Poisoned Honey

by Beatrice Gormley

  OUTCAST IN CAPERNAUM

  Business was brisk at the tollgate, and the strongbox where Matthew kept the toll money filled quickly. If he didn’t think too much about how he’d gotten all that money, it was very satisfying. Matthew was proud, too, that he had servants doing his bidding at home and guards following his orders at the tollgate. And the house he lived in, though it was only rented, was finer than his father’s house.

  On the first Sabbath morning, Matthew decided to leave the leader of the guards in charge of taking the tolls. The man didn’t have Matthew’s expertise in judging merchandise, but there would be less traffic than usual. Only Gentiles traveled on the holy day.

  Matthew walked downhill to the synagogue in Capernaum. It was easy to see, he thought as he neared the village, that none of that river of wealth on the highway trickled down into Capernaum. Most of the houses were humble one-room huts, and there were none of the spacious compounds such as those owned by the prosperous families of Magdala. The Jews of Capernaum had little to do with highway commerce; they were fishermen and small farmers. Travelers on the highway didn’t seek lodging in Capernaum but went on to the caravan stops and inns at Magdala or Tiberias.

  Matthew found the Jewish assembly in Capernaum under an open-sided shed near the shore. They must be too poor to have a proper synagogue hall, he thought. Perhaps he could help pay to have one built—the idea pleased him. In Capernaum, he realized, he would be one of the more well-to-do members of the assembly.

  But as Matthew stepped onto the black stone floor, a circle of empty space appeared around him. Rough-clad laborers, who must have had to take their Sabbath-eve baths in the lake, pulled their coats aside to keep from touching him. How did they know who he was?

  Matthew realized that some of the men looked familiar although their faces were shaded by prayer shawls. They must be the fishermen he’d tried to hire. And then there was a cluster of beggars on the edge of the assembly, some of the same ones as at the tollgate. There was his answer.

  Matthew realized that day that Capernaum was a completely Jewish village; there was no section of Syrians and Phoenicians as in Magdala. On the streets of Magdala, there had always been someone to give Matthew a courteous greeting, even if it was only because they were afraid of his father. But when Matthew walked through Capernaum, no one so much as nodded to him. Women turned their heads and crossed to the other side of the street, and men didn’t wait until his back was turned to spit. Even the Jewish beggars dropped their outstretched hands when they saw him coming; they didn’t want his filthy money.

  Matthew could have traveled to Bethsaida-Julias for Sabbath prayer meetings, but he stubbornly kept coming to Capernaum every week. Wasn’t it his right, as a Jew? After all, he kept many parts of the Law. He didn’t associate with Romans, except on business. He kept the dietary laws, and he didn’t eat with Gentiles. He didn’t work on the Sabbath.

  The other Jews didn’t try to stop Matthew from entering the synagogue, but they always left an empty circle around him. When the shed was full, they’d rather suffer in the noonday sun than stand next to Matthew in the shade of the thatched roof.

  One especially hot Sabbath, Matthew noticed in the middle of a reading that an old man was looking unwell. He’d been in the shade at the beginning of the service, although keeping a careful distance from Matthew, but now the sun beat down on his head. Matthew thought he’d wait until the reading of the prophecy was over and then let the man have his place. But in the next moment, the old man crumpled to the ground, his face as gray as his beard.

  The old man’s relatives carried him out, looking at Matthew with loathing. “Wait till Simon returns,” one of them muttered. “He’ll get rid of the …” The voice trailed off, but Matthew could imagine the rest of the sentence.

  As Matthew monitored the tollgate week after week, he felt as if his father and his brother were arguing in his head. Every time a hard-luck case approached the stone arch, Alphaeus and James clamored for his attention.

  Let that woman leading her blind brother go through free, James would demand.

  Make her pay, barked Alphaeus. If she can’t pay like everyone else, she shouldn’t be using the highway.

  Like everyone else? repeated James. Like the landowner’s steward who just went through free, with a wink from Matthew? Besides, the blind man needs a smooth road to walk on.

