John too knows he will die for love and for pity. He turns to Salome with a fond and impish smile. “Tell them what it is you have heard your voice say.”
Salome darts a glance my way. Does she too see her favorite die? All her life, Salome has seen further and faster than I—does she still?
“I heard a voice,” says Simon Magus, whose own voice sounds out firm and confident, though I know the truth of it, and the ring of it causes the birds to cease their babble, “and the voice came to me not at night from out of the darkness but at the height of the day, and the voice said that the name of John the Baptizer would ring through the ages with a mighty sound.” And there he stops.
“And?” urges John.
By the moon, Salome fears to speak. Is it because I hear her?
“And?” John urges once more.
Simon Magus is left without choice; he must continue. “And the voice said that where John led, a people would follow.”
John slaps a hand on his knee. He turns back to Yeshu and smiles a child’s smile. “You see! How could I not go when everyone will be following?”
This is what Salome fears, to be responsible for what is to come.
John is still playing the innocent fool. “But as I must follow my own advice and chart my own course, I think I will not go up to Jerusalem.” At this, not only Yeshu lifts his head, we all of us do—not go to Jerusalem? John sees this, and laughs. “Oh, I will go. Have you not heard Simon Magus? It is my fate to go.” Only I know the cost of the smile that stays fixed on Salome’s face. “But first I will make my way up the Jordan, keeping always on the bank of the river ruled by Herod Antipas, for Herod has fewer teeth than this ferocious Pilate.” John shows his teeth, snaps them. “Though Joanna, who serves as my eyes and ears in Herod’s court, assures me Herod’s false wife, the proud Herodias who hates me more than she hates all others, has more teeth.”
I have never warmed to Joanna. Perhaps she will serve also as Herod’s eyes and ears in the court of King John? I look at Salome. Does she still hold a similar thought?
“And the people will hear that I do this, and they will come, and when it is right and when it is proper and when it is time, I shall turn my face south again. And then, we shall all walk up to Jerusalem.”
“And there,” exclaims Dositheus, sitting up straighter and straighter as he listens to John, “a miracle will occur!” We each cock an ear to hear how he will finish what is begun. “For what is the history of the Israelites if not a history of miracles, and the promise of greater miracles to come? Is scripture not a record of God’s intervention in the affairs of his people? That being so, it follows that a people who are steeped in the miraculous expect no less than the miraculous. Expecting this, they will simply assume what is said will be so, will be so, and by their very numbers and by their very faith, they will have their miracle.”
Now I too sit up. The people will flock to hear him; they always do. How will the priests and the rich stand against them if they come in such numbers? I shiver; am I as deluded as all those who clamor to make John of the River king, or has Dositheus caused me finally to see a thing?
Brushing sand from his hands, John says, “It is settled then. We leave at first light.” And rising, adds, “Know you, Yehoshua, that a free state of Jews newly exists on the banks of the far Euphrates? Know you that this town of Nehardea is subject neither to Romans nor to the Babylonians nor to the Parthians?”
“I have heard this.”
“If all goes unwell with me, the brothers who have founded it would welcome you.”
Yeshu laughs out loud. “I will remember that, John.”
This night, Jude will speak to me, and I am made anxious for I cannot imagine what he would say. We are met in the shallow cave at the foot of the cliffs, and for light there are only stars. So soon as I sit, Jude begins. He talks as I have never heard him talk, it is all I can do to keep up with his flow of words.
“Even as we were young,” says this didymus, this twin, “Yeshu was not as I was, nor was he as any other boy. I would watch my brother at play, or at work, or as he slept and I did not, or as he discoursed with learned men as I could not, and I saw that in body I was as alike to him as an egg to an egg, yet as unlike in mind as a peasant to a king. You see how unlike?”
I nod, yes, I see how unlike.
“Yet I knew that those things I could call Jude, and not Yeshu, were the very things he lacked, and by the lack thereof, was in need of them. By this, I knew I was sent to keep watch over him. Was it not a sign to be born so alike and yet so unlike?”
He watches me carefully. Once again, I nod, yes, and this pleases him.
