Twenty-six

Judith wailed in despair, ranting about how they had killed him. Martha said little, staring in disbelief down at his body. Mary was hugely tired. So it was a beautiful legend after all; Jesus was not what he had claimed to be.

"I cannot understand why he did not come!" said Martha. "I cannot understand it! If he had come, Lazarus surely would not have died!"

Mary understood why. Jesus had miraculous power; but it was uncontrollable. He might be able to cure people, or even raise them from the dead, as Judas said, if he caught them soon enough--the thought gave her a surge of hope. If he could arrive within the hour!

"Let us not give up hope yet," she said, and told Martha about Jairus's daughter.

"Yes, we must wait. But where is he? I cannot understand it!"

So they waited beside Lazarus' body, as if he were still sick and they could do something for him by being there. Zebediah had made himself as inconspicuous as possible, out of respect for their bereavement. Mary began to think that he was not after all so loathsome; he had behaved perfectly throughout all this.

But the hour came and went, and another hour and another, and still Jesus had not arrived. All were completely baffled by his absence; there was more than enough time for him to have come had he intended to do so; evidently, for some reason, he chose to remain where he was.

Toward evening, Zebediah entered the room and gently suggested that it was time to buy the spices and prepare Lazarus for burial. Martha left with him, while Judith and Mary continued to sit by the body, Judith still weeping inconsolably, with that total agony that only the young can feel, before sorrow after sorrow hardens them so as to be able, like Mary, to bear it with resignation, even without tears. She was even able to ponder the situation.

And in the course of her musings, it became confirmed in her mind that Jesus had not come--had deliberately decided to stay away--because he knew that he could not control his power, and if he were to try to cure Lazarus on demand, or most especially, pull him back from death on demand, he would not be able to do so, and would appear as a charlatan. And as she thought back, she realized that he had never claimed that he was performing his cures; he always attributed it to the Father and the faith of the ones cured. Of course, he had said that the Father and he were one and the same thing. But that was his delusion.

"And if he had come," she said silently to herself, "then I in my skepticism would have made any cure impossible."

The point was that, though the Father, as he called his power, was in him, the Father would not listen to him, but simply used him at random; and he knew this. And so he could not afford to call upon his power, because it might fail him at the moment of crisis, and that would destroy the credibility of his teaching.

And if his teaching were to survive his almost certain imminent death, he must now especially be careful not to put himself into a position in which people would be disposed to laugh rather than marvel. One slip would be enough; one slip, and all the previous successes would be forgotten.

Had he actually been here, Mary thought, and not been summoned, the power would probably have welled up in him upon seeing Lazarus in need--as it had welled up when he saw Mary on the road with the demons within her, and when Judith's mother had simply touched the hem of his robe. "I felt power go out of me," he had said. She understood now that he was probably stalling for time for it to replenish itself within him before he went to Jairus's house to bring his daughter back to life. But as it was, since he was at a distance, he could not be sure of the power, and elected to stay away, for the sake of his teaching.

Mary felt a certain bitterness at this, but then reflected that if he had come, Lazarus would have died in any case. If he had already been here, or had come of his own accord and found him ill, then the cure could have happened; but not as it was. So he was not really sacrificing Lazarus to his teaching; he knew that Lazarus was doomed no matter what he did. This had to be the answer; he would never subordinate a person to an idea; but there was no point in rushing to a Lazarus who would die and make him look foolish in the bargain. If only his Father were such that he--it--listened to him! But it was evidently not so.

And the teaching was, after all, beautiful, if untrue and even foolish if he was not the God he claimed to be. But it should be preserved, Mary felt, as one preserves legends: it was useful to give one hope in the ordinary vicissitudes of life, when one could hold onto it and pretend that there was a better, and eternal, life that compensated for the slights that reality daily handed out. It was just that it was doomed to fail when confronted with life's real tragedies. --Unless it were really true; but now it had been proved false.

So the bitterness was transformed within Mary into a profound sadness that the world was really not what the lovely legend held it to be. The sorrow was compounded by the realization that they would probably not see Jesus again, because he would realize that he would look to them like a betrayer of their trust, and so would avoid them.

And this was all to the good also, Mary thought, because Jesus himself was doomed, with his ever-wilder pronouncements about himself and those who followed him; and so, whether he intended it or not, he was doing them a kindness by keeping himself aloof.

