Five

How she came to be lying on that roof in the valley of Hinnom amid the smoke and the everlasting fires of Jerusalem's garbage dump, with the flies buzzing about her face, Mary could not now recall, if she could recall even then. Did Gehenna, as they called it, have its reputation as the symbol of eternal torment because of the garbage, or was it used as the dump because its reputation kept anyone except the absolute dregs of humanity from living there? --But there she was, which spoke volumes about what she had become.

Her estrangement from herself must have begun that far back, she realized, since from the weather she could tell that a full season had completely dropped out of her life; the last thing she had been able to remember was that catastrophic encounter.

And how true had become her expectation of that night! She was now, and even then, as she thought back, a completely different person from the little fourteen-year-old who shyly stood by the trunk of that tree half in fear and half in longing; she remembered her surprise at discovering how much she knew about how to survive by one's wits.

She wondered whether she had gone home. Undoubtedly not. They must have thought that she had run away and been killed. If they had not forgotten about her by the time she came back to herself, they certainly would have now--which was all to the good, for everyone concerned. She had herself not thought about any of them for years.

She thought idly about them as she walked along, her face drifting in and out of the shadows of the trees as if it were the moon itself, which on other nights but this would be gliding between the clouds. Little Martha would be twenty-five already! Probably married and with half a dozen children running beneath her feet. And Lazarus would be well over thirty--what? Thirty-six? Thirty-seven?--and certainly in his father's banking-stall in Jerusalem, because by this time her parents would be dead. Fortunate for them! Well, tonight perhaps she would be able to join them.

For all the horror of her life, however, it was somehow even more depressing to contemplate theirs. She had had agony, but adventure; they had had nothing, done nothing, been nothing, and now her parents had died and were nothing, leaving only these traces of nothingness called their children to prolong the futile process. At least she had broken free of that! What matter if the result of it was a life any sane person would shrink from in disgust? What life was not? Was it worse to suffer self-inflicted torment, however excruciating, or to put up day by day with the ant-bites of forcing oneself to live as others expected because they were forced to live in that way because everyone else, oneself included, expected them to live in that way? Why be a contributor to the collective anguish of mankind just because everyone was too lazy or fearful to do anything but contribute to it?

She had, after all, caused pain only to those who were leaders of mankind's collective anguish: the noble Pharisees and priests, who perpetuated the myth that by conforming to what everyone expected, one could achieve something like bliss, or at least contentment--while their visits to her house were not to seek bliss but a surcease from the very bliss they preached, because the contentment they supposedly enjoyed was stifling them. They of all people understood, despite their noble words. Her private vendetta against them was also a social protest: lift from us this heavy burden that no human being can support without going mad!

"Ah, yes, you have gone about doing good, have you not?" she sneered audibly. She had become a Pharisee herself, interpreting things in such a way that she would be in the right and those she was wronging would be in the wrong. This was a fine time to lapse into dishonesty, at the end of a life of every conceivable evil except the evil of not recognizing oneself. --On the other hand, if it were the only evil left, then she really ought to try it to round things out.

She smiled. No. She could lie to others, of course--everyone could and did, constantly--but she could not lie to herself. She did not understand how anyone could, even though she saw so many cases of people who seemed supremely successful at it. She had made a career, if one chose to call it that, out of this hypocrisy in others.

What she had really been trying to do, in fact, was make a perverted attempt to force the worst of these people to face the reality of what they were doing--because of Zebediah--and she had been successful, in a sense, she supposed.

Had she? she began to wonder. She had caused annoyance, of a certainty, and she had, she thought, instilled doubts. But had she actually ever converted anyone and made him recognize that he was the real sinner, and she simply the vehicle for him to exercise his depravity? He might recognize that he had sinned, but not that the sin was his, not that he was fully responsible; he would shift the blame to her, just as Zebediah had done, and claim that the worst that had befallen him was that he succumbed to a moment of weakness.

In that case, her whole life was a failure--which was an ever more powerful reason for ending it now. Why go on? The only thing she had succeeded in was in making a great deal of money, and she cared nothing for that; it was no accomplishment at all, if one has beauty and wishes to make use of it.

. . . Strange, how many women did not take advantage of the weapon they had. Even some of the prostitutes seemed to think that sex had something to do with love, not hate, since their clients seemed to be enjoying themselves, which gave them the idea that they were doing them a favor. Mary saw all too clearly what a rancid favor it was; and that was why she practiced it.

