Our Lady of Babylon

by John Rechy

  “Lady, do I infer correctly that by then all overtly sexual manifestations among the three of you had ceased?” Madame strained for casualness.

  “Then, yes.”

  “Good.” She abandoned trying to sound casual. She was relieved.

  “But later, Madame —”

  “Might you” — I would say she added this almost peevishly, except that Madame is not peevish — “remind yourself that during this rehearsal we must concentrate on deducing why exactly it was that your essence so emphatically chose to live as Magdalene, who is not a woman blamed?”

  “I shall, and we shall.”

  Jesus stormed the Holy Temple, enraged by the greed of rich merchants. Judas rushed into the fray to help him overthrow tables, booths laden with cheap but expensive wares. I cherished the spectacle of the two together again. They laughed as furious merchants ran out, clutching what they could of their spoils.

  Then, suddenly somber, Jesus stood on the steps of the Temple and warned the scurrying merchants: “Never again violate the sanctity of My Father’s Temple.”

  “Who are you to chastise us?” one merchant demanded. He had stopped, with others, to gather his gaudy wares, which had tumbled.

  “I am the Messiah,” Jesus answered.

  The deadliest of words had been spoken. In public, to the enemy. Judas closed his eyes and bowed his head.

  That nothing happened in the days that followed — no stronger intimation of danger — only intensified the sense that it was stalking us, growing.

  Now, one by one, a small band of intense, serious men enthralled by his stunning force, gathered about Jesus for “instruction.” Soon they followed with us from place to place. For all their imposing presences, these striking, handsome men, who soon called themselves “disciples,” were restless wanderers seeking an alliance that might bring meaning to what till then had been their desultory lives.

  They envied the special place Judas and I occupied with Jesus, a specialness they inferred because Jesus never addressed it. They were startled by my presence, a woman among them, but Jesus made it clear that he would permit no objection. With a steady glare, Judas would underscore even a silent questioning of my position. Deriding their solemnity, Judas accepted them with no sense of rivalry or threat.

  That was not true of them. An impetuous burly young man from the country, Peter was particularly resentful of us. Judas claimed he was “humble to the point of arrogance.” For all his proclamations about “serving you, Lord, serving only you,” Peter at times seemed to want to compete even with Jesus. A sudden burst of summer rain had created a pool in a dip in a jagged street we traveled over. While the rest of us, even Jesus, avoided it by walking carefully around it, Peter attempted to glide on it, lost his balance, and toppled face down.

  In a mocking voice, Judas told him, “The point is to walk on water, not to muddy yourself.”

  Peter was quite proud of his manly presence. All eyes and cocked eyebrows, he would flirt silently with me, as if he thought he must. Once I saw him surreptitiously dip his finger into a bowl of olives and dab the hair on his chest with oil, to highlight it.

  Soon, he and Judas only mumbled greetings.

  Of this band of men, I preferred young John, finding him poignant. An orphan like me and Judas, he had haunted the shoreline, thrusting his own name at the ocean to hear its echo come back at him, pretending he was being summoned by a distant, loving presence. He would stare with adoration at Mary, not daring to speak to her. When Mary smiled at him — and no one in the world smiled more radiantly —

  “Be sure to emphasize that, Lady,” Madame Bernice approved my accolade.

  — young John would hide his face because he had flushed with delight.

  James, a haughty fisherman, was so proud of his imposing height that he would locate himself next to another James, the shortest of the disciples. For all his impressive stature, James was fussy, constantly rearranging the table setting when we gathered, on special occasions, to have supper on a grand table Joseph had long ago carved and that Jesus and Judas had carried to a room we had claimed as our own, a room that had remained among the ruins of a once-grand dwelling near the Mount of Olives.

  Another fisherman, Andrew, often reminded everyone that it was he who had “discovered” Jesus. Judas and I would share smiles. Andrew had been at the baptism by the River Jordan — avoiding, himself, being baptized — and he had later heard John the Baptist’s words celebrating the youthful Jesus.

