The Secret Magdalene

by Ki Longfellow

  Though times continue unsettled, and as Nicodemus has said, grow more unsettled so that here and there it amounts to hysteria, Josephus remains a fortunate man. He tells me of his life in Bethany. That Naomi continues empty-headed and empty of womb, that Rachel continues a widow and not a wife, and in neither does he find good company. He misses my mother, Hokhmah, as he would miss a limb. He longs to return to Jerusalem where he came as a young man from the town of Arimathaea to seek his fortune, but brigands become more menacing rather than less, and this in spite of Rome’s increasing presence. He tells me without telling me that he fills with pride at what I have become, but that he would give half of all he owns to have me his son. I tell him without telling him that I understand. I see also there has come a certain darkness in Father, a certain aimlessness. Where once he would fill his days with business and with the importance of his position, now that he has business and importance to spare, it seems there is more time to fill and less that satisfies.

  In the evenings I talk with Seth as I have always done, of philosophy and of poetry and of my dreams of a school in Alexandria. And he listens as he has always done. It is as if that terrible moment above the village of Bethsaida had never been. I tell him I shall teach what I have learned from him, what it is he has made of the inner Nazorean, and from which will bloom thoughts as sweet as Tata’s roses. Is it too much to hope he might wish to teach as well?

  Seth laughs, saying that Socrates would call my school a “Thinkery.” Socrates would call me a Great Sausage bloated with Bamboozle. Seth tells me that when Aristophanes wrote a play about Socrates so that all might mock him, Socrates sat in the theater and laughed. The Holy Socrates laughed and laughed.

  I do not laugh, but I have found a smile.

  In this way, Mariamne grows into her new skin. And it seems that as Job once survived his grievous afflictions, I will survive mine.

  I have spent the whole of the night in the room of Eleazar. Throughout this night, he has coughed. There is more blood in his sputum, more fever in his limbs. Now and again, Martha has entered the room, laid her hand on the brow of her brother, then left again. It is now the first hour of the morning. The servants and the slaves have been awake for hours, preparing Father’s house for the day ahead. The large black guard dogs are already locked in their kennels from their night of patrolling the grounds, for these days the rich and the privileged cannot be too careful. I close my eyes, almost slip away into sleep, but again comes Martha. Fully dressed, fully awake—does she come or does she go? She leans yet again over a fretful Eleazar, fevered and sleepless, and she speaks to him.

  By what she says, I learn that Yehoshua the Nazorean has come to Father’s house.

  I shake my sleepy head, rub my eyes. I do not understand. How can this be? Has Seth invited him? Does he look for me? I cannot think he looks for me.

  My heart leaps from my makeshift bed before I do.

  The new Mariamne, she who would be as Cleopatra, jumps after her heart, dresses hurriedly, and is now hiding behind a row of potted roses in Father’s south garden. Before me is the gate leading out to the road to Bethany proper, behind me the large airy room where Eleazar lies, and behind that the hot rooms and the cold rooms and the bathing pools. Beyond the gate, lies the road, and from the road comes the sound of many people, their voices drawing near Father’s south gate. My heart thrums as the strings of a lute thrum. My mind cannot grasp what it hears. My eyes cannot make sense of what they see.

  It is true. Yehoshua comes—and he does not come alone.

  As Jude and I once walked with Yeshu so that with Eio we were four, now Yeshu is followed as John the Baptizer was followed. A great crowd spreads out in his wake. I see not only Jude the Faithful, but Simon Peter and Andrew and Thecla. The Sons of Thunder and the sons of the Sons, all of these mingle with persons I have never before seen. My spirits rise at the sight of Dositheus who converses with Yeshu as they pass my place of hiding, and sink as I search for Addai and for Tata. Would Tata show her face here? By Law, Father could seize her on the instant. Among the women walks faint Mary, the mother of so many. And now there passes the men who lately followed Eleazar the Bandit, cunning Timaeus and bold Saul of Ephraim.

