“I will keep some of the stories his followers have told,” Theodore went on. “Pure light is too abstract for most people to grasp. But I will have to make some changes, you understand. For the sake of coherence.”
“Naturally,” said Joseph.
“Too many Marys, for one thing. We will have to make a composite character.”
I believe Joseph may have spluttered or choked; or perhaps words simply failed him, for he did not interrupt.
“And the Logos, the divine principle, cannot be married. He is singular, unique. Some of the widow’s stories are very striking, but it will be more effective to use the essence of the stories but cast her as a devoted disciple, like the other Mary. That’s quite controversial enough. And as for that overwrought Egyptian mystery nonsense, it just muddies the waters. What we want is something that combines the best of the Jewish and the Greek philosophical traditions--something unprecedented, not just a re-hashing of old pagan myths.”
“I see your point, but—” began Joseph.
And suddenly I could not bear to listen anymore. I had to turn away now or else burst into the room and confront them, demand that they tell the story…whose way? John’s, Mary B’s, mine?
A story is true if it’s well told.
Who had said that?
Me.
I turned and fled.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
JESUS OUR MOTHER
I NEVER CONFRONTED JOSEPH about what I had overheard that night or asked him how he had answered Theodore, nor did I confide in John. I am not sure why. Perhaps it was an inverse sort of pride, not wanting to look as though I were jockeying for position or control. Or it may have been relief that the real story would still belong to me alone. And no one would guess about Sarah, or try to hunt her down, or her children. (I had no inkling then how the stories of secret, sacred lineage would take root and spread underground. The Merovingian kings were not even a gleam in anyone’s eye, and I don’t understand to this day why I or anyone would want to claim them as descendants anyway.)
Here is a simpler explanation for my silence. As soon as we left the city and began to climb into the hills, none of the quibbling seemed real to me anymore. A strong spring sun lit the world, a fresh breeze blew from the sea, and bees careened among a profusion of wild flowers. I was in the company of old friends coming with me to Meryemana. And I had a lover, whose one request of me I had fulfilled, for better or worse. So be it. I let go. Maybe it was the easy way out; maybe it was a heeding of Ma’s wisdom or the beginning of my own. But I let go of all concern about how my words would be preserved or discarded. As we walked, I took John’s arm and now and then leaned against him, looking forward to lying in his arms that night, no matter whose sensibilities might be offended.
When we reached Meryemana, John and I stood by hand in hand and watched the others come under the sway of the place. Though I could not see them, I believed that Miriam’s angel guarded the entrance. I could sense the threshold, and knew the moment anyone crossed it. Ma was sitting outside in a patch of sun, her face tilted towards it like a flower’s, her hands lying palms up, and I swear I could see light pooling in them. Though her eyes remained closed, she greeted each of the new arrivals by name.
Lazarus wept openly as he bent and kissed both her cheeks and then her hands. Martha, who had found Ma a difficult guest when she had been the hostess, turned a painful shade of red before a loud sob burst from her, and she, too, embraced Ma. Mary B fought the hardest for control, but in the end she broke down and laid her head in Ma’s lap and wept. Poor Joseph, whom we had dragged with us from the urban comforts of lesser Ephesus, looked positively bewildered, as though he could not quite understand where he was or how he had come to be here.
“Come on, you foolish old man,” Ma called to him. “Come sit with me and be sensible. Nothing worked out the way you thought it would, did it? How well I know. Never mind. I am still grateful that you tried to find my rapscallion son a suitable wife and grateful that he and Mary of Bethany ran away and scandalized everyone and grateful that you keep saving the life of that whore he finally married. As I’ve always said, you mean well. Now sit down and rest.”
Joseph by now was blinded by tears, and so I led him to Ma, and John fetched a stool for him. We were all, for a moment, home.
That was the last day Ma sat up or spoke much at all. Though Martha immediately took charge of the household and cooked up delicacies, including a roast spring lamb, a gift from one of the neighbors, Ma refused to eat; subsisting on spring water, liberally laced with mead.
