Thirty

Life's punctuation marks, even its exclamation points, do not generally end the story, and there was the anticlimax of seeing to the guests somehow; they had been waiting in the other room, hearing the commotion and wondering what it was. It was out of the question for any of the women to go, with their clothes torn and their faces and hair not to be described; and so the task fell to Lazarus.

He told the women sharply to clean themselves up as best they could, and, swallowing hard and taking a deep breath, went out to face his friends as if he were entering the lion-pit in the Roman circus. When he entered the room, however, and saw nothing but concerned, polite faces, he took courage, and said that he was sorry to have disturbed the party; but that there had been a slight accident, which he had been able to take care of, and now everything would be all right; that no one was really hurt, but that it was better, all things considered, for the women to remain in seclusion for the rest of the day--and, in short, he begged their pardon for suggesting that it might be well to put an end to the festivities.

They all pronounced that they understood perfectly, though not one of them could make head or tail of it; and what bewildered them most of all was the air of barely-suppressed elation on Lazarus' face--especially in contrast to what it had been just moments before. All, including Jesus and his Emissaries, left with a minimum of fuss, a few of the banking friends asking when they would see him in Jerusalem, to which Lazarus replied, "Soon. Soon. Very soon, in fact." They seemed gratified with his response.

But, truth to say, Lazarus found that he did not care much whether they were gratified or not--or even whether they approved of the fact that he had actually died and returned to life ("How absurd!" he told himself, finding it actually rather amusing). Why should he base his happiness upon what people such as these thought? Life is more than stuffy reputation.

But they had reminded him that he had really left his banking business alone far too long, and that his two assistants had probably made a botch of things in his absence. It was a complex affair, after all, banking was, and required knowledge, expertise, care, and attention to detail--exactly the sort of thing that he was so skilled at, and others so deficient in. It was fortunate, in fact, that Martha had arranged this party rather than himself, because if he had done it, he would have foreseen and avoided this little contretemps which had fortuitously led to Judith's declaring her undying devotion to him, since the distance between them was so great that, as she said, she would not otherwise have dared.

He glowed for a while in the golden light of this memory, standing there in the doorway watching the backs of the people disappear in the distance, and then once again his thoughts reverted to Jerusalem. He almost felt like running--literally--to his banking-table on the spot, and confronting Nehemiah in the middle of the night with a demand to look at the books and tell him that he, Nehemiah, was a fool for thinking that life was not worth living, and not realizing that there were all sorts of fascinating nuances to accounts, provided one delved beneath the dusty surface and saw how they represented the ups and downs of people's very lives!

But of course, he restrained himself, because, as a man of dignity and worth--and there was at least one person in this house who knew it--he was above that sort of thing. And even if she had, by reason of unfortunate circumstance, been put for practical purposes almost into the condition of a slave--though she was never really any such thing, her fundamental quality was visible to anyone--but he was perspicacious enough to see that her intelligence and insight into human character lifted her far above even the run of common folk, especially Galileans, and most especially those who shared his table this night.

In any case, it was the man who conferred status upon his choice, and if he wished to select even a slave to dignify with the honor of being his bride, who was to say him nay? If his friends demurred, why then he would select new friends. If his sisters objected, he would simply override them with a sniff.

But no one would object. He could see that they were all, at heart, good people; he saw sincere love for him in their faces tonight as they left; he had simply not noticed it earlier in the evening, that is all--because he had been distracted by the practical details regarding such disparate groups, which, had he not been such a supreme diplomat, would have been at each others' throats before half the evening was over.

Still, they were all, even the Galileans, he supposed, basically good. Even his crazy sisters. They could be forgiven the fiasco they had caused, since there was not an atom of intelligence to share between them. No doubt Judith had tried to dissuade them; but would they listen to her? They were too obtuse to see her acuteness, her wisdom, her--there was no word for it. Even Mary could be forgiven, one supposed, because she was a special case; she was clearly insane, poor girl, and what family did not have something of the sort to conceal? If she could be kept out of circulation, people would forget about her in time. Think of Ebenezer's daughter, for instance, with her drooling mouth and idiot laughter that was occasionally heard faintly when people visited--and that was ignored by everyone. No one thought the less of Ebenezer for this; quite the contrary. They admired his courage and his generosity in putting up with her.

