Nikodemos and Joseph were practical where no one else could afford to be, and the day was late and the Sabbath of the Pesach on its way. Joseph had already summoned his men and a wagon, and Nikodemos, with the help of John and Mark and James, now bore Jesus, covered in linen away. Rufus and Simon, Sebastian and others looked on while the mourning train wound about Golgotha and the city walls to the tombs even further away.
The little green garden, so different from the rockiness in which Lazaros had been buried, was a strange retreat from the heat and the violence of the day. It was almost unbelievable that such ugliness had happened except, well here the violated body of Jesus was, and here they entered a fresh cut tomb, one which Joseph had planned for himself, where you stepped down into an anteroom.
“He could have been buried like a dog,” Mary said to Joseph, when her weeping had ceased and she was exhausted, her face swollen. “This dignity will not be forgotten.”
On a carven bed they laid him, the women washing his wounds in water, then water and aloe, and then water and resin ground in myrrh. The myrrh she carried with her she’d born for thirty years and now she added it to the myrrh Nikodemos had brought, myrrh poured on the flesh and in the wounds to stop the decay of the flesh.
“The Sabbath comes on.”
“We haven’t even said the proper prayers.”
“We will come later, and burn the incense later.”
They had just begun to burn the myrrh and frankincense in the tomb, and the rocky place was filled with the earthy, holy smell. John, as he helped bind the body of Jesus, remembered that story of the princess called Myrrha who had become the first myrrh tree, how her tears from the underworld had become the drops of myrrh, and from her womb had been born Adonis, Lord of spring, who was destined to return to death. Myrrha, Mara, Mary. Adonis, Adonai, the Lord, the Lord Jesus. The mind played such games to escape the sorrow.
John himself insisted on tying the linen that bound Jesus’s mouth shut and saved him from the indignity of the lolling, uncontrolled dead face. He closed his dead eyes tenderly and kissed his lips before placing the cloth over his sallow face. Mark hooked an arm through his, suddenly aware that at this moment he had strength enough for this man.
Nikodemos blew out the censer and left it on the ledge across from the body so grimly bound and wrapped, so silent, so dead, so inhuman and human at once, so not Jesus, but the only Jesus they had.
They left with reluctance and Mary said, “How can I leave my baby alone and in the dark?”
Joseph’s men rolled the heavy stone over the opening to the tomb, and it settled down into its grooves with a terrible finality, proof against predators human and other wise.
“I cannot leave,” Mary said. “Not yet. I cannot leave.”
Magdalene was grateful for this, because she had not wished to leave, but thought it vulgar to insist that her grief was greater than Mary’s.
“Let me keep you company,” she said.
And as the evening approached, the Mother of Jesus nodded.
John said, “We will prepare the supper then.”
“And we will send someone to get you in a little while,” Joseph said, and Nikodemos nodded.
“You cannot sit out here in front of a tomb all night.”
They did not stay out all night, though. In fact, they did not stay very long at all before there came a rather noisy wagon and out of it leapt some all too merry Romans.
“What is the meaning of this!” Mary shot up, full of indignation.
“Ladies, forgive it,” said one. “But by order of the High Priest this tomb is to be guarded for the next three days.”
“For the next—”
“Words of Pilate. Words of Caiaphas.”
“Can my son have no peace?”
“In three days, Lady. In three days.”
“Mary,” but the voice was calling to Magdalene, “Lady.”
Along with these rude soldiers setting up camp and whistling songs were Sebastian and Simon and their friends and Sebastian explained.
“We had just come down for the Passover, and we are—”
“We are done with our service,” Simon said. “We are done this day. Our contracts are done. This was the last thing, to be forced by such an odious man as Caiaphas to—”
“He remembered Jesus saying he would return in three days, and lest you or anyone else should try something—”
“He has sent us to guard a tomb as if it were a bank vault.”
“And now I am done,” Sebastian repeated. “I am done.”
“What will you do?” Magdalene asked.
“I will go back to Cyrenaica,” Simon said.
“I would like to be free as I wanted all these last years. But for now, come ladies, come with me. I will take you where you wish to go.”
Night was settling when they reached the great house of Mariah, but Magdalene wished to be alone and so did Mary.
“The house in Bethany is safe now,” Magdalene said, “and empty enough but for the servants. Stay with me.”
And Mary agreed, and they traveled through the city and out of it, and as Magdalene gazed at the Temple and then at the hills where the houses and palaces of the wealthy were, she thought of Jesus’s prophecies and said to herself, “Your destruction cannot come fast enough.”
Mary slept in the same room her son kept with John, but Magdalene ate and ate and ate, surprised by her hunger as she sat up with the soldiers and her servants and eventually all went to bed.
She fell asleep on the floor, and she had heard of people who forgot all of their sorros and on waking remembered them. But when she woke in the dark, she remembered well that it was in a world where her closest friend… no, that was John. Her other self, her Lord, was dead. Her exhausted body, still needing a true bath, felt all the pains of the last day, of the last few weeks. She knew that her brother and sister were on their way to Gaul and she couldn’t wait to join them, because she hated this land. She moved through the house and sought John, her constant companion and companion in sorrow, but when she pushed back the thick curtains that made a doorway, she saw, under the full moon, that John lay asleep with Mark gathered to him, their two naked bodies white in the moonlight. She did not blame him or think less of him. Rather she looked upon them for a moment and then left the room and joined Sebastian in the courtyard.
“I thought to wake you,” he said, “but it seemed cruel. You’ve had so little rest.”
Magdalene nodded.
“I should bathe. Go to bed. Or perhaps just go back to bed. I wish to sleep and never wake again.”
“No,” Sebastian’s voice was a breath.
“No, Mary,” he said. “Live.”
Sebastian took her hand. She looked at him.
“I don’t want to be alone,” he said. “I am just a man. And… I loved him.”
Magdalene nodded.
“Even John,” Sebastian began. “And Mark.”
“Yes,” Magdalene said. “I saw.”
She closed her eyes.
“And you are fair. The gods know it.
“We could be a great comfort to each other tonight, Mary. You and me. We could make each other feel better.”
Magdalene closed her eyes and felt hot tears welling under her lids. She nodded.
“You are not wrong,” she said. “Only…”
“No?” Sebastian said.
“Not now. Not at this moment. You see, I don’t want to feel better. I don’t ever want to feel better again.”
END OF CHAPTER
