I am closest. As I stand at his very feet, he sees me first before all else he sees. And then he sees the sun, and he too knows his time is come and he must act. Therefore, my time is come.
At the ninth hour, my beloved cries out, “I thirst!”
He has not forgotten, nor has he become lost in his mind. This is what I wait for. But now it is come, I tremble that I will fail my friend. The blood of my body, hot as the blood of the lambs spilled on the altar this day, seems suddenly to drain away and, with it, my very purpose. I am afraid. I am afraid. What do we do here? Yeshu is as good as dead; would I die too? If any should suspect me, could I withstand the scourge and the sword? I am nothing but a woman. I cannot do this thing! I was not made to do this thing! And I would turn and I would run. And I do, I turn. And there before me stands Jude who has given the whole of himself to Yeshu. And there before me stands Simeon who does not understand what is done here but who has not run and will not run. And there is Veronica and Mary and Megas and all the others who do not fade nor faint nor fail, though they see Yeshu die before their eyes. And I am ashamed. Long ago, John of the River said I was as a man. By all that I have ever said and all that I have ever done, I will do this thing. I am not a man, but a woman—yet I will not fail.
This is what I know to do. Before dawn, before ever any were in this place save the already crucified men, there was sent here Miryam who has ever had a steady hand and a steady heart. The youngest sister of Yeshu placed within sight a slender pole, and near it one of the sponges of Ananias, and near to that a small jug of vinegar. I slip the vial of Sabaz out from my purse and the stopper from the vial. Inside is a tincture made from the skin and the liver of a tiny puffed-up ball of a fish. None but the most informed poisoner would know of this fish, and of this small number, only the richest could afford it. Quickly, I shake out a few drops onto the sponge. Salome has been careful to show me how much to use: too much and I might kill Yeshu myself; too little and he might rave, but just enough and he will appear so convincingly dead no one shall doubt it. To this I add vinegar in case any would stop me, for the crucified are often offered gall, which is rosh and vinegar, to ease their suffering. And when I have done these things, I affix the sponge to the pole.
Once again I am under the cross of Yeshu. I lift the pole so that the sponge reaches his lips. He knows what is on the sponge; he knows that he must trust that I have made the potion well. He knows if I have not, this will be the end of it. Knowing all this, he sucks at the sponge, takes within himself as much as he can swallow. Salome swore it would work quickly. She had seen such things in classes with Sabaz, and she did not lie. It is but a single moment since I offered up the gall and already his head slumps on his chest; already his skin grows pale and there comes a lifelessness throughout his limbs. Could he be truly dead? Have I misjudged the potion?
No time for my incessant questions. I must play my part. I must cry out that he dies so that the soldiers will see this for themselves. I must cry out loudly so that Father, who has stood for the last hour some way down on the road to Emmaus, will hear me and will run now to Pilate. I must cry out so that all the women will believe he dies, and the air will be shrill with it. By this, the soldiers will be sure it is so. And though they cannot believe it—What man dies within only six hours? No man dies before even a day; who has ever heard such a thing?—and though they mutter among themselves, they will decide that this one was beaten too hard, or they will decide that this one was too weak. Whatever they decide, they will believe he is dead. They have to believe it. I will them to believe it. If I can receive a thing, I can send a thing, and this I send into them with all that is within me: Yehoshua the Nazorean is dead. There is no need to hasten his end, no need to break his legs, first one, and then the other so that he cannot lift himself to breathe. There is no need. No need.
It works. It works! They too see that the sun soon passes into the Sabbath. And taking up their swords, they walk among those who still live—all but Yeshu still live, though all have hung now for the whole of one day and one night—and one by one, they break their legs. Pilate would have all these dead before Passover, and they will do as Pilate has ordered. It is a gruesome and fearful thing. I weep for Timaeus, for Saul, for a man I have heard is named Yehoshua Barabbas. I weep for them all, but as I have seen so many gruesome and fearful things, I stand steady. And when they come to Yeshu, they put away their swords. At this, I stand steadier still. I hear what they do not say: why make the effort when no effort is needed? They put away their swords, they put them away—all but one. And my heart thinks to leap from my breast. This one is old; he has seen many deaths done in many ways, but he has never seen a man die so soon. He cannot believe what he sees here. He cannot believe a man of Yeshu’s age and Yeshu’s condition could be so weak; not even a woman would die this soon. I hear him mutter: “Something is wrong, here. Something is not right.” And so muttering, he comes to stand under Yeshu’s cross and to peer up at him.