No, it was foolish of him to think that his life should have been over just because of her. It could never be the same, of course, now that he would have her--an obvious madwoman, based on her performance tonight--to take care of. And after all, she had, even if by accident, put Judith in his path, little realizing what a treasure she was treating like a piece of the furniture. She would even have put her with the slaves, he recalled, had he not inquired into her antecedents and insisted that it was unjust, since she was freeborn and merely unfortunate financially, having had to work for a living in the only way young girls were allowed to work in those barbaric regions north of Samaria.

Thank God he had done that! When it had happened, it was, of course, an act of pure altruism on his part; he knew nothing of the girl, really, and barely sensed that there was something special, something extraordinary, locked up inside her, waiting only cultivation to be brought forward--how quickly, for instance, she took to learning to read! But he realized little or nothing of what he was doing at the time--as the Master said, his right hand was unaware of what his left was doing--and look at what she had turned out to be; just what he had expected!

Needless to say, once Lazarus turned from the door and went back to see the women--who by this time had made themselves as presentable as could be expected, considering the damage that was done--this new outlook of his, coupled with the fact that he had not spoken above a hundred words in the past month, came pouring out of his mouth in a torrent of lengthy sermons on how proper conduct would inevitably produce its rewards.

All three of the women were completely astonished to hear him; and Martha, once she began to catch the gist of his version of recent events, flew into a towering rage, and with biting sarcasm tried to set the facts back on their feet. But it was completely lost upon him; he was happy to find that she agreed with him! At this, she resorted to direct contradiction, in a voice that became louder and louder and higher and higher in pitch, as he calmly denied what she had seen with her own eyes and heard with her own ears.

In the days that followed, Mary found herself bombarded from all sides: Lazarus on the one hand, indulgently forgiving her and making it clear that he now regarded her as incurably mad, but not so violent that he could not manage her (and, she reflected, there was a good deal of truth in the charge of madness, though it lay in a totally different quarter from the one he imagined); and Martha taking her aside and shrieking in her ear, thinking she was whispering, "Did you hear what he said? Did you hear what he said? And he believes it! He actually believes it! He is a thousand times worse now than he has ever been!"

And then there was Judith, dancing about the house like a squirrel which has just discovered a field of nuts, not exactly daring to hate Mary--since she had, of course, swallowed whole the theory Lazarus had of Mary's insanity, and, after all "by accident" her craziness had brought Lazarus to his senses and the two of them together--but patronizing her as only a girl just barely become a woman can patronize a former employer who is now the younger sister of the man she is about to marry, whose household she will soon manage as mistress.

But there were stretches between the flare-ups of domestic lunacy where Mary had nothing to do but consider that Judas was now lost to her for good. The very next day, when Lazarus had for the first time in months gone to Jerusalem, it struck her with all its force.

She was sitting beside Martha, who was still fuming at Lazarus' latest folly, and when Martha noticed her look of absolute despair and looked a question at her, she said, "He thinks I belong to Jesus now; and I cannot disabuse him. He will never dare come near me again."

"I know," said Martha. "Did you not foresee it? I did."

"It never entered my head." She thought a while. "I do not believe I could have done it had I realized that this might have happened."

"But now that it has happened," said Martha, "do you regret it?"

She looked at her. "If I said No, it would be as true as if I said Yes," she answered. "I realize that it is for the best--for both of us, I suppose--but it is so hard. . . . So very hard."

"I know."

"No, you know not. You cannot."

"I suppose that you are right."

"And thank God you cannot!"

"Oh, I do, Mary, I do. You know not how you appear to someone like me."

"It is horrific! It is leprosy! I can tell you this: I am not out of danger. I am even now racking my brain, in spite of myself, trying to find a way to tell him--to find any means of making him realize that we can still go away together and he need not fear for his life. And if he ever comes to me, I will go with him. I pray that he does not; but my heart denies my prayer, always! And I will spend the rest of my days, torn thus in two!"

There was a long silence.

Finally, Martha said, "Do not worry, Mary. The Master will find a way even with this."

