(The Early Christians may not have invented announcements, but they had a penchant for them, and their timing left a lot to be desired. Between the main course and dessert would have been my preference.)
“Rejoice, brothers and sisters, for by the Grace of our Lord and Savior, we welcome two new believers to our community. Two more lost sheep have repented and come to his fold….”
Sheep, I free-associated, feed.
“Peter, feed my sheep.” I shouted out, quoting my beloved. I couldn’t help myself; the Spirit had definitely come upon me.
Poor old Peter turned and registered my presence. From the look on his face, you would have thought I was the one who had died and been resurrected—except that he wasn’t exactly leaping out of the boat in joy and rapture the way he had greeted our mutual friend. I shot a glance at Mary B: Didn’t you tell him we were coming? She shook her head, managing to look defiant and sheepish (pun intended) all at once.
“Mary of Magdala,” he managed to get the words out. “What—”
“Forgive me for interrupting you, Peter,” I said. “I was just remembering when he said that to you. You know, Jesus. Feed my sheep, he said. Remember?”
“I remember,” he said, and his eyes filled with tears, and he looked completely lost for a moment. Bereft. I wanted to get up and throw my arms around him, but I knew he would hate it if I did. “So, where was I?” Peter recovered himself. “Oh, yes. Here are Ananais and Sapphira who have received the grace and forgiveness of our Lord and Savior. Please welcome them into our midst as you would welcome him, for we know that when two or three are gathered in his name, he is there with us in our midst.”
“Welcome, Ananais. Welcome, Sapphira,” the assembled chorused.
And my heart—and stomach—leapt in hope; for Peter seated the newcomers and began to sit down himself. I eyed the bread, wondering when the signal would come to break it. Then Mary B, who had never had a proper appreciation for food, in my opinion, got to her feet again. I thought I would weep.
“My brothers and sisters, please also welcome Miriam of Nazareth, mother of Jesus, and Mary of Magdala, who was his wife. Let us give thanks to the Spirit that these women, who were closest to him in life, have joined our community and our cause.”
If I had been less hungry, I might have felt more alarmed by Mary B’s announcement, but goddamn it, I was pregnant.
“Have they repented of their sins?” the cantankerous old woman inquired.
No one answered, but Miriam started humming; I could hear her from where she sat on the other side of the room.
“Well, have they?” The old woman insisted. “The rest of us did, and I don’t see why they should be let off, just because of family connections.”
Mary B looked thoughtful, which worried me. Now was no time for a philosophical debate.
“James,” said Peter in a loud whisper. “They’re your relatives. Do something.”
“My dear sister in the Lord,” James got to his feet and addressed the old woman. “I believe we can safely assume that the mother of the Chosen One and wife of his bosom have had ample opportunity to repent and be forgiven and restored fully to the house of Israel, that is, should they have strayed, which undoubtedly they have from time to time, as we all, like sheep—”
“Must be fed!” I stood up swaying a little with dizziness. “Listen everybody, I’m here to tell you, Jesus loved to party. Whenever you get together to eat and drink, remember me, he said, I’ll be there. That’s why we’re gathered here with all this food in front of us. So for the love of Jesus, dig in.” I sat down, reached for a loaf, turned to a woman next to me whose mouth was hanging open, and broke the bread with her.
“Amen!” someone shouted.
So ended my first official grace. If you’d like to use it at your table, you’re welcome.
When it was time to go to bed, after more praying, preaching, and singing, Miriam and I were given sleeping pallets and a place on the floor in the women’s dormitory. I did not know if there was a wing where couples or families slept or if those people went home to their own households. Our roommates appeared to be mostly widows and virgins, though there were a couple of women with young children who were not wearing widow’s weeds, so perhaps they had husbands somewhere. I was too tired to ask questions that first night, and not even the old woman’s (whose name turned out to be Dorothea) long sawing snores could keep me awake.