  Matthew wanted to shout at both the voices for silence. But he followed his father’s rules, charging as much as he judged each person could pay, allowing for how important they were. Some travelers couldn’t pay the toll at all, and they simply turned back. Some looked at him reproachfully and said, “The last toll collector had a heart—he let me go through for half the fee.”

  All this put Matthew in a bad temper. He became quicker and quicker to beckon one of the guards, and he learned that just a glance in the direction of a guard with a cudgel would usually put an end to any complaints.

  The incident that bothered him the most was the woman with the blind brother. She didn’t argue, but she didn’t pay or turn back, either. She stood still in the shadow of the arch, her eyes pleading under her worn and mended scarf. Her brother’s sightless eyes seemed to gaze past Matthew, focused on something no one else could see.

  As Matthew looked around for a guard to prod them with a club, the traveler behind the woman and her blind brother spoke up. “Here—I’ll pay their toll as well as mine.” He was obviously not a wealthy man, a dried-fruit seller with only one servant boy and two donkeys. The woman tried to kiss his hand, but her benefactor waved her off with a laugh. “Did you think I’d stand here waiting for you all day? I’m expected in Gennesaret tonight!”

  Taking the coins from the generous man, Matthew met his eyes for an instant, then dropped his gaze. He felt a surge of unreasonable anger, and he was tempted to order a guard to beat this man. “Move on!” he said roughly.

  After that, Matthew added a rule of his own to his father’s list: was the traveler polite and friendly to the toll collector, or did he make him feel ashamed? Matthew gave a discount to people who treated him with respect.

  Alphaeus hadn’t taught his son the last rule because Alphaeus didn’t care about respect or friendship, real or pretended. “Just assume they’d all knife you in the back if they got the chance,” he’d told Matthew more than once. “You’ll be right most of the time. Trust only your own kin. Even with them, count your change.”

  As time went on, Matthew felt leathery layers growing over his feelings. He was becoming more and more like his father: tough as a camel’s toe. Still, there was a difference: his father didn’t seem to need other people’s company any more than a camel needs to drink water during a scorching day in the desert. But Matthew felt parched for companionship, living by himself on the outskirts of Capernaum.

  Gradually Matthew came to know a few of the regular travelers who appeared at his tollgate. These men were Jews, but like Matthew, they understood what a man had to do to get along in the real world. They didn’t mind chatting with a toll collector, or even accepting his hospitality. Matthew suspected things would have been different if he’d lived in their hometown, but he didn’t dwell on that.

  One of these acquaintances was a silk merchant from Sepphoris who traveled regularly to Damascus. Another was an officer of Herod Antipas’s army, the one with the patrol looking for rebels. When he saw these men, Matthew always invited them to stay overnight at his villa. He wished they’d come around more often. They were his only friends, if you could call them that.

  On a visit to his father in Magdala, Matthew blurted out something about how lonely his life was now. Alphaeus gave a harsh laugh. “What did you expect? What have I always told you? You can’t count on anyone except family. You need to start a family of your own. I’ll look for a wife for you.”

  THIRTEEN

  CROSSING A LINE

  For several days after the upsetting visit to my grandmother, I moped around my husband’s house. I hea
rd Chava refer to me again as Weepy and the other women in the compound laugh at her wit. The insult didn’t even make me angry now; it was only one more drop falling into my lake of misery.

  Then Eleazar left on another trip, and the misery lifted a little. I felt angry as well as unhappy. That night in bed, I spoke the charm defiantly.

  “Abrasax, I enter,” I whispered. I ducked under the arch, brushing aside a sprig of jasmine, and descended the marble steps to a paved path. Boldly I imagined a splashing fountain, and behind it a bay tree with rustling leaves.

  Excited, I imagined the garden in more and more detail: an awning on the south wall, painted tiles decorating the walls, even a line of ants crossing the paving stones. I fell asleep smelling fragrant herbs—perhaps the imaginary bunch hanging from a pole in the imaginary awning. Or perhaps the real packet my grandmother had given me for my marriage bed.

