The Book of Longings(129)
Nearing the clifftops, we veer off the footpath and pick our way over rocks and wind-bowed grasses until we arrive at the spot I’ve selected—a little plateau surrounded by flowering marjoram bushes. I set my incantation bowl on the ground, Diodora stops drumming, Tabitha ceases her song, and we stand there, staring at two mammoth clay jars that are nearly as tall as I am, and then at two deep, round holes that have been dug side by side in the earth. I peer into one of the holes, and a mingling of elation and sadness passes through me.
We peel the heavy pouches from our backs, sighing with relief, making little grunting noises. “Did you have to write so much over the course of your life?” Diodora teases. Pointing at the little mountain of soil that was dug from the holes, she adds, “I imagine the junior who was required to dig these bottomless pits would also like an answer to that.”
Tabitha circumambulates one of the clay jars as if it’s the size of Mount Sinai. “The poor donkeys who bore these Goliath jars up here would like the question answered as well.”
“Very well,” I say, joining in their fun. “I’ll write an exhaustive answer to the question and we shall return and dig another hole, and bury that writing, too.”
They groan loudly. Tabitha no longer hides her grin. She says, “Woe to us, Diodora; now that Ana is leader of the Therapeutae, we have no choice but to obey her.”
We look at one another and break into laughter. I’m unsure whether it’s because of the weight and volume of my books or because I have indeed become the Therapeutae’s leader. At that moment, both of these things seem remarkably funny to us.
Our levity fades as we remove the codices from the pouches. We grow quiet, even solemn. The day before, I cut Jesus’s cloak into thirty-one pieces. Now, sitting beside the holes dug into the hillside, we wrap the fragments of cloth around the books to protect them from dust and time, and tie them with undyed yarn. We work quickly, listening to the sea slap against the rocks far below, to the marjoram bushes alive with honeybees, the vibrating world.
When the task is done, I stare at the wrapped codices neatly stacked beside the jars and they look like they’re wearing little shrouds. I shake away the image, but the worry that my work will be forgotten lingers. Earlier, I recorded exactly where the jars would be buried, writing the location on a sealed scroll that will be passed on within the community after I die. But how long before the scroll is forgotten, before the significance of what’s buried fades?
I take the incantation bowl in my hands and lift it over my head. Diodora and Tabitha watch as I rotate it in slow circles and chant the prayer I wrote as a girl. The longing in it still seems like a living, breathing thing.
As I sing the words, I remember the night on the roof when Yaltha presented the bowl to me. She tapped the bone over my chest, striking it to life. “Write what’s inside here, inside your holy of holies,” she told me.
* * *
? ? ?
YALTHA FELL ASLEEP BENEATH the tamarisk tree in the courtyard four years ago at the age of eighty-five and never woke up. She had all sorts of things to say to me during her life, but at her death there were no parting words. Our last real conversation had taken place beneath that same tree the week before she died.
“Ana,” she said. “Do you remember when you buried your scrolls in the cave to prevent your parents from burning them?”
I looked at her with curiosity. “I remember.”
“Well, you must do so again. I want you to make a copy of each of your codices and bury them on the hillside near the cliffs.” Her left hand possessed an occasional tremor and she’d become increasingly unsteady on her feet, but her mind, her glorious mind, had always been sound.
I frowned. “But why, Aunt? My work is safe here. No one is coming to burn it.”
Her voice sharpened. “Listen to me, Ana. You’ve dared much with your words. So much that a time will come when men will try to silence them. The hillside will keep your work safe.”
I simply stared at her, trying to make sense of her pronouncement. My face must have been ridden with doubt.
“You’re not listening,” she said. “Think what you’ve written!”
I scrolled through them in my head: stories of the matriarchs; the rape and maiming of Tabitha; the terrors men inflicted on women; the cruelties of Antipas; the braveries of Phasaelis; my marriage to Jesus; the death of Susanna; the exile of Yaltha; the enslavement of Diodora; the power of Sophia; the story of Isis; Thunder: Perfect Mind; and a plethora of other ideas about women that turned traditionally held beliefs upside down. And these were only a portion.
“I don’t understand—” I broke off, because I did understand. I just didn’t want to.
“Copies of your writings are gradually being dispersed,” she said. “They shed a beautiful light, but they will unsettle people and threaten their certainties. There’ll come a time—mark down my words, I foresee it—when men will try to destroy what you’ve written.”
I’d always been the one who had moments of prescience, not Yaltha. It seemed unlikely she’d divined a glimpse of the future and more likely she spoke from wisdom and prudence.
She smiled, but there was a firm, urgent quality about her. “Bury your writings, so one day they can be found again.”
“I promise, Aunt. I’ll make certain that day comes.”