The Priest's Madonna

by Hassinger, Amy

  The four of us knelt before the stone, each on one side. I took a cleaning rag from my belt and wiped the surface thoroughly. As the layers of dust came off, the contours grew more distinguishable, though years—centuries—of shifting soil had ground them down, blurring the shapes. There were four panels on the stone, set off from each other by patterned arches. On the bottom left, a figure stood by a horse, which drank at a trough. Above the arch that circumscribed that panel, two animals were pictured, one fleeing the other. To the right of that, another panel showed the two animals facing each other, on either side of a tree trunk, their teeth bared. And below that panel, beneath another patterned arch, a knight rode his horse, a spear in one arm, an indistinguishable object in the other—an urn, a figurine or maybe even a child.

  “You’ve got something here, Monsieur le curé,” said one of the workmen. “Something old.”

  The other sat back on his heels. “What’s in the case?”

  A look of desperation passed over Bérenger’s face. I could see the impulse to hide the bag, get rid of the workers—it was the same impulse I’d had when I found the flask in the baluster. Instead, he bravely worked the sticky latch open.

  The case released a metallic scent, like blood. Inside was a scattering of items: a silver chalice and bowl, a tiny copper bell ornamented with a red cross, a frayed silk stole, a golden censer and chain. There were a few porcelain statuettes—Saint Roch, Sainte Germaine, the Virgin Mother—and a large golden cross, like the one that crowned the new altar. A small framed painting of a grieving Sainte Marie Madeleine, her hair long and loose, lay at the bottom of the case, and scattered across the face of this painting were dozens of coins.

  The worker who’d asked about the case reached for one of the coins, but Bérenger quickly moved the case away.

  “Treasure!” exclaimed the other worker, half in jest.

  Bérenger snorted. “They’re nothing but old church things. Left here by an earlier priest. Not worth much.”

  “What about those coins?” asked the other worker suspiciously.

  “Just old brass medals from Lourdes.”

  “They look gold to me,” said the worker. “Louis d’or pieces. My father had a few when I was a kid.”

  Bérenger picked one up. “They’re light as air,” he said, before biting it. “See? Brass. If it were gold, your teeth would sink right in.”

  “Let’s see.” The worker held out a hand.

  Bérenger tossed the coin in the case and snapped it shut.

  “Please replace the stone, facedown. When you’ve finished that, you may go.”

  “Wait!” I protested. “Why?” I wanted to examine the stone. If nothing else, I thought it should be replaced with the relief work exposed, so that others could see what an extraordinary thing we’d found.

  He fixed me with a stern gaze. “Marie. I’m sorry, but this is not your business. Do as I say, please,” he instructed the workmen once more, and when they had completed the task, he followed them out of the sanctuary, the case in one hand and the old book in his pocket.

  I followed, alive with anger. “How dare you say it’s not my business?!” I shouted. “I found the flask! I brought it to you!” The crew of workmen were all around the grounds of the church—on the roof, near the bell tower, gathered in a group by the outer wall just near us. They all watched, intrigued by the spectacle of a girl chastising a priest.

  Bérenger strode toward the presbytery, his back rigid. I followed, ready to enter with him, but he shut the door behind him. I pounded on it. “Bérenger!” I yelled. “Let me in!”

  Some of the workmen burst into laughter. I walked home in fury and despair, ignoring their voices, pitched high like mine, and mocking, “Bérenger! Oh, mon cher curé! Oh, Bérenger!”

  The Sinner

  She was unfamiliar with herself. A new quiet dwelt in her—her thoughts came in a hush, her movements were slow and gentle, a steady forward motion. She felt strangely light, spacious, her mind an empty sunlit room. Her vision, too, was affected: the men she’d seen before through the lenses of judgment and fear, who had appeared rough and brutal, uncaring and ambitious, now she saw as simply hungry for the love of God. They were children, all of them, as temperamental and as easily soothed. The demons were gone: the curses that leapt from her lips, the thrashing, the inopportune laughter, the heartache, the wakefulness, the lust. Most of all, the fear. The fear was gone, and with it went its handmaidens: anxiety, anger, hatred, worry, self-obsession. How cluttered, how obscure her world had been! She could not believe she had lived with such obstructions to her perception, in such a profound darkness. Life, she saw now, was light, it was light.