--And for that matter, was it not good also that Lazarus died? What kind of life could he have lived, haunted by the knowledge that his sister was a notorious sinner and corrupter of priests? And not only that, but that both of his sisters were part of the "disreputable following" of a man who was certainly going to be killed shortly as a blaspheming criminal, probably by means of the degrading, disgusting method of being nailed, stark naked, above everyone's heads for them to mock at. And he himself was known to have had the man to his house, often and often.

No, this would be for Lazarus a fate which would make death a blessing to be longed for, and it would require a transformation as radical as Mary's for him to be able to bear it--and even then, as Mary recalled how little transformed she really was, would that be possible? He could not even turn away from his past, as Mary did, as a torment of his own making; he would always see it as being brought upon him by others, and completely unjust, since his only "sin" was to care what others thought of him. And what, really, was wrong with that?

No, much as Mary had wanted him not to die, especially because the cause was his horror at what she was, she would not wish him back to life, now that it had happened. It was better as it was.

And so it came to pass that Lazarus was buried, and Mary and Martha and Judith, and many people from Bethany and even Jerusalem mourned him. Mary in addition mourned the death of the legendary Jesus, whom she all but saw being carried to the tomb with him. It was an uplifting tale, while it lasted; but it was, she supposed, inevitable that reality would eventually crush it, as it was about to crush him.

And in her case, reality had nearly finished its work. There was nothing left to do but go on living, with the sad, sweet memory that once she thought it barely possible that life could make sense, that it could be what one wished it to be--or at least what one tried to make it--and that escape from the past and from one's own folly and perversity was thinkable. What one must do is not to compound the past by repeating it in the future; but one could not erase it; the past trailed after one like the long tail of a lizard.

Well, life was what it was. True, we made it, and often and often made it into an unnecessary horror; but even when we did not, it caught up with us, as it had done with Lazarus, and destroyed us. It was completely absurd, but it was there, and one must simply accept it. With this attitude, the disasters of life were cushioned, and life became, if not exactly endurable, at least not horrible. And if life was essentially meaningless, it still had the day-to-day petty meanings and even pleasures and joys, such as Martha's acceptance, that enabled one to get from morning to evening and from evening to the next morning.

Mary did not speak much with Martha in these days following the funeral; as soon as she discovered that Martha still held out some hope of--she knew not what--Mary withdrew from her. She could not in conscience encourage her, and yet she did not want to shatter her impossible dream. If she still kept it, it was a comfort. "You will see," she had said. "He has a reason, and it will turn out better than we could imagine." Mary found this faith pathetic, but at the same time annoying. Martha, in her own way, was as unrealistic as Lazarus had been. But on the other hand, if the defeat of Lazarus' death had not destroyed her belief in Jesus, probably no disaster would. She would doubtless still believe in him when she saw him hanging on the cross, and say that he had his reasons for doing so, and that we would discover them one day. Well, hope must, in the last analysis, be based on faith, one supposed; and who was Mary, simply because she had lost what little faith she ever had, to deprive Martha of hope?

But she could not encourage it; that would be dishonest. For that reason, she had never told Martha about Jesus's hint to her that what his real ambition was was to make all his followers into a version of himself, somehow, so that everyone would become in some sense God Almighty, and would presumably live forever in infinite bliss. She smiled as she thought how absurd--how silly, really--this was. It was just that, when one listened to that voice and looked at those earnest, totally sincere eyes, one felt that it made sense out of everything--as if the whole world was created so that it would all come together in glory during the reign of Jesus the King of Judea, with Jerusalem the capital of the whole world. He could make it appear not only possible but inevitable, because he believed it totally himself. But at least for Mary, when he was not there, the idea showed itself for what it really was: a ridiculous fantasy and nothing more.

Many of Lazarus' friends kept coming from Jerusalem to pay their respects to Martha and Mary, because Bethany was really not very far away from there. Mary had had no idea how very many--and influential--friends Lazarus had. (She had qualms about meeting someone who had been a client of hers, until she reflected that if he recognized her, he would be as eager to hide their relationship as she was. But it turned out that she knew none of them; Lazarus had not moved in those circles.)

