Читать книгу Bright Dark Madonna - Elizabeth Cunningham - Страница 18

CHAPTER SEVEN

BRING FORTH THAT WHICH IS WITHIN YOU

THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY, THOUGH it was not yet called that, was by no means my first experience of communal life. I had grown up in the small all female clan of my mothers. I had been a student at the famous druid college of Mona. I had lived with a Celtic tribe in the fastnesses of the Iberian mountains. When I ran away and got captured by a Roman slaver, I was sold to a Roman brothel, and sold again into a wealthy Roman household as big as a small village. Temple Magdalen had been my home for longer than any other, a loose (in every sense of the word) community held together by whore-priestesses who worshipped Isis and welcomed all comers in her name. Finally I was one of the companions of Jesus, a footloose, sometimes footsore band, now scattering, now gathering, seldom knowing where we would eat or sleep next. But there was something about this Jerusalem community that was unlike anything I had known in my diverse circumstances. I sensed it, but I could not at first fathom what it was.

Despite our rocky start, Ma and I each attracted a following. Many did regard us askance after the incident with the doves, but more were curious. The curious managed to evade the censorious and seek us out.

“Was he a precious little angel?” I overheard one woman asking Miriam.

“He was a devil,” his mother answered with pride. “Let me tell you about the time he struck the neighbor’s boy dead. Well, he raised him again, of course…”

And she’d be off and running, her audience completely enchanted.

I was wary about telling my own stories. When I was first in Rome I had told my saga in installments every day at the whores’ bath. And when it was done, I had felt bereft, as if I had given the story away, and it was no longer mine. My sister whores had regarded it as no more than a romantic tale, and they all believed it was over, that I would never find my beloved again. Yet against all odds I had found him, and my friends who had sighed (or in some cases scoffed) as I held forth in the bath had danced at our wedding. And the story had gone on to its strange end—if it was an end. I was still here, and though I missed him, he was still with me.

One night I lay awake and prayed for him to come to me in that way that was so close, so intimate—so bodily and disembodied at once.

What do I do with our story, cariad? Do I hold it inside? Do I give it away? Do I tell it now? Do I wait?

I felt his warmth inside me, surrounding me, dark and absorbent as earth, loam to soak up the tears I couldn’t hold back, but no answer came, at least not then, or if it did, I had already drifted into deep sleep.

The next day I went to fetch water at a nearby well, and Tomas was trailing me as he often did. His nickname had been the twin or the shadow, because he had stayed so close to Jesus. When Jesus wasn’t available, he had attached himself to me. He was the only one of the Twelve who had been unabashedly happy when I came back to Jerusalem. Lately Tomas had taken to repeating obscure sayings of Jesus that no one else remembered. He would utter them spontaneously, without context, and it wasn’t clear if he understood what he was saying. The words would just pop out in a singsong voice, beginning always with, Master said. No one paid very much attention to him, and some of the other disciples occasionally tried to shush him.

As I balanced the water jug on my head and started back to the house, I wasn’t listening either; the words he repeated over and over came through as background noise, like the sound of our feet on the paving stone or the cries of the street vendors. Just before we got back to the house, Tomas grabbed my sleeve, and the water jug I’d been balancing on my head nearly tumbled off. As it was, some of the water spilled and sluiced down my neck.

“Tomas!” I protested.

But he kept hold of my sleeve.

“Master says,” he brought his face close to mine, our noses almost touching “bring forth what is within you, and it will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, it will destroy you.”

“Of course, I’m going to bring it forth,” I said, thinking of our child.

“Master says.” Tomas sighed with relief, as if unburdened, and then he loped away, leaving me in peace for a few moments.

Later that day, a number of women approached me as I stood struggling with the drop spindle. (I had been assigned only household chores, and had been excused, or excluded from, all public ministries—supposedly because of my delicate condition). One of the women gently took over the spindle from me.

“Will you tell us about the master?” she asked.

“How did you meet him?” another prompted.

“Is it true you were possessed by seven demons?”

“Was it love at first sight?”

Bring forth what is within you, I heard the words again, this time in my beloved’s voice, and it will save you.

“Actually,” I said, sitting down and leaning back against the wall, “It was love at second sight.”

And I told them about glimpsing my beloved in the Well of Wisdom on Tir na mBan. The next afternoon, a larger group had gathered, and so it went, each day more people coming, mostly the women from the community, but a few outsiders also, including some street whores I knew from my days of backsliding. The storytelling became an unofficial daily event—unofficial, because none of the apostles knew about it; they were too busy exorcising and evangelizing, ducking and courting trouble with the Temple officials. One day I went on longer than usual. I had gotten to the part where Jesus, then called Esus, was chosen, or pre-selected by a rigged lot, to be a druid sacrifice. My listeners would not let me stop there, so I kept on with how we had managed his escape (by her magic, I had traded shapes with the old witch Dwynwyn and infiltrated the druid rites). Then came the moment when we had to part. I was nine months pregnant and could never have managed the dash by horseback across the Menai Straits into the mountains.