  It was the morning, its delicate breath of dawn over the mountains. The way it gilded the dew-misted grasses as she collected cedar branches for the fire and the brown conies and green lizards scurried into leafy darkness. It was the heat of the flames on her face and hands, the iridescent scales on her fingers after she skew ered the fish. The crescendo of the dawn’s tender yellow into riotous pinks and oranges and then full, prismatic daylight! How daring it was, how joyous! Even the darkness existed in relation to the light, as its absence. Even the night had the hopeful light of the moon and stars, a dim reflection of the coming joy of morning.

  The crowds were changed, too. Their eyes, which had enervated her to the point of madness, were now shining moons reflecting the resplendence of God. They were just as desperate, just as needy, but they no longer threatened her, for now her mind was peaceful. Her consciousness was a single flame burning. It was this peace she now offered the people who bunched and clamored and shouted and wept. Shh, she wanted to tell them all. Shh, stroking their hair and cheeks. We are temporary residents here. Look around you at the beauty. Taste what is good. Be kind to one another. Know joy. You will be traveling soon.

  More women had joined their group. Yochanah, who had left Herod’s royal court to travel with them, Shoshannah, and Shlomit, among others. They began to seek her out, shyly, drawn to her new-found peace. Though she was young and did not have the status of a married woman, she had followed Yeshua the longest, and this gave her an authority that seemed now to suit her. The women all worked together, buying food and necessities, preparing the meals, washing the clothes, drying them on rocks in the sun, serving and pouring and clearing and cleaning—but they deferred now, in their gestures, the cants of their heads, the volume of their voices, to Miryam of Magdala. She beamed among them like a beacon.

  The crowd that followed them was growing. Yeshua seemed both invigorated and agitated by the force of the multitudes. He could no longer reach everyone with his voice unless he stood on slopes, stone walls, roofs—even on the decks of fishing boats in order to be seen and to avoid the swarming pressure of the crowds. Miryam and the other women ministered to the people, bringing fish and bread, dripping water onto the parched lips of the sick, listening to Yeshua when they could. Miryam hummed while she moved through the crowds.

  While they were in Naïn, Shimon the Parush scholar—a wealthy man who enjoyed entertainment and had heard of the crowds that came to see Yeshua—invited Yeshua to dine at his table, along with several other men, all prominent members of the city. Levi, who knew Shimon and did not like him, urged Yeshua not to go. “He wants to humiliate you. Pardon me, Rabbi, but he considers himself of a higher order than you—and he wants you to know it.” But Yeshua ignored him. He accepted all invitations—from publican or Parush, leper or executioner. And he wanted Miryam to come, too.

  “They’ll turn me away,” she protested. “A woman not your wife?”

  “I want you there,” was all he would say. She assented nervously. She feared that they were entering a trap of some kind; she had known people like Shimon in Magdala—people who cared only for status.

  Miryam dined with the women and children in a separate room, though they could hear the men’s voices easily. They bent their heads as Shimon blessed the food in the next room, and when the men were fi
nished with the wine of the benediction, the servant brought the dregs of the cup in to them. They feasted on pickled roe, sheep’s tail, cucumbers and olives dressed with honey and cream, lentils boiled with leeks and coriander, and breads flavored with cumin and cinnamon. For dessert the servants brought platters of dates, figs, pomegranates, almonds, and cashews. The wine was spiced. The children ate quickly and left the table to play; the women spoke of their families in hushed voices, so as not to interrupt the conversation of the men. They asked after Miryam’s family, assuming she was Yeshua’s wife. “Where are your children?” they said. “Do they not travel with you?”

  Miryam had only half heard the question; she had been listening for Yeshua’s voice in the next room. “My children?” she asked. “I have no children.” She knew the proper thing would be to clarify that she was not married to Yeshua or anyone else, but she could not bring herself to admit it.

