The Book of Longings(111)

As I write, I sit in Lazarus’s courtyard where your friend Tabitha is playing the lyre, filling the air with the sweetest of music. Jesus has gone to the Mount of Olives to pray. He has missed you, Ana. He bids me give you his love. We await you.

Your brother,

Judas

10th day of Shebat



Judas’s words slammed into me. I will do what I must this Passover . . . The sacrifice of one for many. What did he mean? What was he trying to tell me? I began to breathe very fast, like I’d run a great distance. My head churned with confusion. I turned the parchment over, wishing he might have explained himself on the back, but it was devoid of words.

I reread the letter. This time different pieces of it whirled up, broken-off words. He wishes you by his side . . . He bids me give you his love . . . He has missed you. How had I endured these two years without him? I pressed the letter to my breast and held it there.

I tried to calculate time. Judas had written the letter early this past winter, seven weeks ago. Passover in Jerusalem was fourteen days away. I stuffed the parchment into the pouch and scrambled to my feet. I must get to Jerusalem, and quickly.





xxvii.


Yaltha stood alone in the courtyard. I thrust the letter into her hand, not asking Pamphile’s whereabouts. As she read, I watched her face, noticing the flare of surprise toward the end. “Finally, you’ll go to your husband,” she said. I waited for her to say more, but that was all.

“I must find a way to leave in the morning.”

Would she not mention Judas’s strange message about ensuring the masses rise up? Behind her the light was sinking. Golden-brown scintillas drifting far below over the lake. “What does my brother mean by the sacrifice of one for many?” I asked. “What is he saying?”

I watched her step beneath the branches of the tamarisk tree and become pensive. Her need to deliberate filled me with unease.

“I think I already know what he means,” I said quietly. I’d known before I’d finished the letter, but I couldn’t bear to acknowledge it right then. It had seemed impossible that my brother would go so far, but as I stood with Yaltha beneath the tree, I pictured the child whose father was murdered by the Romans and whose mother was sold into slavery, the boy who swore to avenge them, and I knew—yes, he would go that far.

“Judas,” Yaltha hissed. From the corner of my eye I saw a tiny green lizard dart up the stone wall. “Yes, of course you know what he means. You know him better than anyone.”

“Please say it. I cannot.”

We sat on the bench and she placed her hand at my back. “Judas means to have his revolution, Ana. If Jesus doesn’t bring it about peaceably, Judas means to ignite it by force. The surest way to incite the masses is for the Romans to execute their Messiah.”

“He will deliver Jesus to the Romans,” I whispered. Saying the words, I felt like I was falling off the edge of the world. During the time we’d been in Egypt, I’d stored away a thousand tears, and I let them loose now. Yaltha pulled my head to her shoulder and let me sob my fear, helplessness, and fury.

The deluge went on for several minutes, and in the aftermath, I experienced a great calm. I said, “Why would Judas be so brazen as to reveal his intention to me?”

“That is hard to know. Confessing to you may have been a way of alleviating his guilt.”

“When it comes to overthrowing the Romans, Judas feels no guilt.”

“He may have been trying to find the boldness to go through with it. Like throwing your money bag over a wall to ensure you’ll climb over.”

She was doing her best to humor my need to understand at least some part of Judas’s warped design, but I realized how futile it was. “I’ll never understand any of this,” I said. “And right now, it doesn’t matter. It only matters that I get to Jerusalem.” I stood and peered over the wall toward the road, another anxiety taking over—Haran and his soldiers.

At that same moment, Skepsis and Diodora entered the courtyard. “Theano has died,” Skepsis announced. “Diodora and I have just finished preparing his body—”

“Has something happened?” Diodora interrupted, noticing my reddened eyes. Or perhaps it was the taut, menacing air.

I picked up Judas’s letter and read it to them, then tried my best to elucidate Judas’s plan. Diodora, who knew nothing of Jewish messiahs and radical Zealots, seemed utterly mystified. She enfolded me in her arms. “I’m happy you will see your husband, but I am sad you will leave us.” She turned to her mother. “Will you go, too?” she asked in an unassuming way, but her face betrayed her fear.

“I’ll remain here,” Yaltha said, looking past Diodora to me. “Having found Diodora, I cannot leave her again. I’m getting too old to make the journey anyway, and Egypt is my home. I’m content here among the Therapeutae. It will grieve me to be separated from you, Ana, but I cannot leave.”

I felt a crumpling inside, but I refused to let my disappointment show. I said, “I understand, Aunt. Your decision is as it should be.”

Shadows had begun to darken the edges of the courtyard, and Diodora went into the house for a lamp, though I had the feeling she left out of kindness, not wanting me to see her joy.

She returned with a look of confusion on her face. “The woman sleeping inside—she’s the servant in Haran’s house who showed me to your quarters.”