Читать книгу The Passion of Mary Magdalen - Elizabeth Cunningham - Страница 31

Life is a hard choice. You say you have no choice? Life is all you know? I don’t believe it. You remember the restfulness of not being, of no pain, no yearning. We may fear death, but we don’t always know if we can make it through life. It’s the suspense that keeps us hooked. We want to know what happens next. Of course, there’s a reason we don’t know. Because if we did, we might say forget it, just forget it. I’m not signing on for that.

If you want to find out what happens next in my story, I’ll give you fair warning: the next part is tough. But if you persist, you may recognize your own story of times too hard to bear that seemed as though they would never end. You may find the hidden gifts of those times. You will know that I know all about it. And I won’t give you any crap. I won’t say things to you like god—or goddess—never gives us more than we can bear. I won’t lie. Sometimes life is just too much. When you want to lie down and die, I won’t judge you. I’ll sit and howl with you. Just remember: I am still here, I am telling you this story. And it’s not over.

“Yes, Isis loves you, yes, Isis loves you,” crooned Old Nona. She had been my attendant since Succula left me. “Yes, Isis loves you, she tells you—”

“Spare me,” I snapped, irritable as any convalescent.

“Oh, she has, dearie. She has.”

If spared meant lying on a pallet somewhere in the back of the Vine and Fig Tree instead of drowned or dead of fever, then yes. How I had even come to be here I did not know. The last I remembered, Domitia Tertia had publicly denied any knowledge of me. Old Nona wouldn’t or couldn’t answer any of my questions, and Succula had not returned. Nor had I seen any of the other whores. No doubt I was being punished. Maybe Domitia Tertia intended to demote me to sweeper or latrine cleaner. I didn’t know. And worse, I hardly cared. I rolled over, covered my ears and escaped into sleep again.

I woke to the touch of someone’s lips on my cheek. A man’s kiss. I kept my eyes shut for as long as I could, wanting it to be him, the one I searched for in all my dreams.

“Maeve,” the man said softly; the name was right, but not the voice.

“Joseph?” I opened my eyes, and caught the look of tenderness that he quickly covered as he drew back from me. “Where have you been?”

“You’re the one who needs to answer some questions. Why did you do it, Maeve? Why? Why! If only you had waited.”

He was practically wringing his hands. What did it matter to him? I looked at this man, who had walked on the same ground as my beloved, this man who had the power to come and go, who traveled from Pretannia to Rome to Jerusalem whenever it suited his purposes. I wanted to rage at him, but I couldn’t summon the strength. I felt powerless, as I did in the dream, my feet tangled in the weeds.

“You know why,” was all I said.

He turned his face away as if I had struck him a blow; then, very deliberately, he looked at me again.

“I deserve your reproach.”

“No, Joseph,” I said wearily. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“Except the truth.”

Now he had my full attention. “What do you mean? When have you lied to me?”

“I didn’t lie, I just didn’t tell you what I knew or rather what I suspected. Now it’s too late.”

“What do you mean, it’s too late? What’s too late? Tell me.”

“Listen then.” He sighed, and he sat down next to me on the floor; I could feel him wanting to touch me, but he wouldn’t let himself. “Do you remember you asked me if I had a son? I did once, a son and a wife whom I caused great suffering; they are both dead now, but that is another story.”

“I’m sorry, Joseph.” I touched his arm lightly; he brushed it away without noticing as if a fly had lighted on him.

“When I met you my interest was aroused. A Celt in Rome is not unusual, but one who knows Aramaic is highly unusual. I couldn’t help wondering…” He broke off; he was having difficulty with his narrative. “Let me start again. Some years ago on a trip to the Pretannic Isles, I met a young Jew in the company of three Hibernian women. I would have been curious anyway, but he reminded me of my son—”

Joseph stopped again or maybe he didn’t. Maybe I just couldn’t hear him over the roar of surf in my ears, the whole salt ocean pressing behind my eyes. I clutched Joseph to keep from being utterly lost.

“He’s alive,” I spoke without knowing I spoke. “He’s alive.”

“Yes, Maeve, he’s alive, if we are talking about the same person. When I first saw him, he was distraught, beside himself. It was hard to make sense of what he was saying. A crazy story of being chosen as a human sacrifice, then being rescued by a woman he kept insisting was a prophetess in the Temple of Jerusalem. I was sure he had lost his mind.”

He hadn’t lost his mind; or anyway his account was true insofar as he understood what had happened. An old woman had rescued him—me in disguise. When he had mistaken me for Anna the Prophetess in his drug-induced delirium, I had not contradicted him. I had borrowed her authority. “I sent you here, Yeshua,” I had said in Anna’s voice. “Now I’ve come to send you home.”

“I felt responsible for him,” Joseph went on, “a fellow Jew, and the Hibernian women were clearly anxious to be shed of him.”

