Secret Magdalene (23 page)

Yeshu stops his scratching, sits up. “John, I must speak with someone. And I know that someone is you.”

I say nothing. I am not here to say anything. I am here to listen.

“I have been tormented with anger and with bitter tears, made frantic with calamity and desperate with injustice. Everywhere I looked, everything I saw, seemed full of rage and of fear. And I was moved to pity by all I saw, and to terror, and my terrible pity moved me to rail against what I thought was unjust and to raise a hand against those who oppressed what I deemed the piteous. In truth, the world has seemed a bitter place; its taste has been the taste of gall. I have also pitied me grievously, John, wept tears and ground my teeth for the helpless, hopeless, thing that I am. I rent my clothes and tore at my hair at the death of my father. As for my mother, my grief for that most worthy of women broke my heart.”

Caught up as I am, still I think, Mary, how is she lost?

“It was this man to whom dreams came, dreams of such confusion I would shout myself awake, strike out at shadows, soak my bed with sweat. I tell you this so that you might know the man who walked out into the desert. I was as Moses in my walking, but I was as a fool in my understanding. And there on the high place, I stood as this fool, and I raged as a fool rages, and I shook my fist at the God of my people.” Yeshu shudders as he sits, then leans closer in his need to be heard. “If I am to speak more, new friend, I am to speak blasphemy. Do I trust you to hear me?”

I do hear him. His blasphemy will not trouble me. But I see that it will trouble him, down to the nerve and down to the bone.

“Is there any wonder that the man I was, craven with fear and inflated with pride, would make a god like Yahweh? This is the way of men, afraid before life, tormented by pain they cannot escape, and desires they cannot appease. Would the god of these not also be a god of rage and fear and jealousy and desires he cannot appease?” Yeshu opens his palms to me. I do not look away. “What can I say that you do not know beforehand? Knowing it shall never leave me as it has never left you. What is there to tell
you
of it?”

I writhe inside. He thinks so much more of me than I think of myself.

“I walked deep into the desert until I could walk no more. When I could no longer walk, I crawled. And when I could no longer crawl, I lay on my back under the sun and stared deep into its terrible eye until I was gone blind. Until I was tormented by hunger, and worse, by thirst. Until I was sure I would go entirely mad and cry out as David cried out: ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax; it is melted within me.’”

I am staring at his face now, captivated by its changing shape.

“These things I did. These things happened to me. Or perhaps I happened to them. There came a time I could not have told the difference, and I have not relearned it. And there I lay under the burning sun and the freezing night as a woman might lie to give birth. I was as a woman in the agony of my labor. In that time and in that place, I knew what it was to be woman and I pitied her for it, and I loved her for it, and I labored mightily as a woman labors.”

I thrill to these words. But I do not move.

“But I did not die. Nor more than you died. Or is it that I have died to myself and have been reborn? It does not matter. Death does not matter. It is nothing. It is illusion. I know. I
know
because a moment came like no other, a moment that was of no time and no place. But it did not come as Ezekial by the river. No four-faced monsters or Great Wheel of the stars, or great swords. A voice did not shout out revilements. To me, when I had been laid on the ground, when I had been drowned and buffeted and burnt, only then it came, as a perfect white dove.”

Yeshu reaches out once. He touches the back of my hand with the tip of his forefinger. Once, no more than once, and for only the briefest of moments. If I had not had my eyes open, I should not have known the truth of it.

“I say to you, John, it came as the deep soft sweetness that comes over a man when he looks into the eyes of his beloved. In that moment, the jealous and vengeful Yahweh left me. And in that same endless boundless moment, the Father entered.”

Now it is I who lean forward. Now it is I who listen to a man tell of Glory. I am certain he will tell it so much better than I. Joor would say that Yeshu was like Pharaoh, the divine cobra springs from his brow. If Seth or Philo could only hear, they would say Yeshu has gnosis.

“I became unbusied with myself, unbusied with that which has so concerned me. I came to rest in he who is at rest. There, on a high place, I know that the covenants made by men are worthless. I know there is nothing demanded of us. I have looked into the eternal eye of All That Is and know there is nothing to be done but to walk in the Father’s Sight. From that moment to this, I have not ceased looking into his Eye.”