“Even I could not miss a sign such as this. I cannot remember a time I did not know who I was. I was Jude, he who shadowed his brother to shield him from harm. I cannot remember a time I did not rejoice in what I was. Therefore, if you are in my brother’s heart, you must be also in mine.”
I am touched. But I see how hard it is for him to place me anywhere near his heart. As for me, I warm to Jude, the Sicarii. I warm to his rough ways and his silences. I warm to his fierce loyalty and his single-minded devotion. If once again I were out on a dark night and in a dangerous place, with me I would once again want Jude, and I find I hope there will come a time when this brother of Yeshu shall think this of me. But I would not place a wager on it.
“There are things you must know of Yeshu.”
For a third time I nod.
On this night, Jude talks longer than he will ever talk, at least to me. And for a man of few and grudging words, what he says is said well.
In green Galilee, there was in the time of the first Herod a small hill among many small hills overlooking the Plain of Jezreel, and on this hill there was a small town called Japhia, a place of twenty families or so, each family knowing the other. The family of the brothers Joseph and Cleopas of Japhia were builders, not rich, but very far from poor. Every house in Japhia and many in the nearby countryside were built by Joseph and Cleopas. The brothers married young as was expected, and in no time Cleopas fathered on his wife, Martha, a fine assortment of children, both male and female. But year after year Anna, the wife of Joseph, continued barren, which became more and more a source of great unhappiness to Joseph, as he loved Anna, who was as lovely as a field of flax and as wise as she was kind. In the town of Japhia, Anna was well beloved by all. But no matter how loved, the Lord did not intervene. Years passed, and he sent no angel to quicken her womb. In time, like Sarah, the wife of Abraham, Anna agreed that Joseph should take a second wife. Joseph left the choosing of this wife to Anna, and she looked over every likely girl from Japhia to the slopes of Mount Tabor. In the end, it was in the village of Kefar Imi, only a few miles from her very doorstep, that Anna found what she was looking for. Serving in the family of her much older sister, Elisheba, the sister who had married a priest, one Zechariah of Kefar Imi, from the priestly course of Abijah and the Nazorean, Anna found a maiden not yet fifteen years. This girl’s name was Mary. Just as her name was common, there was nothing in her character to distinguish this Mary from others of her type and class, save a remarkably passive nature, and this more than anything besides health was what Anna was looking for.
Neither Anna nor Joseph were disappointed in the girl Mary. But if Mary could not disappoint, she could surprise. When the contracts were signed and all the traditions upheld, Anna found Mary had arrived already with child. Though she was yet a virgin, having not begun to menstruate, she had conceived. And though a virgin conceiving was a thing not unknown, it was still unusual. Anna heard this with grace and with forbearance. Having made her arrangements, and knowing how eager Joseph was to bring forth their children, she decided to accept what she could not change. A child was a child, and for a woman who had no child, any child was a blessing.
But she did not tell Joseph.
It was this fatherless child who was born first, though he was not born alone. The firstborn child was named Yehoshua and his twin,
born moments later, was named Jude. Of all their acquaintance, only Anna and Mary knew that Yehoshua and Jude were not the sons of Joseph, though much was made of the red hair. No one in Joseph’s family had ever had red hair. Nor had red hair appeared in the eternally humble family of Mary, those who had sold her to Zechariah the Nazorean priest. Anna, being not only wise but also prudent, looked quietly into the family of Zechariah, the husband of her aged sister Elisheba. There was no red hair in the priestly lineage of Zechariah. Having nowhere else to look save among a cohort of Roman soldiers lately billeted in the area, Anna wisely let the matter rest. Shortly thereafter, the soldiers, made up of men of many races and many lands, and of these there were those with red hair, moved on, and with them went all hope of an answer.
But no matter, for Anna came eventually to see that of all the seven children of Mary, whoever the father might be, it was Yeshu’a who had brought great gifts to herself and to Joseph. In Yeshu’a, her years of barrenness and worry were finally fulfilled. By the child Yehoshua, red of hair and laughing, she had made the right choice in the mother, Mary, for Yeshu’a was Anna’s own true son, and she lavished on both him and the quiet Jude all the love of her great and generous heart.
