Twenty-nine

Dark had fallen when Judith returned, and, out of breath from her run, said, "He--he told me that his--his time had arrived, and that--he would come to dinner here in--dinner here in two days, and that you should--invite some friends of--of Lazarus, as you--as you had planned." She collapsed onto a cushion trying to recover her breath.

"As we had planned?" said Martha, bewildered.

"Those were indeed his words," said Judith, beginning, with the resilience of youth, to be able to speak more coherently. "And he said that there was no cause for concern."

"I do not understand."

"I did not understand myself, Miss, but he said that you would know. And some of his men were there, and they too asked him about it, and he told them that all would be coming here in two days. It is very short notice to prepare for so many." She added a bit reproachfully, "I wish you had told me earlier."

Martha was silent, completely nonplused. Finally, she said, "Tell me, who was it who asked about his coming here?"

"It was Judas, Miss. Not Judas Thaddeus; the other one."

"I see."

"I know what he meant, Martha," said Mary. And then to Judith in something of her old tone of imperiousness, "Judith, would you go back into the sitting room and see if Lazarus needs anything? We will send for you shortly." She thought of making up some kind of excuse for driving her away, but nothing came to her that would not have made her even more suspicious; and so she hoped her former domineering attitude would reawaken Judith's instinct to obey unquestioningly. And Judith did indeed leave, without a word.

Mary then spoke in an undertone to Martha about what she had been thinking just before Judas arrived, about how to startle Lazarus out of his lethargy.

"I told you that everything would be all right!" exclaimed Martha softly when she had finished. "He inspired that plan!" And she immediately began a monologue about whom they should invite, which was completely lost on Mary, who had been so startled by the idea that Jesus could not only read minds but put thoughts into people's heads that she could not have understood her if she had shouted in her ear.

While the torrent of words came from Martha about the thousand practical details that must be thought of, Mary came to the conclusion that if she were going to accept the fact that Jesus was God, there was no insuperable difficulty in thinking that he could make one think whatever he wished at any time he wished. That every person was in fact nothing more than a puppet to be manipulated by him. --Because clearly, it was his doing, and the explanation of why he had simply brought Lazarus back out of the grave and left; he knew that Mary would conceive of a way to rouse him, because he was going to make her think of the way. If one were to swallow the camel of his being God, straining at a gnat like this was a waste of time.

--But it was intolerable; it meant that she had no mind of her own! She would rebel--but no; even the thought of rebellion would have been put into her mind by him, and would be used for his own purposes! But how could he "inspire" rebellion against him? It was absurd!

But if he was God--and how could one not believe it, with all this?--and if he caused everything to happen, why would he work so hard to undo the very things that he had caused to happen? He would have to be a brutal monster at one moment and a benevolent mother at the next, all because he enjoyed the game of creating difficulties and then pulling his creatures out of them.

But then why did he act as if we were free? And if he enjoyed this game, why had he told Mary, "You are not especially amusing, Mary"? Why had he told her that she gave him more trouble than any ten others?

"I do not understand it," she said aloud.

"It is perfectly simple," said Martha. "If Lazarus will not tell me the ten people he wishes to invite, then we can ask Zebediah; he will be one of them, of course. In fact, why even ask Lazarus, and give him a chance to refuse, perhaps even refuse to let us have the dinner? Why even let him know of it, if we wish to unsettle him as much as possible? Once they begin arriving, he would not even consider sending them away, and will have to go through with it. You will see; I know him."

Mary chose not to enlighten her with metaphysical conundrums in her state of making plans. Martha was even more obsessed with such things than Mary was with Judas, if that were possible; and the fact that Lazarus was not to know that he was to be the host of twenty-three people, among them all of Jesus's Emissaries and Jesus himself, added zest to Martha's zeal for organization.

But Mary's thinking of Judas, even in passing, suddenly gave her an all-but-overpowering urge to rush off then and there to find him; and in desperation, she gave her attention to what Martha was saying; and then, when Judith came in and they explained that they were to have a secret party for Lazarus to reintroduce him to his friends and see if they could waken him from his lassitude, she even volunteered to help in what she could see was the formidable task that faced them, hopeful that by being busy enough she would be able to maintain control over herself. She prayed silently to Jesus, who must hear this, and who had doubtless inspired it also, if he had said that there was no reason for concern. This newfound faith certainly had its complications.