This last surprises me—more, it touches the fear that lives within me. It frightens me for I do know whereof he speaks, all save the very last. When my life came back to me, I came back to myself. I was my mortal self, my
eidolon
again, somehow more, yet still Mariamne, daughter of the Jew Josephus. I put away the Large and became small once more. Who has Yeshu come back to? Or has Yeshu come back at all? Does he remain in his
Daemon;
see as his
Daemon
sees?

But
eidolon
or
Daemon,
agony now replaces his joy.

“He set his Eye on me, John; he wrote truths in my heart. He ended my wandering so I might stand unshaken in the glow of perfect light, forever, where no darkness is, forever, where peace is, forever. He showed me that I am this as much as he is this. That I am God as he is God. He showed me that I AM. He told me my name and my name is Man and my name is Woman and I am All That Is. And so are we each of us, every man, woman, child, every Jew and Gentile. I have learned that I and my Father are One. There is no man and no woman who are not this, and who cannot know this.”

I do not move and I make no sound, but I cry with the unutterable truth of it, the bliss of it. There is no one who is alone and no one who is not beloved! And yet there is no one here save Salome and Seth who can understand this, and even they do not yet
know.
When I tried to speak of it, they heard nothing, though they listened with the whole of their hearing. Though Socrates and Pythagoras and Philo and Buddha speak in the clearest of ways, who hears them?

Yeshu smiles at me, and his smile is sad. “And yet my people are afraid. As I was. And what they fear most is the god they have made. As I did. The prophets of my people fear the god of their hearts, and shout their fear into the ears of all who can be made to listen. As John of the River does. Fear and anger is our god.”

Yeshu grips my wrist. I do not move.

“I would have them know that not fear, but love, is god. I would have them see that all their hate and their fear is ignorance. If all should
know,
the world would be as the Kingdom of God! It
is
the Kingdom of God if they would but look! There are none God loves more than he loves the all! There are no people chosen, for all are chosen! I would have them see they are not different than God, or separate from God, or need to placate God, or please him or fear him, that they are God, and of God, and in God. I would show them the Kingdom of God does not come; it
is.
”

Yeshu looks at me, and his face is as ashes. My wrist burns under his hand.

“How do I tell other men this? What I can tell you so easily, knowing that you hear me, how shall I tell those who
cannot
hear me?”

Who is this man? No one has taught him these things. He knows nothing of the Egyptians, nothing of Pythagoras, nothing of Socrates who taught that there is no evil save ignorance. He knows nothing of Philo, perhaps not even of Seth. His life has been nothing but loss and the Law, nothing but toil and knives. Yet he has seen these things for himself; he names them himself. He amazes me. For Father and Father’s friends, what is Law but the hope that Yahweh be pleased by a man’s action and reward him with a good life? Or at least not punish him with a bad one. But if what Yeshu has seen is true, of what use the Law?

It is as if Yeshu has heard me. “What need we of Law when we are full of grace, and being full of grace would do no harm?” He lets loose of my wrist. And still I do not move. “As the Father sends me forth, how do I teach this?”

It is only now that I speak. “To find the Father and Maker of all is hard, and having found him, it is impossible to utter him. This was said by the god of Seth, who was Socrates.” Yeshu laughs. It is good to hear him laugh. “Seth teaches that all men and all women are angels of light clothed in the cloth of self but do not know it. Not knowing is the dark in the center of the soul. Seth says it is the heart of gnosis to know it, that merely to know this one simple truth is to be set free. Ignorance is all there is of Evil.”

Yeshu’s eyes glow with pleasure at this. “Seth is a great teacher. I would be such a teacher.”

I think of Diogenes, who owned nothing and lived in a great jar at the gate of a temple, and who wrote that teaching such mysteries “is a hard road to follow, filled with darkness and gloom, but if an initiate leads you on the way, it becomes brighter than the radiance of the sun.” Who would be the initiate to lead Yeshu who has walked with God? Could he think it would be me?

Yeshu sees all this in my face. He must, for he says, “You once asked if I were the One. Do you know your asking caused me to walk out into the desert, to live or to die? Am I the One? I would answer now: we are all the One. How do I keep what I have seen and what I am to myself? How would I not help those who stumble and those who cry out? How could I not hope to raise their sight so they too might walk in the sight of the Father? Therefore, tell me John, how shall I do what I must now do? Who shall walk with me?”