Yeshu is dead! I shout it in my mind. Yeshu is dead! But this one lifts his sword to poke the point of it into Yeshu’s foot. There is no movement. And still this is not enough for the man. He stabs Yeshu’s thigh. I gag where I stand. Behind me, Mary looks on appalled. Her son is dead. Rome has killed him. Must it also dishonor him? And still this is not enough. Drawing back his arm, the seasoned soldier makes a short powerful thrust into Yeshu’s side, and from this wound flows Yeshu’s blood. My breath is lost to me. I cannot breathe. By this, the man must know the condemned man lives, for no dead body bleeds. Yet, for some reason, he is now satisfied. Perhaps because if Yeshu did not die before, he will certainly die now.
The old one struts away. By his going, all the soldiers have gone. There is nothing here but dead and dying men and weeping women and crows cawing at the waning sun.
And I would faint but for Jude. Jude, who has stood all along, silent, as Yeshu is now silent, comes up behind me to keep me from falling. But when I have recovered myself, and I turn to him he is gone from this place.
I have done what Yeshu willed. We have all done the will of Yeshu, who does what he is certain is the will of the Father. All has gone as planned. Save for the part that Jude would play. And for the soldier who would not believe.
Now that the raw red sun sits on the far edge of this day, people I have not seen before begin gathering. They have come for the bodies the soldiers leave on the crosses. Some come for a son or a brother or a father, and some come for those who have no kin here, for by Law all bodies must be gone from the crosses by the Sabbath, mere moments away. If it were not the Sabbath, most especially the Passover Sabbath, they would not be allowed this caring. If it were not the Sabbath, the bodies might hang until they rotted, and only then would the soldiers take them down, to throw them like waste into shallow uncovered pits for the scavenging dogs to take in the night. This is why Yeshu has chosen to die on this day of all days. This is why he could not be arrested sooner than the night before this day. It was planned that he be no longer than needed on the cross. It was planned that he be seen to die as he hung before the people. It was planned that he be taken away by friends and by kin. And it was needed that Pilate be in Jerusalem when Yeshu proclaimed himself king, for if he were not, none could hang until Pilate came. Only Rome crucifies and only Rome can legally put to death a seditionist. If Yeshu were arrested without the personal presence of Pilate, he would wait, like poor John under the Fortress of Machaerus, suffering agonies in the lightless cells under the Antonia, where anything could happen to him, and none would know. For Yeshu, there could be no other time to die than this Passover.
In the last of the light, and as my skin thrums like the strings of a lyre, comes finally Josephus of Arimathaea. And with him, he brings the barber Timothy. Beside them, and without protest, Eio draws a cart, and in the cart there are linen burial clothes.
Father has succeeded. He has somehow persuaded his acquaintance Pontius Pilate to allow us Yeshu’s body. I would embrace him, tell
him how dear he is, but we must be about our business here.
With the help of the dauntless Simeon, Yeshu is taken from his cross, tenderly, carefully. Eloi, but the nails are cruel! Any would think my beloved dead, would swear he was well and truly departed from this world. As the dead, he is wrapped in the linen. As the dead, he is placed in Eio’s cart so that his limbs are straight. And his mother will sit with him, will touch the white cloth that covers his face, will smooth the white cloth that covers his body. Mary will weep over her son the whole of the way to the Garden of Gethsemane and the tomb of my own mother, over whom I have never wept.
There is only one prophecy left.