  The others in the group remained vague figures to me. At times I confused even their names and wished that I had had only a portion of Jesus’ ability to remember everything about them, where they came from, how they had lived. That, of course, made them adore him even more.

  As we continued to wander about the villages, Judas and I preferred to remain a few feet apart from these men. We cherished the knowledge that among the three of us there was a special bond the others would never share.

  On a night when there was no need for a moon because the stars were so bright they created shadows, we gathered outside a tent in the desert. Only three of the new disciples remained. The others had returned to their families — only Peter was married, to a plain woman he avoided — to inform them that they would soon leave them to travel with Jesus.

  I had gone to fetch a platter of dates inside the tent — dates I had candied especially for Jesus, knowing he loved their honeyed glaze. As I was arranging the platter, it fell. Judas responded to the clanging sound and hurried to help me. Hearing subdued voices, we waited tensely inside.

  Peter had said to Jesus, “I was the first chosen of your disciples, Lord.”

  John said, “But I’m the most beloved?” His intended statement swerved into a question. He had spoken with much more hope — and the arrogance of his youth — than with certainty.

  Jesus said, “Judas is first, and he is beloved.”

  Peter demanded: “And the whore? Magdalene?”

  I restrained Judas. I needed to hear what Jesus would answer.

  “You must never call her that. She’s a righteous woman, purged of her sins, and she, too, is beloved . . . And here they are, with delicious sweet dates, dear Magdalene and Judas,” he greeted us.

  I did not like that Jesus had chosen to defend me as “purged.” I did not consider the way I had lived sinful. It had allowed me to survive. The fact that, with Jesus and Judas, I no longer had to sell my body did not indict what I had done. When the others had left that night, Judas asked Jesus what I would have: “What sins of Magdalene’s did you claim are cleansed?”

  “Whatever they want to believe,” Jesus answered.

  “Why so many damned riddles and vague parables?” Judas refused his evasion.

  “Because whoever hears them will turn them into what he needs or wants to hear.” Jesus reached for a date.

  “And why do you keep our love secret from those bastards?”

  “Lady, the language?” Madame Bernice had halted her teacup on its way to her lips.

  “Madame, Judas could be a rough man. He had been raised on the streets, which do not teach one to be prudish.” The last word had slipped out. So I continued quickly.

  Jesus removed from his tongue a piece of date, as if he had found it bitter. He answered Judas, “You heard me assert our love.”

  “You didn’t tell them about our real love.”

  “Nothing must be allowed to intrude on their loyalties to my —” Jesus stopped, finished: “— to our mission.”

  “Your mission,” Judas corrected. “It’s not what we intended. What is your mission now?” He had begun his questioning with sarcasm but had ended it with urgency.

  “To redeem the sins of mankind, to restore man to a state of grace under God.”

  Judas stared at him as if at a new presence.

  But the earlier one would return during cherished times. As we made our way along a twisted street with the disciples, we came upon a group of people deriding a pretty, highly
decorated young woman, with spangles, her colored hair intricately curled, her lips so red they glowed even under a thin veil she held partially over her face. Cornered against a wall, she cringed in terror from advancing hecklers. Increasingly incensed, a few, then more, reached for stones. They stood with armed fists raised over the trapped girl. Reminded of the assaults I had endured, I ran to her, to cover her body with mine.

  I saw then that the pretty young woman was a young man in the gaudy attire of a woman. As I knelt, sheltering him, Jesus reached down, clasping the boy’s hands in his, holding them, warming them. Judas stood with us, adding his own defiance of the crowd.

  One of the men recognized Jesus and breathlessly informed the others of his miraculous identity. They knelt before him, but they still clung to the menacing stones — hidden behind them. Jesus raised the painted young man by the shoulders. The boy was trembling, his beautiful dark eyes captive within the heavy outline of paint on his eyelashes.

  “But, Lord, he’s a —” one man began his accusation.

  “When you harm anyone who’s vulnerable to your hatred, you harm me, you hate me,” Jesus stopped the man’s words, and wiped away the boy’s tears, which streaked his cheeks with melted colors.

  The hecklers retreated.

