by Ann Swinfen
I felt a cold sickness in the pit of my stomach. My lips shaped the word ‘die?’, but no sound emerged.
‘But the when,’ said Yehûdâ, more calmly than I could have done. ‘When do you plan to go to Jerusalem?’
‘Not this year,’ said Yeshûa. ‘I shall not call in your debt before then, my brother.’
They exchanged a look of some complex and deep meaning that I did not understand. Soon afterwards my brother left us, saying he was tired.
It was then that Yehûdâ told me about the promise unfulfilled between them, and the debt my brother could call in.
At last, around the beginning of the month of Tishri, with the grape harvest underway, Yeshûa decided that it was safe for us to return to the Galilee. This time we went by the main road, which followed, wherever possible, the valleys and lower passes between the mountains, and which made for easier walking. Despite what Yeshûa had said in Tyre, we did not return to Capernaum. Towards the end of our journey, when we were a few miles from the town, we met a young boy sitting at the roadside, a nephew of Zebedee’s.
‘We had word you were coming,’ he said, ‘so my uncle sent me to warn you. There are troops of the tetrarch in town, searching for you. My uncle thinks they discovered you were coming and have laid a trap.’
Yôhânân! I thought. He has betrayed us, to force my brother’s hand. But I could never prove it. Perhaps I did him an injustice.
Yeshûa, Yehûdâ and Shim’ôn conferred together. Should we turn back, or cross the Jordan at once?
‘We will avoid Capernaum,’ my brother said decisively, ‘and cross the river. In Bethsaida we can send word for others to join us, before we head further east.’
He turned to the boy. ‘Tell your uncle that we will stay a week in Bethsaida. And I am grateful to you for the warning.’
So we skirted the north end of Gennesaret and found ourselves again in Bethsaida, where Salome and Joanna joined us, but no others. There were no crowds to greet us, and our arrival went almost unnoticed, but a few days later Yeshûa, with a few of the shelîhîm, went by boat to Magdala, where Yehûdâ and I had taken a midday meal at the lakeside inn all those long months ago. The girl I had been then seemed almost a stranger to me, impulsively running after her brother and his friend, shocked by that shameful attack in our village. Now I was a confident and respected member of Yeshûa’s devoted followers, where men and women were treated with equal dignity and honour. Not that our roles were so very much changed in many respects. We women cooked and mended, the men fished. When the boat left for Magdala, we stayed behind because there was a great deal of washing to do, after our journey.
As we knelt together on the shore of the lake, beating the dirt out of the clothes against the smooth stones, Maryam confided in me that she was glad we had not been in the small party which had gone to Magdala.
‘I should be recognised there, and shamed,’ she said. ‘I barely escaped with my life before, for it had been decreed that I should be stoned to death.’
‘Why . . .’ I was not sure how to phrase it with delicacy, ‘. . . why did you take up such a life?’
She shrugged. Although she now wore sober clothes and swathed her head and shoulders in a mantle, no matter how hot the weather, she was still the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Compared with her, my sister’s Melkha’s looks seemed nothing but a coarse illusion of prettiness.
‘I was left an orphan at the age of twelve. No betrothal had been arranged for me, no dowry laid by, I had no skills. What could I do?’
‘Had you no other relatives who could take you in?’
‘None but a rich uncle in Scythopolis with six daughters, who did not want another to provide for.’
‘But surely the Law says . . .’
She shrugged again.
‘The Law is of no account when it contradicts a selfish man’s own desires.’
She flashed me a sudden smile.
‘But now I have found a family, and a sister too.’
I reached out a wet arm and hugged her.
When Yeshûa and the others returned from Magdala, they seemed subdued.
‘What has happened?’ I asked Yehûdâ, when Yeshûa had said he wanted nothing to eat, and had gone to his room and closed the door.
‘There was a party of Pharisees there. They mocked him whenever he tried to preach, and demanded a heavenly sign that he was a true prophet. None of the people wanted to listen to him. Then on the way back to Bethsaida in the boat, the other shelîhîm started arguing and complaining that they had no bread. It’s true we were all hungry, for no one offered us a meal in Magdala, but that was little enough to bear. We knew we should dine when we reached here. They thought Yeshûa should do as Moses did, and conjure bread out of the air.’
