Twenty-One

once again the crowd dispersed, bewildered at Jesus's being able to escape so easily; and once again Mary left with them, also bewildered, but at what Jesus had said.

After walking about for a short time, her companions decided to go home, because Jesus obviously was there no longer; and on the way back, were discussing what they had heard. They tried to bring Mary into the conversation, but she would merely nod or make some inappropriate remark, indicating that she heard nothing of what they were saying; and so finally they left her alone.

Had he planned it, or was it coincidence? It certainly seemed planned. Just when she had reached the pinnacle of her contempt for Zebediah, he made her see what she was doing; and just as, full of remorse, she was about to end her life, his voice reached her--as it had on the cliff over Magdala--and brought her from the brink.

But that would mean that he was correct in his claim, would it not? To do such things, would he not have to be God? Not God's son, but God himself? And his own statement left no room for doubt; he had been living somehow before Abraham, and knew Abraham--and was the one who spoke to Moses from the burning bush. He was eternal. Now, living here among us as a man. And there were the black vortices behind his eyes.

Still, it was unthinkable. And he was Mary's son. But YHWH was not some Jupiter, having sexual relations with humans; YHWH was a spirit, infinitely beyond such things. And if he were, then Jesus would not be YHWH himself, any more than Heracles was Zeus; he would be half-man, half-god. But that was ridiculous, and not what he claimed: He said he was in existence and knew of Abraham's joy, long before Jesus the man was born. But then how could he be born as a man, with a mother? How could a spirit live as a body?

No, it was impossible; even to mention it was madness.

But then everything that had happened was coincidence. And what in fact had happened? He looked at her twice and spoke to her twice--he looked once upon the cliff and once as he wrote in the dust; and he spoke once upon the cliff and once as she was rushing to kill herself. Each time, his voice had stopped her just at the crucial moment, and then her own ruminations had changed her life.

But there were the vortices. And he had driven seven devils out of her, had he not? She thought again of that face that was no face, but three black whirlpools of torment. And there were the blind and the lame--and the dead--he had restored at a touch or a word. Judith's mother, who merely touched his robe, and instantly was cured. But her faith cured her, he said. He said even in Mary's case that her own "love" had caused her forgiveness. And Judas believed that the dead could perhaps be restored if they had only just breathed out their life; that perhaps such a feat was not something only God could do. Perhaps.

It was too unlikely for serious consideration, but it was not precisely unthinkable. Given Mary's state of mind--if it could even be called mind--it was barely conceivable that a glance that was not even intended for her could have changed the course of her life.

By the time they nearly reached Bethany once again, she had more or less decided that, when confronted with two alternatives, one of which was likely but impossible, and the other extremely improbable but not impossible, one had to choose the improbable one. Jesus was deluded--and, one had to say, lucky to a degree unheard of ever before.

On consideration, she found she could not really believe this; no one could be that lucky. Never to falter in these miraculous interventions. But it had to be true, because if it was not, he was God. And a man is simply not God.

But then that implied all sorts of things. It meant that she had never had seven devils within her, because there were no devils; she had simply been insane, with a peculiar form of insanity. But she had spoken Greek, had she not, which she had never learned? It sounded like Greek, but was it? She herself had produced those different voices, and tortured herself--and the force of his personality, and his luck, had restored her to this miserable self she now was. Then what of the face that was no face but triple vortices? She shuddered, but could not put them out of her remembrance. That had to have been a last surge of dementia, and not a look at his true reality.

Again, she could not believe it; she had seen those whirlpools, and with a vision far more clear than vision of the eyes. But insanity can see what is not there, can it not?

But what it really meant was that her sins--and they were real enough--were not really forgiven. She could now put them behind her, perhaps, ignore them, live as if they had not occurred, or at least that she should not now concern herself with them because, having been done, she could now do nothing to correct them; but they were still there, unforgiven, and she was the evil person she had all but forgotten until reminded of it by that very Jesus as he looked up from the woman caught in adultery.

Only God can forgive sins. She remembered thinking of this, during that horrible day when she considered whether she wanted forgiveness, because not even she herself knew what the sin really was; it was an onion of deception, and one peeled off one layer of it only to find another layer underneath. She remembered now that she could not even decide what Zebediah was guilty of, if anything. Only God could know, and the sin, as she thought she remembered from some psalm, was really against God, and so only he could forgive. Certainly the Pharisees believed this; this was one of the things they had against Jesus, that he presumed to say that he could forgive sins. --And every time he claimed to be able to do it, he confirmed it by some miraculous event, did he not? Even in her case. Devils or not, she was completely changed.

