“They are alive,” she began, then stopped as sobs that were not silent began to tear through her. “I ran away.”
Mary took her hand and had the good sense not to ask her any more questions as they walked the rest of the way to Bethany.
Sarah felt at ease and at home in Bethany just as her father always had, and as I had, despite Martha’s understandable animosity toward me. In any event, Martha was too charitable and practical to blame the daughter for the mother’s sins. She set about cleaning and feeding Sarah with her usual efficiency and thoroughness. The child had been surviving by luck and wits for months and was undernourished and in need of de-lousing. Quiet, unassuming Lazarus won her trust immediately, and she followed him all over the farm the first afternoon. I like to think that in Lazarus she found a trustworthy foster-father for at least a brief time.
But it was in Mary that Sarah found a kindred soul. That night Mary told Sarah the story of how she ran away with Jesus to the Essene Monastery and passed as a man for years. At last, just before she fell into her first deep, easy sleep, Sarah told Mary a little about our life on the mountain, but still would not—or could not—say why she had run away.
On their second day together, Mary took Sarah to all the places in and around Jerusalem where we had lived, where her father had died, where he had been buried. Crucifixions were still taking place on Golgotha. I don’t know how Mary had the nerve or the wisdom to expose Sarah to something most people would have shielded her from. But somehow she understood that when Sarah said she wanted the truth, she meant the truth, without softening, without interpretation. Sarah was almost entirely silent for the whole journey, and Mary did not pry into her thoughts, or stop her when, in the tomb that remained empty, she lay down on the cold slab where her father had been laid out.
Where he had risen to life in my arms.
Where Sarah had been conceived.
But that part of the story Mary did not know, no one knew it but Jesus and me, though I wonder still if the stones cried out in memory, in recognition of the life that had begun there.
Before they left the garden by the tomb, Sarah climbed the tree, which had been golden the morning we stood under it, as golden as Sarah’s eyes. I wonder if Sarah saw that light in the dark dusty leaves of the ancient oak tree.
“There is one more thing I want to tell you, Sarah,” Mary said as they walked back to Bethany just before the sun set, “and then we must speak of what to do.”
“Before I ever met your mother, I hated her. I was jealous of her, which was something I would never admit, but it was true. It was not that I wanted Jesus for my husband. As I told you, our wedding was all arranged when we ran away to the monastery. I wanted him for God. I wanted him for Israel. On the eve of your mother and father’s wedding, I confronted your mother and told her that if she truly loved him, she should not marry your father, that she was turning him from his purpose.
“I want to tell you I was wrong, Sarah. She understood his purpose in a deep and terrifying way. And she understood my much smaller purpose, and she defended my right to be a disciple. She always stood with me when the men were against me. She is the dearest enemy and the truest friend I ever had, and the bravest, most generous woman I’ve ever known.”
She paused for a moment, remembering, letting Sarah take this whole other view of her mother—of a time when her mother had not been a mother at all. How strange that is for a child.
“I was very angry with your mother when she ran away. I wanted her to stay with me, be on my side, help make the ecclesia a place where women could teach and offer prayers and sacrifice. I was angry with her for not wanting what I wanted. More than that, for not wanting to fight to create the ecclesia in her own image—just the way everyone else is. I see that now. We are all fighting for our version of who your father was and what he meant.”
Mary fell into a brooding silence, not forgetting Sarah but pondering her own revelation to herself.
“She should have stayed,” Sarah finally spoke. “If she loved my father so much, she should have cared what people said about him, what people taught about him.”
“Sarah,” Mary paused and turned the child toward her. “She had a choice to make. She chose you. I understand that now. Now I know she was right.”
Sarah waited a moment, and then she spoke in a voice so low, Mary had to stoop to hear her.
“The apostle Paul says my mother is selfish, ruled by her own desires and lusts. He says if she truly loved me, she would not want to keep me for herself. She would give me up the way the true mother in the story about Solomon gave her baby up so that it wouldn’t be cut in half.”
Mary took Sarah’s face in her hands and looked into the golden pools of her eyes.
“You feel cut in half,” she half questioned, half stated.
Sarah nodded, and let out a ragged sigh, no doubt of relief. Someone had recognized her pain. Someone had named what she could not yet name herself.
“I did not know that Paul of Tarsus had come to your mountain,” said Mary, as lightly as she could. “You did not tell me that part of the story.”
“Do you know him, too?” Sarah asked.
“I have met him,” Mary acknowledged. “Before and after he became a follower of the Way. He used to persecute us, you know.”
“I know,” said Sarah. “He told us the story.”
There was another silence, in which Mary wrestled with her conscience, for she did not like or trust Paul, less so after his conversion than before.
“Your father said,” Mary took another tack, “judge not, lest you be judged. Most people, including me, seem to try to find a way around that, I’ve noticed. Lots of people judged your mother before and after she left. It was easy to do; she was an outsider, a gentile, not even a god-fearer—she was not afraid of much of anything, come to that. Except of losing you.”
“Those boys,” said Sarah. “They said my mother had demons in her. They said she was a foul loud-mouth whore. Is it true? I need to know what is true.”