“But he would never have left you!” protested one of my listeners.

“No, he didn’t want to go. In the end, I forced him. He cried out,

“‘Maeve, we are lovers.’

“‘You are lovers,’” Dwynwyn said. “‘But not just of each other. You are the lovers of the world.’

‘We can’t love if we’re apart,’ he said to me.

‘We can’t love unless we part,’ I told him, and then I called on his god, ‘Yeshua Ben Miriam in the name of the unnamable one, the god of your forefathers, the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I command you to go.”

Oh,” one woman wept. “Oh. He had to go then. He had no choice, poor lamb.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “He had to go. And it was many years before either of us understood what Dwynwyn said to us about being the lovers of the world. I still don’t know if I understand.”

“Well, I do,” spoke up one of the seediest looking whores; I’d seen many women like her during my career, past their youth but still on the street, bad skin covered over with make-up, and my healer’s sense told me she might be sick as well. I wondered if she’d let me have a look at her later. “I understand. It means he’s our lover, too. He’s the lover, you know, the one we dream about, that one who looks at you and doesn’t see what everyone else sees. He knows you from the inside.”

“Oh, come on, Gert, they all know you from the inside,” snorted her friend.

We were so intent on the story that we hadn’t paid attention to the evening shadows falling across the courtyard, nor did we notice the men coming home and standing in the gloaming at the edge of our circle.

“I’m not talking about the inside of a cunt, you old cunt, and you know it. I’m…I’m talking about…what am I talking about?” she appealed to me.

“I don’t know if I can say any better than you just did,” I said. “That Jesus is the lover, who knows us from the inside out—and isn’t that what lovemaking is? I mean, really? You can talk about god as a father or a lord or a goddess as mother or a queen. You can call your god the maker of all things or the ruler or the judge. What if god is also our lover, our secret, passionate lover? What if that’s who Jesus is, who the Christ is—now that he has suffered the god-making death? And if he is our lover, then we—”

“That is enough.”

We all startled and looked up to see Peter, James, Matthew, John, Mary B, and others standing over us.

“Mary of Magdala, you are not authorized to teach.” Peter challenged me.

“She has as much a right to teach as anyone,” Mary B was right on his case.

“Has she repented? Has she been baptized in Jesus’s name?” Peter countered.

“Was I dipped, do you mean?”

Peter and the others hadn’t been there when John the Baptizer tried to drown, exorcise, or baptize me all at once. I had tried to drown him back, so perhaps it didn’t count. In any case, Peter ignored me.

“And where was she the day the Spirit descended and gave us the gift of tongues so that we could bring the Word to the people?”

“Peter, excuse me, if I may be so bold as to suggest unto you,” James interrupted, and yes I am exaggerating and poking fun at him, “that this grave matter of who has authority to teach the flock, as it were, and who has not, is best discussed amongst the few of those unto whom our Lord—and my brother—has appeared to give instruction, so to speak…”

“All right, all right,” said Peter, rather ungraciously. “I see your point. We will speak at council tonight.”

And he turned to walk off.

“Do we get to come to the supper?” one of the whores called after him, rightly guessing that Peter was a bit more “equal” than others. “Word on the street is that you Jesus Jews set a generous table.”

Peter turned, rather wearily and warily. He’d had a long day, and the press of the multitudes can be exhausting.

“All Jews who repent of their sins and receive baptism in Jesus’s name are welcome at his table.”

And before there could be further discussion, Peter and the other men stalked off.

“What does that mean, Dove?” Gert called me by my most recent streetwalker name. (In Rome I’d been known as Red.)

“It means sure thing,” I said.

“Mary,” said Mary B. “I need to talk to you. Privately.”

The two whores came to help me up, clucking over me and patting my belly, and I realized how much I longed to have time just to marvel at my body, to sit and watch the little heels and elbows swimming by, and to have women who loved me make a fuss over me. How I missed Dido, Berta, and Reginus and everyone at Temple Magdalen. I was grateful for this visit from Gert and her friend and resolved to bring them with me to supper if I had to baptize them myself.

“Will you tell us more of the story tomorrow?”

Mary B shook her head at me and scowled.

“As soon as I can,” I said as Mary B dragged me by the wrist out back of the busy kitchens to a small yard where a few chickens scratched in the dirt.

“What is the matter now?” I took the offensive. “You act as if someone just shoved a roasting spit up your butt. Are you constipated again?”

You get to know a lot about people’s digestive problems when you’ve been on the road with them, and I had been witness to Mary B’s occasional distress, and had helped to ease her with abdominal massage and dietary advice.

“Must you be so crude all the time? Don’t answer that,” she cut me off before I could say, predictably, yes, I must. “You are living in a house of prayer. We are trying something here that has never been tried before, and you are undermining our cause.”

