Bright Dark Madonna

by Elizabeth Cunningham

  “Wait,” said Peter, sobering up a little. “Wait just a minute. I just remembered something. Mary, didn’t she, they, the people at the heathen temple, didn’t they tell us the child was a girl?”

  “It is highly likely that they told an untruth, yea even lied unto us, in hopes that we would give up claim to the child,” reasoned James.

  “But,” Peter was impulsive but not mentally quick; still, when he got hold of something, he didn’t let go easily, “but James, Mary of Magdala didn’t want to marry you, remember? And you were planning to make her marry you, if she bore a girl. So why would she say it was a girl if it wasn’t?”

  The two men pondered this question, while Mary wondered what to do. Would she have to go against Sarah’s wishes in order to protect her?

  “Mary,” said Peter. “You went into that place. The rest of us couldn’t because it was so unclean. You said you saw the baby. You must know. Was it a boy or a girl?”

  “Actually, it was swaddled,” stalled Mary.

  The men looked at her blankly.

  “Babies all look alike in swaddling clothes.”

  “And since then, have you had the opportunity to see the child in a state of undress, yea even without any—”

  “No,” Mary cut him off. “He’s old enough to have his two hairs. It would not be seemly.”

  Peter looked at James, and James looked at Peter.

  “It is time this matter was settled once and for all. Mary, you will please go and fetch the child, then for modesty’s sake, Mary, you may retire, and Peter and I shall—”

  “No!” Martha startled them all; she had been eavesdropping and now felt her sister could not be relied upon to put a stop to the nonsense. “No one is stripping that child’s clothes off. Not in my house!”

  “You mean in the house of Lazarus, your brother, whom our Lord and my brother, Jesus Christ, raised from the dead.”

  “Much good it did him,” muttered Martha. “Look here, James, Lazarus won’t have you humiliating the child.”

  “Then perhaps Lazarus might discreetly undertake to resolve this delicate matter for the ecclesia. You must agree that it is of the utmost importance.”

  “Why?” Mary demanded, feeling belligerent. “Why does it matter whether this child of our beloved teacher is a boy or a girl? Is anyone doubting that it is his child?”

  At this turn of the conversation Martha threw up her hands.

  “I’m going to find Lazarus, but the child is going to bed, do you hear me?”

  But no one was listening to her.

  “Well, when the mother’s a whore, who wouldn’t doubt?” said Peter. “But, now that I have seen the child, looked into his eyes…”

  “His eyes,” James repeated. “Even though his skin is dark, so dark as to leave room for grave doubt, there is something about him that is unmistakably of his father.”

  “So we are agreed on that much, at least,” said Mary.

  There was a silence that grew more pregnant by the minute.

  “Upon what,” said James, “can there be disagreement? Yea, whether the child is male or female, surely the child must be given the baptism of Christ and brought into the ecclesia to live a godly, sober, and righteous life. Praise the Eternal One that the child has been delivered unto us at last and saved from utter darkness and wickedness.”

  “If by darkness and wickedness you mean the child’s mother,” Mary spoke up, “remember, James, your brother loved her. And we have to honor his choice of her. You know I have never agreed with you, Peter, about leaving Mary of Magdala out of the story—”

  “So you kidnapped the child,” Peter went back to his accusation. “The boys he beat up told us that he lost his temper when one of them said the other Mary was a demon-possessed whore, which she was and I don’t see how even you can deny it—”

  “Calm yourself, Peter,” said James. “Mary, you are at liberty to explain your motives in removing this child from Jerusalem when I did entreat you to bring him unto me. Yea, you departed with no word to anyone.”

  “He means what the hell were you thinking!” translated Peter unnecessarily.

  Mary regarded them both coolly, and then opted for the truth.

  “I wanted to get the child away from everyone, to give him a chance to think.”

  “To think,” James was utterly perplexed. “To think about what?”