‘And what did he do?’
‘He told them that he was the bread of heaven, the living bread, but they were too stupid to understand him.’
‘They are not educated men,’ I said. ‘I think sometimes Yeshûa speaks too much in symbols and riddles for them.’
‘Perhaps. But surely they should understand his message by now.’
He strode away, frowning. I let him go. He was tired and hungry and cross. And perhaps he too was wondering how long we must all wait for the coming of the new kingdom.
This was the beginning of a bad time for us. Many of Yeshûa’s followers in the area began to drift away. We had been gone from the Galilee for so long that they had resumed their normal lives, their work on the boats or in the fields, their family duties. There was a son here to be trained in a craft, a daughter there to be married, an aged relative to be buried. Men must eat. Families must be provided for. One cannot live forever on dreams. When Yeshûa had first come, working his cures and promising a wonderful new life—which some understood to mean a kind of second Eden, free of sickness and want and labour—a shock of excitement and hope had run through the Galilee. But now they had seen the prophet, the teacher, the mashiha, flee into exile in Phoenicia. On his return, nothing had happened, no easing of their labour, no freedom from the occupiers. They had begun to doubt him.
What was worse, he had begun to doubt himself again. Gone was the confident leader who had laid out his plans to Yehûdâ and me round that table in Tyre. He was hardly seen in public. Sometimes he would break off in the midst of his prayers to look anxiously at the disciples and ask, ‘Who do people say that I am?’
We all tried to comfort him and restore his courage, but he seemed to have lost his way. He even began to ask the chosen shelîhîm if they wanted to leave him, and he talked morbidly of his own death. He was certain now that he would be executed like our cousin, with his mission unaccomplished.
‘Never,’ said the fisherman Shim’ôn, who showed himself loyal and steadfast in those dark days. ‘It shall not happen to you, Lord.’
At that suddenly Yeshûa turned on him furiously and shouted, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan.’
We were all shocked into silence as he stormed out of the room. Shim’ôn made as if to go after him, but Yehûdâ shook his head.
‘He did not mean it, Shim’ôn. He is in great distress of mind.’
The next day Yeshûa announced that we were leaving at once for Caesarea Philippi, in the far north of Philip’s tetrarchy. We all thought that he intended to begin his preaching again in this new region, as he had planned. When we arrived, however, after an arduous journey, he refused to allow us to go into the city—he always hated cities. Instead we took up residence in some caves on the lower slopes of Mount Hermon. They were pleasant enough, clean and dry. We had brought some food with us and more was brought as a gift by a few curious amê hâ-’erets, who had heard of this healer and preacher.
As we sat around our fire on the floor of the largest cave, scooping up our meal of boiled beans and dried fish with our fingers, Yeshûa said suddenly, ‘I think we must disband. I shall give up my ministry. You should all go back to your homes.’
We stared at him disbelieving
ly. I am sure the others must have been thinking the same as I: Why bring us all this long journey to Caesarea Philippi, merely to tell us to go home again?
Yehûdâ put down his food bowl, wiped his fingers on his tunic and laid his hand on my brother’s arm.
‘No,’ he said firmly, ‘you will not abandon your ministry. All of us here believe in you and are loyal to you. Our exile in Tyre was a setback, but when was there ever a great enterprise that did not suffer setbacks? You must continue. You have told us yourself, countless times, that Yahweh wills it so. We are going to change the world!’
We all began to support him, saying that we would not abandon Yeshûa. However long it took for him to find his way, we would stay with him.
Finally Shim’ôn said, looking at him with shining eyes, ‘You have been sent to the children of Israel to guide us to the new kingdom. Lord, you are the long-promised mashiha, as was written in the scriptures of old.’
‘No,’ said Yeshûa, angrily. ‘No! I am not the mashiha. I am but a humble prophet. But it is true, the Lord has bidden me to carry forth his word.’