  All this becomes more and more surprising, and all the more puzzling, and by the moment more terrifying.

  There is a slight movement behind me, and I know without looking that Salome is come near. I know she too stands and stares. She places her hand on my arm, urges me away so we might not be caught out, perhaps not as spies, but worse, as afraid.

  “Why is he come here?” I whisper as I turn away.

  “Martha sought him. Martha heard he was near and went out from this house before first light to find him.”

  “But why?”

  “So that he might save her brother.”

  “Save him?”

  “From death. Martha fears Eleazar will die.”

  Once again I wrong another, for I had thought Martha heartless in her Law.

  I crouch in the shadows of Eleazar’s room so that I might not be seen, and I tremble. But my cousin has raised himself from his bed in febrile excitement at seeing the man second only to the dead Baptizer. Full lit in the morning sun, Eleazar stands wrapped in his own rumpled bedding, his tousled hair every which way on his large head. One could almost warm oneself in the heat given off by his body. Outside his door, Father’s entire household is in an uproar, while the cause of this uproar, Martha, poses in inscrutable silence near Eleazar, but I know her triumph. She has caused this new prophet to come to us. She has called him, and he is here.

  Yeshu steps into the room. Behind him, there is of course Jude, and behind Jude—Addai! Addai is here. My heart melts with love at the sight of him in his humble robe, more humble than any one follower of Yeshu, more humble than Yeshu himself. As ever his face is as flat and as wide as the moon, and his feet are as bare as the feet of Diogenes. Sandalless in Father’s house, whatever shall Father do! But my heart would escape from my chest at the sight of Yeshu. His face, his red hair, his hands, his eyes, their light unbroken. I die with longing to know the friend of my heart once more.

  Jude places himself in the doorway, meaning all others must remain in the south garden, which is barely big enough to contain them all. Over Jude’s shoulder, I see the look on Simon Peter’s face. He would push himself forward. But as he cannot, he makes do with pushing away those as curious and eager as he, calling out, “As he is dead, have pity for Lazarus!” Simon Peter, ever the rooster and always of Galilee, pronounces Eleazar as “Lazarus.”

  Yeshu comes up to Eleazar, stands quietly looking at him. But Eleazar cannot be quiet, not for a moment. He looks from Jude to Yeshu and back again. He is as I once was, amazed they are so alike. Eleazar is not fooled. He knows which is which by the Glory in Yeshu, and from my shadows, I revel in his cleverness. “I know you,” he says to Yeshu. “I have heard of you. You are a magician. You are a great magician. So great a magician, you can raise the dead.”

  Yeshu smiles at him, at Martha. “And I have heard of you, Lazarus, son of Pinhas ben Yohai. I was told by now you yourself might be dead.”

  The high color in the face of my cousin drains away, his jaw goes slack. “Me? Who says this? I am not dead!”

  “So I see.”

  Eleazar sneaks a look at Martha, who does not flush, nor does she turn away. It would take more than this to rattle Martha, who watches all with strict attention. “But if I were dead, why, a great magician like you would raise me up and I should continue just as I am now. Is this not so?”

  Yeshu lifts a concerned hand. “If you were dead, Lazarus, why should you wish to be raised? Would you so easily turn back from the Father?”

  Eleazar does not expect this; he grows confused, and if Eleazar is confused, Martha is furious. What kind of talk is this? A proper self-respecting magician does not talk like this. A great magician would not talk at all! He would say certain words, and he would make certain passes with his hands, a
nd those who have been dead are dead no longer. Who is this person she has asked into her house?

  But now, the person she has asked into Father’s house asks this of her brother, “If a man has reached the span of his days, why should he not die as all die?”

  Eleazar thinks this over, then answers, “Why, because…well, because first, the span may be too short. And then people grieve. There is much crying and much unhappiness. And what of the death of children?”

