The Secret Magdalene

by Ki Longfellow

  Certainly Phabi hears nothing until there comes a commotion at the far end of Simon the Leper’s street. Jude is, as ever, first on his feet, and I am not far behind him, so that now we are both leaning over the low railing of worked stone on Simon’s terrace looking down on the street below. Around the side of a house as large as Simon’s house come two huge slaves, each bearing a silver tray, and on each tray, the petals of roses. In all our travels I have yet to see anything like this. Who comes?

  Behind the slaves scattering rose petals, stride two more enormous slaves who call out from side to side and up to the second story and to the third, “It is she who comes among you! All those who would know their fortunes! Come out! Come out!”

  I am now as alert as Jude. What fortune-teller is as rich as this one must be? To own such slaves? To squander roses in this way? And what sort of fortune-teller is announced at the top of a slave’s voice?

  I am not the only one so interested and so curious. Out from their doors come the wives of Taricheae, and out come the husbands. And out come the very young and the very old. For a teller of fortunes, rich or poor, is always a thing of great excitement. Who would not hear of themselves? Beguiled by the litter of “She Who Comes Among Us,” there seem as many on the wet street below Simon’s terrace as would be on a feast day.

  And suddenly, I am as alert as Salome at mention of Pythagoras, for it seems that I might finally see the sorceress of the Pool of Siloam. It must be she, because Addai, also hanging over the wall of the terrace so that he might see, fair shouts, “Megas of Ephesus! How Tata shall rue that she misses this!” And I think, even Salome as she is now will rue that she misses this, for there was not a day of our childhood we did not wonder at this Megas, once mentioned by Ananias at Father’s table. Is she not a woman who did not then, and does not now, live through a man?

  By now, not only Jude, but myself, Seth, Simon and his fellow Pharisee, even Yeshu, have leaned forward so that each might see down into the street a story below us.

  Comes a harsh intake of breath from my left, and I hear Phabi hiss to Simon, “By the hat of Zeus, brother! It is Megas! I would know her slaves and her litter anywhere. How dare the harlot to show her person here this day!”

  Below us, the entire procession comes to a halt under the terrace of the house of Simon, and it does this because the way becomes too difficult. All of Taricheae seems here. No one yet sees the sorceress. For all we know, behind her curtain, she softens her skin with bean meal, or scratches her belly, or is in deep communion with the gods, or her pick of the goddesses.

  Her slaves shout out as those who called the wares of Ananias in Alexandria. “You or you! Yes, you with the limp. Would you hear what my mistress might say? Or you? You look like you could use a shekel or two. Seek your fortune through the lady! And you there! A sorry specimen like you needs all the help he can get. Or you, you are surely a farmer! What else would a farmer know, but which of these maidens to plow?” Oh! Much blushing and barking. Oh! How the Pharisee whose house we grace bristle with horror. Speaking of such things, openly, before Adonai and everyone! Meanwhile, the litter is set down in the middle of the street, its bearers standing near to keep the curious from harming litter or occupant. And still the shouter shouts, “Come forth! Come forth! For the price of a trinket, whisper your question in the ear of Megas, and hear the answer she gives you!”

  At this, so many come forth, the slaves must line them up, first come, first serviced. As for me—the very one once thought a prophet—it takes all of my strength not to run through Simon’s house and down into the street so that I too might find my place in line. Think if Megas can truly tell the future! Think of all that I would ask her. Having long since silenced my own voices, I would ask her of Yeshu. I would ask her of Salome. I would ask her of Addai and of Seth and of Tata. I would ask her even of me. What is to become of us all? For surely we cannot be forever walking the roads of Galilee? We should become as Inanna, who was as Isis is, the Queen of Heaven, and who once lived in the Tree of the World with a dragon at her feet and a bird in the branches above her; until the man Gilgamesh cut it down. Inanna was doomed then to wander, saying, “The bird has its nesting place, but I, my young are dispersed. The fish lies in calm waters, but I, my resting place exists not. The dog kneels at the threshold, but I, I have no threshold.”

  The first of those who would whisper their secret desires and their secret questions into the ear of the sorceress kneel next to her litter on that side which faces the street. But on the side that faces the door of Simon, the cloth is moved slowly away, so that I see clearly and more clearly the face of the harlot. This is more than enough to hold my eye, but I am riveted by what she does next. As I look down, she looks up. She seems looking for something. But it is not Simon the Leper she seeks, nor any friend of Simon’s. Her searching gaze has come to rest on Jude and on Yeshu. Immediately her face goes soft with grief and with yearning. On the instant, it seems she forgets herself, forgets she would tell fortunes in the streets of such as Taricheae. Megas the Sorceress, known from Antioch to Gaza, steps down from her litter as Megas, the splendid whore—for she is splendid: tall and slender, proud of bone and of breast and of bearing—looks neither to the right nor to the left, does not cover her head or her face, but slips past the worried slave who would protect her and into the street door of Simon the Leper. And before I can think more of this, she stands on his terrace.