Still, though all of them, herself included, knew all about sex, none of them knew what it really must be. Sex was completely absurd when it involved fighting the tendency to become involved with the other person--because it did have that tendency, even when driven by hatred. There was the broad chest and the gentle touch of hands that could otherwise crush. Beware! You will want him again, and he will go his way--or if he sees that you want him, he will take control, and then where will you be?

What would it be if one could simply let go and let it happen? If one had no need to fear caring for this man, not to fear that he despised one for giving oneself to his need for sexual urination? What would it be like when two people found each other and each was more interested in the other's satisfaction than his own? When there was no thought that he would simply leave, and that one need not be concerned about taking precautions--that the resulting child would be a joy and not a disaster?

--Leading back to the endless chain of lives of nothingness producing other lives of nothingness.

She had reached the road by the cliff. She crossed it, and concealed herself in some brushwood at its far side, ready to step out as she caught sight of him, but close enough to the edge so that an apparent misstep would send her hurtling to the rocks below.

Why not now? Why wait? She almost turned and tried to fling herself over, but something within her took alarm, and she said, "I must not go too near to the edge; I might fall," in case whatever was in her divined her true intention. If she tried now they would know what she was about, and would trip her up; and then all was lost. No. Far better to wait until it would seem that she had a purpose in her movements, and then suddenly divert it. She sat on her haunches, looking out at the road from a gap in the bushes. She noticed a fig by her head, and to appear nonchalant, she picked it and ate it. It was very sweet.

The train of thought she had been pursuing made her wonder if any of the men she had--seduced was the word, was it not?--had, like herself with Zebediah, been caught in a moment of weakness, and were not simply justifying themselves. Had she ever been the exploiter and any of them the victim, and had she sent them away with her heart beating with joy that she had turned the tables on another raging, lecherous beast--while their lives, otherwise virtuous, had been ruined, perhaps irrevocably, because of her.

She would not think of it!

Did not all men deserve hating because of what Zebediah had done to her? But to ask the question was to answer it. Was there someone for whom she herself had been Zebediah, showing him what he knew not until that moment, for all his conspiratorial smile--just as she had then smiled? That she had gone away justified, having destroyed him?

She tried again to put it out of her mind, but it would not let her go. Her consciousness fell into a turmoil where coherent thought became increasingly difficult, and she realized that if she were not careful, she would slip back into oblivion; she now remembered that this mental agitation was the precursor, this upheaval at the attempt to force something out of her mind.

She must not lose control now. She would face it, whatever it was; it would be the last thing she would have to face.

What really started her on her present life, she realized, was not so much Zebediah as what happened that very day she woke up on the roof in the Valley of Hinnom. She had climbed up the hill, half-dazed and half-frightened, and found herself wandering in the vast Court of the Gentiles in the Temple, looking up with fear and awe at the actual Temple far above her, when a young priest came up from behind and said, "I am sorry, Miss, but it is forbidden to be in this court with dirty shoes. I must ask you to leave."

"I meant no harm," she said, turning to look up into his face, which was rather paler than most Judeans, though his eyes were as black as any Hebrew, and his nose, of course, gave him away. But what was most notable about him were his shoulders, chest and arms, which were huge, almost disproportionately so; his cloak could not hide them, though the way it hung clearly indicated that should he gird his loins, the belt would be very small. An odd circumstance for one like a priest, who had no need of severe physical labor.

"I am sure you did not," he answered. "But the Law is the Law, and it must be obeyed. Let me escort you outside; you seem rather lost." And he looked at her, and in that look, she understood everything there ever was to understand about men.

It was the look of Zebediah, but not the look; it could have been an invitation--as she then interpreted it--but as she considered it in her memory, it could have been simple longing; it could have been a temptation, nothing more.

"Thank you," she had said, her eyes lowered modestly. "I do not know what to do. I have no home because"--and her voice caught--"because--well, you would not want to hear it; you would despise me."

But then, as they walked along, his look deepened, as if he divined what it was that he would despise her for; but he said, in a kindly tone, "Believe me, my dear, there is very little that would shock me. And you perhaps need to speak of it, so that you will be able to regain your life."

"But I could never speak of such a thing! Least of all here, with all these people!" she said, playing his game. And it was certainly true that the place was public; they were being jostled from all sides with people milling about and vendors of sacrificial animals hawking their wares.

After a hesitation, he answered, as she knew he would, "You are right. Let us go somewhere private."

"I did not realize what he meant," she said as they began walking outside the gate and along the enormous wall. "He said he merely wanted to talk, and--" she broke down in tears, but was careful to be able to see his reaction, so that she would not frighten him off.

