Twenty-Two

They headed down the road which would pass Magdala, continuing by the huge lake to Capernaum on the northeast shore, when Jesus told them to walk on ahead, and he would come up with them later.

Matthew saw that he lagged behind to have a private conversation with Mary, and hoped he would be successful in persuading her to remain. He longed to drop back himself and hear what was being said, but that was out of the question, and so he continued with the rest.

"--are becoming serious," John's brother James was saying. "He is coming closer and closer to a showdown with the Pharisees, and that is bound to mean that the Reign of God has all but started. Agreed?"

"Well, either it starts soon, or he and we are all destroyed," answered Thomas with a chop. "I have seen the looks on their faces."

"I agree," chimed in Little James, clearing his throat. "It seems (hem) clear that they cannot allow him to continue much longer or (ha) the whole world will go after him and they will be left with (hem) nothing."

"And so?" said John.

"Well," answered his brother, "the Master seems too other-worldly to recognize that a Kingdom will have to have some kind of organization and structure. Someone will have to be in charge of its finances--and we have Judas for that--but someone will have to take care of order and seeing to it that the Master's decrees are enforced, and of protecting the Kingdom from outside threats, such as Rome, for instance. And someone will have to take care of diplomatic relations with other nations, and so on."

"And so?" repeated John.

"And so if the Master is above naming people for these positions--I mean no disparagement of him, far from it--then should not we, as more down-to-earth, undertake to decide who should be in charge of what in this new Kingdom?

"I know not whether we should," said the other James. "Do you not think the Master might (hem) resent or take unkindly to our (ha) usurpation, as it were, of his prerogative?"

"Better that he should reprimand us," broke in Simon the Revolutionary, "than that we suddenly find ourselves confronted with a Kingdom with no practical means of governance."

"I am not so (hem) certain of that," replied James.

"And he has already begun the process himself," put in Thomas. "Clearly the Rock is intended to be a kind of Prime Minister, if he has the "keys of the Kingdom," (chop) whatever that means. But lesser offices have never been mentioned."

"The problem is how we decide on who is to receive the offices," said John's brother. "All of this will be subject to the Master's approval, of course. I have some ideas of my own, but you may not all agree."

"We probably will not," said Thomas. "Certainly not all of us."

"Exactly."

"No one has mentioned Andrew as yet, for instance--'

"No one has actually mentioned anyone, if it comes to that."

"True," continued Thomas, "and I doubt if anyone will have the temerity to put himself forward--though I suspect that each of us has his own ideas on that score."

"So what do we do? Do we draw lots?" said James.

"Why not leave it up to the Master?" said Andrew.

"I would think that you of all people would be able to answer that question." said Thomas. "He picked your brother Simon as second-in-command, did he not?"

Andrew reddened. "And what if he did?"

"Come, come, Andrew, be honest. Even your brother would have to admit how much better you would be at being leader of us all."

"Actually, I agree," said the Rock. The others looked over at him in embarrassment, not realizing that he was there. "I have no idea why he picked me. I thought at first it was one of his jokes, but he seems to be serious."

"It does seem to me," said John's brother, "that it argues to whether he is so spiritual that mundane practical considerations are best left to someone else. He might even admit this if one asked him."

"Oh yes?" said Thomas. "I can see someone going up to him and saying, (chop) 'Master, I admire your holiness and spirituality, but do you not think that someone else would be better suited to choosing who is actually to govern this Kingdom of yours--or of God's, I mean.' I dare anyone to try!"

"What is it you were discussing as you walked along?" came Jesus' voice. He had come up behind them.

There was a dead silence.

There was a little boy on the edge of the crowd. Jesus beckoned him over, sat on a rock beside the road, stood him beside him, and put his arm around him. He looked at them. "Amen I tell you," he said, "if you do not turn back and become like children, you will not enter the Kingdom of God. Whoever lowers himself and becomes like this child is the one who has a higher position in the Kingdom of God, and" he looked at the little boy, "whoever accepts one child like this in my name accepts me. One who accepts you is accepting me, and one who accepts me is accepting the One who sent me. Now let us have no more of this. Thank you, my son," and he sent him back to his mother.

At this point, Jairus, the head of the local synagogue, came up to Jesus and said something to him that Matthew was too far away to catch, in spite of the fact that everyone was still silent after that stinging rebuke. The people of Magdala had come out with Jairus, and the crowd around Jesus was now oppressive in its mass.

Jesus had started out, with Jairus leading the way, and Matthew saw Mary shoulder her way through the press of people of both sexes to approach close enough to see what was happening. Matthew also worked his way toward her, when Jesus suddenly stopped and looked around. Mary shrank back, certain that he had guessed her presumption.

"Who touched me?" he asked.