"I wish I really meant it when I say I hope he does," she replied.

Lazarus informed them when he arrived home that night that Jesus had been led in triumph into the city by half the population of the country, who had begun gathering for the Passover in a few days. "And no one seemed to do anything to put a stop to it," he added, with an expression on his face which indicated that this made him feel a good deal more comfortable about Jesus and about being the object of one of his miraculous exploits. In fact, now that he had rediscovered how fulfilling life could be in all its facets, he could even find it in his heart to forgive Jesus--even, in a sense to be grateful to him--for bringing him back from death, though of course he was not really aware of what he was doing with that magic power of his--which really, if they did make him King, should be used with more discretion. Perhaps if Lazarus were taken on as a counselor, which might after all happen, discreet advice to this effect might be provided.

Though he did not mention this in his long and, it must be admitted, rather rambling, discourse on the various merits and demerits of having a magician--very well, a wonder-worker--as head of state, he hinted at it in a heavy-handed way clearly enough that Martha, who saw immediately where he was going, launched into a tirade which made for quite a lively discussion that evening. Finally, she simply gave up and flounced out of the room, a practice that had almost become a habit of late.

The next morning, after Lazarus had left, Martha asked Mary if she would accompany her to Jerusalem--and then saw Mary's face. In the discussion that followed, Mary said that she thought it would be far safer if she stayed in Bethany (secretly hoping that Judas would take the bit in his teeth and come to her when she was alone, and trying to dismiss the thought as absurd). "If I go," she said, "I will try to speak to him alone. I am sure of it."

"Then if you feel that strongly, perhaps you are better here," said Martha, and Mary's spirits rose. Perhaps she would go by herself when Martha was no longer here to see her. "But in that case, I think I should stay here also," and Mary's heart sank. She dared not protest, because it was obvious that Martha would see through it--indeed, she had probably seen through it already. And, of course, she was right. Mary shuddered at the cunning of her inner self in finding ways to achieve its goals, and realized that she needed watching--but for how many years?

And so they did not follow Lazarus that day, or the next, or the one after that, using as an excuse that their faces were not yet presentable (though Mary could have disguised the damage fairly well with her knowledge of cosmetics), and relied on his reports when he returned; and these reports became rather detailed. It seemed that the idea of being an advisor to the King had taken hold of Lazarus' mind, and so his interest in what Jesus was saying became more pronounced.

"And he is a remarkably good debater." he said. "They asked him about the resurrection of the dead," he remarked with a blush, "the Sadducees, you know, and he said that they knew not the Scriptures and quoted the Master as saying that he was the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and was obviously not the God of corpses; and so they had to be alive. Quite clever. It proves nothing, of course, but it silenced them. The people loved it. Oh, and you know that claim of his to be the Prince and some kind of angel or something? Well, he asked them all how the Prince could be David's son if David himself calls him his Master, and quoted some psalm or other of David to that effect. No one knew what to say."

"But this must have made his enemies more infuriated than ever," said Martha.

"You should have seen them!" returned Lazarus. "They were beside themselves! But of course they can do nothing with the crowds milling about everywhere; if they laid hands on Jesus, they would be torn to pieces in an instant; the people are more convinced than ever that he is a prophet worthy of Elijah, and some even have some faith in that nonsense of his that he is divine. And he goes off somewhere at night, and they have not been able to discover where. I think he might just bring it off; the Romans themselves will not dare to make a move against him during the festival with the whole nation there in Jerusalem--and it looks very much as if he has calculated on this, and plans to bring everything to a head this very week. I have tried to tell him that he should approach the Governor privately, and discuss matters with him, taking on himself the spiritual leadership and leaving, as he said, what belongs to Caesar to Caesar; but he is always surrounded by such a throng of the rabble that I have not been able to come close enough to see him privately."

Mary pictured him trying to catch Jesus's eye, and Jesus beckoning him to come forward, and him trying to advance, being jostled by laborers and pulling in his garments to keep them from being soiled by rubbing against some shepherd who smelt of sheep-dung--and finally giving up the whole enterprise in disgust.

She wished, as did Martha, that it were not fatal for her to go and see for herself; it was an exciting time. King Jesus. Amazing.

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