Magdalene

by Angela Hunt

  Though she meant to be helpful, her words pierced my heart like a dagger. Cremation has never been practiced among my people; only heathens burn their beloved ones.

  The women sang low songs of mourning as they scrubbed dried blood from Yaakov’s throat. I tried to sing with them, but my throat tightened whenever I drew a deep breath. My fingers twitched as Yudit lowered lovely Rachel’s eyelids and applied the chin band to keep her mouth closed. My heart broke when Hadassah dropped the square linen napkin over Avram’s strong features.

  My family, formed over seasons of joy and struggle, had been destroyed in moments by foreign conquerors. I turned my face to the wall lest my neighbors see the storm of hate raging behind my eyes.

  The rabbi entered, bringing with him a basket of aloe and myrrh. This he gave to Yudit, who would slip handfuls of the fragrant herbs into the linen wrappings over my loved ones, not to slow the body’s return to dust, but to counter the vile smell of death.

  With stiff dignity, the rabbi walked toward me. I lifted my gaze to meet his. “Rabbi.”

  He folded his hands. “A sad day, Miryam. But the Holy One, blessed be He, is a just judge.”

  How many times had I heard him murmur that phrase to a grieving wife? “An unjust day,” I countered, hearing an unexpected note of iron in my voice. “Where is the justice of HaShem in this?”

  The women’s songs ceased as waves of silence spread from those nearest me to the crowd in the courtyard.

  The rabbi parted his hands, his dark eyes peering out from deep sockets like caves of bone. “Where was the Almighty when Job faced total destruction? Where was He when the Babylonians burned our temple? Where was He when our fathers cried out in Egyptian bondage? He was there, Miryam. He was waiting.”

  “For what?” A thread of hysteria lined my voice, but I couldn’t hold my tongue. “I don’t care about Job and our fathers and our temple; I need to know why HaShem didn’t save Yaakov and Avram and Rachel and Binyamin and the baby.”

  “We cannot understand HaShem. He is not a man, that he should behave like one.”

  “Then how am I supposed to understand anything? I need to know why, rabbi, I need a reason for this. Where is the Holy One when we need Him? What’s the use in following a God who’s so far above us we can’t even speak His name?”

  The old rabbi’s face closed, as if guarding a secret. Again, he folded his hands. “His ways are high above our ways; His thoughts high above our thoughts.”

  Heaven help me, I wanted to strike the man. My fists clenched, but I managed to close my eyes and look away. Let them all think I was too grief-stricken to speak further. Let them imagine that I accepted the rabbi’s wisdom.

  In truth, I accepted nothing.

  * * *

  Yitgadal ve‑Yitkadash Shmei Rabbah …

  Magnified and sanctified be His great name throughout the world which He has created according to His will …

  When the rabbi and ten men had finished saying the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead, I walked out of Uriah’s house with only my rage and grief for support. The hired mourners and musicians stopped their wailing and flute-playing as I passed, erect and dry-eyed, but they began their ministrations with renewed vigor when the weeping women followed me. Behind the women, several leaders of Magdala carried biers supporting the bodies of Yaakov, Avram, and Rachel. A smaller bier held the pitiful bag of ashes and bones.

  I walked with my head high, sustained not by hope of the resurrection, but by a burgeoning hope of justice. Surely Roman soldiers couldn’t come into a town and annihilate a family without cause! While Avram had provoked a centurion earlier in the day, his rash action should not have resulted in execution.

  Because death had entered the world through a woman, with a stately step I led the ever-growing parade of mourners down the street, through the city gates, and over the dusty road that led to Magdala’s burial site. No goats grazed on that land, no children played on those sloping hills. I couldn’t even recall ever seeing a bird roosting in that desolate area.

  I walked past the small columns used to mark the graves of poorer people, then paused before the family crypt sheltering the bones of Yaakov’s parents and grandparents. In that cave, hewn out of hillside rock, my husband and I had laid two baby girls who had died before living a full year. One of them would have been Hadassah’s age if—

  Too many ifs. If Avram hadn’t been so foolish; if Yaakov hadn’t been so mild. If the men had lingered on the sea yesterday, if the Romans had never come to our land, if the Holy One of Isra’el would fulfill his overdue promises … life would be better.