I cannot avoid looking into his eyes. And there I find my answer. Yes. He thinks it will be me. In a heartbeat, there comes a trembling in all my limbs. There comes a heat, which rises up from the base of my spine and spreads out into my blood as floodwaters fill the lotus delta of Egypt. I hold on to my senses as I would hold Eio on her rope, for fear they might plunge away from me, run where I would not go. More than a memory comes, more than a reliving. I could once again know Glory—or would if I would allow it. But I do not allow it. I am not Yeshu. I cannot hold God in my hand as he does; I cannot be God in my mind, and still breathe and stand and continue in my being. But I can remember Glory and know that Yeshu now lives in the Kingdom of God, which is
Daemon,
with the Father who is the Mother who is All That Is. This man appears as a shepherd among lambs, and this man stands forth as a lion, and I know him by his word. Yeshu is the One who comes.

My own voice rings forth as the Loud Voice: “I will walk with you, Yehoshua the Nazorean.”

Hearing this, sorrow comes down over Yeshu’s face as the shadow of a blade might come down over a neck. “This thing we will do will break our hearts.”

“I know,” I say.

I am not a fool. I do know.

THE TENTH SCROLL

Separate Paths

T
he days pass,
one on the other, and still Yeshu hides himself away in my
nahal.
I hear much complaint of this as I go about the settlement, contentedly doing one thing and another and knowing what I know. It is not John of the River who complains. John walks and talks with Simon Magus and with Helena of Tyre and with the sons and the grandsons of Judas of Galilee. He preaches at the southernmost point of his beloved Jordan, waiting out Yeshu as patiently as my poppy field awaits the changing of the seasons. Nor does Simeon complain. Simeon keeps to his wife, for it seems he loves the sour Bernice more than a man is wise to love a wife. Jude also does not complain for he has settled himself at the foot of the path up to the
nahal,
and seems likely to stay there until Yeshu once more appears, or until he, Jude, starves to death. Not that he will. Miryam and Maacah daily bring Yeshu and Jude their meals. Jude allows his sisters to pass and he allows me to pass, but we are all he allows to pass.

If I am not about Yeshu’s business, I sit with Addai as he suns himself near the potteries, while Tata fashions
bilbil
after
bilbil,
curious little jugs to fill with
rosh.
Dositheus sits often with us, elaborating by the hour on all he has seen and heard in Egypt. He tells Tata that there are scribes and such who take
rosh
so that they might ride Ezekial’s chariot and see what Ezekial saw; he says the Greeks call it
opion
and the ancients of Sumer called it
hul gil,
which means “joy plant.” At this, Addai would have raised his hands if he could. If he could, he would have laughed. But he can only whisper, “I would that my daughter had known joy, and if not joy, then
rosh.
”

These few are those who know peace as they wait for Yeshu.

But the many, led by Old Camel Knees, Jacob the bald brother of Yeshu, stomp about the settlement with iron in their eyes and bile on their lips. It is the month of
Tishrei.
The fast of Yom Kippur, the Sabbath of Sabbaths, is only days away. Up in Jerusalem, the high priest of the Temple will soon plead with YHVH to reconcile himself with his Holy Nation. These grumblers are saying it has been the month of
Tishrei
for many days now and where is Yeshu? As leader, when shall he command them to make John king?

I do all I can to avoid them.

It is not always possible.

On this day, Jacob and Simon Peter and Andrew and a handful of others, among them Essene from En-geddi, stand in the courtyard of the small sundial that I must cross if I am to feed Eio. They all shave their heads, and swear to continue to do so until the rightful king is on his throne. The blue of their skulls shines under the sun like a row of Tata’s glazed pots.

As I pass, keeping myself small, Menahem, the son of Simon, stands with these men, trying to appear as they do: righteous and fearsome. He succeeds in appearing an anxious, overgrown, bearded child. As kin to Seth who keeps his chin clean, John the Less also keeps his chin clean. As does Simon Magus. Or so, thank the stars, it is assumed by all these bearded men. For the fifth or so time, I hear Simon Peter saying as if it were the first time, “If John would cause the people to rise, Succoth is surely the time to appear before them. Why does Yeshu keep us waiting?”

