by Joan Wolf
So had I. So had Daniel.
I couldn’t stop crying. “Lord Benjamin is an evil man, and I hate him! He lied to us! He lied to his own son!”
“Shh, shh,” Aunt Leah crooned. She held me tighter, rocking me back and forth as if I were a baby. And like a baby, I burrowed into her, seeking the comfort no one could give.
“When is this marriage supposed to take place?” she asked after my sobs began to slow.
I said thickly, “Aaron is coming here in two days’ time. We’re to be married the following day.”
I felt Leah’s breath catch. “How clever. While we were in Bethany, Benjamin arranged a whole wedding for you.”
“What am I going to do, Aunt Leah?” I wailed, pulling my face away from her tear-soaked shoulder.
She didn’t answer.
“Tell me what I should do!” I stared up at her, desperate for her to save me from this hideous fate.
She looked desolate. “My darling girl, there is nothing you can do. Men make the decisions in this world, and we have no choice but to obey.”
“But that’s not fair! I have a soul too! Surely the Lord thinks I’m just as important as a man!”
“I don’t think that He does,” Aunt Leah replied regretfully. “Remember how the Lord asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, and Abraham was ready to obey? The Lord never asked Sarah how she might feel about that, did He?”
“N-no,” I replied. “He didn’t.”
Leah sighed. “That’s how things have always been and always will be.”
They were almost the exact words Lord Benjamin had spoken.
“I’d rather be dead than married to Aaron bar David. He’s old and ugly and disgusting.” I shuddered at the thought of him touching me.
“Don’t say that you’d rather be dead!” she rebuked sharply.
I’d never heard her sound so angry.
“Only a coward would say something like that, and you’re not a coward, Mary. That I know for certain. You’re not a coward.”
She thought more highly of me than I did of myself. I said, “I can’t live without Daniel, Aunt Leah. I can’t. And I can’t marry this awful man. I’ll run away! I will!”
“Don’t speak like a fool,” she snapped. “You have no place to run. You will marry this man and go to Sepphoris with him, and you will make the best of it. That’s what we women do: we make the best of it.”
I sat there on my straw mat, with my robe and tunic pooled around me and Leah’s hands hard on my shoulders, thinking frantically. I’d already tried to go home to my father, and he had rejected me. I could run away, but, if I couldn’t run to Daniel . . . Aunt Leah was right. I had nowhere else to run. I couldn’t destroy Daniel’s future. I wouldn’t.
I shut my eyes tightly. Daniel, I thought. My dearest love.
Slowly I opened my eyes. I wiped away my tears with my veil. My voice was so hard it didn’t sound like my own when I said, “All right, then. I will marry Aaron bar David.”
Chapter Nine
I have little memory of my wedding and the subsequent journey to my husband’s home in Sepphoris. I protected myself from the horror of the experience by locking away the thinking, feeling part of me. My body was present, but my true self was shut away deep inside where no one could find it.
This was how I survived in my new life. I lived in a huge house, with Greek columns, beautiful mosaic floors, rich furniture, and I hated it. I hated every minute I spent there. I hated my old husband, who kept trying to make a child with me. I hated the gossamer silk tunics I wore in imitation of the Roman ladies. I hated the synagogue and the ladies who each tried to outdo the others with her jewels and her husband’s social status.
I had enough sense not to tell my husband how I felt. I’d learned a hard lesson about men: never give them any more power over you than they already possessed. Aaron liked to dress me up and show me off to all his friends, and I went along with it like a child’s doll that does the will of its owner. I raised unseen walls around me and let nothing or no one come in.
Aunt Leah had offered to come to Sepphoris with me, but I had refused. I knew she’d be miserable in a place that didn’t follow the strict rules of Jewish law, and from what I had heard, Sepphoris was more Roman than Jewish. So I was alone. I spent all my free time in the garden, which really was quite lovely. And I thought about Daniel.
I was waiting for him to rescue me. On the horrible nights when Aaron came to my bed, I tried hard to see Daniel’s face and not the old and ugly face of my husband. How I wished they were Daniel’s arms around me and Daniel’s lips touching my skin. I don’t think I could have borne it if it hadn’t been for this fantasy.
I had convinced myself that Daniel would never allow me to be married to someone else—that he would come to Sepphoris and take me away. I didn’t worry about where he would take me. Daniel could read and write. We’d find somewhere in this great Empire where he could be a scribe. He didn’t have to study at the Temple to write letters or keep books for other people. He could do that already.
It was a full year before Daniel arrived. He came on Shavuot, the day we were supposed to have become betrothed. I was in the garden, speaking with our Greek gardener about planting rose bushes, when one of the housemaids came to find me.
“A man is here to see you, my lady. I told him that you were busy, but he was very insistent.”
I replied impatiently, “If it’s the goldsmith, tell him to go away. I don’t want that bracelet he’s been trying to sell me.”
“It’s not the goldsmith. He says he’s your foster brother, my lady. He gave his name as Daniel.”
I stopped breathing. She folded her hands and waited for my reply. “Where is he?” I managed to get out.
“In the foyer, my lady.”