So the two days passed in frenetic activity, fortunately not noticed in the least by Lazarus, at whom both the sisters and Judith visited from time to time, finding him totally indifferent to everything that was going on around him.

Mary had no opportunity to feel anything except complete exhaustion at the end of each day--and annoyance at the confirmation of what she had suspected all along: that there was a routine of preparation that had to be gone through, whether the work was needed or not. Perfectly spotless furniture had to be shined as if it had been neglected for years; and when Mary protested, it was pronounced filthy, and indiscernible evidence pointed out as to its atrocious condition.

But she had given in and volunteered to help; and so she gave in on this also, but vowed that it was for only this once, and because it was the only way she thought her brother could be saved. But she said to herself that not even an invitation to God himself would justify such torture--and then realized that this was what they presumably had done.

This almost started her off once again; it would be years before she saw all the implications of this faith she had begun to have. But to save her sanity at the moment, she told herself that she would act as if Jesus were not the Jesus of the black whirlpools, but would take him as simply the Jesus, the approachable Master that she had known in the last month of her stay with him, not an equal but certainly a kind of friend--which was the way he evidently wished to be taken. It was his behavior, not his attitude, that was awesome, unless one happened to be possessed by demons.

The two days in one sense were interminable, filled with disagreeable chores, though Martha, for all her complaining, was as near bliss as Mary could conceive; but in another sense, they flew by, as time always does when too much must be done by a date certain, and one is always trying to lengthen every moment to put more into it.

But finally, the evening came, the table was set (without Lazarus's entering the dining room that afternoon and seeing it) and the guests began arriving. Lazarus was startled to see them, since so few had come from Jerusalem after the curiosity-seekers had had their fill; and these were the ones who had politely stayed away, waiting for him to return to Jerusalem before they resumed contact with him. As they began talking to him as if nothing so ignominious as being dead and being called back to life had happened to him, his face began for the first time in almost two months to show some slight sign of life.

But then Jesus arrived with his Emissaries, and the atmosphere in the sitting-room became decidedly tense. Though Martha and Zebediah had made careful selection among the guests from Jerusalem to be certain that there was no one who would immediately rush out and denounce Jesus on sight, it was still common knowledge that his whereabouts was to be reported to the authorities as soon as he set foot in Judean territory, and there was always a danger that someone might do something untoward.

Lazarus greeted Jesus politely--what else could he do?--but looked at him with a loathing that made his position on resurrection perfectly clear, and nodded perfunctorily to the twelve Emissaries (to whom he had always paid scant attention in any case), and then turned back to one of his banking companions from the city, evidently resolved to act as if Jesus were not there, and letting Martha and Mary, who were responsible for this debacle, make the best of it they could. This suited the women perfectly; it was clear that the presence of those from Jerusalem had prevented him from rushing away as he had that fatal night or simply going off into a corner and brooding.

Fortunately, neither Jesus nor--what was more perilous--any of his Emissaries started any controversial conversation; and the others put a face on things whenever it was necessary for any in the two groups to mingle, which they did as little and as briefly as possible. There was a certain bemusement on both sides that the two groups would have been invited together; both thought it was a gaucherie of Mary's, who presumably had wanted to unite those who had come to the tomb with Lazarus' savior, not realizing that what had happened at the tomb was as forbidden as mentioning the name of the One who had effected the deed.

Mary saw that people were thinking thus, but she was too nervous about her upcoming performance for it to affect her more than momentarily. She and Martha seated the guests, with those from Jerusalem in all the high places on the dining-couches ranged around the outside of the U of the table (the serving was done from inside)--to the left and right of Lazarus, who would, of course, as the master of the house, be at the center of the curve. The sisters had counted on the fact that Jesus and perforce his Emissaries would either not mind or would not be able to object to being put in the lower positions; but Martha was careful to see that Jesus's place was such that Lazarus would have a good view of his feet. It was almost the same place, in fact, that Jesus had had on that night in Magdala.

Martha and Judith with the servants served the dinner; and Mary waited in her room until it was almost over, trembling so uncontrollably that she was afraid that she might drop the jar of nard that she had bought with some of the gold she had from her old life. She felt as if she should be dressed in a mask and buskins, instead of the clothes she had worn on that horrible evening.

Finally, the moment came upon which they had agreed; Martha took out the signal-dish, and Mary, with a look of anguish and sorrow, rushed into the room, looked about as if distraught, and said, "Master! Forgive me!" and rushed to his feet, breaking the neck of the bottle of nard and pouring it over them, kneeling and wiping them with her hair. At first, she made weeping noises, and then, as she realized with something of a shock that indeed she had much once again for him to forgive, the tears became all too real.

