The Book of Longings(54)

She prodded me to speak of Jesus, and I related the strange way I had come to marry him and the sort of man he was. I told her about the compound in Nazareth, about Yaltha, Judith, my motherin-law. I talked and talked, but always pausing to say, “Now, tell me, what has your life been like these last years?” and each time she waved away my query.

Then one afternoon, as Tabitha, Mary, and I stood together in the courtyard gazing out at the olive trees in the Kidron Valley, she abruptly began to speak. We’d just finished preparing the bitter herbs for the Passover meal—horseradish, tansy, and horehound, symbols of the bitterness our people experienced during their slavery in Egypt—and I couldn’t help but think that was what provoked her to blurt out her own tribulation.

She spoke a garbled sentence I couldn’t interpret.

“You ran away?” Mary responded. The two of them had grown close during the hours Mary had spoon-fed her stew.

Tabitha’s head bobbed furiously. Through broken words and gesticulation, she told us she’d run away from the man in Jericho who’d purchased her. She mimicked slaps to her face and arms that had been delivered by the man’s wife.

“But where were you running to?” I asked.

She labored to pronounce Jerusalem. Then she cupped her hands into a bowl and lifted them up as if begging.

“You meant to become a beggar in Jerusalem? Oh, Tabitha.”

Mary said, “You will not have to beg on the streets. We’ll make certain of that.”

Tabitha smiled at us. She never spoke of it again.



* * *



? ? ?

    THE NEXT DAY I heard a high-pitched pinging inside the house. I was in the courtyard helping Martha bake the unleavened bread for Passover, while Jesus had gone off with Lazarus to purchase a lamb from a Pharisee merchant on the outskirts of Bethany. Tomorrow Jesus and I would take the poor creature to Jerusalem to be sacrificed on the Temple altar as required, then bring it home for Martha to roast.

Ping-ping. I set down the dough bowl and followed the sound to Tabitha’s room. My friend sat on the floor, holding a lyre, plucking each string one by one. Mary took her hand and brushed it across all the strings at once, setting loose a rippling sound—wind and water and bells. Tabitha laughed, eyes shining, wonder moving through her face.

Looking up at me, she lifted the lyre and pointed to Mary.

“Mary gave you the lyre?”

“I haven’t played it since I was a girl,” Mary said. “I thought Tabitha would like to have it.”

I stood there a long while and watched her experiment with the strings. Mary, you have given her a voice.





xi.


We crossed the valley with the little lamb on Jesus’s shoulders and entered Jerusalem through the Fountain Gate near the Pool of Siloam. We planned to cleanse ourselves there before entering the Temple, but we found the pool glutted with people. A score of cripples lay on the terraces waiting for some sympathetic soul to lower them into the water.

“We can purify ourselves at one of the mikvahs near the Temple,” I said, feeling repulsed by all the infirmities and foul bodies.

Ignoring me, Jesus thrust the lamb into my arms. He lifted a paralytic boy from his litter; his legs were twisted like tree roots.

“What are you doing?” I said, trailing after him.

“Only what I’d want if I were the boy,” he replied, carrying him down into the water. I clutched the squirming lamb and watched as Jesus kept the child afloat while he splashed and bathed.

Naturally, his deed set off shouts and pleas from the other cripples, and I knew we would be here awhile. My husband bore every one of them into the pool.

Afterward, dripping, invigorated, Jesus delighted in chasing after me, shaking his head, imparting a spray of water that made me squeal.



* * *



? ? ?

WE WOUND THROUGH the tight alleys of the lower city with peddlers, beggars, and fortune-tellers tugging at our robes, finally moving into the upper echelons, where the wealthy citizens and priests lived in houses grander than the finest ones in Sepphoris. When we neared the Temple, the crowds swelled, along with the smell of blood and animal flesh. I wrapped my scarf over my nose, but it didn’t help much. Roman soldiers were everywhere; revolts and riots were a danger at Passover. It seemed each year some messiah or revolutionist was crucified.

I’d not laid eyes on the Temple in years, and the sight of it sprawled across the mount ahead brought me to a halt. I’d forgotten the vastness of it, the sheer splendor. Its white stones and gold filigree blazed in the sun, a spectacle of such grandiosity, it was easy to believe God dwelled there. Does he? I thought. Perhaps like Sophia, he prefers a quiet stream somewhere in the valley.

As if our thoughts were conjoined, Jesus said, “The first time we met in the cave, we spoke of the Temple. Do you remember? You asked me if God lived there or if he lived inside people.”

“You answered, ‘Can he not live in both?’”

“And you said, ‘Can he not live everywhere? Let us set him free.’ That’s when I knew I would love you, Ana. That’s when I knew.”



* * *



? ? ?

    AS WE CLIMBED the grand staircase into the Temple, the cacophony of bleating lambs in the Court of Gentiles was deafening. Hundreds of them were crowded into a makeshift enclosure, waiting to be purchased. The stench of dung burned my nostrils. The crowds pushed and shoved and I felt Jesus’s hand tighten on mine.