“Bring him to the small reception room. Offer him . . .” I stopped. Daniel couldn’t eat anything that came from Aaron’s unclean kitchen. “Offer him a cup of water, and tell him I’ll be with him shortly.”
The girl flew off to do my bidding, and I ran indoors to change into something more modest. In my bedchamber I pulled a simple cloak out of one of the large clothes chests and flung it over my thin dress. I pulled off my long gold earrings and covered my elaborately dressed hair with a silk scarf. At the last minute I stripped off my rings and bracelets too.
I was shaking as if I had the fever.
I paused at the doorway to compose myself before stepping into the passageway. I walked down the hall and through the main reception room and courtyard with deliberate slowness, my trembling hands clasped tightly in front of me, my breathing coming fast and short. After what seemed like an age, I arrived at the door of the small reception room.
He was standing in the middle of the marble floor, intently regarding the painted lilies on the plaster walls. I advanced a few steps and then stopped, drinking in the sight of him.
Although my sandals made no noise, his dark head swung around almost immediately. It was dim in the room, and I couldn’t see his expression clearly. My heart was thundering.
He said, “I told your maid that I was your foster brother. It seemed easier that way.”
I shivered at the familiar, beloved sound of his voice. I began to walk toward him, my knees so weak I wondered that I could stand up. “You needn’t have worried about the proprieties. Women in Sepphoris have more freedom than they’re allowed in Magdala.”
He made no move to meet me but stood still, his hands quiet at his sides. As he watched me approach, I checked a little, surprised at his stillness.
He was thinner than I remembered. Too thin, I thought.
I searched for something to say. “What did your father tell you about my marriage?”
He lips tightened. “When he came to see me in Jerusalem, you had already left for Sepphoris. He assured me that you’d been happy to win such a wealthy man for your husband. He told me to forget you, that I could marry much higher than a farmer’s daughter from Bethany.”
My mouth was so dry that it was difficult to form words. I longed for his embrace. “Did you believe him, Daniel? Did you think I was willing to marry Aaron?”
“Of course not. I thought he’d probably threatened you the way I’d threatened him.” He narrowed his eyes, and his nostrils flared, and I knew the very thought of what his father had done was making him angry.
This reassured me.
“What did he threaten you with, Mary?”
At the sound of my name on his lips my heart leaped into my throat. I whispered, “He said that if you married me, he would disown you, that you’d become an outcast from all your people, that you’d never be able to become a scribe.”
We stared at each other over the green and white marble that separated us. I said, “I couldn’t do that to you, Daniel. I loved you too much to do that to you.”
He nodded. His long lean body was taut as a strung bow. “I thought it might be something like that.”
I cried, “Why didn’t you come to see me? I’ve been looking for you and looking for you. I was beginning to fear that you believed him!”
He frowned. “How could you have expected me to come? You were married. There was nothing I could gain by seeing you other than tearing my heart apart even more.” He shook his head, as if in despair. “Did you think I could bear seeing you as the wife of another man?”
Tears began to slide down my cheeks.
His voice sounded choked. “Don’t, Mary. You never cry. Remember?”
“I cry all the time now. I cry every time I think of you.”
He took a step toward me, and suddenly we were in each other’s arms. I clung to him, breathing in his scent, pressing my cheek into his shoulder so hard the wool was leaving creases on my skin.
He held me so tightly that it hurt, and I reveled in it. Daniel, I thought. Daniel, my dearest love.
When I felt his grip loosen, I forced myself to let him go. I looked up, waiting for him to tell me he didn’t care about the opinion of the world, that he’d take me away from Aaron and we would be together again.
He said hoarsely, “I’ve come to see you because I wanted you to know that I’m leaving Jerusalem and my studies. I’m going to join the Essenes.”
I stared at him, not taking in what he had said.
“I’m going to Qumran. The Essenes have a great library there, and they’re anxious to get me. I don’t think I’ll ever come back.”
I heard the sharp intake of my breath. “The Essenes? You’re leaving me to live like a beggar in the desert?”
His voice was patient, the way it had always sounded when he was explaining a passage of scripture to me. “The Essenes are not beggars. They’re a group of holy men who pledge themselves to celibacy and a disciplined life of prayer. They choose to live in the desert because it’s far from Jerusalem. They can live and pray in the desert unmolested by the corruption of the Temple and all it stands for.”
I stared at him, speechless.
He began to pace up and down in front of the painted lilies. “Our people are in desperate need, Mary. A godless Empire occupies our country, and our own religious leaders have been corrupted by money. Animal sacrifice, and the money it brings in, is the business of the Temple these days, not prayer. I found that out during the year I spent in Jerusalem. We need to be saved from ourselves as well as from the Romans. We need the Messiah to come now, Mary, and that is what the Essenes pray for. They pray for the coming of the Messiah. That’s why I wish to join them. The Messiah is our only hope of salvation.”
If he joined the Essenes he would truly be lost to me forever. Even if my husband should die, Daniel would have sworn himself to celibacy.
“Don’t do this,” I pleaded. “Don’t leave me, Daniel. Please don’t leave me.”