  I had to trade all my ifs for one hard fact: by sunset, everyone I loved would sleep within that stone chamber.

  I stepped aside as the bier-carriers approached. Several men moved forward with sharp staves to roll the stone away from the entrance. Silence fell over the crowd as they levered the huge rock onto its side, opening the passage that led into the tomb.

  I bent and glanced inside. Three niches had been cut in the wall to my left, three to my right, and three opposite the entrance. Six of these held adult bodies; the remaining spaces would be filled today.

  The pitiful little bag would rest with my baby girls on a slab in the center of the chamber.

  I straightened, then moved toward my family members. The carriers lowered the first bier, allowing me to trail my fingertips over the linen covering my beloved husband’s face. Through the linen, I glimpsed the dark circle of the birthmark near his brow. How many times had I kissed that spot because my heart had been too full for words? How could I begin a new day without tugging his beard to wake him? How could I go to the lake without expecting to find Yaakov waiting at the shore?

  A flash of loneliness stabbed at me, but I closed my eyes to the pain and moved to the next bier. Avram, my son. So much like Yaakov, too much like me. If only the fire of my stubborn independence had blazed less brightly in him!

  A new anguish seared my heart when I pressed my fingertips to the linen over Rachel’s lovely face. She had left her people in Bethsaida to make a home with us, and I had grown truly fond of my gentle daughter-in-law. I had surrendered Avram to a woman who brought him joy, and I had yearned to hold her babe in my arms.

  How could HaShem let the Romans rip that hope from me?

  I closed my eyes and stepped back to allow the bier-carriers to enter the tomb. Behind my closed eyes I felt the threat of tears. My head had swollen with them; the inside of my nose tasted like the sea each time I drew a breath.

  Inside the tomb, the bier-carriers arranged the bodies with care; Uriah wanted to be sure that Rachel rested in the niche above Avram.

  Behind me, the professional mourners beat their chests and wailed while the flautists blew their melancholy tunes. Beside me, I felt the pressure of a hand. I opened my eyes and saw Hadassah, who slipped beneath my arm, then reached up and stroked my cheek with her fingertips.

  Like blood out of a wound, a keening wail rose from the bottom of my heart and ripped through the graveyard. I lowered my face to Hadassah’s slender shoulder and went quietly and thoroughly to pieces.

  Chapter Eight

  “Something’s wrong, I tell you. Look at him.”

  Atticus stared at the Syrian girl who’d been in the band of women following their century ever since Tyre. Because she seemed a pleasant sort, he’d placed the baby in her keeping while they marched, but in that hour every trace of good humor and patience had vanished from the curve of her mouth and the depths of her eyes.

  He glanced at the baby, who sat on a blanket at her feet. The little one kept rubbing his eyes as if he was tired, but nothing else seemed amiss. “What do you mean?”

  The girl screamed. The shrill sound made Atticus flinch and startled two soldiers at the supply wagon, but the little boy didn’t even blink.

  The girl sank to the blanket, then pulled a pouch of salted fish from a fabric bag. “This child is deaf.”

  “How can you be sure? Maybe he has
a placid nature.”

  “No one is this calm, Atticus—not even you.” The girl broke off a piece of fish, then tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled. “I don’t know why you became a soldier. You’re not like these other men.”

  Atticus ignored the personal observation and lowered himself to the blanket. “Is there some medicine I can give him? Could our physician help?”

  She lifted a bare shoulder in a shrug. “You’d be taking a big risk, wouldn’t you? What would they do if they knew you had a baby?”

  “I don’t have a baby.”

  “Then what do you call this person on the blanket? He’s not tall enough to be a centurion.”

  Atticus gave her a black look. “I meant to say he’s not my baby.”

  “Then whose is he? He has to belong to somebody.”