We were all up at dawn, with Mary B leading us all in chanting Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu Adonai Echod. (Hear O Israel the Lord thy God, the Lord is One). Her voice was strong and deep and more musical than I remembered. I could hear her happiness or maybe happiness is the wrong word, even beside the point. She was where she was meant to be, doing what she was born to do. Her face had always been thin and on the sallow side, but now, as she faced east and caught the dawn light she looked luminous.
When we had washed and dressed ourselves, the next order of the day was to gather to go to the Temple to pray—before breakfast, much to my dismay.
“Mary,” I grabbed hold of her arm and her attention. “I think I’ll just stay here. Help out in the kitchen or something.”
“We all go together as a group. You’ll be assigned a work position later. Don’t worry. This is more important.”
“But aren’t I unclean, or something?” I said hopefully.
“You’re not bleeding,” Mary B stated.
“But I’m with child. Listen, Mary, I’m not kidding. No food, no prayers.”
“You are impossible. All right. Go to the kitchens; get something you can eat quickly and quietly. But you have to come to the Temple. I’ve taken a big risk bringing you right into the heart of the community after what happened in the porticoes. So please don’t draw attention to yourself. Just do what everyone else does. You’ll catch on. Hurry. It’s time to go.”
She was busy, and I decided not to argue with her, as long as she didn’t come between me and the demands of my pregnant body. So I grabbed some fig cakes and munched discreetly as we walked along in the early morning light, singing Hosannas to the son of David, who as far as I could tell was still nowhere in sight.
Mary B and I had both forgotten something: The sign in three languages, Latin, Greek, and Aramaic, that stated bluntly outside the gates of the Court of Women: No pagan may proceed beyond this point. Anyone who is taken shall be killed, and he alone shall be answerable for his death. Or her death, as it were, which is to say, mine.
(In case there is any doubt on this point, no, I never converted to my beloved’s religion; I wasn’t even a God Fearer, as gentiles who kept Jewish Law were called. Not that I wasn’t afraid of YHWH sometimes. Who wouldn’t be, considering his reputation? I had even prayed to him on a couple of desperate occasions, but we generally steered clear of each other. I am the daughter of warrior witches and a priestess of Isis. You can’t get more pagan than that. Though I have been known to trespass in sacred precincts forbidden to me, I needed a stronger motivation than worshipping an invisible god who insists—a little too vehemently—that he’s the only game in town.)
I quietly dropped behind the others. With the several Jerusalem households walking en masse, our group was so large I did not think I would be missed at prayers. So I began to wander around the Court of the Gentiles where all the teaching and commerce took place. Despite the riot my beloved had started almost a year ago now, business was as brisk as ever. Why weren’t the apostles and co. out here upsetting tables, if they wanted to continue his work? A stupid, bitter question, I knew. Because actions like that had eventually gotten him crucified, that’s why. Now here I was a year later, and peasants were still being ripped off, forced to buy sacrificial animals from the Temple at inflated prices instead of offering their own.
I found myself wandering up and down the aisles of the dove vendors—the sacrifice of the poor. Miriam herself had come from Galilee to offer two doves in thanks for Jesus’s birth when her time of uncleanness had passed. Anna had o
nce said to Jesus, “Don’t scorn the doves, Yeshua, they have given their blood for you and for many.” On the day of the riot, Anna had materialized mysteriously and urged me to open the cages and set the birds free. But if I tried anything today, I would only cause trouble, draw attention to myself (my besetting sin) and I had promised Mary B I wouldn’t. So I just stopped and stood before the cages, trying to make that low whirring sound in a useless gesture of solidarity.
“We can buy some.” I turned and there was Miriam standing beside me.
“Are the prayers over already?” I asked, surprised.
“I didn’t go in; I followed you. It doesn’t matter which side of a wall I’m on, the angels know where to find me.”
That was true enough. I didn’t see them or hear them, but there was a certain quality to the air when they were around her, breezes that lifted the hem of her garment and the tendrils of her hair when everything else was still.
