Night Part Two
When she wished to be alone, there were Simon and Judah making noises about, “Moither, you shouldn’t go off alone.”
Alone? Was she some ancient, doddering old thing? Chana had been far older, and she could have done anything up until the moment she died. Died. Oh, Mama, oh Mama, what a rip that had been. And Jesus had not come to raise her, and Mary knew why. Chana’s life was full. It was done. She would not have wanted to come back. By then she was ready to go to the children she had lost, to the husband she had not seen in thirty years.
Chana? Mary kept the days of mourning, and when her mother was taken from her there was a howl of grief from her soul as she had never known. Again, this thing called grief, which makes one less, which takes all energy when you need energy the most. And yet, after the days of mourning, strangely, Mary got up and she never reslly fell into that wailing grief again. She cried now and again, but for the mother of her girlhood, a mother who had been gone for years. The Chana she had buried was a Chana who needed rest and Mary was at peace with this.
Ever since Chana died, Mary had come to live in the house of Salome. Her sister was missing her sons and Mary, quite frankly, was tired of hers. And she was tired of that town, of Nazareth.
So when her sons said, “Mother, Mother don’t wander off,” as if she were some doddering thing insteady of a woman of forty-six with no grey or just the beginning of grey in her hair, strong, still smooth skinned, still the one who could walk about with flowers in her hair like the queen of the May, she had shoved them off. They could never understand that Jerusalem was her city, the city of her mother and father, the city of her girlhood. Nazareth was such a country place compared to where she’d grown up. She knew the quickest route across the Kidron Valley into the Temple gate, and she knew the location of the important houses, where Caiaphas lived, where Annas lived, where the palaces of the old Hasmoneans were. She had known the Temple intimately, with its great square Court of the Nations, and how halfway through it, and above that court was the central Temple divided into the Court of Women and finally, the Court of Israel bearing the central Mishkan which held, hidden from all, the Holy of Holies.
For a time, because she had to, Mary had often seen the temples of Egypt and the temples of Syria. In Syria they had the enormous courtyards with the schools and the meeting halls, the courts of women and the courts of men, but their main sanctuaries were far larger. In Egypt, the temples were nothing but courtyards and most of them ordinary folk did not enter. Those temples seemed wholly for their priests, the whole thing as untouchable as the Court of Israel and the Mishkan were to her.
“But now…” Mary murmured, “I’ll touch you as much as I can.”
She had stood with Rachel and Mariah that morning, and Sara as well. And Salome and the extraordinary Magdalene, and they had talked of all that had happened in this last strange half year. Jesus traveling up and down the countryside, Jesus railing at the powers that be in Jerusalem, Jesus… nearly stoned. Jesus commanding the stone to be rolled away from Lazaros’s tomb once he was dead four days. The women talked of all these things and Mary stood in the perfumed Court of the Women with the tapestries hanging from between the pillars. They were opened now, and looked on to the space before the Court of Israel. How strange, that men could pass through the place of women, but women not through the place of men? Men were usually so afraid of women, of the secrets they contained, secrets because men didn’t want to hear them. But this once, men passed through the quiet halls of women praying.
“We made these curtains,” Mary said.
She had been a skilled weaver, and so had Salome and Mariah. Those had been different days, when Great Herod was still king, still murdering his wives, and Mary had been born nine years after the execution of Queen Miriamne, in that time when many women began to name their daughters after the unfortunate queen. She had grown up in that time when even Miriamne’s children, the only Hasmonean descendants of Herod were being persecuted only to eventually be killed. To weep openly was not allowed. To rebel was death. So Israel responded by speaking names over their babies’ heads: Alexander, Aristobulus, Miriamne.
Salome was Herod;s evil sister, but this name meant peace, and it was the name of many a priestly princess as well. As Mary looked through the rose filled courtyard she thought, isn’t it even the name of Solomon—he who originally built this temple, or the precursor to it? And so their mother had named her second daughter Salome. And when Salome was on her way to betrothal. Mary had simply planned to accompany her sister back to Nazareth. In those days she would have remained in Jerusalem forever.
But beside Zebedee, this bandy legged man who was already too old for a girl he was just getting a look at and would not marry for some time, was Joseph. He was kin, yes, but Mary had lots of kin. How straight and tall he was, and how goodlooking. Now she was touched by something she had never known, an uncomfortable stirring, but one that was welcome nonetheless. His dusky skin and brown eyes, even the way he raised his eyebrow moved her. Before she was heading back to Jerusalem, she was betrothed to him. It had all been Chana’s plan.
