Poisoned Honey: A Story of Mary Magdalene (24 page)

It struck me that my brother was not glowing. “Brother,
when we met Rabbi Yeshua … did you feel true peace, as if for the first time?” As he regarded me with a baffled frown, I went on, “What
did
you feel?”

Alexandros shrugged. “Well, naturally, I was relieved that he was able to exorcise the evil spirits. And I was satisfied that I’d done my duty—more than my duty, many would say.” He yawned again. “I need to rest.”

I was disappointed, but I reminded myself what an ordeal I’d put him through that day. He did look weary. “You must be exhausted,” I said.

My brother nodded, slumping onto a pile of nets. By the time the boat had rocked once or twice, he was asleep.

Strangely, I wasn’t tired at all. As I watched the shore glide past, my thoughts turned back to Rabbi Yeshua. Who had ever looked at me so lovingly? Only my father, my grandmother, and (in a rare moment or two) my mother. The rabbi had seen me at my worst, and yet he’d regarded me with such compassion. I felt that my life would never be the same again.

Why, I wondered, hadn’t Alexandros been affected the way I was by meeting Rabbi Yeshua? My brother was “relieved,” he said; “satisfied.” He’d spoken as if the rabbi were a carpenter who’d built an extra storeroom on his warehouse. The exorcist did his job; Alexandros paid him for his work. No reason to make a fuss about it.

This was so absurd that it made me smile. I looked over at Alexandros as he slept. His mouth was open, and the lines of strain in his face had relaxed; he seemed much younger.

Later I’d share my sense of blessing with Alexandros. I’d tell my whole family! Everyone should feel the way I did, clean and free.

But it was not the way I’d imagined, walking into the house where I had grown up. Of course, my grandmother was no longer there, and although I’d expected that, it made me sad. But I’d forgotten that Chloe would also be gone—she was living with her betrothed’s family now.

Uncle Reuben
was
there, and I thought he looked disappointed to see me again. The rest of them embraced me, as well as Alexandros, and they seemed relieved that we’d returned safely. But no one wanted to hear how Rabbi Yeshua had healed me.

Imma gave me fresh clothes to put on and helped me wash my scrapes. “I’m glad you’re cleansed, Mariamne,” she said. “But it’s not something we should dwell on. Let’s see, where will you sleep? I’ll have Yael put a cot next to mine.”

Many things had changed, I realized, since the last time I’d lived at home. Some were big changes, such as Chloe’s absence. Some were smaller but still made a difference—
Alexandros and his wife had the bedchamber now, and my mother slept in the common room.

At supper, my uncle said, “Thank the Lord that the exorcist didn’t expect more money. There’s an exorcist at Herod Antipas’s court in Tiberias who charges several silver denarii, they say, to drive out demons. We couldn’t have afforded that.” At first, I was hurt, but then I felt sad for Uncle Reuben. My grandmother had been stingy with her love for him, giving it all to my father, and now my uncle was stingy with me.

Alexandros’s wife, Sarah, smiled uneasily when she caught me looking at her. She kept well away from me with her baby. It struck me that she must have heard the dreadful story of how I let Kanarit fall off the roof. Oh, that made me flinch! I was healed, but the harm I’d done while I was possessed was not healed. I would go to Susannah first thing the following day.

The next morning, I noticed that the manservant, rather than Yael, carried the water jars from the well. I supposed Yael wasn’t strong enough to heft the heavy jars anymore. I saw that her shoulders had become hunched, and the lines in her face dragged her mouth down at the corners.

I also heard Yael talking to herself—and to anyone within
earshot—as she swept the courtyard: “Woe! Oh, I see it coming. I see how they look at me, as if to say, ‘The old donkey’s wearing out. Better sell her for hide and tallow while we can.’”

I assumed this was just Yael’s usual self-pity. Surely, my family wouldn’t turn her out to join the crowd of beggars at the market.

When I told my mother I was going to see Susannah, she tried to discourage me. “I wouldn’t bother your cousin just now if I were you,” said Imma. “‘Once bitten, twice shy,’ as the proverb goes. Besides, Sarah and I could use some help with combing the flax.”

My mother and her never-ending proverbs! “I must ask Susannah’s forgiveness—I can’t put it off,” I said. “I won’t be long.”