But of course if he was a wonder-worker because of some force that possessed him, as Mary's insanity had possessed her as if by devils, then he would believe he could forgive sins, as he would believe that he was God. But then . . .

But then, he could not. It must be faced. She still had her sins, and had taken the only course of action possible, given that nothing could remove them: to reorient her life, to return here to Bethany and be free from her past, and to live for--for what? She had nothing to live for.

She would go on, she supposed, acting as if Jesus's sayings were true, even if they were senseless. Because they were inspiring and beautiful, even if senseless. And if life in the last analysis was absurd, then it did not make any difference if one turned the other cheek to be slapped a second time. It did not make sense, but if he was not God, nothing made sense; and so the pretense that he was God made it possible to live.

She hoped.

They had arrived at Zebediah's house, and Mary came to herself because she had to bid him goodbye. As he took Mary's hand, he said, "It has given me great joy to see you once again. And you have been with the Master so much recently. Would it trouble you if I came to see you tomorrow, to discuss things?" Since everyone was looking at him, he could not put a double entendre into either his tone or his facial expression, and merely looked a plea at her.

But Mary caught the implications, and was left speechless for a long moment. The thought of seeing him again was unbearably repugnant, not only for what he was, but because of her guilt at how she had been regarding him. "No," she finally managed to say, "it would not trouble me." What else could she say? I would not see you, you toad, you leech, if my life depended on it? And humiliate him here in front of Martha and Lazarus by refusing him because she was too eaten by guilt at despising him because of what she herself had made him? How could she explain it to them?

As they were walking back to their house, Martha's voice finally broke through her musings "--he been acting thus recently?"

"You would know that better than I," answered Mary, thinking she was referring to Zebediah; and at the sight of Martha's bewilderment, she realized that she was speaking of Jesus, and said in confusion, "I am sorry; I was thinking of something else. How do you mean, 'acting thus'?"

"Well, what he said seemed so--intemperate."

"I hardly know how to answer. I have been with him only three months."

"From my experience with him," said Lazarus, "he has never been anything else but 'intemperate.' Calling all the Pharisees hypocrites, and denouncing them! Everything he says is extreme."

"That is not what I mean. He has his principles, and will brook no compromise of them. That is what I admire most about him. I mean that statement of his about Abraham."

"Good heavens!" said Lazarus. "Are you trying to make sense of what he says? You know perfectly well that there is not an iota of meaning in two-thirds of it! It is all said to see how he can shock people, and only the silly housewives who have nothing better to do than to pass idle evenings chitchat ever try to make anything of it as they spin thread."

Martha looked at him with contempt. "What I have never understood, Lazarus," she said, "is why you bother to listen to him at all."

"It is perfectly simple. He is an extremely entertaining speaker. Did you notice the way he handled that question about the tax-money? He made Aaron look like a complete fool, standing there holding the coin. And Aaron is one of the cleverest members of the Sanhedrin! And there are his little stories that have no point, really, but seem to hide thousands of deep meanings. So many people take religion so seriously; he has discovered how to have a good time with it."

Mary began to understand somewhat why Jesus probably came to visit the two of them. Even though Lazarus was completely obtuse, Jesus must have found it refreshing to have at least one friend who refused to take religion--or him--seriously.

"But what do you think, Mary," persisted Martha, ignoring Lazarus as past cure. "Frankly, what he said today worried me--as it seems to have worried you."

"It did indeed worry me," said Mary. "And from what I have heard from others, he has been speaking more--how shall I say it?--I suppose 'intemperately' will have to do. There was a time in a synagogue in Capernaum recently, when he told us that in order for us to have eternal life, we would have to eat the meat of his body. And drink his blood. No one understood it, and many were completely disgusted by it, but he refused to explain himself, even to us. He simply asked if we wished to go away as the others were doing. He seldom explains himself any longer; it is as if we must simply trust him without understanding." Then she told them Judas's theory, and Matthew's.

"Matthew is right, of course," said Martha. "His miracles are unexplainable--no, they simply could not occur--if he is a blasphemer. So I suppose if he says he is God, then he is God."

"But how? It is not possible."

"If he is, it is possible somehow. How, I know not. If he is God, he knows."

"But that is no answer, Martha, you know that."