Yehoshua has been baptized by the prophet John of the River and been anointed as a king by Megas the Sorceress. My beloved, who is called Messiah by the people, and who has worked wonders even unto the raising of the dead, has now also been seen to be betrayed by a trusted friend, the best and closest and most trusted of friends. He has been accused by the Jewish priests and by the Jewish Sanhedrin. He has been tried by the Romans. Yehoshua the Nazorean has been crucified. And now he must fulfill the last of the needed prophesies: he must rise on the third day as Osiris, as Dionysus, as Tammuz, as all godmen rise on the third day. Even as Horus rises on the third day. Horus, the son of Isis and the son of Osiris, was born in a cave at winter solstice and his birth was announced by a star in the east and was attended by three wise men. As an infant, Horus was carried out of Egypt to escape the wrath of Typhon; as a child he taught men in the temple; as a man he walked with twelve disciples. He fed multitudes with bread and with fish, he walked on water, he raised the Dead. He was called the Lamb of God, the Messiah, the Good Shepherd. He was crucified, buried in a tomb, and resurrected on the third day.
It is Mariamne Magdal-eder who must set about fulfilling the last of this terrible plan, who must begin now to play a part that Jude was to have played, but first we must care for Yeshu. The blood still flows from the cut made by the old soldier’s blade. It is a frightful wound, deep and damaging. It was not meant that he be stabbed. It was not planned that he be wounded beyond the anguish of the Roman torture and the Roman cross, and be wounded so grievously. But no one was fool enough to discount it might happen; therefore, there is to hand all that we might use for such a wound.
But here is a thing we did not anticipate. Though all others are long since persuaded to leave us, Mary will not go. I reason with her, I plead, I demand: she will stay near the body of Yeshu. I grow frantic. Yeshu has insisted no one be told, yet his wound is grave. How can we tend it if Mary believes him dead? There is nothing for it. She must be told.
As he has ever taken such unspeakable burdens, Jude, who is as he should be, waiting by my mother’s tomb, will take yet another. Jude Thomas the supposed betrayer tells his mother Mary what has been done this Passover.
Any mother would rejoice her child was not killed, but to hear that he has caused his own death? Any mother would rejoice her child has not betrayed his brother, but to hear that it must always be thought so? Why is it that Mary does not seem surprised? Do I only imagine her quiet pride? Again and again, she gives me pause.
For prophecy, and to assure Pilate that the King of the Jews is well and truly killed, Yeshu had need of being seen taken to Josephus’s tomb in the Garden of Gethsemane, and this we have done. But he cannot stay here. It was never planned that he remain here. So soon as it is entirely dark, and so soon as Jude is entirely sure there is none to see, Eio’s cart must take him away to Father’s house. Father’s house is where he will stay until all that need be done is done.
As Timothy the barber and I muffle the wheels of the cart so that we might go quietly, Jude rolls back the stone of the tomb. And Mary, who understands now and understands quickly, so arranges Yeshu’s burial linen that it might seem cast away.
And then we leave this place.
Could the world turn blacker? Could the air turn thicker so my breath comes harder? Can I bear more? For all whom Yeshu has healed, would that he might heal himself.
He is hidden in an inner chamber of Father’s house, far from the airy central courtyard and the public rooms. There is nothing here but a bed and a lamp and thick draperies and thicker rugs to soften the sound. It is deep into the night, full halfway between the sun’s leaving and the sun’s return, and only mere moments ago did Salome’s poison wear away so that my beloved seems not dead, but sleeping.
Yeshu returns to me. But he does not return as he left. And it seems he will not stay. My friend is dying.
Father’s slaves and Father’s servants run every which way, bringing me this and bringing me that, but still he dies. I am become frantic. If Tata were here, could she save him? If Seth were here, could he? I am here. Can I?
Jude does not weep. Save when I have need of him, Jude does not move. If Yeshu is dead, so too is Jude.
Mary tends to her son’s ankles, to his wrists, to the lashes on his back, to the great gaping wound in his side. Mary does not cease in her work, and by this, has no time for weeping. Nor for speaking. All this goes on around me in a silence made dreadful by the sound of Yeshu’s breathing. Harsh, erratic, difficult, sometimes stopping altogether.
But yet he breathes.