Silas and Susannah’s house in the cloth-dyers’ quarter was on the other side of town. At first, I walked quickly, but as I came closer, I began to wish it were farther away. I told myself that surely Susannah would be able to see that I was myself again—better, in fact, than my old self?

But Susannah would not let me in the courtyard. She wouldn’t even open the gate. “I don’t know you,” she said in a grim voice. “I had a cousin once, but she is dead to me.”

“Please listen to what I have to say,” I pleaded through a
crack in the wood, “if only for the sake of our grandmother”—tears stung my eyes—“who loved both of us.”

Desperate, I dropped down on the dirt lane in a beggar’s crouch, with my forehead on the ground and my open hands outstretched. “Forgive me, forgive me,” I asked over and over.

After a time, I heard the bar of the gate being lifted, and I jumped up. But it was only Susannah’s serving woman, and she opened the gate just wide enough to push a bundle through. “Mistress says take your things and go.” I recognized a rug I’d brought from home when I married.

As I leaned against the gate, forlornly clutching my bundle, I heard faint footsteps approaching. “Cousin Mari?” piped a voice very quietly. “Are you still there?”

“Kanarit?” I seized the small hand reaching through a crack in the gate. “My dear!”

“Imma said you were dead,” Kanarit went on.

“No, I’m alive,” I said. How lucky I am, I thought, to be alive and holding my little cousin’s hand! “I’m sorry I let you fall off the roof. I’m sorry you were hurt. I wish I’d fallen instead. I hope …” I hesitated, because it seemed like too much to ask. “I hope you can forgive me.”

“I forgive you,” she said seriously. “Cousin Mari?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Why did you try to make me fly?” She added quickly, “I asked Imma, but she hushed me up. Why did you?”

When Kanarit asked that way, it was easy to give her a straightforward answer. “I did it because I wasn’t in my right mind. I was possessed by demons. They tricked me into thinking it was a good idea.”

“Oh,” Kanarit said. “Are the demons gone now?”

Before I could answer, Susannah called from the house. Kanarit pulled her hand back. “Imma wants me. I have to go. Good-bye, cousin Mari!”

“Good-bye, dear!” Under my breath, I murmured, “Thanks be to the Lord.”

As I made my way back through the tangle of lanes and alleys, I had a good idea. Maybe I’d never be allowed to see Susannah’s daughter again, but I could still do something for her. I could ask Alexandros to manage a portion of my property for me. He could set aside a certain amount every year for Kanarit. Then when she was grown, she wouldn’t have to marry for money.

At home, I found my mother on the roof under the awning, combing flax. Sarah had taken the baby downstairs for a nap. Sitting beside Imma, I picked up combs and a bunch of flax.

After we’d been working a little while, Imma remarked,
“Sarah’s a good girl, but still young and impressionable. It would be best if you didn’t talk to her.” She added, “I don’t think you realize how hard your … er … condition was on Alexandros. He felt responsible, you know, that he didn’t bring you home after Eleazar died. He wondered if he could have saved you.”

I doubted this, but I swallowed the angry answer that came to my lips. Instead, I said, “If Alexandros did feel guilty, he doesn’t need to anymore. In the end, he brought me to Rabbi Yeshua, and the rabbi saved me.” As I spoke, that moment came back to me. The rabbi
saw
me, just as I was, with such loving eyes, and I was healed! “Imma …” I turned eagerly to my mother, to share the moment with her.

Before I could put what I felt into words, my mother said, “Yes, saved—that’s well and good, but now what’s to be done with you?” She talked on, more to herself than to me. “I’m not sure Alexandros has thought this through. As the first step, Elder Thomas should interview her and certify that she’s free of … mm, er … now.”

“The first step?” I wondered what she was talking about.

“Of course,” Imma continued, “some might say that he was only doing so to help his son-in-law. But no—the elder is known as a just man. His opinion would carry a great deal of weight.” She nodded several times.

I felt my glow fade as I realized what she was getting at. The day before, I’d been full of new, clean life, and my spirit was free. Now it seemed that we were all back where we’d started: I was in my family’s house, and Alexandros and my uncle and Imma were searching for a husband for me. It felt like trying to cram my foot into Kanarit’s sandal.

Still, I thought soberly, I owed my family a great debt, for the shame I’d brought on them. The next day, when Alexandros spoke to me in private, I made an effort to listen respectfully.