  I awoke refreshed, as Ramla had promised, and almost cheerful. I put on a clean tunic and combed my hair. That day, Chava was as unpleasant as ever, and Eleazar returned home as usual to have his ugly feet washed. But I felt different, knowing that I could escape to my garden again when the day was done.

  You see? I told my mother—and all of my faithless family, who had so easily replaced me with this girl, Sarah. Their sweetness to me had been nothing but honey to mask a paralyzing poison. Even my father, although he called me “dear little Mari,” had abandoned me by dying.

  I don’t need you, I told them all. I don’t even want to visit your house. I have someplace better to go.

  The Passover holidays came and went. I didn’t try to visit my family, but I heard from Susannah that Alexandros had taken them to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. The summer sun baked the hills above Magdala until the grass turned brown.

  In Eleazar’s house, we settled into an arrangement—or so I thought. Eleazar possessed a young wife. Chava was allowed to run the household, just as she had before I arrived. As for me, I didn’t bemoan my lot any longer. I learned to simply make myself absent from the dreariest parts of my life: the afternoons with the other women in the compound, Eleazar’s feet, Eleazar’s bed.

  Lying with my husband, like washing his feet, didn’t take long. As soon as I heard his snores, I closed my eyes and whispered, “Abrasax, I enter.” And I was free.

  Now and then I stayed in the garden until I fell asleep so that I didn’t have a chance to say “Abrasax, I leave.” This worried me at first, but then I decided it didn’t matter. With each visit, the garden became more vivid. The rest of my life took on a faded quality, bleached out like a scene in full sunlight after a dark room.

  Sometime that summer, I had the idea of imagining my old friend the sparrow, Tsippor, in the garden. He fluttered up to my shoulder and perched there, as Ramla’s parrot did with her. Shalom, Mari! Where’ve you been so long? We talked and talked. He was eager to know my thoughts, he was indignant when I was mistreated, and he made me laugh.

  There came a night when I dared to imagine my first betrothed, Nicolaos. I allowed myself to feel his arms around me and the warmth between us glowing hotter and hotter. But it was too much for my imaginary garden. Without uttering any secret words, I was back in bed with Eleazar, twisting and moaning.

  “What is it, woman?” grunted Eleazar. He nudged me with an elbow. “Can’t a man sleep peacefully?”

  That incident frightened me, and I didn’t permit myself to bring Nicolaos into the garden again.

  As Susannah became more awkward and heavier with child, I visited her often to see if I could help. When Susannah’s baby was born—a boy, just as Ramla had promised—I spent even more time with my cousin. Often I took care of Kanarit, playing singing games and telling her stories while Susannah nursed the baby.

  Chava’s niece, Daphne, now visited her almost daily. She spent as much time at Eleazar’s house as I did, during the daylight hours. If I was performing a task when she arrived, I’d find some reason to go to another part of the house. Daphne would take over my task, which suited me.

  Now and then I observed Daphne as she crossed paths with Eleazar. At these times the girl would simper, always with properly downcast eyes. Chava would watch from the background.

  One day when I arrived at Susannah’s house, my cousin complained about Ramla. The Egyptian wise woman was still living in Silas’s apartment. “I don’t want to offend her,” said Susannah, twitching her shoulders, “but she won’t take a hint. When I said we needed to rent out the apartment, she started paying rent herself!”

  Susannah’s tone made me uneasy, since I’d benefited from Ramla’s advice. “Are you worried about her traffic with the occult, so close to your family?”

  “I’m more worried about her traffic with the real world,” Susannah snapped. “Too many people come into our compound to consult her, and we have no privacy. And her parrot has learned to bray like the donkey, and they both bray and wake up the baby. Besides, my neighbors ask me about the man with her. Is he her bodyguard? Then why does she spend time alone with him? Or is he her husband? Then why doesn’t she show him proper respect?”

  Thinking that was the end of her complaints, I started to say something sympathetic, but Susannah wasn’t through. “Also, that parrot eats our pomegranates and flings the rinds around.”

  Eleazar said nothing about my absences now. I thought he must not mind, as long as I was there at noon and in the evening to wash his feet. Or perhaps Chava had stopped reporting my activities to him. She was civil to me, or at least not unfriendly.