But the number of guests and their high station made her see more clearly what Lazarus saw immediately: what he was giving up when who she was became common knowledge. Well, now that he was dead, he could not be disturbed by their attitude when they found out; and it certainly made no difference to Mary, or to Martha apparently. It might hurt Judith's chances for a good husband, but that could not be helped; and, Mary reflected, because she had insanely fallen in love with him, she would probably not be disposed to marry in any case. But Lazarus, for whom it would be devastating, was safe, and so it was as well that things had turned out as they did.

One day--the third or fourth after the funeral, Mary could not remember--some friends came and Martha was, for some reason, not there to greet them. Mary perforce took the office upon herself, introducing herself as a sister who had been away for many years, and saying that she supposed Martha had gone to the grave and would return soon. She herself would go later, as soon as they had refreshed themselves somewhat, and take them so that they could see where he had been laid, and return to their lives with this last memory of the man they loved. So she went back inside, and the others, as was the custom, stayed out by the front door, wailing.

After a short interval, Martha came in and whispered, "Mary, the Master is here, and he is asking for you!"

Mary looked up, incredulous. "But--How? Where is he?"

"He is out in the field overlooking the Jordan, three stadia or so from here. He sent word as soon as he had crossed into Judea."

"But why? --Never mind. I am going at once." And throwing on a cloak, because, though it was Spring, it was still chilly, she dashed out the door, completely bewildered. Martha followed, along with the Judeans, who thought that she was going to the tomb to mourn and wanted to accompany her. As she hastened to the spot, her mind totally confused, the budding of the trees was the only thing that entered her consciousness.

Jesus, with his students, had apparently remained where he was, not far from the border, so that he could escape across it if need be. He could be prudent when occasion demanded, she thought. As soon as she caught sight of him, the dam holding back all the emotions she did not realize were inside her broke, and she rushed up and clasped him around the ankles, wailing, "Master, if you had been here, my brother would not have died!" And the tears came, unashamed and abundant.

Eventually, she looked up. He seemed to be waiting for her to say something. But what was there to say?

When he saw her look up at him in puzzlement, he closed his eyes, and uttered a deep sigh, it seemed of exasperation or despair, and shook his head. "All right," he said. "Where did you bury him?"

Mary could not understand what was wrong. She rose, and, drying her tears, said, "Come and see, Master." Their eyes met once again, and Jesus still seemed to be questioning, as if there was something she should be doing or saying. She nodded sadly at him to convey to him that she knew that he could not really have prevented the death, and that she still loved him, even though she knew that the noble dream was no more than a dream. He looked back and understood.

And shaking his head, Jesus wept.

One of the people surrounding Mary said, "See how he loved him!" and another answered, "Could he not have kept him from dying, if he could give a blind man sight?" Mary longed to say that under certain conditions, it could have happened, but not as things actually were.

But what puzzled Mary most was that Jesus should actually have come. Clearly, he loved Lazarus very much, and, she supposed, he was here to apologize to them for not being able to cure him. Mary hoped she would have some time alone with him later to tell him that she understood everything, and that she and Martha both realized that it was no real fault of his. And that she realized what a sacrifice he was making, putting his life in danger to come here to Judea and be seen by people from Jerusalem, at least one of whom would be sure to denounce Jesus to the authorities. Perhaps he felt he would be able to escape in time. He was certainly adept at not being captured when he did not wish to be.

They arrived at the tomb, which was the cave outside Bethany in which her father and mother had been buried. Jesus looked at the huge rock which had been rolled in front of the entrance, and heaved another deep sigh, this time of rather exasperated resignation, it seemed to Mary. "Take away that stone," he said. Mary was shocked. Would he enter to see the body?

Martha stepped up behind him and said in his ear, "Master, he is already decaying. It has been four days."

Jesus wheeled around to face her and snapped in anger, "Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see how great God is?"

There was a stunned silence, after which Martha nodded to the students with Jesus, and three of them, shaking their heads, rolled the stone away.

Jesus then raised his eyes to heaven, and said, "Father, thank you for listening to me. I know, you always listen to me. I am saying this because of the people here, so that they will believe that you are the one who sent me."

After he said this, he stretched out his hand to the open cave and cried in a great voice, "Lazarus! Come out to me!"

And the dead man, bound hand and foot in linen, and with his face covered with a cloth, hobbled out.

Everyone stared in disbelief.

"Untie him," said Jesus, "and let him go."

Next