As the days passed, the rest of us spoke less and less, and the neighbors, too, came and went quietly. It was not that we were tiptoeing around an invalid. It was not at all a constrained silence; it just seemed to become our element, an element as much as water or fire, earth or air. I noticed that my sense of hearing intensified. I could hear the hum of bees, always, the bubbling of the spring, all the minute shifts of even the stillest air. I could hear the bells on sheep, and the rush of bird wings overhead. I could hear when a bird’s egg cracked open, or when a mouse split the hull of a seed. Sometimes I could even hear the waves breaking on the shore miles below.
I came to know my old friends in a new, intimate way, the patterns of their breathing, the way their muscles knotted and rippled, which sighs meant ease, sorrow, or pain. We all touched each other more frequently, a hand on an arm here, a squeeze of shoulder there, a quick kiss, an embrace. John and I made love slowly, tenderly. We often found ourselves in tears, but felt no need to say why. It was a strange time, a suspended time. Except for the new leaves unfolding, and Miriam weakening a little more each day, time might have ceased to exist. Certainly past and future had retreated and made no claims on us.
One or more of us always sat with Miriam at all times of the day and night. We had no need to make a schedule; when one person needed to rest or tend to some chore, another appeared. One night I woke near dawn, left the warmth of my bed with John, and relieved Mary B, who rose and embraced me before she went to lie down on the pallet she shared with Martha. I stoked the fire, wrapped myself in my cloak and sat on the stool next to Ma, listening to the faint music of her breath, which still came easily, though so slowly, so lightly.
Whether I dozed or dreamed wide awake, I don’t know and it doesn’t matter. I became aware of a warmth, as if the room were flooded with sun, but when I opened my eyes, (if I did open my eyes), it was still night, the fire flickering on the ancient faces of the stones. As I gazed, the stones changed, took shape, and the room seemed to grow larger, too, and rounder. The night sky had come down to us. Then I saw: It was my beloved who had entered the house, and yet not my beloved, for he was not here for me. He bent over the sleeping body of his mother, and seemed to gather her up. In his arms, she was as tiny as a newborn baby. She was a newborn, and he was the madonna, the bright dark madonna of the night sky. I gazed at them in wonder. I adored them, until I must have slept, and morning came with Miriam still lying on her bed, still breathing but only just barely.
I did not tell the others what I had seen in the night. I didn’t have to. They sensed the change and knew what it meant. If it was possible, our silence and closeness deepened. We opened the doors and shutters to let in light and sound, but all day none of us went far from Miriam or each other.
Now imagine this peace shattered. A racket outside as someone hurtled past the angels, feet and heart pounding, breath coming hard, a voice harsher than any raptor’s, tearing at the silence, making it bleed.
“Healer Woman! Healer Woman! Are you there!”
I rose and went out of Miriam’s house to meet Paul of Tarsus.
“Sarah!” he cried as soon as he saw me, and then, maddeningly, he collapsed.
The women all flew into action. Martha fetched a basin of water; I went to kneel beside him, placing my hand on his neck to feel his pulse. Mary B, a bit gingerly I must say, dipped the hem of her garment in the water and dabbed at his face.
> “In the name of Christ Jesus!” said John, who remained in the doorway, not wanting to leave Miriam alone. “What can this mean?”
Whether it was my touch, the water, or John’s invocation of the Name, Paul revived and sat up, shaking off Mary and me.
“Please! There’s no need to heal me,” he said peevishly. “I just got winded and the day is warm.”
“Sarah!” I came right to the point, while Martha went to fetch food and drink. “What about Sarah!”
“She is in Ephesus,” he said, getting to his feet and dusting himself off.
“Why didn’t you bring her with you?” demanded Mary B.
And I braced myself, for fear he would say that she refused to come.
“She is in prison.”
I felt the ground shifting under me and the air suddenly darkening. Several arms reached out to steady me.