  One evening, Eleazar, Chava, and I were on the rooftop. I was lighting the lamps while Eleazar finished supper and Chava hovered over him. I started down the stairs with the oil, and for some reason, I halted halfway down.

  Chava was talking in a low tone. Eleazar’s responses were curt at first, but as she persisted, they became more thoughtful. He asked a question. Chava answered, “They say that madness runs in the family.”

  I was fairly sure she was talking about me, although it was ridiculous to say that madness ran in my family. At first, I took it as merely another of Chava’s belittling remarks. But later that night, as I was about to pronounce the magic words and enter my garden, I hesitated. I’d always had a lively imagination, like my grandmother. What if imagining so much had caused her to forget the difference between imagining and the real world? I did not say the words that night after all.

  The next day was unusually hot, even for the season. Although Eleazar was in town, I decided to visit the Egyptian woman again. I hoped she would calm my fears about imagining, but I also hoped she might give me a healing charm for Safta.

  I put a market basket on my arm. I told Chava, “I’m going to the market for … for millet.”

  Chava looked at me with that way she had of seeming surprised to see me and disappointed that I was still there. “To the market?” she said in a disbelieving tone. “We still have half a large jar of millet. Millet gets worms if it’s kept too long—surely your mother taught you that much.”

  Not answering, I went out the gate. Chava couldn’t upset me the way she used to. It was as if she were making her unfriendly comments through a wall, and I hardly heard her.

  At Silas’s compound, Ramla sat under the awning, sharing a pomegranate with her parrot, and Ramla’s bodyguard (or was he her husband?) lay sleeping under the fig tree. I told her about my grandmother’s fading mind. “Do you know of something that could be done for her? I don’t have anything to pay you with,” I added quickly, “but maybe I could perform some service for you.”

  Ramla regarded me thoughtfully, then nodded. “Yes, you could do something for me. You might remind your cousin of how much I have helped you and her both. Lately she has made some uncivil remarks—I almost begin to think she would like me to leave. I cannot commune with the spirits in an atmosphere of criticism.”

  “I’ll talk to Susannah,” I promised. Remembering my cousin’s complaints, I picked up scraps of pomegranate rind from underneath the parr
ot’s perch and tucked them into my sleeve.

  “And I will teach you a spell for healing,” said Ramla. She recited it, and then she had me repeat the phrases until I knew them by heart.

  “Understand,” she warned, “the words do nothing by themselves. Their power is released and channeled by the circumstances. The spell for good health must be uttered at dawn, facing into a breeze, and you must name the part of the body to be strengthened. If the words were pronounced in the dead of the night and the dark of the moon, they would have the opposite effect. Do not use them carelessly!”

  “I would never use them carelessly,” I assured her. “To tell the truth, I’m a little worried even about visiting my garden now.”

  “I see,” said Ramla with a wise smile. “You are troubled, and not only for your grandmother. You wonder, Did Safta begin by merely imagining?”

  “That’s it,” I said quickly. “What if madness does run in the family? Could it be dangerous for me to imagine so much?”

  Ramla put out her hands in a calming gesture. “It’s not imagining, in itself, that causes madness. Your poor grandmother has let the unseen world master her. To protect yourself, you must disguise yourself when you step into the spirit world. Then any spirits you meet there will be afraid to harm you. And they will not follow you back into this world.”

  “Follow me?” I repeated with a shiver. I hadn’t thought of that.

  “Oh yes. They can do all kinds of mischief if you let them out. And they’re harder to get rid of than ghosts, which can be driven away with wormwood and gall.”

  Ramla’s warning frightened me, and I wondered if it wouldn’t be better to give up dealing with the unseen world entirely. But she insisted that it was perfectly safe as long as I took sensible precautions. “You wouldn’t go on a journey by yourself, would you? Of course not—you’d go with the men of your family, or with a bodyguard, as I do. The words of disguise are a kind of bodyguard, except they fool unfriendly spirits into thinking that you are powerful.”