His red-brown eyes were somber. “I’ve prayed over this, Mary. I’m going to the Essenes to purify myself, so that I can pray for you as well as for the Messiah. God will surely listen to a prayer when it comes from a heart made pure by sacrifice.”
I cared nothing for his purity of heart, but I knew, just by looking at him, that his mind was made up and that nothing I could say would change it.
A blessed numbness descended on my brain. I managed to choke out, “Then God bless you, Daniel.”
He lifted his hand and touched my cheek. “God bless you, my most dearly beloved. I will pray for you as long as I live.”
I stood perfectly still in the middle of the room, listening to the sound his sandals made on the floor as he left.
When I felt able to move, I told the servants I was ill and slipped away to my room. One of the blessings of living in such a large house was that I had a bedroom to myself, and I crawled into the big, soft Roman bedstead and lay like a wounded animal seeking solitude to heal or to die.
I stayed in bed for a week. I vomited a few times, and I knew that Aaron hoped my sickness was because I was with child. I also knew that wasn’t the case. I would never have a child with Aaron. My flesh and soul cringed away from him whenever he came near me. How could a child of his find a home within my body?
During that solitary week I thought long and hard about my life. Daniel wasn’t going to save me after all. The hope I’d clung to during the last year had been smashed.
The more I thought, the more I realized what an unrealistic hope it had been. The dream of going out into the world hand in hand with Daniel was a child’s dream. Daniel had known that. And he was paying for his father’s evil too, hiding himself in the Judean wilderness with a sect of strange, celibate men.
Meanwhile I was left here in Sepphoris, married to an old man. But Aaron was very proud of me, and for most of the time I was perfectly free to do whatever I wished. I had no more bread to bake or laundry to wash or goats to feed. No more children to watch.
I tried not to think about how much I missed the children.
It was time for me to look ahead, not behind, time for me to make a meaningful life for myself in this foreign place. It was the only way I could show that Lord Benjamin hadn’t defeated me.
On the seventh day I came out of my room and prepared to begin again.
Part 2
Marcus Novius Claudius
Chapter Ten
My new life began one afternoon six months later, when I met Julia Tiberia. I was wandering among the array of stalls in the Upper Market, trying to pass some time until I’d have to go home, when I stopped at the sandalmaker’s stall. Another woman stopped as well, and as if at a signal we both pointed to the same pair of jeweled sandals. We looked at each other and burst out laughing. I insisted that she should have them, and she insisted that I should, and we fell into talk. As it turned out, neither of us bought the sandals; instead we continued to talk as we made our way down the hill from the Upper Market. Before we parted, Julia invited me to visit her.
The invitation shocked me. Jews didn’t move in the rarefied atmosphere of Julia Tiberia’s circle. I knew of her from the gossip spouted by my husband’s friends’ wives. She was the wealthy widow of Sepphoris’ last Roman governor and had chosen to remain in the city after her husband’s death. The gossipers said she wielded enormous social power among the Roman elite, a situation that very much annoyed the wife of the present governor.
Aaron was ecstatic when I told him about the invitation. He kept repeating her name as if he were reciting some holy text. He made me so nervous that by the time I left our house two afternoons later, I was wishing she’d never invited me.
I took a litter to Julia Tiberia’s house in the Roman part of town. In Magdala we walked everywhere, but here women of the upper classes rode in litters. It was a rule I often flouted, but on this particular day I thought it was probably wise to do the correct thing.
The Romans, like King Herod, had copied Greek architecture, but the houses in this part of town were set farther back from the street than in ours. When I descended from the litter, I had to walk up a stone pathway, which was set in a courtyard filled with shrubs, flowers,
and statues. The large bronze front door swung open just before I reached it, so I knew the house porter had been waiting for me. He greeted me in Latin.
I smiled apologetically and replied in Greek, “I’m sorry, I don’t know your language. I’m Mary, the wife of Aaron bar David. Julia Tiberia is expecting me.”
“Lady Julia is in the garden,” he answered, switching easily to Greek. “I will take you to her.”
The house was no larger than Aaron’s, but it was much brighter. I realized, as we walked from the vestibule into the first room, that sunlight was pouring through an opening in the roof. A marble pool lay under the opening, which I later discovered was used to collect rainwater. Marble pillars supported the roof, the floors were made of marble tiles with contrasting colors, and the ceiling was covered with ivory and gold. As in Jewish homes, doors were placed along the side of the room, with latticework allowing the light from the court to enter.
The porter must have seen me gawking, for he said pleasantly, “This is the atrium, the room Lady Julia uses for entertainment. The next room, the peristylum, is for the family.”
We passed through a narrow corridor and entered a room that looked like an indoor garden. The opening in the roof was much larger than in the atrium, and all sorts of beautiful plants and flowers bloomed among the palm and fig trees that grew in large pots around a central reflecting pool.
I glanced at the colorful mosaic floor and quickly looked away. The depiction of naked men chasing after beautiful young women would have been shocking even if they had been fully clothed. It is forbidden for Jews to have any representation of the human body.
“The garden is just beyond,” the porter said, and we crossed the room and went outdoors.
Julia Tiberia was sitting at a white stone table with a papyrus scroll in her hands. She glanced up as we came in.