“Don’t even think about fainting, Mary of Magdala,” Martha hissed. “What do you mean she’s in prison! What can she possibly have done?”
“That I don’t know,” said Paul. “I didn’t stay to find out. I came straight here. All I know is I saw her and a dozen other women being led away in chains to the pens under the great theatre.”
“But what makes you think it was Maeve’s daughter?” asked Joseph.
“No one who has seen her eyes could ever mistake her for anyone else.” Paul answered Joseph, but he looked at me. “Now as to why she was in chains, she may have been sold into slavery and run away. Or it could be the women are to be used in some dreadful pagan entertainment. Perhaps—”
“Sarah is a pirate.” I said abruptly.
A brief silence, then a chorus of: How do you know? When did you see her? Why didn’t you tell us?
“Hush,” said John, still standing in the doorway. “Let her speak. There’s no time to waste.”
I cast him a grateful look.
“When we were on the way to Ephesus, Miriam and I, our ship was waylaid by pirates. I called the winds, and we outran the pirates, but only just. As we passed by their ship, I saw Sarah. And I think she saw me. I’ve been waiting for her to find us ever since…Miriam prophesied that she would. And now she has….”
A sob caught in my throat, and I could not speak.
“In the name of Christ Jesus, Healer Woman, you will not break down now,” commanded Paul. “You will be strong.”
I straightened up and took a deep breath.
“Night is falling, and the city gates will be closing. We can’t just go tearing down the mountain and storming the prison,” said Paul. “Nothing will happen without a show of a trial and some public display and that takes time to organize. We must have a plan. First of all, we must pray.”
Paul reached and took my hand and Mary’s, and we began to make a circle.
“We need Ma with us,” I said.
And the circle moved inside the house, with me holding one of Ma’s hands and John holding the other. Her eyes remained closed, but I sensed that she was awake or at any rate knew exactly what was going on.
“Just don’t make a hullaboo,” whispered Martha.
“In the name of Christ Jesus,” said Paul. “Let us pray earnestly and with full and contrite hearts that we may be guided by Christ Jesus to save the life of his beloved daughter and to secure her liberty.”
Then, for once in his life, Paul shut up and closed his eyes. I looked around the circle at each face in turn, and then closed my own eyes. I could see a current circle from hand to hand, then rise and spiral. Over us all, I sensed the dark, strangely maternal shape of my beloved, holding this disparate company in a unifying embrace.
“I can arrange discreet passage on a ship,” Joseph spoke first.
Dear Joseph, I thought to him across the circle, remembering how he had whisked us out of Rome, a bunch of whores and disgraced priestesses of Isis, me freshly reprieved from crucifixion.
Then I forgot everything else as the fire began to flow through my hands, fiercely, brightly, fire that long ago had melted irons from a candidate for human sacrifice chained to a tree in a druid grove.
“I have the fire in my hands,” I said.
No one asked what I meant, each one deep in prayer, listening for their part. The silence hummed with power.
“And I,” said Paul of Tarsus at last. “I can start a riot, a riot to cloak her escape. And in the name of Christ Jesus, I will! Amen.”
“Amen!” Miriam said in a voice of surprising strength.
“Amen!” we all chorused, and with one accord we squeezed and released each others’ hands and set about making our plans.
And so the famous riot of the Ephesian silversmiths began in the fold of three hills, high above the city, where a sacred spring welled, and the woman who would be worshipped as Theotokas lay taking her last sips of air.
Jesus must have been quite detailed in his instructions to Paul or else the apostle’s own organizational talents took over, for he had a task for everyone. Joseph, of course, would go straight to the harbor to make arrangements for a ship. I was to scope out the prison in the guise of a vendor of cakes and wine, for Paul (who seemed to be well-acquainted with the workings of prisons) maintained that guards were a lazy, self-indulgent lot, always looking for diversion, and prone to drink on the job. I was to ingratiate myself and find out where exactly the women were being held. Paul was confident that when the riot was in full swing the guards would be called to quell the crowd and to make arrests. Mary and Martha and Lazarus were assigned to gossip among the silver vendors and spread the word that the notorious Paul of Tarsus was going to preach a sermon denouncing the great Ephesian Artemis and all who fashioned and sold her image. Moreover he would preach not only to the Jews and to his own followers but to the public at large—and worst of all, the tourists!