As Peter has spoken, now Jacob speaks. “Does Yeshu forget that Succoth comes on the heels of Yom Kippur? If John does not show himself soon, Yeshu will have waited too long. Is it not timely for the King to appear in Jerusalem on such a feast day as Succoth, the joyous Festival of Tabernacles? Everyone will crowd into Jerusalem, who would know there was one more?” Jacob so moves himself, he shakes his fist in the direction of my
nahal.
He so inspires himself, white spit sticks to his red lips.

Not wishing them to notice me, I keep my eye averted as if I do not notice them. But Menahem is ever eager to single me out. He pushes at Andrew who pushes at Simon Peter, which causes Simon Peter to turn and face me full on.

Simon Peter’s eyes are full of envy and hatred. He knows I am free to see Yeshu and that he is not. It takes him no time at all to step between me and the gate from the courtyard. This gate leads out onto the hot flats under the western cliffs where Eio wanders about searching for something to eat. She will bray when she smells my poppy seeds. The tuft on the end of her tail will quiver. I am eager to see this. I am more eager to avoid Peter.

“You,” he says. “You, John the Less.”

Simon Peter means for me to stop.

I stop on the spot. But where I have stopped requires the rest to come to me. It is not far, but it satisfies my foolishness. I keep my eyes down as suits a youth before his elders. I keep my hands folded in front of me. The bag of poppy seed I would share with Eio dangles from my belt. There is nothing to fault my deference.

It is Jacob who speaks to the intruder who has by some wickedness bound his brother Yehoshua. “Tell me, John,” he begins, holding on to his temper as I hold on to my nerve, “what does Yeshu’a do?”

I do not raise my eyes to his. I am humbleness itself. “He is thinking.”

“Ah! This must mean he plans our actions!”

I know he wants me to assure him this is so, but I do not. I hold myself steady in a ring of men who lean toward me. I breathe them. I smell them. I feel the heat of their bodies and the ardor of their passions. They would walk with John to Jerusalem. They would follow prophecy. All the men of the settlement, Jew, Nazorean, Yahad, the Issa-ene, the Many and the Poor and so on, now all believe it prophesied that John is the Messiah. I stand silent before Jacob who would turn on his heel and run to Jerusalem at a word from Yeshu.

“When will he be finished thinking?”

This I can honestly answer. “I cannot say.”

“Will it be before Yom Kippur?”

“I cannot say.”

“Does he agree we should go in time for Succoth?”

“I cannot say.”

Simon Peter, at my elbow, cannot contain himself. He leans into my face and he shouts, “What
can
you say!”

Jacob restrains him with a glance. I answer Simon Peter. “I cannot speak for Yeshu.”

Jacob moves closer, and I reach into him, feel for his heart. He may be, as Salome once said, made stupid by his righteousness, but he is cunning. He is not Simon Peter of Capharnaum; he knows his own mind. Jacob the Just has no thought of Glory or gnosis, has never desired to ride Ezekial’s chariot. He is a “son of man,” rooted deep and steady in his need for restraint and control and for Law. And his sublime conviction, fed by an aching passion for what he calls justice, is that what is right for him is right for all. What Jacob does not know is a single moment of doubt.

I would say that Nicodemus knows what it is he knows, but were Nicodemus to stand against Jacob in his certainty, he would be as fine sand before a great wind.

I am more fortunate than sand. I have come to see that I know nothing at all. In this I am no more than the grass. Before the mighty wind of Old Camel Knees, I bend.

Jacob the Just leans toward me as I lean back; he comes so close, his breath flows into mine.

“I would ask that you grant me a boon.”

Please Isis and all the gods, make this something I might grant! “If it is in my power.”

“I would have you go to my brother. This I am sure you can do.”

I nod. I can do this.

“I ask you to say that his brothers and his friends wish a word.”

Once again, I nod.

“I ask that you do this now.”

I nod one last time and I walk away.

From the corner of my eye, I see that Eio turns her great hairy head my way, that she lifts her soft upper lip and waggles her long tender ears in astonishment. Where do I go? I walk away from her? At this, she lets out such a bray of surprise and dismay, I am almost compelled to turn away from Jacob’s task.

A
ll who have gathered find Yeshu in my bowl of warm rock. It is the middle of the day, yet he seems to doze. But I know he does not. He does as Socrates once did who was often discovered to be staring at “nothing” for hours. Seth calls the nothing of Socrates a state of rapture.

Not knowing rapture, most who crowd into my
nahal
glower amongst themselves.

