The Book of Longings(71)

My tunic clung around me in heavy folds as I trudged to shore. Where was Jesus? He’d been near me when we entered the water—now he was lost in the morass of penitents. I began to shiver with cold. I moved along the bank, teeth chattering, calling his name. “Je-Je-Jesus.”

I spotted him out in the river, standing before John with his back to me, descending into the water. I watched the place where he disappeared, how the circles of water spread slowly outward and the surface grew quiet and still.

He bounded up, shaking his head, creating a swirling spray. He lifted his face to the sky. The sun was sinking toward the hills, pouring itself onto the river. A bird, a dove, flew out of the glare.





xxv.


We bedded that night alongside the road to Jericho beneath a gnarled sycamore tree, our robes still damp with baptism. I lay beside him, drawing warmth from his body. We stared up at the branches, at clusters of yellow fruit, at the black sky smeared with stars. How awake we were, how alive. I pressed my ear to his chest and listened to the slow drumming. I thought us inseparable. A single timbre.

My mind turned to Tabitha, as it often had throughout our trip, but until now, I’d made no mention of her. I said, “We aren’t far from Bethany. Let’s go and see Tabitha and Mary, Martha, and Lazarus.”

I thought he’d be pleased at the notion, but he hesitated a long while before answering. “It’s a full day’s walk,” he said. “And in the opposite direction of Nazareth.”

“But we’re not in a hurry to return. It would be worth the detour.”

He said nothing. Something troubles him. He eased his arm from beneath me and sat up. “Will you wait here while I go and pray?”

“Pray? It’s the middle of the night.”

He stood and his tone grew sharp. “Don’t deter me, Ana. Please.”

“Where will you go?”

“A short distance where I can be alone.”

“You would leave me here?” I asked.

He walked away, stepping through some portal of darkness, and disappeared.

I sat there angered by my aloneness. For a moment I considered wandering off somewhere myself. I pictured his confusion and fear when he came back and discovered I was gone. He would search for me, thrashing through the mulberry brush. When he found me, I would say, I, too, went into the night to pray. Did you think you were the only one whose spirit was restless?

Instead, I waited, sitting with my back to the tree.

He returned in the hour before daybreak with sweat on his brow. “Ana, I must speak gravely with you.” He sat down on the hard bed of leaves. “I’ve decided to become John the Immerser’s disciple. I will leave Nazareth and follow him.”

The pronouncement startled me, yet there was little surprise in it. If Jesus could hear thunder inside me, I could hear the thud of God’s pursuit inside him. For all the years I’d known him, it had been there, waiting.

“I can’t do otherwise. Today in the river—”

I took his hand. “What happened in the river?”

“I told you once that when my father died, God became father to me, and today in the Jordan I heard him call me son. Beloved son.”

I could see he’d made peace with the boy who’d been rejected by his village, the one, it was whispered, who had no real father, the one in search of who he was. He stood, the ecstasy of his experience seeming to lift him off his feet. “There will be a great revolution, Ana. The kingdom of God is coming—think of it! When I came up from the water, I felt as if God was asking me to help bring it in. You see why I can’t go to Bethany—now that I’ve set my course, I want to avoid delay.”

He became quiet, searching my face. A feeling of loss coursed through me. I would go with him to God’s revolution, of course, but things between us wouldn’t be the same. My husband belonged to God now . . . all of him.

I rose and with great effort said, “You have my blessing.”

The tautness about his lips slackened. He held me to him. I waited for him to say, You’ll come with me. We’ll follow John together. Already I was thinking how I would persuade Yaltha to join us.

The silence hardened. “And myself?” I said.

“I will take you home.”

Confused, I shook my head. “But—” I wanted to object, but nothing came from my mouth. He means to leave me behind.

“I’m sorry, Ana,” he said. “I must take up this mission without you.”

“You can’t leave me in Nazareth,” I whispered. The hurt of saying these words was so great, I felt my legs sinking back toward the ground.

“Before I join John, I must go into the wilderness for a time to ready myself for what’s to come. I can only do that alone.”

“After that . . . then I’ll accompany you.” I heard the desperation in my voice—how I hated the sound of it.

“There are no women among John’s disciples—you saw this, as I did.”

“But you of all people . . . you would not exclude me.”

“No, I would take you if I could.” He raked his fingers through his beard. “But this is John’s movement. The reasons that prophets have no female disciples—”

Incensed, I cut him off. “I’ve heard these reasons tenfold. Traipsing about the countryside exposes us to dangers and hardships. We cause dissension among the men. We are temptations. We are distractions.” My anger swelled, and I was glad for it. It drove away my hurt. “It’s thought we’re too weak to face danger and hardship. But do we not give birth? Do we not work day and night? Are we not ordered about and silenced? What are robbers and rainstorms compared to these things?”