"What would you? That he is a madman and God confirms his falsehoods by miracles? That he is a liar, and God sanctions his lies? He has said often, 'by their fruits you will know them.' Look at what he has done. Could he call God to witness his lies by making miracles at will, and God actually does it? That is answer enough for me."

"What incredible nonsense you two are talking!" said Lazarus. He looked over at Mary. "Do you see what happens when people try to use logic on what he says? It never was intended to have head or tail. 'Eat the meat of my body and drink my blood!' 'Before Abraham came into existence, I am!' He simply says things to shock people and have fun."

"Do not be absurd, Lazarus."

"I, absurd! I! And you have just finished saying that if he says he is God then he is indeed God! If I did not realize that you were not thinking what you were saying--like every woman--it would not be absurd, it would be appalling!"

Since it was obvious that the discussion could not continue with Lazarus present, Martha changed the subject to when they thought Jesus would come for his visit. "Well, he will give us a day's notice, I hope," she said. "He always does."

Unfortunately, Mary found no satisfaction in Martha, either during that conversation, or later, when Lazarus had left to visit a friend and they talked far into the night. Martha's faith either was totally unreasonable, or transcended reason into an area in which Mary could not follow; no objection Mary could bring made the slightest impression on it. Like Matthew, in Martha's mind the issue was not whether Jesus's statements were true, but what they meant; the thought that he might be mad was completely out of the question. Martha was willing to concede that she might not understand what he was saying, but there was no possibility, for her, that Jesus was either mistaken in what he said, or that his words as he intended them might in any way be false. For her, to bring this up was simply boring.

"I never trusted Judas anyway," she answered when Mary reiterated his view. "He tastes wrong."

"Tastes wrong?"

"There is something about him--like a stew one has forgotten to put something in. I know not what it is, but there is--well, I do not trust him; that is all."

"And yet, the Master has made him treasurer," said Mary, "and you say he cannot be mistaken."

"That is different. I think he knows, and is simply giving Judas as much chance as possible. I am sure of it. Tell me, do you trust him. Truly?"

Did she? She loved him to distraction. But trust him? She thought of his brushing against her in the woods, of his looking at her as she packed. Trust him? "I know not," she hesitated.

"There. You see? You feel it also."

Mary protested, but in fact she did feel it. Comparing Judas to Matthew, it was obvious that Matthew seemed by far to be the more trustworthy and honest--in spite of the fact that he had been the cheat, and Judas the priest. But of course, that did not prove that Matthew was right and Judas wrong about Jesus.

And there were the three black vortices. And her speaking a language she did not know. What was inside her if not demons, who knew well who Jesus was?

But how could a man, born from a woman, be God? It was absurd.

So the discussion took its fruitless course; but it brought them closer together, in spite of their difference, since each began to reveal herself in what she said and in the way she said it.

And this emboldened Martha finally to bring up the subject of the house and its management, with a hint to Mary that she was not, after all, a guest, and that, even though Judith was a great help with the housework, Mary had some obligations along those lines also.

"Oh, forgive me," said Mary. "I forgot. I brought some money with me; it is in my room. It should be of some help."

"How much would you say it is?"

"I know not; I have never weighed it. Let us go and look." And she took her to her room and showed her the bundle that had so weighed down the little donkey. Martha gasped in wonder.

"But this is a fortune!" she cried. "How much does it weigh?"

"I know not. As I said, I never weighed it."

"How is that possible?" said Martha, picking up some of the coins and looking at them. "There must be two or two and a half talents here! You are rich!"

"Not I," said Mary. "It is yours--ours, I suppose--now."

"Does Lazarus know if it? It should not be here; it might be stolen."

"I meant to tell him when I met him, but I forgot."

"You forgot! How is it possible to forget something like this?"

"You would be surprised at how easy it is," said Mary.

"But where . . . ? How did you get so much money?"

"Oh, I accumulated it over the years. I never had very much use for money."

"But--"

"If you are thinking that I did not get it honestly, you are perfectly correct; but I did not steal it; it is mine. I earned it. Oh, yes, I earned every drachma of it." As Martha was about to persist, Mary added, "Now Martha; you said that nothing I have done can affect our relationship. Very well, this will be your first test of whether you meant what you said. I am not going to tell you how I earned that money, because, as I said, I find it too disgraceful to utter; but I repeat that I earned it. And I want none of it for myself. If you cannot accept it, then I suppose you cannot accept me; it has my past. Certainly those who gave it to me would not take it back if I had the temerity to offer it to them."