“Which is?” I asked when she paused for breath.

“Living and working as a community of believers, men and women together serving as equals. ”

“Mary,” I said gently, pausing for a moment to consider how to respond. I was sorry I had been flip with her. She was so earnest and passionate—and vulnerable. “You say such a community has never existed before. But isn’t that how we lived when we traveled with Jesus?”

“You are missing the point.” She didn’t say “as usual.” She didn’t need to; I could hear it.

“What is the point then?”

“Listen, Jesus was—is—our teacher, our guide. He showed us the Way. He is the Way. But now it is up to us to follow the Way. When he was here, it was easy. Remember how he called himself the Bridegroom? I know. I know he married you, but that is not what he meant when he called himself the Bridegroom. He was—he is—the Bridegroom of Israel. While he was here, we were all at the wedding feast. Now the marriage begins. It takes work; it takes discipline. Following the Way is not going to happen by itself. When your teacher leaves you, you have to become the teacher.”

“You’ve always been an excellent teacher, Mary,” I said, still conciliatory.

“Thank you, Mary,” she said gruffly. “But again that’s not the point.”

I wavered between feeling stupid and exasperated and chose to compromise.

“Your points are sometimes very hard to grasp. Come on, give it to me straight.”

“All right, the point is, are you a good teacher? No, the point is will women continue to be recognized as teachers? Jesus defended our right to be disciples, but some of the men question even that much. When they hear you trading rude remarks with common whores it doesn’t help.”

Now my Irish was up, so to speak, or the Celt, or the street fighting whore. Take your pick.

“If you want to be like your teacher, Mary, don’t you dare be contemptuous of whores. He never was. As to what I was teaching, if you must to call it that, it wasn’t much different from what you just said to me. You called him the Bridegroom of Israel; I called him the Lover of the World.”

It was downright dark in the back yard now. The chickens had gone into a huddle in the corner, their heads tucked under their wings. The aroma of fresh bread was wafting from the kitchen, the sharpness of onion sliced the air.

“I think it’s time to eat, Mary,” I changed tack.

“Not yet.” She took hold of my arm again. “You need to understand something. What you said to those women was very different from what I mean. You spoke as if Jesus was some kind of pagan god who would make love to them in some supernatural way. I am not talking about some vain idea of a love affair between a god and a mortal. I am talking about the Bridegroom of the people Israel. The people, the ecclesia, not individuals. The other is just sentimental nonsense.”

The baby did a somersault, and I felt dizzy and tired.

“Can we talk about this over supper? And speaking of supper, what about those women? Do we really have to baptize them before they can eat?”

“You can’t baptize them. And besides, I suspect the whores are gentiles.”

“Why can’t I baptize them? I thought men and women were equal here. And so what if they are gentiles?”

“Mary, how can I make you understand?” I took hold of her wrist now and she followed, so intent on what she was saying that she offered no resistance. “When Jesus was alive, everyone had to accept you, whether they liked it or understood it or not. They’ll care for you for his sake—but the Way is for Israel. Or at least there is no agreement about changing that. That’s what’s so different, so precarious now. We apostles have to make decisions together, based on the scriptures and his teachings. Right now I am included in everything.”

“So what you’re saying is—”

“Don’t screw it up for me,” she concluded with admirable brevity.

“Will you baptize them, then?”

“Yes, if they are Jews.”

“I’m sure they are.” I didn’t bother to tell Mary that if they weren’t before, they certainly would be now at the prospect of a good meal. “So let’s go get some water. Because I know one thing for sure, Jesus would be seriously pissed off if we turned anyone away hungry. He had a thing about that. Remember? ‘In as much as you have done it unto one of these the least of my sistren…’”

“Brethren, I believe he said. Sistren is not a word, Mary. But yes, you’re right. When we fed that huge crowd in Galilee no one cared who was Jewish and who wasn’t or who had been baptized by John or by Jesus. Sometimes you actually make sense, Mary. And of course you knew him, well, intimately.”

I could feel her blush, and I wondered if she was still a virgin or if perhaps she and Philip (her only intellectual equal) might have tangled over something other than interpretation of obscure passages in Leviticus.

“That’s why I wish you could be at the meetings. They, we, need to hear what you have to say.”

“All right, I will come if you want me to, Mary. It’s just that I get tired so early these days, and the meetings do tend to go on and on.”

“You didn’t understand me, Mary.” She paused and turned to face me. “You missed so much when you were in Bethany. Now you can’t come to the meetings, not any more, not unless you convert and accept baptism. The men are immovable on that point. I wish you would become a Jew. For my sake, for the Christ’s sake.”

I wish she wouldn’t have put it that way. For Jesus’s sake. How could I refuse him?

“I’ll think about it, Mary.”

“Good.” She handed me a basin, and began to draw water from the house cistern, for only pure rainwater would do for ritual purifications. “Let’s go baptize some whores.”