And so long as he breathes, I will not leave him. I do not leave him. I have arranged myself so that I might rest my head on the pillow near his head. With the very best of the sponges of Ananias, I have washed his face and his limbs. I have carefully combed his red hair and his red beard. His linen is the finest Father owns. I have mixed spikenard into the lamp oil so that in this way he is soothed by the odor of God. I have done all these things, and more, and can think of nothing else I might do. So that now, by the soft light of the scented lamp, I stare at him, drink him in with my eyes, commit to memory all that I might of him. Every line so precious, every color so perfect. My beloved is as beautiful in his dying as in his living, more beautiful, for the threat of his being no more.
I sink into sleep as I watch him. I must sleep, for I start awake with the sun full on my face. In surprise and alarm, I find I am no longer in the hidden room. While I slept someone has carried me into a small courtyard where there is room for a small pool, and near the pool, room for me, and for Yeshu on a pillowed divan, and for Mary. Mary is slumped on a stool pulled close to Yeshu’s divan where she now sleeps. I would wager all I own that he who carried me sits at the courtyard’s entrance, keeping close vigil.
Jude has not slept. Jude has not slept for days now.
Slowly, slowly, I raise my head from where I rest it, afraid of what I might find.
By the full and rounded moon! Yeshu is not dead! He is awake and he stares at me just as half the night I have stared at him. I am on my feet in an instant. I would run to Jude, to Father. I would awaken his exhausted mother, but he stays me with the slightest movement of his bandaged arm. He would have me sit again. I will sit again. I will do anything he would have me do, only that he would live.
But he cannot speak aloud, cannot make sound enough so that I might readily catch his words. I must lean my ear close to his mouth. “Do you know what the Roman said to me?”
“No, I do not know. But please, do not speak. Rest.” I am so afraid. His life drains away as I listen.
“I have all eternity to rest in the Father and the Mother. Hear me, Mariamne, for I would say these things to you. As the Roman condemned me, he asked, ‘What is Truth?’ Of all that was planned, I did not plan to answer this question.” Even now, he sees the foolish joy of things, and more than all that has gone before this tears at my heart. He beckons me closer. “As I was crucified and hanging on the cross I had chosen, I thought of Pilate’s question. What is Truth, my beloved?”
Does it come to this? Do all the questions come down to this question? It is asked by Seth. It is asked by the man sent to rule the Jews by the demented tyrant Tiberius, a Roman, a soldier, a stranger. It comes again from out the mouth of Yehoshua who is so full of truths, he whose very Truth attract
s all others.
What is Truth?
Yeshu cannot move, but he can turn his head, and behind his eyes I can see the light that shines there, undimmed. It is as the light that shone in the eyes of John of the River, half mad, yet wholly sane. “I will tell you all I know of Truth,” he whispers in my straining ear, “and I will be done with it. There is no one Truth: there is only Life. There is only the Kingdom that holds many Truths, as many as the sea holds fish, or the sky holds stars. Therefore, each man holds a Truth, holy unto himself. If I should live, I would ask a man to look to me who is outside himself for what is his. But if I should die, a man who would look for me must look within and, by so looking, would find not me, but himself.” Yeshu seeks my hand, grips it with surprising strength. “You see what I must do, Mariamne, who is as wife to me?”
I cannot breathe, cannot see, cannot live. “I see it, husband.”
And here, before me, Yeshu drops his head to his pillow and is gone from me. Back to that place where he does not sleep, nor does he yet awake by dying, but hides himself in darkness, waiting for what comes by his perfect intent that it do so.
I do now what Jude was to have done. I do the last thing.
Deep in the darkest part of the night, Jude and I have made our way to my mother’s tomb—Jude, so that he might roll away the stone and, having done so, return to keep watch over Yeshu. And I so that I might be here when the god sun rises on this, the third day.
Now I sit just outside the entrance, alone. And at my feet is my bowl of spices, and by my side is the blooded white linen that covered Yeshu’s body. Any moment should bring not only the sun, but two, perhaps three, perhaps more, eager, wondering, frightened men. I await them not as John the Less, but as Mariamne Magdal-eder, the myrrhophore, the ointment bearer. I await them as she who has come to do that which women do for their dead. I await them as she who has come in all piteous sorrow and has found the stone rolled back and the tomb empty.