  The woman who had asked her apologized, then turned away and did not address her again, nor did any of the others. This suited Miryam. She was too preoccupied with the well-being of Yeshua.

  Suddenly, the men’s conversation ceased. The women hushed immediately. There was a long pause. Finally Shimon spoke. “A true prophet would know who it was that was touching him like that,” he said, his voice replete with scorn. “And wouldn’t allow it.”

  Yeshua spoke. “Shimon,” he said.

  “Yes, Rabbi,” Shimon said sarcastically. Another man laughed.

  “I have a question for you.”

  “Ask it, then,” said Shimon.

  “There was a creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii and the other owed fifty. Neither could pay. So the creditor forgave both debts.”

  “A foolish creditor,” said Shimon; laughter followed.

  “Here is my question. Which of his debtors will love him more?” asked Yeshua.

  “The one who borrowed more, of course. He was forgiven a larger amount.”

  “Look at this woman,” Yeshua said. The women exchanged surprised glances. Who could he be talking about? All the women were in their room. Miryam stood and, stepping between the dishes of food, made her way to the door. From there she could see the men. They ate in the Roman fashion: reclining on divans, their heads near the table, their legs stretched toward the wall. A young woman, her head uncovered and decorated with a jeweled silver strand, her shoulders and feet bare, knelt by Yeshua. She held one of his feet in her hands and kissed it again and again, as if she were sipping from a goblet. Blood rushed to Miryam’s face and neck.

  “I am looking at her. It’s hard not to,” said Shimon. Then, abruptly, he commanded his servant, “Get her out of here. She’s embarrassing our guests and defiling the meal.” The servant moved toward the woman, but Yeshua sat up and lifted her to his side. The servant stood over them, hesitating.

  “When I came tonight, Shimon, you did not wash my feet, kiss my cheek, or anoint me with oil, as is proper with guests. This woman, who does not know me nor has the responsibilities of a host, this woman has washed my feet with her own tears and dried them with her hair. She has anointed them with ointment and kissed them as if they were the faces of her own children.” The woman broke into sobs and laid her face in Yeshua’s lap.

  “She’s a whore, Yeshua,” said one of the men. “She’s a professional at making men feel good.”

  “I don’t care what she is,” Yeshua continued while the woman sobbed into his thigh. “She is full of love, and her sins, numerous though they may be, are forgiven.”

  “Who are you to forgive sins?” said Shimon angrily. “Take her away, I tell you,” he said to his servant, who approached the woman once again and lifted her roughly from Yeshua’s lap.

  “Your faith is great,” Yeshua said to her. “It will keep you.”

  The servant led the woman to the door where Miryam was standing, and she stood aside as they passed, noticing the woman’s crooked nose and missing teeth. Yeshua and the other men watched her leave; then their eyes fell on Miryam. She knew she should hide herself; it was not right for a woman to interrupt a gathering of men, but her face and chest tingled with anger and humiliation.

  “Who is she, Yeshua?” she asked.

  “The women are bold tonight,” said Shimon.

  Yeshua met Miryam’s eye, but his expression told her nothing. Then he turned back to his dinner.

  “If you think I have invited you to my house in order to humiliate you, you are wrong,” she heard Shimon say, but she did not stay to hear the rest. The servant who had escorted the woman outside was coming back in; Miryam left by that door.

  The night was cool, the moon full and high in the sky, shining brightly on the road. The servant had thrown the barefoot woman to the ground. She wept there, her forehead pressed into the dust. Miryam stood against the warm stone wall of the house. The woman lifted her head and regarded Miryam with kohl-smudged eyes.

  “You’re his wife,” she said.

  “No,” said Miryam. “His wife is dead. He has no wife.”

  The woman got to her feet and brushed the dust from her clothes and hair. “You’re one of those women, then, who follow him around?”

  Miryam looked away. She hadn’t known that anyone had thought of her in that way, as “one of those women.”

  “I’d like to go with you. I wish I could. But I have children. You’re lucky,” the woman said. “Shalom.” She began to walk away.

