I look at Seth, at Addai, at Tata. Shall we go hear Yehoshua? I look into one after the other of their beloved faces, faces I have known full half my life, and I settle at last on Seth’s. Now that I have babbled of my intention to return to Egypt, and now that I no doubt wound him again, I must finish the deed. It takes courage to hurt one you love and who is fond of you, but if it must be done, it must be done quickly. I intend to say that if I would marry, there is no man I could better marry than he, but that I would not burden him with such a wife as I would now make. In all the usual ways of women, is it not true, I intend asking him, that what I have made of my life, has unmade me for a wife? I know he will hear me. Yet all this sticks in my throat, and I can say none of it. Seth sits and he looks upon me, his face composed, his body still. I open my mouth in the hopes that something will come from it that will soothe him, or solace me for my cruelty. This is what I finally say, “Please. Go. Hear him speak. I will stay here, as suits me.”
Tata would laugh. I snap, “Why is this cause for merriment, Tata?”
“Oh, my daughter,” says she, rising to help Rhoda with Addai. “You are as the moon or the sun. There is no other.”
I take no comfort in this. The moon and the sun are alone.
I sit unmoving as they take their leave. I hear them join with others who greet them. I hear the assembling of thousands on the hillside near the valley floored with tents. The clamor of this competes with the meeting of the Street of the Soma and the Canopic Way for noise, or for standing on the steps of Temple at Passover. As laughter would spring up from the belly of Tata, grief would rise as bile from mine. Mariamne, who cries, will not cry. I know Yeshu stands now at the top of the hill, and with him stands Jude and all the others. I see it in my mind, the tribes of all Palestine sitting in ranks, fifty of these, a hundred of those. They talk among themselves, ask each of each what it is Yeshu might say as they finger their curved Persian knives, hush others for making such noise, nibble on the barley bread and the salted fish they have brought with them.
And I should be John the Less and have taken my place at Yehoshua’s side. As John, I would take precedence over Peter and over the brothers of Yeshu and over the Sons of Thunder. Even Addai and Seth and a king of the Assyrians would stand behind me. And this, by the wish of Yeshu.
But all has changed and can never be again.
I try to banish Yeshu from my mind, as I am certain he has already banished me. He cannot do other. What is, is. What I am, I am. Better he should know it now than to know it later. Better he alone should discover my name and my true sex than for all others to discover it with him. Jude will say nothing. Those who know me will say nothing. There has been no true harm done. Surely, I have harmed none but myself. And Seth. In certain ways, I have harmed my friend Seth.
The tears fall from my eyes and wet the cloth of Tata’s plain brown robe. I cannot stop them falling.
Comes a great noise from the hillside. Yeshu must be speaking. By the sound of those who call out to him, he has surely said something that heartens them, makes them roar their approval. I cannot hear him, but I can hear those who can hear him.
I cannot bear it. I must see Yeshu again. As I breathe, I must see him once more. And then I will leave him as I must leave him. I swear to Isis and to Osiris, I swear even to Yahweh who so loves the blood of a woman’s heart, that it shall not be my doing if I should see him again in this world, just as I know, and how this knowing tears at my flesh, it will not be his doing should he see me.
Picking my way through the righteous of all Palestine grouped by family and by tribe on the grass of Gaulanitis, stepping over baskets and mats and feet, and around the tumbling excited children, I work my way up the hillside. I am a young woman, one of a number of young women. No one takes note of me, other than to be briefly irritated by my passing. Dressed modestly, I move modestly, willing myself to walk as a maiden, to hold myself as a maiden would, to keep my eyes averted from the bold gaze of men, which was only yesterday my bold gaze. I make sure my person and my skirts touch no part of them. I am as yet so unused to Mariamne, I feel odd in my skin.
In this way, I come to within twenty cubits of Yeshu, and I quickly sit where I might, and where it is fitting, near a family of grandmother, mother, and three daughters. I hold my head cloth over my nose and my mouth. By this, my hair, unbound and uncomely as well as too short for a female, is hidden, as is most of my face. I cover my hands and my feet. By this, I think not even Tata would look my way.