  “To think what she wanted him to think,” shouted Peter. “To tell him the story her way.”

  “Just as you told it to him your way,” countered Mary. “Since the child has returned, I’ve had to face myself. We all make Jesus over to be what we want him to be, to serve our own ends. Yes, I do it, too. But however I interpret the story, at least I don’t deny what happened. You’ve taken both the mother and the child out of the story completely. Now you’re backpedaling, because you’re so thrilled to think that Jesus has an heir. Well, you can’t have it both ways. Jesus’s marriage was not some temporary aberration or some failed attempt at exorcism. And I won’t have you poisoning the child’s mind.”

  And they went on arguing, getting louder and louder, until Martha and Lazarus appeared.

  “The child’s not here?” Lazarus said bewildered.

  “We thought he was with you,” said Peter

  “Half an hour ago I sent the child to Martha for some salve. Then Martha came looking for me and—”

  “I hope you’re all well-satisfied with your night’s work,” said Martha.

  Everyone stared at her.

  “Look what you’ve gone and done.”

  “What do you mean?” said Mary, turning pale.

  “All your arguing, all your stupid, wicked talk about looking between the child’s legs. The child must have heard you. Don’t you see?”

  Mary did see. If Sarah had come back from the pastures, she would have slipped in a door in the wall, opposite the kitchen entry. She could have stood in the shadows unnoticed and heard everything.

  “But then we must make search and find the child,” said James, “yea go hence and look for him even at once.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  TELL MY MOTHER!

  I COULD HAVE TOLD THEM all that that their search would be fruitless. It was dark, and Sarah had eyes like a cat and feet that understood the language of any terrain. Moreover, the earth and all its creatures had always loved Sarah. I could imagine trees gathering her in, hills enfolding her, sheep surrounding her. Her day of walking in and around Jerusalem with Mary had stood her in good stead. She knew the lay of the land now, and she had always had an excellent sense of direction. Before Martha even told me the next part of the story I knew where she had gone.

  Mary figured it out, too, but she said nothing to James and Peter, waiting until they had finally given up and returned to Jerusalem, admonishing her to send word immediately if the child returned to Bethany. But of course the child did not return to Bethany, so Mary didn’t technically refuse to comply. Taking a satchel full of provisions, she set out for the empty tomb in the late afternoon.

  “Sarah,” Mary called when she entered the garden. “It’s me, Mary, I’ve brought you some food. You must be hungry.”

  There was no answer, and Mary began to doubt her intuition. She set the food down by the tree and went to peer into the tomb, realizing too late that she had not brought a torch.

  “Sarah?”

  Still no answer. Instead of feeling her way about the tomb, Mary followed a hunch and went back outside, sitting down some distance away where she was out of sight of the tomb’s opening. She kept quiet and waited. In a little while, Sarah crept forth and, looking around her, like any wary wild creature, she finally went to the tree where she crouched and found the loaf of bread in the satchel.

  “Sarah,” said Mary softly. “It’s only me.”

  Sarah turned her full gaze on Mary, clearly ready to run, but remaining still for the moment.

  “May I come and sit with you?” Mary asked.

  Sarah nod
ded almost imperceptibly and then sat down herself. She said nothing as Mary joined her, and the two sat silently for a time.

  “I am sorry you heard us all fighting like that.”

  Sarah just shrugged and kept eating.

  “I did not tell them you were a girl,” continued Mary. “But it might be better if they knew.”

  “Why?” Sarah spoke her first word.

  “They might be more likely to leave you alone, let you do what you want.”

  “I don’t want to do what girls do,” said Sarah; after a moment she added. “I don’t want to be a boy either.”

  Mary understood that quandary better than most.

  “What do you want to do?”

  Sarah was quiet for a long time.

  “I want to stay here,” she finally said.

  “Here? At the tomb?”

  Mary literally bit back the automatic, grownup things she might have said.

  “Yes.” Sarah parceled out words as if there were a limited store.