I am surprised that Jude tells me that he and Yeshu are born in this way, but I do not show it, nor does he speak of it with shame. He is ashamed of nothing about Yeshu. As for himself, he thinks so little of Jude that shame cannot enter.
The life of Anna and Joseph and Mary and their children continued to be peaceful and productive until the conception of the last child, a daughter who would be named Miryam. In that year, with Miryam a mere month in the womb of Mary, Anna and Joseph, along with Cleopas and Martha, traveled to the town of Asochis to attend the wedding feast of the son of a friend, and on the way home again, Joseph and Anna and Cleopas fell ill with a fish they had eaten there. Though Cleopas recovered, Joseph and his beloved wife Anna died that day, and many another wedding guest as well. It was a terrible day for the small towns of Asochis and Japhia, but for Mary it was an unequaled disaster. Being possessed of no beauty and no wit, a widow left with seven children, one still in the womb, being also a second wife and with no claim to the property of Joseph, Mary was thrown on the mercy of Joseph’s brother, Cleopas the Builder, and on Anna’s brother-in-law, the priest Zechariah, and both of these already had large families of their own. From that time on, the life of Mary and the children of her body was hard indeed, even though John of Kefar Imi, the eldest son of Zechariah and Elisheba, and much older than any of the children of his uncle Joseph, did all he could to ease it.
And from that time on, it was Yeshu who was head of his family. If there was thought of his becoming learned—and there was, Anna had nurtured fond hopes for his future—or of his marrying well (here Anna had already a bride in mind), these thoughts were set aside. From now on, it was Yeshu, as well as Jude, who would provide for the family of Joseph and Anna.
In the year of his parents’ death, Yeshu was as old as Mary had been when she birthed him. In that year first came the pain in Yeshu’s head and, with it, his broken sight. For if Anna had loved Yeshu, Yeshu had returned her love fourfold.
“I, Jude, have watched Yeshu since coming here. I have seen him listen to you. And I have worried that some illness is come upon him in the wilderness. But I have thought and I have thought, and I have remembered that he has been this way before. Yeshu was born as he is become again.”
He confuses me. “Forgive me, Jude, but what do you mean?”
“I mean that Yeshu was born with Sight. Have I not said he would wander off as a boy? Did you think I meant he was idle and useless? When his Sight would come over him, he would walk forth to talk with God. Of this, he spoke only with our mother, Anna. And even, at times, with me.”
As ever, I am Mariamne. “With God, Jude? Which god?”
Jude looks at me as I say this, and I am sure he thinks to strike me, even if only in irritation at being questioned when it is hardly the point. But he contents himself with saying, “You speak as Yeshu speaks. I have known no man who speaks as Yeshu speaks or asks the questions he asks. This is why, on my mother’s head, I swear I shall try to love you.”
Oh—how he does not love me! I would laugh with delight, for it is sweet to see him try and, by trying, to expose his own loving heart. But for his need to finish, I know he would run from me.
“The things you say, some of which is gibberish, and some of which is blasphemy, and some of which could come from the mouth of Yeshu himself, I am sure this is why he loves you. As he confuses and confounds me, so too do you.”
I hasten to make my peace with him. I would not have him leave me. I have so many questions. There are those who say not fathering children is alike to murder: therefore why is Yeshu not married? Jude is married. Joses and Simeon are married. I do not count Jacob; Jacob is as single as he is single-minded. For Jacob, there will be no wife and there will be no meat, and no hair, until the Temple is cleansed. But what reason has Yeshu? I would know too of the years he has spent as Sicarii. Where has he traveled? What has he seen?
But Jude has said what he has come to say. He makes his first gesture of rising, a matter of putting out his hand to push himself up, and then does not. “I have almost forgot.”
“Yes, Jude?”