Addai and Tata and Seth have taken their places behind Yeshu. Behind them, Dinah and Rhoda take humbler places. But who is near them? By the moon, Dositheus! Some part of me that still lives feels pleasure to see my old friend. Was he with Jacob the Just, and did they escape? Dositheus is no longer an Egyptian, nor is he an actor. Scent and curls and posturing are long put away. He looks thin and he looks tired; more, he looks possessed by pain. The pure melancholy of his nature seems deeper, darker, and I wonder at his adventures since John was taken, though I shall probably never learn them.
Who else is here? There is Menahem, the newly wedded son of Simon bar Judas, and there are James and Zoker, the sons of Jacob bar Judas, but of their brother Jair, the third son of Jacob bar Judas, there is nothing. And no matter that I look and look, I cannot see sweet Helena of Tyre.
But now I look away from these and gaze upon Yehoshua instead.
Has he too changed? Has the loss of his beloved friend and youngest disciple, the youth who would teach him what it was he could teach, grieve him? Does he pine and does he sigh? From this distance, it does not seem so. Yehoshua’s face is alight with the regard of thousands. He stands on the highest point of the highest rise, and though full half of him, robed in purest white, is brilliant against the evening green of the grass, full half is limned against the dark roiling gray of the sky. By Isis, there is such a Glory in him as even I have not seen. The very hair on his head, the very hair of his beard, seems more than the red of Thrace, and they frame his face in the fire of the sun.
He speaks as he has been speaking, and it is only now, being distracted by Dositheus, that I begin to listen. For a moment I do not understand what it is he says. And then I do.
“I would give you drink,” says Yehoshua to the Sicarii and to the pagani and to the varied sects, and to their women and to their children, his hands held out as if he offered wine, as if he offered bread, as if he would feed them all for the asking. “I would give you to eat. I say to you that five thousand times five thousand could be fed on the loaves and the fishes I offer, even if there be only five loaves and two fishes. Each man and each woman and each child could eat their fill of such food, and still there would be twelve baskets left.”
I look about me. As ever, I wonder what is it they hear? These men and women of Palestine are gathered to hear news of John the Baptizer. They come for John the Messiah, and they would know what has been done and what will be done. They would know if these are the End Times. Therefore, what do they make of loaves and fishes and baskets, of fives and twos and starry twelves, when John is taken? But if they are troubled, it is not in their faces. There seems not a sound, not from man or woman or child, not from beast wild or beast tamed, or from the water that flows below us or the sky that threatens above us. Yeshu’s voice, which so often I strained to hear, rings out over us as a great bell would ring.
“You come here to know how it is with John. And I say to you, that there are those among you who would rise against Herod. There are those who would rise against Rome itself. Among you are those who have ever been with us, and these shout out to all who would listen that only blood will pay for what has been done.”
Comes a righteous murmur from this grouping, and that. Comes a scattering of raised fists and raised voices. Yeshu holds up his right hand, palm forward, and all this is silenced. Behind him, Jude and the others stand as silent as the grass, but many even of these have their hands near the hilts of their unhidden knives.
“Yo
u have heard it said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. I, Yehoshua of the Nazorean, have said this. I, Yehoshua of the Nazorean, have done this. This has long been my way, and the way of my brothers and of my cousins.”
I see Jacob the Just nod his head at this. Yeshu’s brother, who stands now in Yeshu’s place as Yeshu stands in John’s, looks out over this great gathering, his arms crossed, his face set with righteousness. Near him, I see that Jude grimly smiles. Yes, this has been the way of Jude, and it would be his way again, but only if it is also the way of Yeshu.