  “Why?” Mary imitated her brevity.

  “I can hear my father here,” she did not hesitate this time. “It is too noisy everywhere else.”

  Mary nodded and kept quiet for a time. The girl had a point.

  “What does he say? Not,” she added quickly, “that it’s any of my business.”

  “It’s all right,” said Sarah. “He says it’s all right.”

  “What’s all right?” asked Mary, suddenly feeling lonely. Why didn’t Jesus talk to her? Why didn’t she ever hear him?

  “I think he means it’s all right for me to stay here with him for a while.”

  Mary rested her head on her knees and just let her tears fall, without trying to understand. Someone put a hand on her back right over her heart, such a sure warm hand. She remembered that touch. A sense of peace spread over her. She couldn’t hear him, but he was touching her. It must be his touch. She turned her head and found herself looking into Sarah’s eyes, and she saw that it was Sarah who touched her.

  “Leave me now,” Sarah said, as if she were much older than she was, “before it gets too dark for you to find your way back.”

  “I’ll come again tomorrow,” Mary cautioned. “Then we’ll see.”

  Sarah only nodded and went back to her silent listening.

  Martha told me that Mary blamed herself for what happened next, berated herself for thoughtlessness and stupidity. In all the years I wandered, crazy with loss, I could not find it in my heart to accuse her. What else could she have done?

  When she returned the next day, Mary noticed there was a group of what she took for mourners some distance behind her. There were other tombs on the outskirts of the city, and when she turned off to the tomb Joseph of Arimathea still owned, she did not suspect that she was being followed. She spent a little time with Sarah who seemed rested and calm, and remained determined to stay where she was.

  “I don’t like to leave you here,” said Mary reluctantly taking her leave. “Tomorrow we must decide something.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Sarah. “I am safe with my father.”

  A belief that set off alarm bells in Mary, who knew how dangerous Jesus’s company could be. Against her better judgment, she decided to let the child alone. When Mary was some distance away, she was startled by the cry of a hawk. Then another sound reached her, someone screaming her name. She turned and ran back to the tomb, just in time to see Sarah, kicking and flailing as one man held her, and another tried to grab her legs. Four more men stood ready in case the child managed to bolt. Mary thought briefly of running to find the mourners for help—and, then in a flash, she understood what had happened. Giving a cry worthy of a bean sidhe, she hurled herself at the man holding Sarah, nearly knocking him down. But before she could do or say anything more, two of the men grabbed Mary, lifted her and threw her to the ground, knocking the wind out of her. Mary looked up, and before the man turned away, she recognized him as a recent convert.

  “What do you think you’re doing? Where are you taking her?” Mary tried to speak, but her breath wouldn’t come. She struggled to get to her feet, when another blow came to the side of her head.

  “Tell my mother,” Mary heard Sarah scream just before she lost consciousness. “Tell my mother.”

  Mary must have suffered a concussion; she didn’t remember how she got back to Bethany where Martha promptly put her to bed. The next morning everything came back to her and she stormed off to Jerusalem. One by one every ecclesiastical house refused her entrance without explanation. Even people she considered friends would tell her nothing. She had the impression that in fact they knew nothing about Sarah or her alleged kidnapping. They had simply been given orders from the elders to turn her away, and did not question them.

  In the late afternoon, Mary went to the Temple and positioned herself where she could confront James when he emerged from the Court of the Israelites after evening prayers. When she saw him, she stepped out in front of him. At first he tried to act as if he did not see her and made a move to sidestep her, but she stepped in front of him again. Finally he realized that there might be less commotion, if he acknowledged her.

  “You lied unto me, Mary of Bethany.”

  The other Followers of the Way ranged themselves around James, as if Mary were terribly dangerous and their leader might need to be defended. James motioned them away, which confirmed Mary’s belief that Sarah’s identity was not common knowledge.

  “I did not lie to you, James,” said Mary.