  Yeshu is like Salome, who once showed surprise at nothing, no matter that she might feel it. He does not speak, nor does he move, not even when the woman Megas throws herself on her knees before him without pause or error of choice. Nor does he speak, nor does he move, when she takes hold of his feet and kisses them. Or when she looks full in his face, and he sees the tears that flow from her rueful eyes. Her tears flow through the crushed pearl and black antimony of her face paint; they wash over her cheeks and her chin as the rain once washed over the stones before the House of Thecla, no less a whore than this one for the taking of five husbands.

  Phabi has been quick to reach forward so that he might push this greater whore away. Simon the Leper has been quick to gain his feet, and I hear him think to demand of his slaves that they oust this harlot from his house. Jude has not yet moved a hair, nor has he pulled his hand from his robe and, with it, his knife, but when finally he moves, it is Phabi of Nain he restrains; as for Simon of Taricheae, with one look, Jude has caused this one to sit back down on his bench of stone.

  It is now that the woman Megas reaches into her clothing, clothing richer than my stepmother Naomi’s, as rich as Queen Helen’s, and from somewhere within, comes forth with a cunning box of alabaster, as pink as the pink alabaster tomb of Alexander. And when it is sitting on the palm of her hand, she opens it forthwith, and the whole of the terrace is suffused with the scent of spikenard. How well I know this scent, spikenard from India, as costly as gold, as costly as silk, for did I not carry it for all of my youth in an alabastron I wore round my neck? In that moment, I am a child again. I am a fool for riches again.

  Megas would anoint the feet of Yeshu with what is in her alabaster box, though they are coated with the winter’s dirt of the road and wet with her tears. She will dry them therefore with the very hair of her head, hair as black as the night goddess Nut, who is the self-fertilizing virgin Neith, the oldest and wisest of all goddesses bringing forth life from herself alone. Megas, who is called whore, wraps her scented hair, as long as the black lands of the Nile, round Yeshu’s road-roughened feet, and I watch this as we all watch this, with silent wonder. For clearly she intends anointing his feet with what is not merely spikenard but also the red oil of balsam, and it smells of heaven, and it is the anointing of kings.

  Why does Yeshu not stop her? She will place on his person that which is placed on a king, and if Yeshu is a king, then King Herod will kill him.

  But Yeshu does not stop her.

  I watch the disfigured Simon the Leper of Taricheae watch this as his friend Phabi w
atches this, their eyes wide with shock and with horror and with the utmost disgust. And I know that word of what happens here will spread throughout Galilee by this very evening, and I know it will reach the gates of Jerusalem in a matter of days. I reach into Simon, only to hear what I do not need my hearing to learn. By this act, Simon the Leper thinks that Yeshu is no prophet nor yet is he a magician, for what son of man would not know who this woman is? Could there be a greater sinner than Megas the Whore, who heeds no man? Could a sinner profit more by her sin than Megas the Sorceress? No man who walked with God would walk with such a one, and that is as sure as the might of Rome.

  Phabi cannot stop himself, he blurts, “Have you no sense, Megas? Your waste appalls me. For the cost of such an ointment, much could be given to the poor.”

  But Yeshu touches her head, as gently as he has ever touched mine. He takes a tendril of her nut dark hair between his fingers and turns it this way and that, and as he does this tender thing, he quietly says, “Is not the first of the Father’s works Wisdom, and is not Wisdom a woman? ‘The Lord created me the first of his works long ago, before all else that he made / Then I was at his side each day, his darling and delight.’” The beautiful Megas does not raise her head, but scoops out ointment that might pay a man who has labored a year, and with this, she anoints the feet of Yeshu, first one, then the other. And Yeshu, who does not stop her, looks up, saying, “Simon, I would say to thee this—”

  Simon the Leper, whose thoughts have run cold and run dark, pulls himself away from the whore that Phabi calls by name. “Sir,” he manages, “say on.”

  “There was a certain creditor who was owed by two debtors. The one owed shekels to the value of an entire cow, and the other owed no more than the tongue thereof. But when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me, Simon, which of these men will love the creditor most for his kindness?”

  Simon, who knows what he is being told and is furious to hear it, answers, “I suppose that he who was forgiven most would love him most.”

  To which Yeshu replies, “You have seen the thing clearly.” Then rising, he takes Megas by the hand she has anointed him with and brings her to her feet so that she stands with him. By a glance, we all of us who love him know to stand as well, for it is now that we shall leave this house. “You see this woman, Simon, and you, Phabi?”

  Both Pharisee, who have not risen, an insult Yeshu does not acknowledge, nod. Yes, they see the woman. They will be seeing her for a long time to come, such is their shame at her presence and her acts, and such is their fury at the acts and words of Yeshu.

  “As guests, my friends and I entered this house, yet you provided no footbath to wash our feet. But she has washed my feet with her tears, and she has dried them with the hair of her head. Therefore, I say that her sins are forgiven, for to those who know love, all is forgiven. But to those who love little, little is forgiven.” So saying, Yeshu turns to the whore who, having nothing else—and by men allowed nothing else, save bondage to themselves—might sell the very flesh of her body. “Who am I to place blame if the Father does not blame? Woman, if you would go, go in peace.”