The look on his face did not encourage anyone to volunteer, and those next to him hastily denied it. Simon Rock blurted, "Master, with a crowd around like this, you get bumped into. What do you mean, who touched me?"

"No, no, someone touched me," said Jesus. "I felt power go out of me." And he kept looking around at the people, and finally an old woman came cringing forward and said, "It was I, good Master, I think." The look on Mary's face puzzled Matthew. Did she recognize her?

Jesus looked at her. "Forgive me, my good Master," she went on. "I meant no harm; it is just that I had had this trouble for such a long time, and my daughter told me--you see, the doctors had eaten up my whole savings and almost everything my daughter could earn--I have not been able to work for years and years, though I once was known as a seamstress inferior to none--"

Mary suddenly opened her eyes wide. She did recognize her, thought Matthew. From where?

"--harm could it do, she told me," the woman was continuing, "and she said I should go and ask you, and I said that we had no money to pay you, and so I felt I had no right to bother you; but it occurred to me that if I merely touched the tassel of your robe, that would be enough, and--you see, it is not that we would not pay you, it is just that we have no money, and I had no idea that it would cause you any distress, and . . ." She trailed off under Jesus's gaze.

"Just what is this trouble you have had?" he asked.

"Bleeding, Master. Twelve years I have been bleeding, every day, not as wom--but always, you understand. Sometimes enough to fill a drinking-cup. You may ask my daughter; she has taken care of me these many years, she is such a wonderful daughter, and has worked also to keep us both alive."

"And you spent all your money on doctors."

"Whenever we could scrape any together, Master. Every mite went to them; everything we have left from food and the barest necessities. But nothing helped. Nothing. I was at my wits' end, especially since my daughter had lost her work, and--" Her voice trailed off once again.

"And so you believed that merely by touching my robe, you could be cured," Jesus was saying. The woman started once again to protest that she would pay when she could, and Jesus held up a hand. "You were correct. It was your belief that cured you; you may go in peace."

As the woman held her hand up over her heart in incredulous relief and joy, Jairus, who had been growing more and more impatient at the interruption of his quest by this insignificant woman, but who did not dare to remonstrate, managed to put himself in Jesus's line of sight once again, and Jesus turned anew to follow him, when someone came up to him and whispered in his ear. His face fell, and he looked over at Judith's mother with fury.

His head then dropped in despair. He stood there for a moment, unable to move, and finally began to turn away, when Jesus laid a hand on his shoulder and said, "Do not be afraid. You believe also, and all will be well with her. Rock, I wish only you and John and James to come with me; have the others remain here. There must not be a mob around the house; the girl is very sick."

The four of them left with Jairus and his servant, while everyone else crowded round the woman, who was praising God at her deliverance, and extolling the goodness of Jesus. She was almost jumping up and down for joy.

Mary had been looking around for someone in the crowd, when suddenly she turned, hearing a voice behind her, which said, "I knew that I would find you here!"

And there was a young girl, around David's age, who seemed to have exchanged her face for the sun. Matthew edged closer, but rather behind Mary, so that she would not see him, but he could hear and see everything. This promised to be interesting. When the girl saw Mary's expression almost of guilt caught red-handed, she blurted in confusion, "Oh, I am sorry, Miss! Forgive me!"

"Forgive you? For what?" said Mary in an annoyed tone, as one speaks to a recalcitrant servant.

"I know not, Miss. I am sorry." She had resumed her hang-dog attitude.

"In the name of all that is holy, will you stop saying that you are sorry!"

She gave a quick little curtsey, and said, "Yes, Miss. I am sor--" and put her hand to her mouth with a little giggle. "I cannot help it!" She looked so pathetic in her joy and her desire to please that Matthew laughed outright, then clapped his hand over his mouth, hoping they did not hear.

Mary resumed her gruff manner. "So your mother is cured," she said.

"Is it not wonderful! I am so overjoyed! And it is all thanks to you!"

"To me?" The astonishment on her face was a sight to behold.

"Well, to him, of course. But you were the one--Mother! Here is she, as I said! I told you that she would be here and the first thing she would do would be to speak for you!" And, without thinking of the liberty she was taking, she tugged Mary by the arm to her mother, who was still surrounded by the multitude. At the sight of Mary, there were whispers, and the crowd immediately thinned.

The mother already looked twenty years younger than she had when first she saw Jesus. She was in a decent robe, of a bluish white, and had her thinning hair combed into respectability around the narrow, sharp face, with its Judean nose pointing like an arrow before her.

"It is so good to see you here!" said the woman. "Judith" Ah, so her name was Judith, thought Matthew "was always telling me how good you were, and I believed her, but," she added with a look, whether of apology or collusion one could not tell "you know the stories. Or perhaps you do not."

"I know that there have been stories," said Mary. "I told you so when I saw you, you will remember."