“It would have been ridiculous for one like her to sit in the Temple forever, weaving day after day, losing her looks and turning into a crone…” she heard her mother say to Elizabeth. Elizabeth… well, she was gone too. And Yochanon. So many, so many.
Joseph never doubted her because how could he? What other man could there have possibly been. She had never looked at another man until him, and she thrilled at the touch of his hand. He slipped a copper ring on her finger. She thought if he had asked for more than that she might have given it. Her maidenhead, in the presence of Joseph the son of Jacob, meant very little. These were the days to be a girl. She would return to the Temple in time, but these were the times to walk in the night under the stars with the most glorious man she’d ever known.
And then it happened. It happened when she was in love. It happened when she certainly did not look for it, when she knew it would never have happened in the Temple. It happened after drawing water, in the quiet of her mother’s house, the voice and the vision like no other. Sound and sight which she at once longed to hold onto and never see again, a ripping of the world, a dissolution of all before her. And she was not mad. She knew she was not mad, and this was no illusion. Everything else was false beside it, and when he placed a hand on her shoulder and said, “Fear not,” she could not. Her eyes observed the wings and eyes and wheels and wheels falling down or up, spiraling into each other, observed the thing before her flashing from lion to eagle to flame, to eyes to young man, to young man, to almost convincing young man. Heard those words, so strange, but so clear.
And she thought, Oh, but you’ve got the wrong girl! Sara never had an angel come to her. Samson’s mother never had a name. But Mary, at least at this moment, had never had a husband.
“The Spirit of God will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible.”
Elizabeth? Pregnant. But she was too old. But at least to be pregnant she had the necessary ingredient of a man. Still, what else could she say? What else could she say to this presence before her which bowed down.
“Behold the handmaid of the Lord… be it done to me according to thy word.”
She had told Chana immediately, and her mother took it in stride.
“Elizabeth? Um… Elizabeth. You’d better get down there to see it.”
“You believe me.”
“Of course, child. You were… Your birth was strange. It was late, but it opened the door for your sister Salome. But your birth… It was different. Yes, go down there. Go down.”
“I should tell Joseph.”
“That you are leaving? Yes. That you are… that you have received this message?”
Chana frowned.
“Maybe wait.”
And she had gone down.. And there was Elizabeth full and big as life, and Elizabeth knew.
“The child leapt within me when I saw you!”
They stood together in the courtyard of her great house while the other members of the household looked down from the balconies, and the old woman and the young woman sang:
“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”
By the time she was returning to Nazareth, Mary was sure of the strangest thing that ever happened to her or any other woman. A child was growing in her, and this was so out of the order of nature that she felt out of the order of nature herself. She was out of the order of nature when she told Joseph, and he was very much in nature when he rejected it. Oddly, she did not despair, and she was not overly surprised when that dreamer of dreams came to her on his knees, taking her hands in his and asked to marry her now, right now. There was no talk. She was beautiful and he was goodlooking, and a man had the right to his lady as long as they were betrothed.
Besides, they would not remain in Nazareth long.
Later, she was to hear garbled tales, then she would be sorry she ever opened her mouth to talk about the past. She would hear how there was a worldwide census and all the world had to be taxed. But there never was .Quirinius did have a census, but that was years later when the first Roman governor came into Judea, and Judas of Galilee began a revolt. Many men joined him, and many men died. But by then Mary had born five children and Jesus was strong and sturdy. But when she had been heavy with the first child in her belly, it was, indeed, a time of chaos when they traveled south, and it seemed all of Israel was on the road for Pesach of all things, Pesach as it was Pesach now, though then it was early and there was a chill in the air. Mary and Joseph left with Chana and Salome and with Joseph’s sisters. There was merriment, but worry, for some thought Mary should stay behind, and she would not have it.
But when they reached Bethlehem, outside of Jerusalem, she began to wish she’d had it, and it was in that crowded city, at that crowded time that she had tasted true human cruelty.
“Silly cow shoulda had the sense to stay home!” remarked one, and every door turned her away until, industrious, her childhood friend Tilma led her to the caves kept as stables, and while Salome fretted and twitched, Chana whipped everyone into shape, making the place of straw and animal dung clean as possible, drawing clean water, and lowering a makeshift curtain between the men and the women while the women walked Mary about in circles, walking the baby out of her and singing songs and chants to the guardians of childbirth.
“When one has given birth in a cave… if one survives it, nothing else in this world is terrifying,” Salome said, later.
“It doesn’t have to be a cave,” Mary had replied, clapping her sister’s hand.