In my hag form, I had also rescued them, political prisoners in rebellion against the druids. They had paid their debt to me by taking him with them across the Straits, just before the tide turned, and I raised the tidal bore that forced their pursuers to retreat.

“They’d brought him to Glastonbury to dump him on the priestesses there, so, of course, I said I’d take him with me back to Palestine. But he didn’t want to go. He kept saying over and over, ‘I’ve got to go back. I should never have left her. How could I have left her?’ He couldn’t eat; he couldn’t sleep. He was ill and feverish.”

I felt sick, just as he must have felt sick, wracked with guilt to think that I had caused him such anguish when I only meant to set him free.

“The priestesses kept him under watch—under guard really. Finally, he begged them to use their arts to find out what had happened to the young woman he had left behind.”

Joseph paused as if waiting for me to tell the other part of the story. I just nodded for him to go on. I couldn’t yet speak.

“I don’t know if you can understand, being a Celt and accustomed to divination, what it meant for him to ask that. We have a story of a king who went to a witch—”

“Saul,” I put in.

“Ah, you know our stories. Yes, Saul. And so you know that after Saul went to the Witch of Endor, the Most High abandoned him.”

My beloved had finally chosen me over his jealous god. When it was too late. When it could not help either of us. Oh, Esus, Esus.

“What did they tell him?” I spoke so softly Joseph had to lean closer, close enough so that I could smell the man smell of him, the sweat, the sorrow.

“They told him you had been found guilty of various crimes and exiled in a boat with no food or water. I told him it was a death sentence, but he refused to believe it. That’s when he decided to go with me, to try to follow you, though I had agreed to no such plan. As it turned out, I didn’t have to argue or make my case. Just before we were to embark, a terrible storm came—high winds, waves like mountains. No one believed you could have survived that storm. No one.”

“But the priestesses,” I was weeping now. “Surely the priestesses knew. They called the storm. I know they did—they blew me to safety.”

Joseph said nothing for a moment; I could feel he didn’t believe me.

“If they had any knowledge that you were alive, they did not say so; they said nothing more at all. When the swells calmed, we sailed for Palestine.”

For a while neither of us spoke. I just sat with my head in my hands, hearing the slap of the waves on the boat, feeling his desolation as he went back—with what? Anna the Prophetess of Jerusalem had told him to step outside his world. She had promised him that when he came back he would see his people with new eyes, love them with a new love. And instead he had returned grief-stricken and sick with shame.

But it was not over yet. It could not be over. He was alive. I was alive.

“Joseph, where is he now?” I turned to look at him, and again he looked away.

“I don’t know.”

I waited. There had to be more. There had to. I took his face in my hands and made him look at me.

“Maeve, don’t you understand? That’s where I went when I left last summer. To find him. I didn’t want to tell you, because I wasn’t sure. But I thought I had to find him. I had to make sure of him, because, because—”

“Joseph, don’t spare me anything.”

“Well, you see, I had helped to arrange his marriage.”

The words went in, went in so deep I couldn’t comprehend them.

“I told you he reminded me of my son. Such a keen mind. That much was evident even when he was most desolate. I tried to help him by teaching him the rudiments of Greek philosophy—so spacious and spare compared to the Torah. He paid attention at first out of courtesy, but I like to think the mental exercise brought him some relief. I rejoiced whenever I could draw him into argument. You of all people can understand, I’m sure, that after spending so much time with him on the journey, I became attached to him. I even went back with him all the way to Nazareth where I met his family.”

I was jealous, jealous even of Joseph.

“I made a point of checking up on him whenever I was in the country. Often as not when I went to Nazareth, he wasn’t home. He picked up odd jobs in Sepphoris, carpentry, enough to keep him in drink. His older brother had thrown him out of the shop at home, and I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but he became wild and dissolute. His mother, she’s a widow and very eccentric, never wavers in her belief that he has some great destiny. She goes on about it, and all her other children just roll their eyes. They resent him; it’s understandable. He’s the favorite, and what has he ever done but bring her grief and worry while they stay home and do her bidding?

“Last time I was there his mother told me: ‘He needs to get married.’ That’s not the strange part. What mother wouldn’t say that? She kept insisting that he’s supposed to marry a woman named Mary. He must marry Mary.”

“No!” I burst out.

“Do you want to hear the rest of the story?”

“Yes, but that’s not how the story goes.”

“Well, listen. When she said the name Mary I remembered a cousin of mine in Bethany. Her family had tried to arrange a marriage for years, but—”

“She’s hideous.” I was hopeful. “Foul-tempered. Mad.”

“No. Just brilliant. She cares only about learning. She wants to be a rabbi.”

“So?” I was worried now. Esus would love having someone with whom he could dispute the fine points of Mosaic Law.