And once again the scent of the perfume pervaded the whole room, and once again there was total, shocked silence. The months vanished, and she was again in Magdala, seeing nothing but Jesus's feet and her hair, everything blurred by a flood of tears.

"Why this waste?" came a scornful voice, shattering the illusion. It was Judas.

She almost looked up; she had forgotten that he would be there. "Why was this perfume not sold?" he went on. "It would have brought three hundred denarii, and we could have given the money to the poor."

She froze. It suddenly occurred to her how this must appear to him; he would think that she was asking forgiveness from Jesus for betraying him with Judas--that she was indeed his, and had decided to return to him and throw Judas aside! She almost shouted, "It is not thus, Judas! Forgive me!" but was too stunned to be able to make a sound.

And then it was too late. She had cut herself off from him! She stopped breathing. There was not a sound in the room.

"Let her alone," said Jesus sternly. "Why are you pestering her? She has done a me a great kindness." He looked down at her. "She is preparing me for my burial. You always have the poor with you; you will not always have me." Then he looked around the room. "Amen I tell you, whenever the good news about me is reported in the whole world, what she has done this day will be told in memory of her."

As he was speaking, Mary heard a sudden stirring. She looked up, and saw Lazarus, his face ashen, rising from the table and rushing out of the room. Mary leaped up and ran after him. In the room, people were getting up and there was general consternation.

Lazarus had fled blindly into the niche he had been occupying in the sitting-room, and as Mary appeared, with Martha just behind her, he backed up against the corner like an animal treed, and croaked, "What have you done to me!"

"You Beast! You Animal! You whore! You murderer! Are you trying to kill him once again?" came a scarcely human voice from behind them as Mary was almost knocked down by a tigress in Judith's clothing who fell upon her scratching and screaming every foul word she had ever heard. Martha tried to pull her off, but she fought with the strength of one possessed, and within an eye-blink the faces of both Martha and Mary were a mass of blood and their clothes ripped to shreds.

For what seemed a century the three women fought, rolling together on the floor, with Lazarus staring in amazed disbelief, until he finally found the presence of mind to shout above the din, "Judith! Judith! Judith! Stop! Stop!"

The sound of his voice finally reached her, and she ceased as suddenly and completely as she had begun. The three of them lay for a while on the floor, panting, with Lazarus gazing on them in horror from his corner, into which he had backed as if to try to go through the walls. Mary began to push her matted hair, smelling of blood and perfume, from her face, and looked over at Martha, who was wiping her face with a long strip that Judith had torn from her robe. Judith, Mary could see with a certain satisfaction, was not in much better condition than either of them. It was amazing what damage could be done in less time than it takes to recite the "Hear O Israel."

The silence that followed was accentuated by the stertorous breathing, of the women. Finally, Lazarus said, aghast to Judith, "Why would you do such a thing?"

She looked up at him and suddenly burst into a torrent of tears. She leaped up and rushed over to him, embracing him and burying her head in his bosom, crying, "Oh, forgive me, Lazarus! I could not help it! They were trying to drive you insane or kill you, and I could not bear it! I could not bear it! I love you so much, Lazarus! I love you! Forgive me!"

He looked down at her, stunned. Then he gently took her by the shoulders and looked into her face as she still wept uncontrollably. "But . . ." he said, "but you never said a word to me! . . . In all this time!"

She gazed up into his eyes, still sobbing. "Who was I to speak to you?" she cried. "You are so--who you are, and I am no one! Nothing! Forgive me! I cannot help it, but I love you!"

Lazarus was also weeping now, making no attempt to stifle the tears; he did not even realize that they were streaming down his cheeks. "Dear child!" he exclaimed. "You will never know how often and often I looked at you as you sat there, the only one in this family who had not stepped upon me and ground me down into the dust, and thought how wonderful it would be if you--if you could consider me as something more than just the master you respected! But whenever I looked at you, you hung your head."

She gazed with adoration into his eyes, and said, "I do not believe it! It is too good to be true! Dear Lazarus, dear dear Lazarus, I did not dare!"

He clasped her to his bosom, and, rocking gently from side to side with her in his arms, he kept saying, "Judith! Judith! Judith!"

After a while, he stopped rocking, and still holding her to his breast, he said, "I do not think I have ever been happy until this moment!"

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