And then he held her chin in that immense hand, as Zebediah had done, and raised her face to look at him. They were at a doorway set into the wall. "Would you come in?" he asked, trying not to show that his breathing had become heavier.

They entered, and Mary gave a broken version of the story, to which he listened attentively, his breath growing even more audible. Then she looked up at him and said, "I could show you what he did, if you think it would help."

It seemed to her now that he needed showing; he did not quite know what to do, and somehow Mary in those months of unconsciousness had found out things that Zebediah had not taught her.

At the end, she had risen and said in a tone of despair, "Again? I would have thought I could trust myself to a priest of God! I know nothing! How could you have taken me inside alone like this? You must have realized what would happen!"

"Please!" he begged. "I had no idea--I forgot myself. I had no intention--"

"Of a surety not! You had never been told that a young and handsome man should never be alone with a young and troubled woman! I see that I will have to find my way through life by myself; to ask for help is folly."

And she realized that she had him in her power when she heard him say, "Do not condemn me for this one lapse! I sincerely wanted--want--to help you. As you can see, I understand weakness, but I will guard against it the next time."

--And that was how it all began, her vengeance against Zebediah and all men. Because they did arrange to meet again, and she knew she could make him meet her whenever she wished, and that he would see to it that she was dressed respectably, not in the rags he found her in. And she played the same game with others, appearing in the Court with dirty shoes, being careful to avoid being seen by this man; and it worked even better--so well, in fact, that she finally had to move to Galilee, because too many men in teeming Jerusalem knew her, and some had begun to realize that they were not alone.

But the question was whether it was a game they were all playing. Certainly it was with some; but with that first priest? She knew enough now to realize that it was quite possible that he had been sincere, and did not realize what he was doing. And she had gone away justified.

But was she a female Zebediah? "No!" she cried to the night and to the moon, "I was answering him!" Perhaps, they replied--and perhaps not. It could have been that he was answering you, as you answered Zebediah that first time. Perhaps it was the first time with him--he was certainly awkward enough, and embarrassed and ashamed enough.

Since she could affect innocence so easily, and make the first look of understanding between her and her latest man appear as a revelation of something she had not thought of until that moment, she had assumed that the shame and embarrassment were a mask he wore to excuse his conduct to himself, and which her words had tried to rip off by showing that she understood all too well that it was a mask.

But if it was not a mask? "Then I am simply another whore--and he deserved what I gave him!" But it would not do, this time; this was precisely the female Zebediah going away justified. If it was not a mask, if it really was the first time, then she had ruined him, she realized, just as she had been ruined; she had filled him with guilt at something that could never more be undone, because in fact he did consent, whether he intended it at the start or not. And she had built a career on fostering that guilt--and it was her guilt, not his!

"No! No," she cried again. "Please, No!" Her whole life was turned upside down. Instead of exploiting the exploiters, she was just a sordid prostitute who had conceived a novel and particularly repulsive way of justifying herself. This was even worse than what the others did when they called it "love."

--Of course, it might not be true. She might have been doing what she thought she was doing. But if it was? If it was, it was unforgivable, and what could she ever do to atone for it? Even killing was too good for her, since it would not restore the lives--and there might have been many!--which were ashes now and could not be unburnt. This she knew all too well. Not even an eternity of torment, if there were such a thing, could make up for it! One would have to be reborn as another person to escape what had been done.

She turned--she had been looking at the road, which was empty--and gazed out over the lake, in which the moon made a pale broad path. The very least she could do would be to take the fatal step backwards when the time came; otherwise, she would simply prolong her atrocities, she knew. If she could not undo what had been done, she could perhaps save others from herself, and that would be some tiny service to mankind.

--A faint commotion far down the road made her turn back, and conceal herself among the bushes once again. A group of people were walking along, talking in low tones. It would be about time to stop for the night, unless they had some definite destination in Magdala, a short walk away, but hidden by the bend of the road where Mary was waiting. She would step out at the crucial moment and appear as if she were returning from town. But they gave no indication of having a fixed purpose; they were simply walking along.

It could be the prophet. If he had no fixed home, it was possible that he simply walked up and down the land, preaching and trying to attract students into his retinue--and at this season, there would be many with nothing to do but spend a day or two listening to holy words and feeling virtuous. She would give them a shock!

As the crowd approached the bend, with a man obviously in the lead, like a flock of geese, she stepped out of the shadows and into the road, and then, as she was about to let them pass by stepping back--too far--she heard,

"Stop!"

She froze to the spot.

"Come here to me."

Suddenly, she heard herself say in that hideous man's rasp, "What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? She is ours!"

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