  “Who can know when a life is too short? Or too long? Who would be the judge of this? A life is as long as a life is. You would have me drag the spirit back from the Father for the sake of the living? Is this not cruel? Is this not without purpose?”

  I see the dawn of understanding cross Eleazar’s face, and it excites him more than the thought of being brought out from the belly of death. “I see. I do see,” he says, “and if a body is left dead for days, crueler still. Or if it is chopped into bits. Or if a man should be eaten by a lion.” He shudders in his clutched bedding. “I never thought of this. Besides, the spirit being perhaps a whole four days in Paradise would be quite settled in, and as for the body left behind, why, there would be such a stink, and such a putrefaction. Who would wish to continue in such a body?”

  “Eleazar!” Martha has had enough. She did not ask Yehoshua the Nazorean here for such as this. She had rushed out and stopped him on his way to demand he come save Eleazar, from death, from illness, it mattered not which, so long as he was saved. “Sir! As I believe you are the Messiah, who comes into the world to save us, how should you not save my brother?”

  And now Yeshu turns full to her. “I would save your brother, as I would save you, as I would save all men and all women, if you would save yourselves. I would raise the Dead into Life. This task is worthy of a man, and not the one you would ask of me. You require only a wonder, but I would require of you the wonder of understanding. I say to you, it matters not that a man sheds his body, not once but many times, for his Life is eternal. And those who grieve and those who would bring him back into the body, cast off as a cloak in summer, do not understand the Father and have no faith.”

  Martha opens her mouth and closes it. She opens it again, and I know she searches the Law she has in her head for the right Law, for the one that will answer him, and by answering, silence him.

  Yeshu knows this. He watches her as she has watched him, as I watch them both. “Even should your brother die, Martha of the Law, he shall rise again. But why wait he for the death of the body when he might rise now? In this moment, in body, he can know the Father, and by knowing him, can live as fully as the Father lives. This is how the true Dead, who are dead not in body but in spirit, are raised into the Life of the Spirit. This is the resurrection and the Life, which I am, which you are. In me is the resurrection, as it is in all men, and in all women, and he that understands this shall never die.” He turns back full to Eleazar, and holds out his hand. “And I say to your brother, Lazarus, who pleases me, come forth.”

  And my cousin, who has listened to this with all the eagerness of his nature, and with all his cleverness, takes the hand of Yeshu, crying out, “I would be raised into this Life you speak of. I would follow you as those others do.” Being Eleazar, he must add, “Although I should not like to be killed by Herod or by the Romans.” And then he lifts his eyes from the face of Yeshu, where they have rested this entire time, and searches the room. “Mariamne,” he calls, “Mariamne, you too come forth!”

  Yea Balaam! I would stopper his mouth if I could; I would pass through a wall! Instead, I cling to it, swaying where I stand.

  “My cousin, who even as a female is learned beyond most men,” Eleazar enthuses, “though I have thought such a thing could not be, would follow too. Would you not, Mariamne?”

  I find myself staring directly at Yeshu. Is he surprised? Is he angered? More, is he shamed to see she who was once as a brother? But before I can know, Josephus, who has at some point entered this room with Seth, speaks up.

  “Sir!” my father says in his best Caesarian voice. “I have never heard a magician speak better. If you are a magician, which I doubt. Come, share food with me. You and all your people as well.”

  It is a thing of wonder to see Yeshu at Father’s table. But he is here, as fully in the flesh as Father is, as Seth is. Eleazar, so excited he has forgotten that he is ill, perhaps dying, is again allowed at table, where he bobs his big head on its thin neck trying to take in so much at one time. And, of course, Nicodemus sits in his accustomed seat, doing as he is accustomed to doing, enjoying his superiority.

  Yeshu has brought along Addai and Simon Peter, and Dositheus and hook-nosed blade-giver Simeon, as well as his brothers, the scarred Joses, and the youngest Simon. Here too is bald Jacob, scowling as ably as ever. Jude is as he always is, by Yeshu’s side. There is one other, and this one I do not know. This new one is small, so small I might think him yet a child if it were not for his beard. I hear him called Zaccheus of Jericho. I hear he is not only a publicani, a tax collector, but the chief tax collector for Pontius Pilate. How varied, and how unclean, those who follow Yeshu!