"I do not understand; I know not what to say."

"And thank God you do not understand; I would not have you possess my knowledge for twice this sum of money. Ten times! But come, let us have Lazarus take it to Jerusalem tomorrow and put it in his bank, to draw on as we need it--or give it away, or do what you will with it. If you feel it would be a benefit to have another servant to help with the housework, then use it for that. I have become unaccustomed to concern myself with such things."

Martha said nothing, but her look expressed disapproval of the proposal, and Mary said merely, "Need I remind you that I am the older sister?" which effectively put an end to any kind of opposition. But clearly, Martha was torn; she now saw the implications in Mary's assuming household duties, that she would lose control of their management; but at the same time she could not help feeling to some extent as if she were Mary's servant, especially now that Mary's contribution of money came perilously close to paying her for services rendered.

Mary, for her part, knew that Martha would never submit to taking orders from her (or even suggestions) on how the house she had lived in all her life was to be run--nor did Mary have the slightest inclination to give such orders, even if she were competent to do so. But Mary was just as adamantly opposed to being told what to do by her little sister; she would leave the family before submitting to such an indignity--however much, because of her conduct, she might deserve to be treated with no respect.

And so the solution she offered was the only practicable one; and she went on at some length playing down the implications of the money as payment, saying that she really wanted to get rid of it because it tied her to her past, and so forth, and the situation was glossed over as well as possible, though the warming relationship the two of them were beginning to have was taken off the fire from that time on. Neither said anything explicit, but Martha dropped an occasional hint that a bit of help in extraordinary circumstances would be looked upon favorably, and Mary, who was not exactly averse to helping out, but who did not want to make a practice of it, adroitly managed not to understand.

After a few days of feeling guilty, Mary decided to let Martha feel whatever she felt, and went on with concerns that occupied her more closely.

The main one at the moment was Zebediah. He came to the house the next day, after Lazarus had left for Jerusalem with the money. There had been reports that Jesus was no longer in the city, and so there was no need for them to accompany him.

Mary found him singularly unpleasant to talk to. They first spoke of neutral subjects, when Martha was present, and after she left to take care of shopping for the day's food (she always saw to it personally, and never trusted her servants to be able to pick out what was edible), he asked many questions about Jesus. He seemed sincere enough in his interest, and made no overture to Mary--for which she was enormously grateful--but she could not escape the impression that he was there because he could not keep himself away; that she was the lamp and he the moth. She kept her remarks polite, but a little distant; and he occasionally sighed sadly, explaining it as an infirmity he was subject to.

When Lazarus returned, after what seemed to Mary an inordinate time, Zebediah left, with a brief exchange of pleasantries; but he used the fact that they were now with Lazarus to trap Mary into accepting another visit. And the next day, he did the same thing. Fortunately, the day following was a Sabbath, and so Mary was given that respite at least.

But when he arrived, as she expected, on the day following, she found that, however painful his visits, she was at least not bored. There was a kind of fencing going on beneath the surface, with her skillfully parrying his rather pathetic feints without letting him know that she was aware either of what he was doing or that she was responding to him; and this made life, if not exciting, endurable--and, in spite of the fact that Jesus was almost always the topic of their discussions, it kept her from brooding too much about just who or what Jesus was. Unfortunately, when Zebediah left, the question came back, and she went round and round with the alternatives, each seeming plausible and the other impossible, which reminded her of the other, which was equally plausible, while the first now became impossible.

The result was that, instead of dreading his coming, distasteful as it was in many ways, she actually began to look forward to it, as the lesser of two evils. And he must have sensed this, because on his next visit, he steered the conversation toward Jesus' attitude toward sin and forgiveness; and when they had discussed it in the abstract for a while, he said, "There is something that has always concerned me, and I . . . and I have been wondering if I could speak of . . . I cannot speak of it to anyone, and I wondered if possibly you . . ." He left the unfinished sentence hanging between them.

Mary who knew what the topic was going to be, gritted her teeth mentally, but kept her demeanor neutral. "Have you not spoken of it to the Master?" she said in a desperate attempt to avoid the inevitable.

But there was to be no escape. "I could not bring myself to do so," he said in anguish. Mary wanted to scream to him to stop; but she said nothing and sat, staring off into space.

"Do you . . . you probably do not even remember it," he said, and since she still made no reply, or the slightest sign that she was anything but a statue, and since he had begun, he continued, "Do you recall the time when we . . . ?" The silence continued into eternity.