He’d found a possible husband for me already, he said. The new marriage prospect was actually the same as the last one: Matthew bar Alphaeus.

“I know he rejected you before, when Silas … when you were … er, mm … But we have reason to think he’d reconsider now,” Alexandros went on hastily. “It seems he failed at toll collecting, and the Romans sent him away. Now he’s making only a small living as an accountant for Tabbai, the Syrian wool merchant. So your income would naturally look more attractive to him, and if he can believe that you’re truly healed …”

“You’re willing to marry me off to the tax collector’s son, who isn’t even rich anymore?” I protested. Then I fell silent. After all, why did I think I deserved better? Perhaps this was what I was supposed to do.

That evening, Alexandros had further news about Matthew bar Alphaeus. “I’d gotten the impression from Alphaeus that they’d reconsider the match, but today I talked to Matthew.” My brother blew out his breath in exasperation. “I couldn’t make sense of what he was telling me, and I’m not sure he could, either. He told me he didn’t plan to marry. He said he was ‘waiting for a sign.’ It had something to do with a wandering preacher, the same Rabbi Yeshua who drove away your … you know.”

My brother talked on, but I hardly heard him. Matthew the toll collector was connected with Rabbi Yeshua, the holy man? That seemed impossible.

But after all, Yeshua had connected himself with
me
—I who had wished the death of my husband, and almost caused the death of an innocent child, and raved lewdness and blasphemy! I remembered how Yeshua looked at me when we met—looked straight through the layers of grime to my soul.

How would Yeshua see Matthew? I thought of that time years ago when I’d seen the tax collector’s son, as I was about to spit on his doorstep and glimpsed a tender heart. Yeshua must have seen
that
Matthew hidden inside the vile toll collector.

“It’s just as well,” my brother was saying. “Elder Thomas has graciously offered to interview you and vouch that you’re healed, and then we won’t have to stoop quite as low as
Matthew bar Alphaeus. Uncle Reuben thought perhaps one of his connections in Tiberias …”

I felt the bars of a cage closing in on me again, and it was hard to take a deep breath. Making a hasty excuse to my brother, I left the rooftop.

As I stumbled down the stairs, which were lit only by a small lamp, a concerned voice spoke in my head.
What good is it to be healed if you have to be married off to another Eleazar? If only you could get away, just for a short while…
.

Your family has so little appreciation for the ordeal you’ve been through!
exclaimed another voice.
They never did realize how gifted you were, how special
.

They should suffer for it
, added a hideous grating that was hardly a voice.

My heart pounded. The demons had returned. What was to keep them from infesting me again?

Desperately I sought something to hold on to, as if I were sliding off a cliff. Words from a psalm came to mind, and I gasped them out: “For your name’s sake lead and guide me, take me out of the net which is hidden for me….”

Then I blinked as sunlight flooded the courtyard. Only it wasn’t the courtyard but a lakeshore. Before I could even take in the scene, a sense of well-being washed over my spirit. In front of me stood a tall man with a thin face. “Miryam,” said Yeshua. “Come with me.”

While I watched, he turned and began walking up a path that led away from the lake. The path was steep and rocky, climbing quickly into the hills. At a turning where the path disappeared behind boulders, Yeshua paused, looked over his shoulder, and beckoned to me.

The scene faded, leaving me in the dark. My legs shook all over so that I had to sit down on the stairs. But I was filled with gratitude for the vision. At last, I recognized the path that the prophet Miryam had told me of. Indeed, it was not the path of my mother, my grandmother, my sister, my cousin, and every other woman I knew. It was the way of the rabbi and his disciples.

A short while later, as I was falling asleep on my cot next to my mother, a practical question came to me. I must join Yeshua; I would join him. There was no question in my mind about that. But how would I travel back to Capernaum? I couldn’t go by myself.

In the morning, I woke up still puzzled. I went down to the kitchen and began helping Yael with the morning bread. While I patted the rounds of dough flat for baking, my thoughts took shape also: I must speak to Matthew. As soon as Matthew received the sign he was waiting for, he would go to follow Yeshua, I was sure of that. The son of the tax collector didn’t want to marry me, but maybe he would let me travel with him.

What if he’d received his sign the previous night, at the same time I’d received mine? He might have left Magdala already. Or maybe right this minute, as I slapped bread onto the baking stone, he was leading his donkey out the north gate.