  “Why did you do that in there?” Miryam asked, her voice raised. The woman turned. “Why did you touch him like that?”

  “Don’t be jealous,” she said. She shook her head. “You’re with him all the time. I only had this one chance. I took it.”

  “You didn’t know him, then?”

  “No. Don’t worry. He’s never come to see me.”

  “Weren’t you afraid you’d be thrown out?”

  The woman laughed. “I’m not afraid of Shimon. We’re acquainted.” She raised her hand. “Shalom,” she said again. “God be with you.” And she walked down the road toward the center of the city, her shoulders like sanded marble in the moonlight.

  Miryam watched the woman go, then walked in the opposite direction, down the hill in search of water. She wanted to bathe her feet, to sink her toes in mud. She missed her family. She missed the smell of her bedclothes—lake water and rosemary, from where they were hung to dry. She missed her father’s voice, his gentle attention. She missed the cascading laughter of her sisters. And her mother! How she missed her mother, her quiet concentration, her patience, her anger even, for it was an anger Miryam understood. She did not understand Yeshua—his anger or his love for her.

  Nor did she understand her desire. It had not completely left her. It was no longer a thirst of the skin, but a gentler spreading warmth, like sunlight heating her from within. When he came to her at night and rested his head in her lap, weeping sometimes with exhaustion—“A man’s life is anguish, Miryam! It is a long journey of agony and anguish!”—she laced her fingers through his thick hair and massaged his scalp, all the while feeling herself softening. At times, she wept with him—but while he wept for humanity, she wept for herself, for her loneliness. It shamed her.

  Chapter Seven

  I WAS FURIOUS with Bérenger for treating me so dis missively. I had thought we were partners—I had brought him the flask, after all, and he had confided the Austrian’s secret request in me. But he had disregarded my wish to examine the stone, and was hoarding the case and the book, a discovery we’d made together. I felt excluded, not only from the secrets we’d been sharing, but also from his affection. I punished him once again with a broody silence. I hoped he might come to me with an apology, a joke, a modest display of remorse. He did no such thing. He spent most of his time in the church, painting the bas-relief on the face of the new main altar. If I entered the nave to sweep or dust, he did not look up. If I addressed him, he answered politely, but briefly.

  He was not much of an artist, and it puzzled me why he�
�d chosen to paint the picture himself. But as I watched, as the colors brought definition to the shapes and exposed the scene—Marie Madeleine in her grotto, kneeling before a thin cross of green wood, a book open at her elbow and a skull at her knees—I understood. I saw how worshipfully he touched the brush to her skin, her golden dress, her long curls and heavy eyebrows, how he lingered over her face, mixing and remixing his colors to achieve the perfect shade of rose for her cheeks.

  One afternoon, bitten by envy, I accused him: “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

  He turned, startled. “Marie. I didn’t know you were there.”

  “The way you paint her. The way you linger over her body with the brush. It’s almost … immoral.” I blushed as I spoke, for I hadn’t found the right word. It wasn’t immoral at all: it was endearing and seductive.

  He snorted. “There’s nothing immoral about loving a saint. On the contrary. Adoring a saint softens the heart, make us more willing to receive the grace of God.”

  “Why her, though? Why not Mother Mary? Or Saint Francis? Or Jesus himself, for that matter?”

  He looked at the painting. “It’s her ardor,” he said. “The tears of the Madeleine make God bend toward all of us, make him willing to forgive us. If it weren’t for her, we’d all be damned from birth.”

  “Aren’t we already?” I pressed.

  “There’s our baptism, Marie. Baptism remits the stain and punishment of original sin. You know that.”

  “But it doesn’t save us.”

  “Not by itself, no. We sin and we sin again. Only the grace of God and a willing heart can do that.” He began to paint once more.

  His piety both chastened and enraged me. “What have you done with the things you found under the stone?” I demanded, unable to contain the question any longer.

  “I’ve put them away for the time being. I’ve written again to the Austrian, and I will wait upon his word.” He spoke with studied calm and continued to paint, his eyes remaining on the bas-relief.