"Yes," she said, almost inaudibly.

He did not hear, and asked her what she had said. She cleared her throat, and said, "I recall it." This would be agony.

"I thought you might remember because you ran away that night. I want to apologize for that, if I had any part in it."

Apologize! Any part in it! Any part in it!

"--night was the same night there was a fire in my house, and my wife died." Tears welled up in his eyes, and as he continued ran unnoticed down his cheeks onto his beard. "I had been unfaithful to her, and she died, and I was never able to make amends to her. I thought at the time I was doing the right thing, but--"

You did, did you? she thought. You thought it was the right thing to take a girl who was playing with fire and burn her hand of as a lesson to her? God preserve us from the "right things" you and yours think you are doing!

"--later that it was adultery nevertheless, and no amount of reasoning could justify it. It had never happened before--and never since. But it should never have happened that once. I have long forgiven you for your part in it, what you did to me then, because I also was responsible--"

Oh, you have forgiven me! You have forgiven me! For what I did to you! Good God, the only remorse this man feels is that he was unfaithful to his wife, and that he died before he could torture her with his confession! And now he wants to inflict it upon me! He wants me to tell him not to be concerned, that I was a seductress and that he was not "also responsible," because I was too much of--of what I became because of him!--and that if I were his wife, I would forgive him as incapable of resisting, and would direct all my malice toward the fourteen-year-old witch who had led him astray!

He kept talking, but Mary heard not another syllable. For fifteen years she had hated this man, with a passion that was literally diabolic, because he had violated her and gone away justified; and now she found that he still felt justified in what he had done, but was so eaten away with remorse for the fact that he was married when he did it that he could not even bear to confess it to Jesus! He had not the slightest consciousness of the damage he had actually inflicted, and had busied himself feeling guilty about something that could not possibly have made any difference! And look at him! He was in torment over it!

Finally, she cut him off from whatever he was saying by remarking, "I am sure that Jesus has forgiven you. He knows without your telling him."

"I have always believed that," he said. "He has forgiven you also, I am certain. But what concerns me was whether she would have understood. Would she have forgiven me? That is what tortures me!"

In the silence that followed, Mary must have seemed to be pondering his dilemma, but what she was thinking was, What difference could it possibly have made, you fool? Finally, she said, masking her fury as well as she could, "I did not know her well. I was only a child at the time." A child, you idiot! "But perhaps you may find the answer if you ask the question in this way: She would have forgiven you if she would have forgiven me for what I did that night." And of that, if you knew what it was, there is not the slightest possibility.

He thought for a while, and then said, "Yes, I think she could have excused you--at least, finally. You were young and did not realize what you were doing. That was what I . . . I hoped to show . . . But she then would have realized that that was what I . . . and would have seen that it was a mistake, as I did as soon as it was over--"

A mistake! That was all it was, from his point of view. A minor miscalculation!

"--have relieved my mind greatly. I know not how I have been able to live with myself all this time; but now perhaps I will be able to sleep tonight for the first time in . . . Might I perhaps see you tomorrow? There is still so much to talk about." And now the leer in his voice came closer to the surface.

So now that I have freed you from your feeling of guilt, you want to renew what caused it, do you? Now that the ghost of your wife has been exorcised. It made sense. Since she was dead, there could now be no question of adultery, and since I had sinned--forgiven though I was--and I was a woman and was nothing, a temptress and a seductress, so nothing he could now do to me would matter!

"I think," she said with as much ice in her voice as she could summon, "that it would be better, Zebediah, if we saw no more of each other. Better for both of us." His face fell; but another such session would lead to murder. He had no idea how close he had come this day to being killed.

He protested, and did everything in his hapless power to make it clear to Mary what he had in mind, without actually compromising his miserable self by coming out and saying it. More and more, the desire to tell him what he had made of her and how the fire started that night rose to her lips--and died, because she would not give him the satisfaction of knowing either that she was worthy of his view of her, or that she considered him nothing but a cockroach's droppings. She was aware that from his point of view, she was a sinner, and nothing she could say would be taken as true or as of any value--except what furthered his own desires. She had had enough experience with his type to know how impenetrable they were, and that if one let them know how one really felt, it only made one vulnerable.

So Mary chose to act like a virtuous virgin who had not the least inkling of what he was proposing; and she was finally able to dismiss him with dignity.

--And retire to her room and rip the sheet of her bed into shreds from rage.

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