"Oh, yes, I suppose you did. It seems so long ago now. Yesterday seems so long ago now. Well, I did hear the stories, even from my very kindly neighbors" this in a tone of bitter irony "who kept after me for years, for her good, of course, to stop sending her to you. I finally told them, 'Even if she is as you say she is, who else can she work for? I do not notice you taking her in to help us out!' Well, that kept them quiet; but you know how a mother is, she worries. And in spite of the fact that I trust Judith more than I trust myself, I worried, every now and then."

If she was Mary's servant, thought Matthew, the mother might well have worried, certainly on "hearing the stories." Still, who was he to judge? He had never been bedridden and bleeding constantly, and had only a daughter to stave off death.

Judging by the daughter's open face, it seemed that no damage had been done. Mary evidently had no interest in corrupting her--possibly because she did not wish to groom a rival; she was pretty enough, and as innocent looking as Mary herself, except that hers had nothing studied about it.

Mary simply said, "Judith always did exactly what I told her."

"I am confident she did," said the mother with pride.

"But when I left you last night," said Judith, still bursting with joy, and you said you had seen the prophet--"

"I did not say that I had seen him."

"Well, no, but you did not say you had not, and you would have if you had not. And when I heard that they were saying that he had driven seven devils out of a woman on the road the night before, and when I saw how changed you were--"

"Changed? How do you mean, 'changed'?"

"Oh, Miss, if you could have seen yourself! You seemed terribly afraid of something, but there was--I know not how to say it--hope or something in your face. You looked as if you were going to live!"

"As if seven devils had gone out of me."

Judith held her hand to her mouth and drew in her breath as the implication of what she had said dawned on her.

"You know what tongues these people have," broke in the mother. "Judith had told me that you were not well, and that this Jesus of Nazareth had cured you. Imagine! From Nazareth!"

Judith chimed in, "And when I went up to the house this morning and you were not there, I knew you would be with him, especially after--" and she broke off in horror at the new faux pas she was about to make. The mother continued, possibly trying to cover the mistake, "And she told me how you had been cured, and how kind a man he was--Nazareth! Imagine!--and--well, she persuaded me that if he could cure you, then I would be a fool not to try him myself--and so I did. And for the first time in years I can walk without pain!"

"And it was all your doing!" said Judith. "I would never have been able to get her out of the house if it had not been for you!"

Mary looked at her. The girl actually did not realize that it was her own blind faith that had persuaded both Mary and her mother to meet with Jesus in the first place. A person that naive had no right to live--except perhaps in this group. Anything was possible here.

Another thought seemed to occur to Mary. "Oh, Judith," she said, "I am glad I saw you. I wish you to do something for me." She looked at the mother. "Would you excuse us for a moment?"

The mother made appropriate noises and turned away to speak with one of the few who had remained in spite of Mary. Mary took Judith apart and spoke to her at some length. After a while, the girl left, half running and half skipping for joy, not only because her mother and her mistress had been cured, but doubtless because she still was able to be useful, now that the two sources of her servitude were taken away.

Mary wandered back to the mother, and asked, "And what do you plan to do now that you are well?"

She looked up in surprise at this new thought. "I know not," she said. "It had not occurred to me."

She stood, pensive.

Finally, Mary broke into her reverie. "I have grown used to Judith," she said. "And since I plan to follow Jesus for a while, at least." Matthew's heart leaped. "--he interests me" she added loftily, and then went on "--it would be convenient for me to have her with me, because she knows what I require. You would not care yourself to join us?" And when the mother looked dubious, as she evidently knew she would, she drove in the knife, "although I should warn you that it is a rather rough life, from the little I have seen: sleeping in the open, and nothing very remarkable to eat."

She heard what she was clearly hoping to hear. "Oh, I do not think that at my age I could manage anything of that sort--much as I would like to," she added, something that had an obvious translation. Matthew could see where Mary was headed; he had had much experience with bribes himself.

"Then could Judith--"

"Oh, I do not see how, really. It would be a wonderful experience for her, no doubt, but you heard me tell that man that we have nothing--nothing at all--and Judith is the only means I have to stay alive."

"But if I am gone, she will not even be that," said Mary. "And I think I can manage something; and in fact, she has gone for--shall we say, a solution to the problem?"

"I am afraid I could not even consider it," said the mother.

Mary's tone altered. "I would advise you to do so," she said, with a bit of a sneer. She was obviously controlling herself.

"Well, of course," said the mother, "what you say is true. With you gone, we would both starve, and I would not have her do that. Still, she is my joy and pleasure; she was all I had when I was ill."