“But I, Yehoshua of the Nazorean, stand before you now, and I ask, what has been gained by all this blood? Is it not a truth that bloody soil reaps bloody fruit? I ask this also, what has been won by vengeance? Will the man you have revenged yourself on not then turn to revenge himself upon you, and if not you, then on your family? For I say that whatsoever you do in this world will be done to you. Therefore, resist not evil with evil. But whosoever would harm you, harm not in return, for what shall it gain you but a world of harm to all?”
There is much surprise at this. I have no need to see who is most surprised and most dismayed. I can hear Simon Peter’s frustrated rage whistle through his broken tooth from here.
But if Yeshu knows this, he pays not a moment of heed. “If a man would see justice done, he would do justice. If a man would know the heart of another, he would first know his own. I ask you, is it in your hearts to kill and be killed?”
Simon Peter has been asked. He cannot resist answering, “But Yeshu’a! John is taken. Who among us knows if he shall be set free? Or be killed?”
Yeshu turns to his rock. He smiles into Simon Peter’s face, a face blackened with thwarted ambition and thwarted grievances. “The Father knows, Peter. And John knows. Do you know better than these? Would you act for John? Do you know his heart?”
“John would have us come for him!”
“Has he said this to you?”
“No, but surely, we will go to him! I beseech you, Yehoshua! Remember what has been prophesied by the Magus. Remember that in order for the people to follow, John must lead. By taking John, the Fox has caused the gathering of the tribes. More are here and more speak to the other than have ever been, and this is a great thing. But now John must come among us again, for how is he to lead from a prison cell? I cannot do nothing! Yeshu’a, as you lead us now, we must do what it is we can do.”
Yeshu answers heat with warmth. “We can do no other thing than what is in us to do. What is in you, Peter?”
Not knowing the answer is anger, and not knowing that it is fear, but thinking that it is instead a righteous pride of cause, Simon Peter turns away, and I see that the skin of his averted face burns with shame for Yeshu.
“Yehoshua of the Nazorean!”
As all others, I too am startled. Who from this great crowd calls out to Yeshu in this imperious way?
But Yeshu is not startled, nor is he alarmed, nor yet is he even disturbed. Mildly, he looks down on one who now stands amid a group that sits close by me, saying, “Praise to you, Eleazar, son of Dinaeus.”
In the mouth of Yeshu of Galilee, the name Eleazar sounds as Lazarus, but I do not mistake it. Eleazar, son of Dinaeus? The very name dries the spit in my mouth, just as it dries in the mouth of peasant and soldier from Idumaea to Trachonitis, for Eleazar is a lion among wolves, a bandit and a would-be king, and from under my head cloth, I squint my eyes to see him, only to find a very fly of a man, a man whose head works on his neck as a fly’s head works. But looks can deceive.
Hands on his hips, he shouts up at Yeshu, “I will tell you what is in me, Yehoshua. I would drive the Romans before me as a storm drives a sail. I would sweep out the Temple as a woman sweeps away filth. I would do this before the passing of another day. I would do it in the name of John of the River. And I would not stop in my driving and my sweeping until there was neither a Roman nor an apostate priest left in all of Palestine. Only by this will we have peace!”
How the tribes love this! Eleazar is rewarded with a great roar, which he accepts as a very king accepts much deserved tribute. He does not turn to those who cheer him but in his triumph looks steadily up at Yeshu.
Once again, Yeshu looks out over the tribes. His eye is as mild now in the face of this roaring, as it was when he would lie in my bowl of rock gazing out over the Salted Sea. “I say unto you, Eleazar!” calls he down to Eleazar the Bandit, his voice carrying as easily across the noise as a bird on the air, “as I say to all of you who thirst for blood—”
It is wondrous how the roaring begins to die in every throat. It is as if the wind has dropped and the sails gone slack.
“If you would have peace, you must be peaceful. If you would know love, you must be loving. What it is you would see around you must first be in you. To return love with love, this is nothing, any innkeeper can do such a thing. But to return hatred with love, this is something. Who among us can do this? Show me this man or this woman and I will show you God’s Light. For as the sun of the Father shines on the just and on the unjust, so too would you. I tell you now, evil is of this world and passes away, but goodness is of the Father’s Kingdom, which is all kingdoms and all worlds, and is eternal. If you would know you live in the Kingdom of God, you would be therefore perfect in your goodness, even as your Father is perfect.”