  Atticus breathed hard and tried not to look at the girl as she chewed a piece of fish. Her thick dark hair hung in graceful curves over her shoulders and her sleeveless tunic exposed her slender arms. He had hoped she’d form an attachment to the child and drift toward one of the cities they passed through, but here she was, unhappy with her new responsibility and as persistent as an itch.

  “Doesn’t matter where I found him. No one’s looking for him and he’s not hurting anything. He’s quiet.”

  She spat the fish into her hand, plucked out a bone, then offered the chewed meat to the mostly toothless child. “He’s too quiet, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. This baby is not right. If you were hoping to use him as a servant one day, maybe you’d be better off getting rid of him.”

  Atticus clenched his jaw as a spasm of disgust rose from his core. “If you don’t want to help me, I’ll find someone who will. Surely one of those other harlots you travel with—”

  She lifted her hand, exposing nail-bitten fingertips. “I didn’t say I didn’t like the baby; I was only thinking of you. If this child will get you in trouble, perhaps you could leave him in a field—”

  Atticus caught and gripped her arm. In a fury, he lowered his head and stared into her brown eyes. “I will not abandon this boy.”

  She trembled in his grip, but she did not avert her gaze. “Then you take care of him. Here.” She smacked the remaining fish against his knee. “Feed him yourself.”

  He released her. “I will. Consider yourself relieved of this obligation.”

  He thought she would leave—he almost hoped she would leave, but after a moment the storm clouds left her face.

  “Come now, Atticus, be serious.” Her smile shimmered like sunbeams on the surface of the River Tiber. “You can’t take care of a baby and be in Caesar’s army. You are not a free man.”

  He lifted a brow. “And you are free to do as you choose?”

  She reached into her bag again and pulled out a loaf, then pinched a piece of soft bread from the crusty shell. “You didn’t leave a bruise on my arm, did you? A big oaf like you could hurt me without even knowing it.”

  “I didn’t hurt you. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  She chewed a piece of bread, then offered it to the hungry boy. “I’ll help you with the baby, Atticus, don’t worry. I like him.”

  Atticus broke off a piece of fish and offered it to the child, who took it into his mouth and screwed up his face in displeasure.

  The young woman laughed as she crooked her finger inside the baby’s mouth. “You have to chew it first, at least until he gets a few more teeth. Chew it and be sure to spit out the bones—he might choke on them. And give him goat’s milk, unless you can find a nursing mother who’ll help you out.”

  Atticus nodded.

  “Now—how long are we going to be in Caesarea?”

  Atticus pulled the baby’s fist from his mouth and gave the child a bit of bread crust to chew on. “Since Caesarea is our home base, we’ll remain there as long as it suits the governor.”

  “Can I come see you?”

  He snorted. “The fortress is not as relaxed as this camp.”

  “But surely a man like you can find a way to see his woman.”

  He stiffened, unnerved by the sudden shift in her perceptions. Since when had she become his woman?

  She must have intuited his thoughts. “If I’m going to help you take care of this child,” she said, arching her brows into triangles, “then you’re going to help take care of me.”

  Atticus drew a deep breath. A soldier had little time for anything but marching, training, and following orders. Though he’d concentrated on serving the Imperial Roman Army for the last five years, he wouldn’t be free to think about a wife and family for at least twenty years more.

  When he didn’t answer, she dropped her hand to the top of the baby’s round head. “I’ll go with you to Caesarea and we’ll look out for each other. Agreed?”

  “Listen, girl—”

  “Cyrilla.” She leaned toward him, her gaze as soft as a caress. “My name is Cyrilla.”

  “I am a soldier, a common legionnaire. I can’t afford a mistress.”

  “You are a gentle man and you like babies. Don’t you like women?”

  He looked away and swallowed hard, feeling his cheeks blaze as though they’d been seared by a torch. Out of all the women who followed their camp, what had possessed him to approach this outspoken wench? “I like women. But I need to remain … unattached.”

  “Really.” The girl pursed her lips in a thoughtful expression, then smiled as two of Atticus’s tent mates approached.

  “We’re lonely.” Flavius tossed the girl a smile. “Would you give a dusty soldier a kiss for keeping you safe on this long march?”