He ran his hand over his face and was silent for a while.
‘I am sorry, Shim’ôn. I should not have shouted at you. I will think on these things. We will not disband yet.’
Chapter Fifteen
We spent many weeks on Mount Hermon, while my brother struggled in his mind. Much of the time he sat alone, unwilling to speak to us. And he was given to sudden outbursts of anger, as if that was the only way he could relieve his agony of self-doubt. It was the beginning of winter when we arrived and soon the weather turned bitter, high on our mountainside. We had little in the way of garments or blankets to keep us warm, so that we kept a fire burning, day and night. The first task of every morning, for everyone of us, even my brother, was to climb down to the lower slopes, where the forest began, and to gather as much dry wood as possible to carry back to the cave. At first the men slept in the largest cave, where we took our meals, and the women withdrew to a smaller cave at night. Once the frosts began, however, Yoanna and Salome came to Yeshûa with a different suggestion.
‘It is possible to keep the small cave warmer than this one, Lord,’ said Yoanna. ‘The roof is lower and the entrance so small you have to stoop. Let us make that the home for all of us.’
‘It is not seemly,’ he said, ‘for the men and the women to sleep in the same cave.’
But they had an answer for that.
‘At the back of the small cave,’ Salome said, ‘there is, as it were, an inner room, a hollow place in the wall, large enough for the women to withdraw to at night. That way we may sleep separately but share the warmth of one fire.’
When he had inspected the smaller cave, he agreed to this arrangement, and we moved all our belongings, our small store of food, our cooking vessels and our firewood in there. At night, I slept back to back with the Magdalene. By sleeping thus in pairs, we women gained a little warmth from each other, though I lay awake many nights, shivering with the cold and the icy draughts that crept like frosty fingers down the back of my neck.
The cold might not have seemed so penetrating if we had had more food, but the store we had brought with us had nearly run out and there were no more gifts of food from the local people, who had lost interest in us. On the morning of the first snow, Yehûdâ set off with an empty sack to walk down the mountainside and then on the few miles to Caesarea Philippi to buy supplies. He was still our treasurer, though he pointed out to Yeshûa that our funds were limited.
‘I will buy cheaply,’ he said, ‘so do not expect a banquet when I return. We will have to survive on one meal a day.’
All of us watched out eagerly for his return. He came at last, climbing wearily up to the cave and dumping his sack on the ground.
‘What have you bought?’ Salome asked hopefully.
‘Lentils, mostly. They will fill our bellies. And barley flour, cheaper than wheat. As we have no grindstone, I couldn’t buy the raw grain.’
As he spoke, she was lifting the individual bags out of his sack.
‘Three onions,’ she said. ‘Good.’
‘You must make them last, for they were not cheap.’
‘And dried beans. And a marrow bone.’
‘I thought you could make soup.’
‘Yes, you’ve done well, Yehûdâ. We can use the bone more than once for broth. And when the beans have soaked, they will swell to twice the size.’
‘At least we have no lack of water, with the stream almost at our door.’ He reached inside the breast of his tunic and drew out a twist of cloth, tied with twine. ‘I brought this too. Salt.’
After his expedition to buy food, Yehûdâ found himself in favour again. We had hot food that night and went to bed not quite so hungry. It was as well, for that night it snowed much more heavily, blowing up into a blizzard that kept us confined for several days.
It was a strange time, those winter months in the cave. Although most of us had been together for a long while, we had not lived in such intimacy before. Sometimes this was good, when we would sing and joke together. The men would scratch a board in the earth of the cave floor and play their interminable games with pebbles as counters. The women would mend clothes or tell stories. Sometimes our close confinement meant that arguments broke out, even quarrels, which upset my brother, so that he would go outside, even if it was snowing, and roam about on the mountainside. This might be enough to shame the disciples into harmony, but not always. One favourite topic of their disputes was the question of who should stand highest in the hierarchy of the new kingdom when it came. I could see how much this distressed Yeshûa, and grew so angry with them myself that once I followed him out into the snow, lest I should say something I might regret. I caught up with Yeshûa and slipped my arm through his. For a while we walked doggedly on, our feet making deep hollows in the fallen snow, while a dark mass of fresh snow whirled round our heads.