Now it was Mary’s turn to let out a long sigh, more to buy herself time than for any other reason.
“There were a lot of stories going around about your mother. She was never demon-possessed, as far as I know, but she was very outspoken, and any woman who is not quiet or meek runs the risk of being called a demoniac or a whore or both. But in truth, yes, your mother was a whore. I am sure she told you about Temple Magdalen.”
“She told me about Berta and Dido and all the people there and how much fun they all had all, but she didn’t tell me about being a whore.” Sarah hesitated. “I am not sure what a whore is.”
I can almost hear Mary mentally tearing her hair and wondering what had become of the shameless, outspoken woman she remembered. How did she end up having to be the one to explain the basics of sex to a whore’s daughter?
“As I understand it,” Mary said at last, “and I’m not at all sure I do understand it, before your father came back to her, she received all men as her lovers, as if…as if they were your father.”
Sarah apparently pondered this delicate explanation in silence and I expect without much comprehension, which is just as well. No one wants to hear about her mother’s sex life. And I am afraid I was famous, or infamous, for mine. Mary B debated telling her about my return to the streets and how Jesus saved me from being stoned for adultery, but wisely decided that less, in this case, was more.
“Here’s the only thing you really need to know, Sarah. Your father never judged your mother; he loved her, and she loved him, even when they fought, which they did. It’s hard to explain it or even understand it, but they were not divided, however different they were and are, different as night and day, you might say—and yet night and day meet at the dawn, at the dusk, the most beautiful and sacred times of day. Your mother and father were like that, are like that.”
Mary must have been taken aback by her burst of poetic imagery, but perhaps it satisfied Sarah for the moment. They bo
th fell silent, and Mary took Sarah’s hand again, and they began to walk.
“You are of an age to choose, Sarah, and if you choose to leave the mountain, join the ecclesia in Jerusalem to live as a follower of the Way, I will defend your choice to anyone who questions it, including your mother, if need be. But whatever you choose, we must let your mother and your grandmother know where you are and that you’re all right. They deserve some peace of mind.”
“My grandmother does know,” said Sarah. “The angels tell her everything. She will tell my mother.”
But Sarah was weeping, and she lifted Mary’s hand to wipe away her tears.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
THE LORD’S SON
WHEN THE PAIR GOT BACK TO BETHANY, a frantic Martha rushed out to meet them before they reached the house.
“James and Peter are here,” said Martha. “They are livid with you, Mary. Peter is, anyway. He is accusing you of kidnapping the Lord’s son.”
“Jesus!” Mary said. (And I am sure she hoped she did not call his name in vain.) “What did you tell them?”
“I told them to sit down while I fetched them something to eat and drink,” said Martha. “What else could I do?”
“Where’s Lazarus?”
“He’s washing up. I’ve stalled him in the kitchen. I’ve been stalling everyone till you got back.”
“Has anyone told them I’m not a boy?” Sarah spoke up.
“No one’s told them anything, dearie,” said Martha. “But we have to tell them something quickly.”
Before Mary could say anything, assume the role of leadership Martha presumably expected her to take, Sarah spoke up.
“James is my father’s brother. Is that not true?”
“And the head of the ecclesia in Jerusalem,” added Martha, more to remind Mary than as a point of information.
“And Peter was my father’s best friend.”
“One of them,” said Mary a trifle grudgingly.
“I want to see them,” announced Sarah.
“That is probably best, Mary,” said Martha. “If you hide her, their accusation would be more or less true.”
“I didn’t kidnap her.” Mary was indignant. “I never hid her. I’ve been walking around Jerusalem with her all day.”
“I’m only saying.”
“Don’t tell them I’m a girl,” said Sarah.
“Why ever not?” fretted Martha.
“What about the truth?” said Mary a trifle primly, as was her wont.
“You didn’t tell about yourself,” Sarah pointed out to Mary, “when you were a man.”
“No,” agreed Martha. “But she was found out, and all of us, including your precious father, suffered shame for many years.”
Before they could come to any agreement, Peter, impatient as always, came outside to investigate.
“James,” he called. “I knew I heard voices. I was right. She kidnapped him. He’s here. He’s here!”
Sobbing, Peter bounded across the torchlit yard and still running and scooped Sarah into his arms till he stumbled and fell with her, the two of them rolling on the ground. Understandably alarmed, Sarah extricated herself and scrambled to her feet, while James approached more slowly, solemnly chanting a psalm.
Yahweh declared to my Lord, Take your seat at my right hand;
till I have made your enemies your footstool.
Yahweh will stretch out the scepter of your power
from Zion you will rule your foes all around you.
Royal dignity has been yours from the day of your birth,
sacred honor from the womb, from the dawn of your youth.
Yahweh has sworn an oath he will never retract,
you are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.
Not just any psalm but the one that describes the Priest Messiah, a theme dear to James’s heart, and if it did not strike terror in Mary’s heart, it did in mine.
At your right hand, Lord,
he shatters kings when his anger breaks out.