“Among our people that is not considered normal. Men can be quite put off by a woman more learned in Scripture than they are, and one, moreover, who is almost completely ignorant of housewifely arts. But I thought, well, two misfits. And her passion for study might reawaken his, so I offered to broker the match.”

“He agreed?”

“Maeve, he thought you were dead.”

I was rocking myself now, back and forth, back and forth.

“I was going to go back for the wedding in any event. But when I realized who you were—or might be—I went sooner.”

“You were going to tell him I’m alive?”

“I have to tell you the truth, Maeve. I hadn’t decided. I wanted to see if he was still haunted or if, if he might want this new life with Mary. Maeve, you must know, even if he wanted to, he couldn’t marry you. A gentile barbarian and you know—”

“A whore.”

“Well, yes,” he paused delicately. “But, in any case, when I got there—”

“Wait, Joseph, just give me a minute.”

There was something I needed to know about myself. Would I, could I give him up—if I had a choice? Which of course I didn’t. It was true; it had always been true, that he couldn’t marry me. I knew less about marriage than most people. My mothers had not been married, nor had the druids. But I knew marriage was important to other people. Maybe to him. Could I give him up—to life, to ordinary life?

Tears were rolling down my face now. Giving him up meant giving up the story, too, the story of Maeve and Esus, the lovers, the lovers of the world. His mother and Anna the prophetess had all prophesied greatness. So had the druids, though they thought he had to be dead first. Maybe he was destined for greatness. Without me. Maybe I was just a short episode. And now he had to marry Mary.

“So,” I spoke at last. “What did you find out? Has he forgotten me? Is he happy with her?”

“The thing is, I don’t know, Maeve.”

“What do you mean? I thought you went back to find out.”

“I did, but he was gone. They were both gone. Three weeks before the wedding, they disappeared. No one knows where they are.”

“Together? They ran off together?”

“They are both gone. That’s all anyone knows.”

“Gone,” I repeated. “But not married. They ran out on their wedding?”

“So it seems.”

I did not know what to make of this information. Or at least my mind didn’t. My heart had already taken off, skipping, soaring. Not married. Not married to Mary. He’s somewhere in the wide, wild world, and I can find him. I will find him.

“Joseph!” I turned to him and grabbed hold of him with both hands. “Now you understand. How I wish I had told you everything before. But now, now you must see why you must take me to Palestine. You must. And Domitia Tertia will be glad to be rid of me. I disgraced her; she’s already denied me publicly. She’ll be itching to sell me.”

Joseph didn’t answer, and his silence was dreadful.

“What is it, Joseph? What’s wrong?”

“Maeve, she’s already sold you.”

“What?” I felt as though the hard floor gave way, I was falling. “How can that be? If she’s sold me, why am I here?”

“You were sick, Maeve. Remember? That was her agreement. She’d keep you till you were strong enough to walk.”

“But who? Who?”

“She wouldn’t tell me. Maybe couldn’t tell me. I don’t know for certain, but I suspect she’s being blackmailed. She saved you, you know.”

“Saved me?”

“Runaway slaves are as good as dead. You must know that, Maeve. That’s why she denied knowing you, don’t you see? She told me she let the aedile think you were a priestess. Then she made some kind of a deal and had you smuggled back here. She won’t tell me more than that. It was a generous act, and she’s now furious with herself. It goes against her grain to risk herself for someone else. You owe her your life.”

I looked at him blankly. My life? What life? I could see nothing but that empty sickening space that had no end; that held no air.

“Joseph, save me. Save me.” My voice was flat in the void.

“Ah, Maeve, Maeve, if only I could. If only I could have taught you more. Listen to me. You must hold fast to philosophy now. Remember as much as you can.”

I could hear his desperation. He couldn’t bear to be helpless to help me. “Remember your Plato, Maeve. ‘If a man, fixing his attention on these and the like difficulties, does away with the idea of things and will not admit that every individual thing has its own determinate idea which is always one and the same, he will have nothing on which his mind can rest; and so he will utterly destroy his reasoning…’”

Joseph went on quoting, but all I could hear were fragments of a poem, my beloved’s voice raised in lamentation when he told the story of his people’s exile from Jerusalem. ‘How deserted she sits…all night long she is weeping…she never thought to end like this.’

“Ah, Maeve, dear Maeve, how I could have loved—” He stopped himself. “It’s better I go now. If I find out where you are.… No. No promises. But I will do what I can. Meanwhile, remember what Aristotle said, ‘Hope is a waking dream.’”

“A dream? Joseph, this is a nightmare.”

“I’m sorry, Maeve.”

And he was gone.