The birth was quick, for the labor had been going on some time, for some time Mary had been doubled over against the walls and in corners. Now, at last, in the back of this cave, washed and attended to by mother and sisters, she knew something like rest and relief from the greater pain. Now blood and black bile, the smell of the body remained with the smell of cows, and she was an open thing, a half dead offering, holding a squalling, swaddled baby.
“And then they came.”
And then they came.”
As strange and dirty as anyone would expect, young and old, poking their heads in, shepherds with their strange tale of a man in dazzling white, almost as if he were dressed in flame.
“Fear not!” See, they were fearful things.
“Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord…”
And these confused shepherds, looking like drunken men to her rapidly closing eyes had declared:
“Suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:
“Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”
Goodwill…. Goodwill…
In those days, many came to see the baby in the cave, which soon became the baby in a small room, or the baby in Ain Karem sleeping beside his cousin Yochanon. How cruel God was to bring such beautiful babies to this world, then destine them for such horrors.
She had never told these stories. They were known. Salome had been present for them. Chana sometimes began to tell them, but to Mary they were too much. How could you discuss such things? She could barely think of them now. And once you discussed them, how could they stay true? He details would be mixed up, some on purpose. But since she had returned to Jerusalem, and on this night so close to the one on which her firstborn son was born, a night of firstborns, the night where the Pesach was lifted up, she needed to remember the message of the angel, and at times it seemed all of the ills of the world would be healed, that just by bringing this child into life, the world would be restored. And yet, that had not happened. There was too much damage, or if the world was restored, it was beyond her power to see.
She was no Greek and she was no man. She was not the type of person to ask herself what she was feeling. It didn’t matter. Sometimes one simply needed to do what was needed, wash and put away dishes, sit quietly, go to bed, She was not exactly afraid. Something was about to happen. She did not wish for it, but she did not wish to avoid it. And at the same time, what it was just beyond her comprehension.
That was why, when the main door of the house flew open, and Mariah’s son, Mark, came running in, wild eyed and naked, Magdalene throwing a blanket over him, Mary was almost relieved.
“They came…. And they almost caught me…. They almost caught us all! But then Jesus said, no. And he said put your sword away. And Peter did. And then the guards took him. Not Peter. And when they came they were like a snake, it was like a snake of fire.”
Mary looked to Magdalene and saw on the other woman’s face a keen desire to slap the boy, but the door opened again and in ran John and then Peter and James and slowly others were coming.
“He’s taken!” John cried. “Jesus is arrested!”
“I could see them from a distance. They were coming across the Kidron, just a row of torches!” John said.
“I was terrified.”
“I was not. I had no idea.”
“I had a foreboding.”
“And then they were in the garden with clubs and spears and swords.”
“They were in our Garden.”
“That Garden, that olive press was never made for it.”
“And they were asking for Jesus of Nazareth.”
“I could barely speak.”
“I opened my mouth, and nothing came.”
“And then he said it. He said, ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth.’”
“And they swarmed about him like bees.”
“Like flies.”
“Like every type of vermin.”
“They took him away!” John nearly screamed.
Magdalene did scream, but covered her mouth, and looked to Mary who stood in the midst of them, still, expressionless.
“Peter was magnificent.”
“I was foolish.”
“He leapt at one and cut off his ear and… and…”
“And there was so much blood!”
“And then he said, then Jesus said…well first he put the ear back on.”
“He put the ear back on?”
“The name of the man was Malchus, and he was screaming, and there was so much blood and there was so much… there was so much… and Jesus, calm as anything put the ear right back on him.”
“He said those who live by the sword must die by it.”
“He said a lot.”
“They were going to haul as away.”
“Those who were not hiding behind trees!” Thomas said.
“But then he said, he said let them go. You wanted me. Let the rest go.”
“Look at poor John! They tore him from Jesus.”
John was weeping, and Salome noted her son had a black eye.
“He leapt on them and clung to Jesus. He clung to him and Jesus told him to let go, but he wouldn’t, and they pulled him away and… oh, gods, they took him away!”
“You are leaving a thing out,” Thomas said.
At this they were all silent, though there was still weeping around the room.
“You are leaving a thing out,” Thomas repeated, his voice stern.
“Judas led them,” Peter said, sullenly.
“Judas was at the head of them,” Matthew said in a daze.
“He came to Jesus and kissed him, and Jesus looked…amazed. He said—”
Nathanael reported, “You betray the Son of God with a kiss?”
“Where is he now?” Mary said.
They all looked to her, silent.
John said, “They were Temple troops, not Romans.”
“Then is he in the Temple?”
“At night?”
“He is at the house of Annas,” Mariah said. “Or of Caiaphas.”
Mary nodded, feeling her sister grip her hand.
She said, “Then let us go.”