He judges nations, heaping up corpses,
he breaks heads over the whole wide world.
He drinks from a stream as he goes,
and therefore he holds his head high.
Chanting and processing, James advanced towards Sarah (or Saul, as James believed) who had drawn a little closer to Mary. Then refusing to show fear, Sarah shook off Mary’s protective arm and stepped forward to meet James, while Peter, a little embarrassed, stood aside, brushing himself off.
Now that they were all assembled, no one knew what to say or do, so they just stared at one another. I tried to imagine what they felt. There was Peter who had struck a deal and let us escape, which must have caused a terrible rift between him and James. That may be the real reason Peter abdicated as head of the ecclesia in Jerusalem, despite his insistence that Jesus had expressly left him in charge. Whatever else you want to say about Peter, he loved Jesus and continued to accuse himself bitterly whenever he felt he had failed him. Now he was overwhelmed with emotion, standing in the presence of his beloved master’s son. Had he done wrong to leave him out of the story or had that very absence indeed saved the boy from harm? Was Jesus showing Peter his favor by bringing him to stand before this long lost son or was Jesus, in his mercy, merely giving Peter another chance not to screw up?
As for James who traced his lineage (through good old Joseph) back to David, Abraham, and beyond, here was Jesse’s rod (to use the poetic phrase) flowering anew. Here were all the hopes of this priestly, kingly line and all the heartbreak of a family torn apart by martyrdom and exile, redeemed, restored in the slender body of this (seeming) boy. A son, a son. Unto James at last a son was given.
Meanwhile Mary stood braced for whatever blast was coming as Sarah turned her golden gaze from one man to the other, silently, inscrutably taking some measure known only to her.
Predictably, Martha came first to her common senses.
“Lazarus will be waiting for his supper. Come in all of you and eat.”
Martha had arranged for a private meal in a small back courtyard away from Lazarus’s grown children and their families, servants and farmhands. She served the meal herself and though Mary did jump up and help her now and then, she persisted in her custom of eating with the men. No one could object, because Jesus had sanctioned Mary’s inclusion. James and Peter, both capable of being voluble, found themselves in the awkward position of wanting to ask questions to which they might not wish to know the answers and wanting to make accusations, which might be unfair or awkward, at the least. In fact the atmosphere was reminiscent of the long ago meal when James had finally proclaimed his intention to honor the laws of levirate and I had trumped him by spilling the beans about my pregnancy.
Now here was that then unborn child sitting in their midst on the cusp between childhood and adulthood, her gender no less a mystery (although the men did not know that then). It was Sarah who took command.
“Tell me about my father,” she said looking from one man to the other, thus ruining any desperate scheme Mary might have entertained of persuading James and Peter they were mistaken in the child’s identity.
“This is the genealogy of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham,” James began before Peter could gather his wits. “Abraham begat Isaac, Isaac begat Jacob….”
And he went through the whole thing, following it up with various passages from the prophets, while Peter sputtered, waiting for his chance to jump in, and Lazarus dozed. As for Mary, she cleared the table with a lot of clattering until Martha hustled her into the kitchen and scolded her.
“Go sit back down and behave yourself,” said Martha. “You can’t stop them. They have as much right as you to decide what’s to be done about the child.”
“No, they don’t!” said Mary, and then she clamped her mouth shut, because she respected reason and knew she was beside herself. Grimly, she went back to the table and did as Martha told her.
“I was out in my boat on the Sea of
Galilee with my brother Andrew,” Peter was saying, now that James had finally finished. “We were making a cast with the net when your father called out to us from the shore, ‘Come with me and I will make you fishers of men.’ And we put aside our nets and followed him, with never a backward glance.”
Mary suppressed both fatigue and impatience as Peter launched into his longwinded version of Jesus’s story, co-starring Peter. After all, Sarah had asked.
“And he said to me, Peter do you love me?” Mary roused herself as she realized the end of the story was approaching. “Yes, Lord, you know I love you, I answered him. Then feed my sheep, he said. Feed my sheep.”
Overcome with emotion and perhaps a little tipsy on the wine, which Lazarus woke up now and then to pour, Peter buried his face in his hands and sobbed.
“Speaking of sheep,” Lazarus stirred himself, “I’ve got a sick ewe to check on. Would you like to come with me, child?”
Without a word Sarah rose from the table and slipped her hand into Lazarus’s.
The triumvirate, so to speak, was left alone. They looked at each other, then looked away, waiting until they thought a decent interval had passed and Sarah and Lazarus were safely out of earshot. James broke the silence and spoke with unusual brevity and bluntness.
“Is he circumcised?”
I think Mary may be forgiven for being temporarily at loss of words.
“The poor innocent,” Peter burst out. “It is no fault of his that his mother was a pagan whore.”
“Not so loud, if you please, Simon Peter,” reproved James. “We must think how best to proceed, yea, there is much to decide. The boy of course must be ritually immersed and made clean from the unfortunate circumstances of his birth. And if he is in need of circumcision, circumcised he must be, but as to the question of whether or not it is safe to reveal his true identity—”
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