  While the girl rose to collect a quadrans for her affections, Atticus stretched out on one elbow and considered the baby.

  Could he trust the girl with this child? Cyrilla was a mess, altogether too blunt and thoroughly impractical. But she knew babies and she was traveling with a half-dozen other women. Surely they’d make sure she took proper care of this little orphan.

  The boy looked at him, blinked, and brought the drool-softened crust to his mouth.

  With his arms locked around the girl’s waist, Flavius released a heavy sigh. “’Tis a sad sight,” he said, pitching his voice to reach Atticus’s ear, “when the biggest, broadest soldier in the Cohors Secunda Italica Civum Romanorum cares more for a tiny sack of skin than he does for a lovely lady.”

  Atticus ignored the jibe. Flavius wouldn’t understand.

  Chapter Nine

  Our Law sets limits for grieving: we are allowed three days for weeping, seven for lamenting, thirty for abstaining from laundered garments and from cutting the hair. Whoever does not mourn as the law prescribes is considered callous.

  After the burial of my family, I set about the business of mourning. For seven days I did not wash, anoint myself, put on shoes, or engage in my trade. The first three days I tried to weep, but though my soul roiled with grief, I could not cry.

  I sat dry-eyed in the blackened doorway of my house and received condolences from the leading citizens of Magdala. Some of my neighbors praised my husband, son, and daughter-in-law, others cursed the Romans. Some wondered aloud what I had done for HaShem to punish me so severely.

  Hadassah sat with me, breathing in the acrid scent of ashes and not speaking. Sometimes she would weep and sprinkle dust over her veil; at other times she shook her head at the blackened remains of what had been a flowering vine in my courtyard. But if anger stirred her soul, she gave no sign of it.

  The townspeople tried to help me salvage bits and pieces of my life. Uriah discovered Yaakov’s staff in a corner of the courtyard; it had miraculously escaped the flames. One woman brought a tortoiseshell comb Rachel had lent her; she wept as she laid it at my feet. Another woman brought a square of vermillion silk she had taken from our stall and not paid for. I stared at the silk in surprise, unable to believe I had forgotten about a debt owed.

  Our worldly goods should have gone to Avram; on that day they belonged to me. As my husband’s only heir, I owned
the ruined shell of a house, several stained dye pots, a boat and its nets, an empty stall at the marketplace, a purse of coins (unearthed from its hiding place under a piece of pavement), a gnarled staff, a comb, and the clothes on my back.

  When the seven days of deep mourning had passed, I walked out of my courtyard and asked Uriah to discover anything he could about the Roman centurion who’d stayed at the inn. He returned to my house an hour later and said that the Romans had moved on after the fire—presumably to Caesarea, or perhaps to Jerusalem. In any case, the centurion was Gaius Cabilenus; his mistress was the Lady Carina.

  I knew the lady.

  “What of the other one?” Hadassah interrupted. “I saw them, Father, and one man was bigger than the rest. He went into the house first; he led the way for the others.”

  I lifted a brow. “Who was that?”

  Uriah’s face bore an inward look of deep abstraction: whatever he’d seen that night, he was seeing it again. “There was a big man,” he admitted, his voice sounding as if it came from far away. “A regular Sha’ul, he stood a head taller than the others. The one called Gaius gave the orders, but the giant went forth to meet your husband, he of blessed memory.”

  “The giant’s name.” A hair of irritation lined my voice. “Do you know his name?”

  Uriah looked at Hadassah, then nodded. “I heard the others praising him. They called him Atticus.”

  I closed my eyes and quietly committed both names to memory. Gaius Cabilenus, the centurion with a spoiled mistress and a merciless pride. And Atticus, the giant who had invaded my home and inspired his comrades to murder my family.

  Hadassah waited for her father to leave, then her brow wrinkled. “What are you going to do?”

  I gave the girl a wan smile. “I will … rebuild, I suppose.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” She placed her hand over mine. “I know you and I recognize the look in your eye. You have a plan … and I hope it is not dangerous.”