  The painted boy disappeared along the streets.

  For the rest of this day, Jesus, Judas, and I walked together, ahead of the disciples, who discussed the matter in subdued tones. I noticed that John, the young disciple, had assumed a new spring to his gait.

  An impoverished old woman threw herself at Jesus’ feet and begged to anoint him with precious oils. We had paused under an arch of the City, needing respite from the sun’s blaze. “I know you’re the Lord!” she said. “Let me honor you.”

  Judas exhorted the woman, “Sell the oil, it’s expensive, you can buy food with it, share it.” He turned to Jesus for the acquiescence he counted on.

  “She has to be allowed to do what she must,” he startled us, and allowed the kingly anointing.

  “He’s two men, the one we knew, and the one that Mary has convinced him he is.” Judas gave our apprehension words.

  As we journeyed from dusty village to village, now drawing larger and larger crowds, Jesus no longer hesitated before pronouncing his emboldened proclamation:

  “I am from God, I am the Light of the World.”

  Judas and I walked away from the cries decreeing him the Messiah. Judas asked darkly, “Is it too late, Magdalene, to bring him back to us?”

  “No!” I refused, just as he had counted on my doing in order to resurrect his determination.

  That night, we all rested by an oasis in the desert, the water a dark jewel surrounded by tarnished gold. A sliver of a moon soothed the heat with its cool presence. Jesus announced, “It’s time. I have to return to Jerusalem to conquer and to rule. My Father is waiting. His will shall be done, His Kingdom will come.” He spoke the enigmatic words —

  “— with certainty!” Judas marveled later, when we waited by a fountain in a village while Jesus preached.

  “Yes, with complete certainty.” I pretended to be rubbing away dust from my face, to disguise the fact that I had suddenly needed to cover my eyes because, when I had heard Jesus’ strangely confident voice, I thought I had seen, detected, perceived —

  “— fate, shaping,” Madame Bernice finished for me.

  “Yes.”

  “Lady, I believe — and we must be careful to keep this to ourselves so we won’t dissipate our discoveries — yes, I do believe that a bit of Cassandra’s essence was linked to yours, in Magdalene.”

  “If so, it was only to allow me to perceive,” I qualified, and was about to remind Madame that I am not a mystic.

  “Exactly what I meant.” She defused any need for adjustment. An amethyst on one finger of the hand clasped to her temple was like a teardrop tinted blue. “I begin to see —”

  Frenzy preceded Jesus now, carried him aloft. When he entered to preach in Jerusalem, a multitude — alerted by the disciples — led him on their shoulders into the sacred city. They climbed tall palm trees and tore down branches to spread like a carpet before him. Others held the fronds over him, to create a passageway through which he walked. “Praise to the Lord!” they shouted. Judas pointed, and I followed his gaze. From their rich towers, the rulers of the City watched.

  “They’ll be moving against him soon —” Terror scarred Judas’s voice. “Very soon.” Abruptly, he stared ahead toward the gates of the City.

  I saw what he had seen. I didn’t know then why I felt a chill under the sun’s heat. More mobs were invading the streets. They had at first appeared together, men, women, even children, but they quickly dispersed among the crowds about Jesus. They did not seem to belong with the others; they were too vibrant, too exuberant, almost as if they had just entered the City from the desert.

  “Who are they? The others don’t seem to recognize them,” Judas asked my own question. “They may be professional instigators.” Alarm rendered his voice hoarse. “Sent by whom? Hired by whom? Why?” he wondered aloud. “Maybe the rulers aren’t sure how much loyalty Jesus has aroused among the people, how strong it may be, and they want to assure —”

  I tried to dismiss my own apprehension — and tried to coax Judas out of his. The people who were just now surrounding Jesus, melding with the others who had greeted him with hosannas and palm leaves, were dressed like the people of the City — but their clothes were — seemed — were — newer, as if only made to look used, even ragged. Several of those now joining the mobs squinted at the sun. Not used to this brightness? Were they from a darker country?