‘I have failed, Mariam,’ he said despairingly. ‘How can they have understood my message, if they dispute about who shall stand first?’
I squeezed his arm.
‘They are mostly good men, my dear. It’s this confinement that wears them down. They’ve always been active and they need to be up and doing.’
‘You’re probably right.’ He shrugged and would not look at me.
‘Will you take up your mission again?’ I asked slowly, aware that this was treading on delicate ground.
‘Perhaps,’ was all he would say.
Every couple of weeks, Yehûdâ would go down again to the city to buy supplies, but our money was running very short by the time the thaw came and new streams began to run down the mountain, fed by the melting snow. Soon after this, a very curious incident occurred. Few of us witnessed it, and we did not know what to make of it. One evening as it was nearing sunset, and some of the men were dozing by the fire, Yeshûa shook three of them awake: Shim’ôn and the two sons of Zebedee, Ya’kob and Yôhânân.
He said simply, ‘Come with me.’
We watched them start to climb higher up the mountain, and I wondered where he was taking them. Not to gather firewood, for that was lower down. The three fishermen were still half asleep as they staggered after him. A glorious sunset was spreading itself across the western sky, and I shaded my eyes as they disappeared into it. Yeshûa had never quite given up the habit, learned at Qumrân, of rising sometimes to watch the sunrise, but he did not usually pay much heed to sunset. We had begun making the evening meal when the three shelîhîm stumbled into the cave, all talking at once. They were beside themselves, with a mixture of fear, excitement and exultation.
‘We have seen our lord, transfigured into pure light!’ said Shim’ôn.
‘Moses and Elijah,’ Yôhânân gabbled. ‘I have seen Moses and Elijah on Yeshûa’s either hand. I thought I should be lifted up on a cloud! The Lord be praised, for the Lord God is great!’ And he fell on the floor, writhing in a kind of ecstasy, dribbling at the mouth.
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‘We all saw them,’ his brother said, with—I thought—a slight touch of irritation. ‘They were all three bathed in light.’
‘Yes,’ said Shim’ôn, eager not to be left out. ‘Then the hand of Yahweh laid a cloud over the sun, the light vanished, and a voice from on high said—’
Yôhânân interrupted him, lifting his head from the ground, ‘This is my beloved Son: hear him.’
We looked at one another. Some seemed hurt that they had not been vouchsafed this vision. Others looked as though they thought the three had still hardly woken and were dazzled by the setting sun shining in their eyes.
‘Surely you are mistaken,’ said Tôma.
‘Where is my brother?’ I asked quietly.
‘I am here.’
He stood in the doorway of the cave, his head a little stooped because of the low entrance. He did not seem to me to be transformed into some kind of supernatural being. But there was something strange about him. The evening sky was all on fire behind him, so that his dark curls seemed tipped with flame. He held himself tightly together, like a runner about to spring forward at the start of a race. His fists were clenched, his eyes bright, and his voice rang out with confidence and determination.
‘We leave tomorrow,’ he said, ducking into the cave. ‘We go forth on our mission.’
‘Our mission of peace?’ said Yôhânân, with a note of interrogation in his voice.
Yeshûa spun on his heel to confront him.
‘Think not that I am come to send peace on earth,’ he shouted. ‘I come not to send peace, but a sword.’
I flinched away from him. Surely this was not my brother speaking? Was he possessed? I felt sick with shock at his words, but one or two of the shelîhîm, amongst them Yôhânân and his brother, exchanged looks of satisfaction.
Although the ground was still wet with the spring thaw, the walking was fairly easy back to Capernaum, where Yeshûa hoped to gather again more of his followers before we went down into Judaea. We talked as we made our way south past the reed-fringed shores of little Lake Hula and followed the Jordan down to the north end of Gennesaret. Now that we were on the move again after the months of stagnation, the shelîhîm were full of eagerness.