“Let’s buy some doves,” Miriam prompted. “In Anna’s memory.”
“I don’t think Anna would like us to sacrifice them,” I objected.
“Did I say anything about burnt offerings? No, we’ll free them, of course. That’s what Anna used to do. She was quite mad, you know.”
Miriam’s matter-of-fact pronouncement on Anna’s sanity struck me as hugely funny, but I managed not to laugh out loud.
“I’d love to free some doves,” I said. “But I have no coins.”
The realization hit me. Not only did I have no money to buy a dove, I had no means at all. I was completely dependent on the community.
“Here.” Miriam reached into her pocket and displayed a palm full of shekels.
“Where did you get that money?” I was curious and a little alarmed.
“I found it,” Ma said vaguely, shrugging as if it were not important.
“Found it? What do you mean?”
“I couldn’t sleep last night, so I went to the kitchen to find something to eat. I was opening jars, looking to see what there was, and I found money.”
“And you took it?”
You are probably more shocked than I was. For me, she was just my crazy mother-in-law, which was bad enough, but not the Ever Blessed Virgin Mary, the only other mortal besides her son born without the taint of original sin. Well, Queen of Heaven or not, she had just told me she’d had her hand in the cookie jar.
“Why not?” she said. “If I had found figs or almonds I would have taken them.”
Ma was serene in her logic, but I was nonplused. I came from a country of cattle raiders, who regarded stealing each other’s herds as sport, but she was one of the children of Moses. As I recalled, there was a commandment that expressly said: Thou shalt not steal. What was she thinking?
“How much did you take?”
“Just what would fit in my palm,” she said righteously. “I’m not greedy, Mary of Magdala. Now are we going to buy some doves or not?”
I threw up my hands, by which I meant, I am not going to make this decision; in no way do I want to be implicated in stealing ecclesia funds. Miriam interpreted the gesture to suit herself.
“Vendor,” she said. “I want as many doves as I can buy with these.”
When the others emerged from their prayers, they found Ma and me with our four newly purchased doves, a pair each in small wicker cages, headed for the gardens where Anna used to sit.
“See!” shrilled Dorothea. “I told you they were not at prayers. That one,” she pointed at me. “She’s a gentile, I can smell it, and no better than she should be. Look at that flaming heathen hair. She’s a pagan in sheep’s clothing, she’s a wolf among the lambs, she’s….”
“Hush, Dorothea,” commanded Mary B. “She was the wife of our Rabbi; she’s going to have his child. She and his mother are no doubt making a thank offering.”
“We’d better open the cages now,” said Miriam.
And so we did. For a moment the disoriented doves perched on our hands, and then we tossed them into the sky.
CHAPTER SEVEN
BRING FORTH THAT WHICH IS WITHIN YOU
THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY, THOUGH it was not yet called that, was by no means my first experience of communal life. I had grown up in the small all female clan of my mothers. I had been a student at the famous druid college of Mona. I had lived with a Celtic tribe in the fastnesses of the Iberian mountains. When I ran away and got captured by a Roman slaver, I was sold to a Roman brothel, and sold again into a wealthy Roman household as big as a small village. Temple Magdalen had been my home for longer than any other, a loose (in every sense of the word) community held together by whore-priestesses who worshipped Isis and welcomed all comers in her name. Finally I was one of the companions of Jesus, a footloose, sometimes footsore band, now scattering, now gathering, seldom knowing where we would eat or sleep next. But there was something about this Jerusalem community that was unlike anything I had known in my diverse circumstances. I sensed it, but I could not at first fathom what it was.
Despite our rocky start, Ma and I each attracted a following. Many did regard us askance after the incident with the doves, but more were curious. The curious managed to evade the censorious and seek us out.
“Was he a precious little angel?” I overheard one woman asking Miriam.