  All others, Father feeds in his north garden, where there is room enough to seat them all on the stone benches surrounding the main courtyard. Father’s household is stretched to its utmost to cater to so many at such short notice, but it is being done. As quick as a harvesting mouse, my aunt Rachel scurries from scullery, to hurrying slave, to garden, and back again. As for Father’s table, that is served by Martha, Naomi having gone back to bed with a sick headache, as she does most mornings. Martha’s face is grim with the burden of welcomed responsibility.

  Me? I am seated quietly by the large hearth in Father’s morning room. If I say nothing and do nothing, perhaps I will not be noticed. But no matter if I am, I cannot slink away now, cannot have Yeshu in the house of my own father and not listen to what might be said. How often could such a thing happen? And then there is this: when Salome and I are finally gone to Alexandria, it is a certainty I shall never hear him again.

  Martha bustles back and forth, bearing all the food Father can offer, such a splendid meal. No household, short of a king’s, could offer more. As she passes, the cloth of her robe brushes by me again and again, as does the clothing of an assortment of slaves who assist her; and now and again Martha hisses down at me to get up off my backside and help, or a pox be upon me and a face full of boils be mine. But I cannot and I will not. This is not the time to make of myself a woman but perhaps a last time in Judaea to make of myself a man.

  I ignore Martha. But I wonder at Father. If they should see his table this day, how the Pharisees and the Poor would wail! How they should lament my father’s choice of table mate. To eat with a tax collector! To share food with an actor and a Samaritan! To sup with a man without sandals! And what of the builders and what of the fishermen—are they not peasants every one?

  But if these are merely lamentable, what of the daggermen who share Father’s food? For of these twelve, full six are, or were, Sicarii. Father shares bread with those who would destroy him, and would destroy his world.

  If I had no other reason to linger and to listen, I would do so to learn my father’s purpose. He is not quite a Herodian, and not quite not a Herodian, but he lives for the good regard of others. Or he did. By sharing his table with such as these, save Seth, of course, who is welcome in any house, is to risk not only the good regard of his friends, but their wrath. This too: for all that Father knows, he risks his life. Therefore, I admit this crosses my mind, is Father to be trusted? If Father is endangered in the company of such as these, does Yeshu endanger himself in the house of Josephus?

  I must know, for no matter the cost, I would prevent either.

  Father leans forward. He looks only at Yehoshua the Nazorean of the criminally red hair. I have never seen him more intent on a man, rich or poor. “I do not know if you are a great magician, sir, I care little for magicians, be they great or be they small. And I have less use f
or wonders, thinking them used to befuddle the ignorant, and so to lead them by the nose.” Nicodemus, closely listening, is pleased to agree with this but bristles as Father says more. “But I think you are a great teacher, even as you are a Galilean, and speak with the rough tongue of Galilee. Perhaps you are even one who comes from the Lord, for no man could speak as you do except the Lord be with him.” I think I now see why Father feeds a crowd of dangerous strangers, the unclean and the disrespectful and the questionable and the fierce. He does this so that he might question one strange man. I have rarely known Father to question a thing. What is so is what he believes to be so, and what he believes was taught him by the Sadducee. Could it be that now that Josephus the Sadducee grows older, he begins to wonder whether what he thinks is so really is so? Poor Nicodemus! Hearing his old friend now will prove the final ruin of his stomach. “Therefore,” says Father, “I would ask you, as I have heard you speak of the dead in spirit, and as you say that one might live as fully as he you call the Father lives, how is it that a man who is dead can come alive again?”

  Yeshu, who has been listening as he once listened to me, replies, “I would say to you that if you would live in the Kingdom of God, you must be born again.”