It had arrived at the negotiation phase this soon! Mary was either a skilled negotiator, or she knew with whom she was dealing. "You must remember," she said, "that you will now be able to be up and around by yourself--and that Judith is--what is it? Fourteen?--now, almost beyond the age to be a wife herself. --And if you have no dowry," she added hastily to forestall an objection, "do not think that in her case that will be of any significance; she is very winsome, and it is easy to see that she would be a docile wife. No, she will find a man in short order, and then . . ." she let it hang in the air between them.

Then she added, "But do not fear that you will have to eke out a living as a seamstress again; your material needs can be taken care of." But the sight of the woman fighting two different sorts of greed revolted Mary, and she said, "Do give it some thought; I must go and see to certain things."

She left, and the woman drew apart from the others, musing on her alternatives, though Matthew was certain what her answer would be. Mary went over to Clopas's Mary and started a conversation. Clopas's Mary was making rather heavy weather of it, because she was not used to talking with a prostitute, even with a reformed one, and Mary was not accustomed to making small talk--with women, at least.

Matthew happened to look over at David, and wondered if he and this--Judith, was it not?--could find each other agreeable. He smiled. The servant of a notorious prostitute, and a man who had died and returned to life! They would certainly have things to tell each other, once they established intimacy.

After a time, Judith appeared, coming down the hill considerably more slowly than she had gone up, carrying what looked like a bundle of clothes, but which might have had a body in it, it obviously weighed so much. Gold, doubtless. Mary had sent her back to her house to retrieve some or all of her "ill-gotten gains," and give them to Jesus, after bribing the mother.

Mary motioned to her to come behind a stand of bushes, out of sight of everyone, and Judith let the bundle down with an enormous clank.

After a short time, they emerged, Mary with a fold in her robe weighted down with the bribe for the mother. She looked back to the bushes, indicating the bundle, and said, "You can say that it was a gift from a person you saw in the crowd--which is true--who did not want his name known--and that is also very true. They will doubtless guess whose it is, but they will not be able to prove it, and they will not have to refuse it as if it were the fruits of sin." Judith was about to protest at this, but Mary cut her off with "Go."

While Judith once again grappled with the bundle, Mary went over to Judith's mother and gave her the coins. From the way her eyes widened as she saw them, Matthew could see that the struggle with maternal instinct, if ever there was one, was instantly over. She could almost see her calculating what she would do with it.

When Judith returned, there was a tearful but on the whole rather hurried farewell between her mother and her, with, Matthew perceived, an undertone of relief on the part of both. One may love one's mother, but it is still hard not to feel joy at not having to put up with disgusting chores and querulous talk. And by the same token, one may love one's daughter, but not having to feed an extra mouth makes one's resources go that much farther.

Once the mother left, Mary said to Judith, "As far as I am concerned, you are free to join us or not. Do you wish to do so?"

"Oh, yes, Miss!"

"Do not 'Oh, yes, Miss' me simply because you were my servant. This is not how it will be with us if you are here. I need no servant here--indeed, from the little I have seen, we seem all to be servants, more or less--though not of him," she added hastily, "of one another. Or rather--well, you will see," she said.

"No, I truly would like to come," said Judith, "especially now that--" and she looked after her departing mother.

"Now that you cannot slave for her any longer. Never mind; I understand. I think. But, as I say, you will not be slaving for me either, though I am sure that the women will find plenty of work for you to do. And Judith--"

"Yes, Miss?"

"That is exactly what I wanted to say. It is not to be 'Miss' any longer. You are not my personal servant. It is 'Mary' from now on. I am not requiring you to tell lies; but neither is it necessary for you to advertise that you ever were my servant, do you understand? You know all the stories about me--"

"They are false!"

"False or not, they are believed. The point is that there is no reason why you should have the remotest connection with them."

"Do you mean," said Judith tearfully, "that you wish to have nothing to do with me?"

"Not at all," said Mary. "It is simply that you come in fresh--with a good excuse, the cure of your mother, which has no connection with me--and if you choose to strike up a friendship with me, as has without the slightest doubt already been observed, then let us act as if our acquaintance began here, with me speaking to you about your mother's miracle, as if I were a new person. And I am a new person--almost."

"Oh, no, Miss!"

"Mary."

"Mary," she said shyly. "You are the same! Truly you are!"

"Oh, I fervently hope not!" said Mary. Matthew could not help smiling when he heard this, half in pride at Mary, and half at the irony of what Judith believed.

"It is true! You are just as I knew you to be!"

"I doubt if it is humanly possible for anyone to be as you knew me to be," she said. "Still, I might make some progress in that direction with you here to remind me." Seeing the puzzled look on Judith's face, she said gruffly. "Now go over to the woman you gave the money to, and tell her that you would like to come along with us."

Judith, however, found it difficult to get Susanna's attention, since the whole group was buzzing with the news that Jesus had brought Jairus's daughter back to life.