“He was a devil,” his mother answered with pride. “Let me tell you about the time he struck the neighbor’s boy dead. Well, he raised him again, of course…”
And she’d be off and running, her audience completely enchanted.
I was wary about telling my own stories. When I was first in Rome I had told my saga in installments every day at the whores’ bath. And when it was done, I had felt bereft, as if I had given the story away, and it was no longer mine. My sister whores had regarded it as no more than a romantic tale, and they all believed it was over, that I would never find my beloved again. Yet against all odds I had found him, and my friends who had sighed (or in some cases scoffed) as I held forth in the bath had danced at our wedding. And the story had gone on to its strange end—if it was an end. I was still here, and though I missed him, he was still with me.
One night I lay awake and prayed for him to come to me in that way that was so close, so intimate—so bodily and disembodied at once.
What do I do with our story, cariad? Do I hold it inside? Do I give it away? Do I tell it now? Do I wait?
I felt his warmth inside me, surrounding me, dark and absorbent as earth, loam to soak up the tears I couldn’t hold back, but no answer came, at least not then, or if it did, I had already drifted into deep sleep.
The next day I went to fetch water at a nearby well, and Tomas was trailing me as he often did. His nickname had been the twin or the shadow, because he had stayed so close to Jesus. When Jesus wasn’t available, he had attached himself to me. He was the only one of the Twelve who had been unabashedly happy when I came back to Jerusalem. Lately Tomas had taken to repeating obscure sayings of Jesus that no one else remembered. He would utter them spontaneously, without context, and it wasn’t clear if he understood what he was saying. The words would just pop out in a singsong voice, beginning always with, Master said. No one paid very much attention to him, and some of the other disciples occasionally tried to shush him.
As I balanced the water jug on my head and started back to the house, I wasn’t listening either; the words he repeated over and over came through as background noise, like the sound of our feet on the paving stone or the cries of the street vendors. Just before we got back to the house, Tomas grabbed my sleeve, and the water jug I’d been balancing on my head nearly tumbled off. As it was, some of the water spilled and sluiced down my neck.
“Tomas!” I protested.
But he kept hold of my sleeve.
“Master says,” he brought his face close to mine, our noses almost touching “bring forth what is within you, and it will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, it will destroy you.”
“Of course, I’m going to bring it f
orth,” I said, thinking of our child.
“Master says.” Tomas sighed with relief, as if unburdened, and then he loped away, leaving me in peace for a few moments.
Later that day, a number of women approached me as I stood struggling with the drop spindle. (I had been assigned only household chores, and had been excused, or excluded from, all public ministries—supposedly because of my delicate condition). One of the women gently took over the spindle from me.
“Will you tell us about the master?” she asked.
“How did you meet him?” another prompted.
“Is it true you were possessed by seven demons?”
“Was it love at first sight?”
Bring forth what is within you, I heard the words again, this time in my beloved’s voice, and it will save you.
“Actually,” I said, sitting down and leaning back against the wall, “It was love at second sight.”
And I told them about glimpsing my beloved in the Well of Wisdom on Tir na mBan. The next afternoon, a larger group had gathered, and so it went, each day more people coming, mostly the women from the community, but a few outsiders also, including some street whores I knew from my days of backsliding. The storytelling became an unofficial daily event—unofficial, because none of the apostles knew about it; they were too busy exorcising and evangelizing, ducking and courting trouble with the Temple officials. One day I went on longer than usual. I had gotten to the part where Jesus, then called Esus, was chosen, or pre-selected by a rigged lot, to be a druid sacrifice. My listeners would not let me stop there, so I kept on with how we had managed his escape (by her magic, I had traded shapes with the old witch Dwynwyn and infiltrated the druid rites). Then came the moment when we had to part. I was nine months pregnant and could never have managed the dash by horseback across the Menai Straits into the mountains.
“But he would never have left you!” protested one of my listeners.
“No, he didn’t want to go. In the end, I forced him. He cried out,
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