I sit and I hear this and my heart leaps up in joy. My eyes are pricked with joyful tears. I rejoice that Yeshu has become a speaker; and not only a speaker and not only a teacher and not only has he become a prophet, he has become a Voice. And his Voice is to mine as mine is to the voice of the mute. As he is bathed in Glory, as he emanates Glory from all his Being, the authority of his Voice holds them in thrall, and his words bind them to him with wisdom and with truth, and his numinous person awes them with beauty. And those who would wield their knives are listening as those without knives are listening, as are women and children. Eleazar, the son of Dinaeus, is listening. Those who are with Eleazar listen. Even Simon Peter has turned back from his black sulking; he too is listening. In this time and in this place, even Simon Peter hears him.
They have come to be told they are the Sons of Light, and their enemies are the Sons of Darkness. They have come to plot vengeance and have waited to hear they would do bold and bloody deeds. They have hungered to hear it said that John is Messiah, that the End Times have come, and that they and their God of Wrath would put the whole of the earth to the torch, but all this is struck from their hearts. I know this is so, I hear them. Better, I can feel them. Yeshu has filled their hearts with joy, and how can a man with a joyful heart do ill?
I cannot bear it. It breaks not only my joyful heart and cracks not only my woman’s bones, but it threatens my mind. I have lost this; it is not mine. But by the moon, I would not lose myself. Mariamne is all that is left to me. Therefore, I must leave this place, and I must do it now. There is nothing here for me as I truly am.
I slowly rise. I slowly turn. I creep away as soundlessly as I am able.
But as I go, still I hear Yeshu.
“As I say unto you, and as it is written, blessed are they whose spirit is open, for theirs is the Kingdom of God. Blessed are they who sorrow, for they shall seek comfort and be comforted. Blessed are they who trust, for the trustful shall have dominion over life. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for grace, for they shall be filled with grace. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall know mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are they who suffer for God’s sake, for God shall raise them up. Blessed are they who are persecuted for the Kingdom, for by this they raise themselves up.” Yeshu’s voice, which I know grows steadily stronger, becomes stronger still. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”
I remove myself, carefully working back down the crowded hillside so that I might hide myself yet again in the tent of Addai and of Tata, and his words flow down after me, seeking me out, and it seems though they should, they do
not grow fainter and fainter but louder and louder. It seems they follow me, curl round my body, find entry in the folds of my cloak. They insinuate themselves into my mouth and into my ears, trip up my hurrying feet. And the feeling comes that Yeshu sees me, that he has his eyes on me, that though he speaks out over all these thousands, yet he knows one among so many is John the Less, who is who she is, and knows too that John the Less is leaving.
The dark of the evening rolls down and as the fires leap up around me, I am yet a shadow among shadows. But the feeling grows, and it grows, and just at the last, as I reach the very bottom of the hillside and I would slip in among the city of tents and disappear from his sight forever, I turn once, as Lot’s wife turned, and I look back. It is as if my heart has stopped. As if time itself has stopped.
From his place on the summit of the hill, Yeshu looks down at me.
The pampered daughter of Josephus of Arimathaea knew only to call for her slave. That very woman, Tata, now busies herself around me. Moment by moment I learn how much I must do if I would be a woman, and how so much of it chafes! From this day forth must I now mend my own clothing and grind my own meal and bake my own bread? Must I tend a goat so that I might have milk, spin wool so that I might have cloth? Comes into my mind the Book of Proverbs and the virtuous woman whose price is far above rubies. “She rises while it is yet night and provides food for her household…Her lamp does not go out at night. She does not eat the bread of idleness.” Pah! I cannot spin and I cannot sew and I cannot bake bread. As for milking a goat? I have seen these things done, but I have never learned to do them myself.