“Tell the silversmiths,” he said. “That I am going to shut them down. And be sure a man name Demetrius hears about it. Go to his shop on Curete Street and to the one on the road to the Temple of Artemis.” Paul said. “He is the head of his guild, and he knows all the silversmiths in the city. Many of them work under him, and will do whatever he says. I’ve already had a number of run-ins with him. In fact,” Paul said with pride, “he has threatened to have me arrested and thrown to the lions.”
Everyone was too keyed up to feel hungry, but Martha insisted we eat and also pack provisions.
“We don’t know how long this will take,” she said. “We could be gone for days.”
All at once, the excited talk came to a halt.
“You do understand,” said Paul in an unusually quiet tone, “that Sarah must disappear without a trace. If she is found she will be executed—or worse. You cannot bring her here.”
“Of course we understand,” Mary B bristled. “That’s why Joseph is finding a ship. Oh—”
Mary B covered her mouth as she registered that we each had a decision to make.
John and I, sitting on either side of Miriam, each still holding one of Miriam’s hands, looked at each other, not with a question but with full knowledge, as deep as it was sudden.
“Come, everyone,” said Lazarus. “These three need time alone.”
In fact, John and I had no need to speak, and neither of us wanted Ma to waste what breath she had left. You are a mother, too, Ma had said to me, and when the time comes you must go. I looked at John to make sure he understood that his task was to stay with Ma; for even if she died this night, someone must tend her body. He looked steadily back, and let his tears fall without shame, but there was no anguish in his face--only tenderness. After a time he nodded almost imperceptibly.
Our last night together. We both knew.
John placed both Ma’s hands in mine and rose to put more wood on the fire. Then he brought a mead soaked sponge to Ma’s lips; she sucked at it like an infant. When he sat down again, he pulled up his stool behind mine and wrapped his arms around me, so that I could rest against him. I can still remember in my body the comfort of his. The warmth of him, the ro
undness, the steadiness. He held me all night, as I continued to hold Ma’s hands.
My last night with Ma. We both knew.
Though you might suppose I had every reason to be apprehensive about how it would be to find Sarah at long last, not to mention break her out of prison, I felt strangely peaceful. I even fell asleep.
In the dream I am walking with Sarah through a moonlit forest, but after awhile I realize the trees are also columns, holding up the night.
“I founded this temple, you know,” Sarah says lightly.
She takes my hand and leads me through the columns, past horses and winged beasts that at one moment appear to be alive, the next stone. Artemis waits for us in the distance, arms outstretched, the eggs at her breast bright as moons. When we are close enough to touch her, I see that her face is Ma’s face, but not her ancient face. She is a young woman, her eyes bright and dark as the sky.
Then she is just Ma again, and Sarah is a little girl with wild dark braids, and we stand holding hands, for one moment, the three again.
“I have to go now,” Ma says. “My son is here.”
She disappears or I can’t see her, for I am weeping. A woman gathers me in her arms and holds me close.
It is my daughter.
“Healer Woman,” I woke to Paul’s voice, harsh even in a whisper. “We must leave now if we are to reach Ephesus at dawn. The others are ready. We will wait for you outside.”
John and I stood and embraced each other. Then I bent and kissed Ma.
“Goodbye, mother of my heart,” I said softly. “Your son is here.”
By the door I turned for one last look. John had sat down beside Miriam again, both of them held in the embrace of my beloved.
PART SIX:
THE BALLAD OF BLACK SARAH
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Bright Dark Madonna Page 41