They ask themselves how it is he sleeps when all around there is much to discuss and much to determine and much to do? As a youth among men, I do not sit, but I stand near Yeshu. I would wriggle with curiosity if I would allow myself. What shall Yeshu say to these men who hear him as second only to John?

Salome’s and my secret place has never seen so many. I am surprised they find room. There is Jacob the Just, as close as he can come to Yeshu without climbing up onto my rock. There is Simon Peter, and there is the ever-bald Andrew; these two sit farther back but are still too close. Seated in the sand, the Sons of Thunder, brothers Simon bar Judas and Jacob bar Judas, have come, though they have brought with them only one of their sons. This is the eldest son of Jacob bar Judas, who is called James. James, whose face is roseate with perhaps a rash, stands and keeps silent as suits his place. He seems as solemn as I must seem. I wonder if his solemnity is as much a fraud as mine? As for the absence of Simon’s son, the bearded, preening, tall and irritating Menahem, I find this a blessed relief.

Simeon is here. From his place near the head of the path, he shows me his wonderful teeth in his wonderful smile, and my heart smiles back at him for this. The youngest brother, Joses, is also come. He kneels near the seated Simeon, and for the first time I get a good look at him. His ugliness is not a thing of birth. Joses has once had a great slice taken from his face. Where it is scarred, his beard will not grow. Seeing this, I look away. I would not shame him. But I do not doubt his scar is because he is Sicarii.

Because there is so much zealotry here, no woman is allowed. Without Tata to lean on, Addai must be helped by Dositheus and by John of the River. He sits where he has always sat, in his place under his date tree. Near him, John unfolds himself on a soft floor of sand. It pleases me to note that he has not taken a place of prominence for all that he would be a king. As Yeshu does, John closes his eyes. Near John stands Simon Magus. I do not look at him. He does not look at me. But I know, and I know he knows; we look at each other through and through.

Right beside me, crouching down by the bowl of rock, is Jude. He has not been asked to do so; Jude simply does what he does. Just as he would sit at the bottom of the path stopping all who might pass, now he chooses to sit by his brother Yeshu and to glare out in silence at the men who have come for answers.

Among these there are none who call themselves Poor or Essene or Yahad or Friends or the Meek or the Little Ones or the First or the Many. But there are nine who call themselves Zealot, and all nine carry knives. It is Seth who is missing here, Seth who is needed, yet he remains in Jerusalem, overseeing Queen Helen’s palace. I would have him to talk to when I do not understand a thing. I would have him to listen to when I would know a thing better. If Addai is my heart, then Seth is my mind, and suddenly I am struck with such a longing for him, and for what is past, I think of Salome who thinks of me, and I quickly look up.

She stands by her beloved John, but she looks at me. From where I stand near Yeshu, I look back as openly as she. Without speaking, I say,
Is this what we meant to do, you and I
? From the moment our voices began, we waited for the One. And now it seems we have found him, one for each. I say also this:
I miss your laughter and your briar tongue. I miss your sightedness and your true-speaking.

It is a thing of blessedness to hear in return,
As I miss you, Mariamne, friend of my youth, and she who is my heart.

In this moment, Yeshu stirs, and whatever else we might say to each other fades as a drop of rain on burning sand. On the instant, those who have come to confront Yeshu strain forward, eager to hear his thoughts so that they might know their own. All, that is, save John. John does not open his eyes. I hear John of the River. John knows his own thoughts. He will walk to Jerusalem. He will be made king. He will be king because the people would have it so.

Glory plays about the head of Yeshu as lightning might play in the distant hills. I wonder, does anyone see this but me? Do I see what is truly there, or is this as my voices are, a thing of strangeness peculiar to me?

Yeshu speaks. In tones as clear and as beautiful as the lute, he says, “Now you are come, what is it you would have me say?”

At such a question, it is Jacob who looks most askance, causing him to blurt out, “You ask this? As you have ever been the right hand of John, and as it is time to be about a king’s business, we would know how you see this thing done.”

Reclined in the bowl of stone, Yeshu answers, “How do
you
see it done, Jacob?”

Jacob would seize this chance to say how he would see it done, but Jacob is a cunning man. He thinks that now is not the time to stand forth. He knows the men around him have come to listen to Yeshu, not to Jacob. “I, Yeshu’a? I would see it done as you think it wise. What is it you think wise?”