  “Verily, you told me the child of my brother’s loins was a son.”

  “In fact, I did not tell you that,” Mary countered. “You assumed.”

  Mary felt heartsick, realizing that Sarah must have been stripped by force.

  “Even if that were so,” said James, “Can you deny unto me that you knew all along that the child was a daughter?”

  “I have no need to deny anything,” said Mary who if not trained and recognized formally was none the less one of the best rabbinical minds of her or any time. “For I have done no wrong, yea even also I have done no harm. But you, James, can you deny that you sent thugs even unto a holy place to take the child by force, yea even against her will?”

  “I also have no need to deny anything,” answered James, without a trace of shame. “For I am in no way accountable to you, nor have you any authority over me.”

  “We are both accountable to her father.” And to her mother, Mary did not add aloud.

  “It is even so,” agreed James. “And so I say unto you, the maiden is safe within her father’s house and so she shall remain, safeguarded against all who might lead her astray, yea even into a life of sin.”

  I am safe here with my father, Sarah had said. Was she safe now or imprisoned?

  “If that is so, then let me see her, James,” Mary challenged him.

  James regarded Mary silently, almost sorrowfully.

  “Mary of Bethany, you are no longer welcome in the house of the Lord or at his table.”

  Mary started to shake and almost grabbed hold of James to steady herself.

  “You have no authority to turn me from Jesus’s table,” she said, fighting to stay calm. “No matter what you imagine I have done. He never turned anyone away. We, his followers, have never turned anyone away.”

  “Are you saying unto me, that you do repent of your wickedness, Mary of Bethany?”

  “What wickedness?”

  “Wrongdoing. Wrong teaching. Misleading an innocent child.”

  “I cannot repent something I have not done,” she said before she could think.

  “Then, Mary, I must tell you, I do have the authority to turn you away, and you must recognize it. The marriage feast is over; the bridegroom has gone on before us to prepare a place for us in his kingdom. The ecclesia must now await his coming again in glory. And as we do, we must purify ourselves. We must separate the wheat from the chaff, even as my brother said, and toss the chaff into the fire.”

  Mary wou
ld torture herself in days to come with all the things she might have said, all the citations from scripture, from Jesus’s own words with which she might have refuted him, but to her dismay she felt dizzy again and had to fight back nausea.

  “Do not try to find her, Mary.” James bent very close to her and hissed in her ear. “I have removed her from Jerusalem, even for her own safety. Yea, any search you make for her will end only in sorrow and desolation for you.”

  With that, James brushed past her and went his way. And Mary, who had longed to be a rabbi and struggled to be an elder and a priest among the Followers of the Way became (unofficially at least) the first Christian excommunicate.

  “She left the next morning at dawn,” Martha concluded, as another day began to dawn; we had sat in her kitchen all night. “She wouldn’t hear reason. I told her surely you’d be searching for the child yourself, but she couldn’t wait, she was so agitated; she couldn’t be still.”

  I sat numbly, overcome with Mary’s story, this new suffering that had come upon her, and that she had so valiantly taken on. And the suffering it meant for her family.

  “I am so sorry, Martha,” was all I could manage to say. I reached for her hand, and she let me hold it. “I am so sorry.”

  “Blame doesn’t serve anyone,” she said stiffly, the closest she had ever come to forgiving me. “What will you do now?”

  I will keep searching. Never cease till I find my daughter, I said silently.

  “I will go back to Jerusalem,” I answered Martha. “They’re all there now for the meetings. Surely I can find out something from someone.”

  “They cast Mary out,” Martha said. “Why would they receive you?”

  “I got into the house before. No one recognized me. Anyway, what else can I do?”

  “Go back to your home,” said Martha, her voice tight with tears. “And send Mary back to hers.”

  I squeezed Martha’s hand, and she held to me tightly. I did not bother to tell Martha: the mountain was never my home; for good or ill, it was the place I hid my child. I had no home now.