The Book of Longings(121)

“It is Mary of Bethany. I, too, am here.”

Then the unknown woman called, “Jesus, it’s Mary of Magdala.”

As he climbed the slope, toiling to lift his feet, I quickened my pace and drew closer behind him. “The day we gathered our daughter’s bones, the valley was full of wild lilies. Do you remember?” I called out the words loudly enough for him to hear, hoping not to draw the soldiers’ attention. “You told me to consider the lilies, that God takes care of them and will surely, then, care for us. Consider them now, my love. Consider the lilies.” I wished for something beautiful to fill his mind. I wished for him to think of our daughter, our Susanna. He would be with her soon. I wished for him to think of God. Of me. Of lilies.

When we reached the top of Golgotha, the man who’d carried the crossbeam laid it down beside one of the uprights and Jesus stood gazing down at it, swaying a little. We women were allowed no farther than a small knoll twenty or so paces from him. A putrid smell pervaded the air, and I wondered if it was the accumulation of all the atrocities that had ever transpired here. I pulled my scarf across my nose. My breaths came in small gulps.

Don’t look away. Terrible things will happen now. Unbearable things. Bear it anyway.

Beside me the others moaned and wept, but I didn’t join them. Later, alone, I would wail and fall to the ground and beat the emptiness with my fists. Now, though, I choked back my anguish and fastened my eyes on my husband.

I will think only of him. I will give him more than my presence; I will give him the full attention of my heart.

That would be my parting gift to him. I would go with him to the end of his longings.

I watched the soldiers strip Jesus of his tunic and shove him to the ground, pinning his forearms to the crossbeam with their knees. The executioner probed the underside of Jesus’s wrist, searching for the hollow space between the bones, though I could not understand then why the soldier pushed his fingers into that soft place like a woman who rummages in her bread dough for some small, dropped object. He raised his hammer and drove a nail through that small opening into the wood. The cry that left Jesus sent his mother to her knees, but somehow I went on standing there, muttering “Sophia. Sophia. Sophia,” as the other wrist was probed and the nail driven.

The crossbeam was lifted up and its notch fitted onto the upright. Jesus writhed a moment and kicked the air as the crossbeam fell into place with a jolt. The soldiers gathered his knees together, bending them slightly, and then with studied precision, arranged his right foot over his left. A single nail was pounded through them both. I don’t remember that he made any sound. I remember the vicious, hollow thud of the hammer and the wail it set off in my head. I closed my eyes, feeling I was abandoning him by retreating into the dark behind my lids. The wail slapped like waves against the inside of my skull. Then came the sound of laughter, far away and strange. I forced my eyes open, allowing in a painful slat of light. A soldier was nailing a pinewood placard above Jesus’s head and finding merriment in it.

“What does it say?” Mary of Magdala asked.

“Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews,” I read. It was written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin lest anyone miss their mockery.

From behind us, someone shouted, “If you’re the King of the Jews, save yourself.”

“He helped others—can’t he help himself?” cried another.

Salome slid her arm around Mary’s waist and drew her mother to her side. “May God take him quickly,” she said.

And where is God, I wanted to scream. Wasn’t he supposed to establish his kingdom now? And the people—why didn’t they revolt as Judas had expected? Instead, they jeered at Jesus.

“If you’re the Messiah, come down from the cross and save yourself,” a man yelled.

Indignant, I whirled about to rebuke the rabble and glimpsed my brother standing alone on the edge of the hill. Seeing that I’d caught sight of him, he stretched out his hands to me, pleading, it seemed, for mercy. Ana, forgive me. I stared, astonished by the sight of him, by how misguided he’d been, by how callous his zeal and sense of righteousness had become.

I searched myself for the fury I’d felt toward him earlier, but it had left me. I tried to summon it, but it had retreated at the sight of him standing there so lost and bereft. A premonition swept through me that I would not see Judas again. I crossed my hands over my chest and nodded at him. It was not forgiveness I sent. It was pity.

As I drew my eyes back to Jesus, he struggled to lift himself up in order to take a breath. The sight nearly broke me. After that all sense of time left me. I didn’t know whether minutes passed or hours. Jesus went on heaving himself up and gasping for air.

Thunder rumbled on and off over the Mount of Olives. Salome and the three Marys knelt on the dirt and intoned the psalms, while I watched Jesus from the dark, sorrowful doorway of my heart, and uttered not a word. From time to time, Jesus muttered something, but I couldn’t hear what he said. He seemed far away and alone. Twice I tried to go to him and both times the soldiers forced me back. A man also attempted to approach Jesus, calling, “Jesus, master,” and he, too, was turned away. I looked back once for Judas. He was gone.

At midafternoon the soldiers, bored with the slowness of his dying, left their posts and squatted some distance from the cross, where they began to throw dice. I did not hesitate. I broke into a run. As I stood beneath the cross, the closeness of him shocked me. His breath rasped and raked through his chest. His legs rippled with spasms. Heat and sweat were streaming from his body. I reached for the timber, then drew back my hand, repulsed by it.