That night, my last night at the Vine and Fig Tree, I tossed and turned and woke again and again from restless sleep shouting: “I’m alive, Esus, I’m alive. Wait for me. Wait!” Lying awake between nightmares, I tried to console myself. He must know, deep inside he must know or how could he have come to me in my vision, blocking the way to the country of death, offering me the choice of life? I tried to send myself to him in my dreams as once long ago on Tir na mBan my dreams had taken me to him in the Temple of Jerusalem. But now, awake or asleep, all I could see of him were his feet, his beautiful feet, dusty and bleeding, as he walked over rocks and rubble of some dry, dead land.

Finally old Nona came and held me in her arms. Or maybe it was Anna the Prophetess of whom I had once dreamed so vividly, Anna whose words had come to me that rainy night on Mona when I loosed my beloved’s chains.

“There, there, my little dove,” she crooned, and I could sense my bird form, feel my swift bird’s heart beating in her palm.

After that I must have slept deeply for a while. I woke to cold dawn light and the sound of voices in the corridor.

“I won’t have it.” I recognized Bonia’s angry tones. “The domina said she is to go quietly before the rest of them are awake. We don’t want a lot of wailing, red-eyed whores. We don’t want the house in an uproar.”

“Well, that’s exactly what you’ll get if you don’t let them see her. Tears now or later. Take your pick.”

“No, Bone. Domitia just wants her to disappear. The others will get the message; they’ll be too frightened to make a fuss.”

“Don’t bet on it.”

“Well, no matter what you think, those are her orders. How can you even question them?”

“Just because I worship Domitia doesn’t mean I worship every decision she makes.”

“Hmph! Some devotee you are. You’re fickle, that’s what. The girl has gotten to you. Admit it. How, I don’t know. Magic, sorcery. You can’t trust the keltoi.”

“She’s gotten to you, too, Bonia. Why else are you so upset? She’s gotten to everyone. She’s changed the whole place. I told you what I saw that day at the temple, the day of the races.” He lowered his voice. “Ever since then—”

“And I told you to stow that rubbish. The domina is right about those cults. Look what happened. How I wish they’d never gone to the Isia.”

“I’m going to wake the others,” announced Bone.

“If the domina finds out, on your head be it.”

Bonia came in to get me ready. There wasn’t much to it. She’d brought me a clean plain tunic with my accumulated tips sown into a pouch.

“Find a good hiding place for that,” she advised. “Most houses don’t have a bank for slaves and they’re always stealing from each other.”

“Where am I going, Bonia?” I asked listlessly and hopelessly.

“No one knows. You’re lucky to be alive. Remember that.”

She had also brought me bread and wine.

“I’m not hungry,” I said.

“Don’t be stupid, girl. You can’t be sure when you’ll eat again. I told you!” She couldn’t contain herself anymore. “I told you the first day you were here, it doesn’t get any better than the Vine and Fig Tree. Now you’re going to find out.” She brushed a tear from her eye as if she was trying to punch herself out. “Come on, then. It’s time.”

The other whores were huddled in the courtyard, shivering and red-eyed.

“Red,” wailed Berta. “We forgive you. We know you did it for love.”

“That is such a crock,” wept Dido.

“Red,” Succula flung herself at me. “I hate you.”

“I know,” I said, trying not to cry, as old Nona elbowed her way into our whores’ huddle with her tear scalpel. “I love you, too.”

Olivia the cat rubbed against my legs. I picked her up and buried my face in her fur. The cat embodied the Vine and Fig Tree, soft, feline, female, warm—everything I was about to lose.

“Strip her.” It was a man’s voice from behind me.

“When a whore leaves this house, she keeps her clothes,” protested Bone.

“Tell your mistress she’d better guard her reputation. Rumor will spread that she’s soft. In the head.”

I heard a thwack, and the man cried out. I guess Bone had socked him.

“I meant no offense,” the man whined, suddenly obsequious. “I have my orders.”

“Bone.” Domitia Tertia appeared in the entryway. “That was the agreement. No clothes. No belongings. Bonia, strip her and put everything back in the safe.”

I kept my eyes fixed on Domitia Tertia as Bonia lifted the tunic over my head. I wanted to communicate something, though I didn’t know what—gratitude, defiance? But she would not meet my gaze. She was willing me out of existence.

“There was one more condition, domina,” said the man, who was still behind me.

She made an impatient, dismissive gesture. I was no longer her concern. But she couldn’t quite sustain her indifference. For just an instant, she caught my eye. What was she saying? I know you. You will haunt me. Then the blindfold blotted out everything.

I could hear the other whores sobbing, and I fancied I could also detect the faint brush of old Nona’s scalpel. Then my hands were bound behind me, my feet shackled so that I could only just walk. A scratchy rope was fastened round my waist. With a vicious jerk that made me stumble to my knees, the man began to drag me away from the Vine and the Fig Tree, from my sisters, from a place, I realized too late, where I had belonged.