“I came to know your mind.” He sees that I do not understand. “I am a blunt man; I do not have your wit. As a blunt man, I ask you bluntly, Yeshu turns from John, he turns from the Sicarii…has a demon entered Yeshu?” Before I can answer, Jude hastens to make clearer what he means. “If a demon has entered him, I must fight a demon. I ask only to know what I must prepare for.”
I make of my face and my eyes a window into my mind. I say, “There is no demon in Yeshu.”
Jude thinks for no more than a moment, then smiles. His smile is wonderful for it being so rare. “I thought not. But I would know what you thought. I shall speak no more of it.”
It is night. I do not know the hour.
Salome stands alone on the very edge of the farthest cliff looking out over the Sea of Salt. Above her shines Osiris, the Shepherd of the White Stars, he whose starry purse hangs at his belt. What is it, I wonder, he keeps there? This night I think he keeps more worlds as this world, a purse full of worlds, each one complete and perfect unto itself. Below him, Sopdet, who is Isis, the brightest of all the stars, stares down like the eye of Horus. I have been taught that beyond these lies the realm of the Pleroma, the fullness, and that in that unutterable place there are more worlds, but who can truly know such things?
I come up behind the friend of my youth, and I barely disturb the ground. I cannot hear my own footfall. All I can hear is the far-off cry of some small frightened thing, dying in sudden violence. I am not the small child who followed her wherever she went, but I am still the Mariamne who loves her and would stand beside her, quiet and awed beneath the fields of heaven.
She hears me as I do not hear myself, and her voice comes now as a whisper in the dark, saying, “I am afraid, Mariamne.”
Salome, afraid? No one farther away than I am could have heard her, but do I truly hear, or is it a trick of the night and the starry worlds above us? Salome turns to me. I see her face by the light of the White Shepherd, and I see it is that face, the one she wears so often now. Like John’s, it is the face of a man who is called. I have yet to say a word, and there is nothing I can think to make me break silence.
“You see John will die. I know you see that. I know the man Yehoshua sees it. But do you see more? Do you remember how it was in Egypt? Do you remember how it was at the Passion?” Suddenly I am become rigid with what it is Salome says to me, what it is she thinks John walks forth to do. Her eyes shining with a light come from the inside, she reaches for my hand and her touch is hot with what I think fever. “No matter whether John is made king or he is not made king, he is already king, and he goes forth to claim his kingdom. Mariamne! He is Osiris! Do you see this?”
I see
that what I held most dear is lost to me.
I see that Mariamne and Salome have taken separate paths and there is no going back. I cannot summon even what was lately mine, the fine fret of my irritation, the long moments I savored of boredom, the fitful longing for Alexandria; all these seem now as paradise to me. What I would give to have them all mine again! Nothing is as it was. Everything is edged with a hard and brittle light. Everything stands forth in my sight as if I am seeing it for the first time. As if thoughts were blows, I reel.
“No, Mariamne, hear me!” I feel Salome’s hands on my hands. “Please! Is this such a terrible thing? To die as Osiris dies? Is it so terrible if by John’s dying, a whole people will be saved?”
I see her dear face, so close to me now, so lit with the madness of fervor. I find my voice; it comes in a rush, and I loathe the very sound of it. “Saved? No Jew thinks his Messiah will come to die for them. They think he comes to do battle for them.”
“But John will not die! He shall rise and live again!”
I look straight into her eyes but she does not flinch.
“All others have their godman,” she cries. “Why not the Jews? Remember what Philo thought to do? He thought to create a Jewish godman. In Egypt, he is Osiris. To the Greeks, he is Dionysus. Mithras lives and dies for Persia, Attis for Asia Minor, Adonis for Syria, Bacchus for the Italians. But no matter his name, he is the same godman! The Jews call out to be saved!”
I say, “Philo would create a myth as these are myths and in this myth, he would hide the great truth of gnosis. You know this Salome! But as John truly lives, he shall surely die.”
Salome speaks over me. “They wait for their Messiah. Like Pythagoras who brought him as Dionysus to the Greeks, could the Jews wait for other than such as Osiris? And now the Baptizer walks among them, and they cry out for John. You have heard their cries! The people say he is their Messiah. What other is the Messiah but the godman?”