-man says if you come to Nazareth, he will crush you. And his son says the same.”

  My stomach feels as I am in a small boat on a large lake. Old Yonatan the leather-man and his son mean what they say.

  Imma’s face is hard and dark as the black stones of Capernaum. I never saw her with such an angry look. “You should come and punish them. You should call down fire on them. If you do not crush them, they will crush you.”

  All my body is on fire. I cannot crush my village. But I do not wish my village to crush me. And now I remember the words of Yohanan the immerser. It was a year ago, after Sukkot, when I asked him how to be Mashiach.

  HaShem will show you the first Power, and you must destroy it or be killed.

  Since then, HaShem has been showing me what is the first Power.

  I am certain the first Power has a mighty hold on my village.

  My battle against the first Power will be in Nazareth.

  I do not know how to destroy the first Power.

  I do not know what I should do.

  But I know one thing.

  I will never destroy my own village.

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Miryam of Bethany

  I am serving at the feast of Shimon the Pharisee.

  Rabbi Yeshua did not ask me to.

  If he had asked, I would have said no.

  But he did not ask. That crushed my heart.

  That is why I decided to come.

  I cannot bear to let him come to the feast without anyone to speak for him. His men are strangers here and Galileans, and they have no voice. Elazar is a long friend of Shimon the Pharisee, and he will not speak. Marta is only a woman, and she will not speak.

  I am only a woman too. Worse than that, I am a shamed woman. I am nothing. I am haryo. Therefore, I have nothing I can lose. I have one thing only, and that will be enough.

  I have my rage. My rage will make me brave of speech for Rabbi Yeshua.

  So here I am now, with Marta and the servants of the house of Shimon the Pharisee, waiting for the feast to begin.

  We stand outside the house keeping watch for the guests.

  “Are you well?” Marta looks me over with sharp eyes.

  I shake my head. “Rabbi Yeshua wished for me to come.”

  “You were gone long this morning.”

  “Rabbi Yeshua and I talked long.”

  “Some idle women in the village saw you go and had much chatter on why the rabbi walks together with a big-eyes—”

  “If idle women think lewdness on a tsaddik, they are fools and worse than fools.”

  Three men turn the far corner of the street and walk toward us. Even so far away, I can see they wear black leather tefillin strapped to their foreheads. Pharisees.

  As they come nearer, I recognize them from years ago, when I was woman of this house. They are good men and honest, although they do not make words with women. Pharisees are wary on lewd women, and everyone says a big-eyes is a lewd woman.

  Marta sends a boy into the house to fetch Shimon the Pharisee.

  Shimon comes from the house and calls out to the guests.

  They call out to him.

  He goes out to greet them.

  He gives each man a kiss and a kiss and a kiss.

  He calls for three servants to bring water to wash their feet.

  Their feet are not dirty, for they have come only from Jerusalem, but it shows honor to a guest, to wash his feet.

  Another servant brings olive oil in a bowl, and the men dip hands in oil and anoint their hair and dry their hands on fresh towels.

  Marta takes them in to find place at table.

  My brother Elazar and Rabbi Yeshua and his men come around the far corner.

  Elazar holds hands with Rabbi Yeshua, for they are friends.

  Shimon the Pharisee calls out to Elazar.

  Elazar calls out to him.

  Shimon the Pharisee does not call out to Rabbi Yeshua.

  Rabbi Yeshua’s face does not show his dishon
or.

  Shimon the Pharisee goes to give Elazar a kiss and a kiss and a kiss. He does not give Rabbi Yeshua even one kiss.

  My hands have made themselves fists, and my heart thumps for its anger.

  Shimon the Pharisee calls for a servant to wash feet. One servant. For Elazar.

  I never saw such a thing, to ignore a guest!

  I run in the house and fetch water and towel.

  I hurry back.

  The servant is finishing Elazar’s feet.

  I kneel before Rabbi Yeshua and wash his feet.

  The heat of Shimon’s anger scorches my back.

  I do not care. If he invites a man as guest, he should show honor. It is not done, to dishonor a guest. I hate him now more than I ever did.

  Shimon calls for olive oil for Elazar.

  Elazar dips his hands in oil and anoints his hair and wipes his hands on a towel.

  The servant makes to go away.

  I seize the bowl and offer it to Rabbi Yeshua.

  He dips his hands in oil and anoints his hair and wipes his hands on the same towel Elazar used.

  Shimon’s face is stone, but his eyes shoot fire on me.

  Marta takes Elazar and Rabbi Yeshua in to find place at table.

  I return the bowl of water and towel to the house, but I do not come back out. I am afraid I will scratch out Shimon’s eyes if I look on him again.

  The feast is set in the courtyard of the house. It is a large courtyard, and there are six tables for all the guests, and nine guests at each table. I do not know how many guests that is, but it must be more than a hundred, or I am a virgin.

  Soon all the guests have arrived. There is a whole table just for the men of Rabbi Yeshua. There is a table in a hidden alcove for Shimon the Pharisee’s woman and her friends. The Pharisees that Shimon invited are in the highest place at his table. Rabbi Yeshua reclines at Shimon’s table in the lowest place.

  I am in a rage that Shimon the Pharisee shows him such a big dishonor.

  Rabbi Yeshua smiles and nods to the others, but I see in his eyes a deep pain.

  I wish he had not come, if it is only to be dishonored.