  The next moment I was certain of this: They were only people from neighboring villages, drawn by the spreading fame of Jesus, and the day was so starkly bright — the sun rested on a golden dome — that even I had to shelter my eyes to keep from squinting. I heard the new joiners — and there were hundreds more — greeting Jesus exactly as the others had:

  “Praise to the Lord!”

  Looking at Jesus that evening as he drank a glass of wine and ate from a loaf of bread I had baked especially for him — next to dates, he loved sweet raisins, and I had sprinkled them abundantly into the flour — I knew this: He was not afraid of the dangerous currents threatening him. He truly believed, like Mary, that nothing could ensnare him. I told Judas that later when we were alone.

  “No, no.” Judas’s answer was feverish, as if his fervency would will this to be so: “I’ve figured it out. He’ll pursue this dangerous road only to a point. Then he’ll deny being the Son of God and, before the gathered multitudes, pronounce himself the leader of a revolution that we’ll join. He’s attempting to confound our enemies until then, that’s all.” His weary look told me he had not convinced himself.

  “Or perhaps” — I moved slowly — “it’s true” — I became even more cautious — “that God will save him from any harm.” There were now moments when I wasn’t sure whether I was coming to believe that, or only wanted to believe it; moments when, as I listened to a phrase or a word in his sermon, I would see him radiant with belief.

  “If you believe that, you’ll encourage his doom!” He turned angrily away from me.

  I didn’t want to believe that. It would not happen!

  Judas had whirled around to face me. I had never seen his face more intense, more passionate, more determined, more beautiful. “There’s only one way to break this trance he’s in.”

  I knew instantly what he meant.

  “I believe he knows it, too; and if so, he won’t want to be alone with us.”

  And he hadn’t been, not for very long, assuring that there were others present with us.

  “I’ll go to him and tell him that you’re ill in our tent, that you’re asking for him,” Judas said urgently.

  “I won’t lie,” I refused.

  “It’s a lie that may save him.” Judas held me by the shoulders. He added in a whisper: “It’s the only way.”

/>   I agreed to the ruse.

  Jesus stood at the entrance to the tent we had erected on the side of a hill, a hill like the one near the River Jordan where we had first met. The heat of the afternoon, beginning to cool at evening, had formed rivulets of perspiration that etched the striations of his body. His beauty caused me to gasp. Judas stood to greet him.

  “Magdalene isn’t ill,” he said quickly. “I lied because we must be with you.”

  Jesus turned — and left. Judas stared ahead, disbelieving. Then on the side of the tent we saw a shadow. We walked outside.

  Jesus waited.

  Judas embraced him tightly, urgently, at the same moment that with his other arm, he drew my body firmly against theirs. Judas pressed his lips to mine — desire finally exploding — and then he turned to share the hungry kiss with Jesus, to make it ours. Jesus turned his face away, but he did not pull back from the joined embrace. Again, Judas’s mouth searched Jesus’ lips. Jesus uttered a soft moan of resistance, then acceptance, as he received and returned the urgent kiss.

  So swiftly that it was as if the moisture of the day had undressed us, we were naked in a tight embrace that contained the longing of years. Our hands explored, as we had yearned so long. Jesus’ and Judas’s lips met on mine.

  Then slowly — releasing time, which had stopped to capture these treasured moments — I eased my body away, allowing their lips and bodies to connect without mine.

  I gathered my clothes and moved away.

  “Magdalene?” Jesus called, and Judas echoed my name. “Stay with us.”

  I thrilled to hear that exhortation, but I did not turn back. I was surrendering my own desire. This passion must play itself out only between them, these moments must exist only for them, moments determined from the beginning. I knew they both loved me, wanted me. But a singular love had to bind their destinies now or they would be bound by death on Calvary.

  I walked to the slope of a nearby hill, where jonquils sprouted everywhere and joshua blossoms held up their clusters like white torches. I sat down. I did not dress. I wanted to share their nudity, even if distantly. I knew I had to witness the truth of what would now occur between these two men I loved. I watched them, in awe of their naked beauty, the intensity of their desire, their lips united fiercely, their limbs interlocked.