  Megas, who has looked at no one but Yeshu, looks on his face as if she cannot look enough. It is as a poet would look on beauty or a wife on her most beloved husband. And then she turns and walks away from the house of Simon of Taricheae. It is a thing to see, and I shall remember it so long as I live.

  Moments later, when we too would come away from the house of Simon the Leper, my hearing lingers long enough to know how dangerous is the darkness we leave with these righteous Pharisee. They wonder at Yeshu, marvel that he dares to forgive error, which is what is meant by sin. Only Yahweh or the priests of Yahweh can forgive sin. Just as they gnash their teeth at the daring of Megas, so now they gnash their teeth at the blasphemy of Yehoshua the Nazorean.

  But Phabi is darker even than this; therefore his fury is darker even than this. Phabi of Nain would have Megas, though married and father to two sons; he would have her even though to him his desire is a yetzer ha-ra, an impulse to evil, and he would have her at cost to any.

  At the drawing down of the day, we return to our place on the shore of the sea south from Capharnaum and are met by Dositheus and by Simeon and by the Sons of Thunder, and behind these, so many more grim and grimmer faces. And here is Ananias! Though months might pass between his visits, Ananias is always a bearer of news. What has he come to tell us? Even Simon Peter is here and not lying with his wife, the long-suffering Perpetua. By his face, stricken with some grief, I know on the instant there is something terribly amiss.

  So soon as he is seen, Yeshu is encircled. There follows much gesturing and whispering, much pointing at the darkening mountains and at the darkening sea, and as it was with the dreadful death of Heli bar Nehushtan and the piteous widowing of Dinah, I do not understand what it is that happens. Or why. All I know is that Yehoshua the Nazorean is taken away to where more grim men stand grouped near the tents under the shadowed mulberry trees. With him go Addai and Seth and, of course, Jude.

  I am left with Salome and with Tata.

  I need not beg; they tell me on the instant what it is the men tell Yeshu. There could be no news more fearful! Ananias brings us word not only of Herod but also of Pontius Pilate. Rome’s prefect has lately done two disastrous things, one following on the other. First, because he would build a splendid aqueduct to bring more water to Jerusalem, he has used the corban, which is the treasure of the Temple and is dedicated to Yahweh. I well know the high priest Caiaphas, and to do this, Pilate must have worked out something with Father’s old friend. But the people, hearing what money was used, came out in their thousands to spit at the prefect, and to shout abuse. Second, Pilate, knowing this might happen, had sent his soldiers among them dressed as Jews. Now, if these had been Roman soldiers, all might have gone well, but Pilate has few Romans under his command. His troops are primarily Samaritans and Idumaeans, if they are not Syrians, and hate the Jews, as the Jews hate them. Therefore, many soldiers carried not cudgels, but daggers, under their cloaks. At a signal from Pilate, these laid about them with a terrible will, so that Jerusalem’s narrow streets ran with Jewish blood.

  But so too were they awash in the blood of Galilee, for hearing of this latest transgression against the Law, Jacob the Just had come down from the wilderness to howl out his righteousness, bringing the Poor and the Many with him. Sameas, an elder of the Poor, is slain. Andrew of Capharnaum is horribly killed. No wonder Simon Peter grieves. Even I, who have no love for Sameas or for Andrew, am bereft. But the zealous rage in their fury. In Jerusalem they have toppled the Tower of Siloam; everywhere there are uprisings and reprisals as the news reaches more and more ears. Even Samaria rises from border to border, using this slaughter of the Jews to avenge themselves for the killing by Pilate of their own messiah, whom they called Taheb. At this very moment, hundreds lie beaten and bound in the darkness of Antonia, and of these, there are several who are to be made examples. One of these is Timaeus the Bandit.

  Here in Galilee, Herod Antipas does, for me, the most terrible thing of all. He seeks Yehoshua the Nazorean. Is not Yeshu now called king by those who riot in Tiberius and Sepphoris? Do the people not follow him as they followed John? And will not the rioters turn to Yeshu should they triumph in this city or that city, and will he not come, gathering around his person an army of Zealots as large and as powerful as the one the Maccabees gathered?

  But there is also this, which makes me sit down in shock. This very day Zaccheus has spoken of Yeshu as the coming king in the great marketplace in Tiberius, the very city of Herod. And he has boasted of Yeshu being near. In my own foolishness, I would curse the tiny tax collector. I would call up a spell to still his heedless heart, if I did not immediately think, if not him, then Simon Peter. Or some other.

  Salome tells me that a mere hour after our leaving here for Taricheae, Herod’s men arrived, as they must everywhere be plaguing travelers, and not finding anyone
fitting their idea of Yehoshua, they set to searching our camp. It is easy to see how they have searched by that which is scattered and tossed and ripped open and trodden on. From Salome—because of course it was Salome who set herself between the women and the soldiers—their leader, a Greek with a high voice, had demanded to know the whereabouts of Joshua bar Joseph who called himself the Nazarite, and whose hair and whose beard were red? “Where is he who goes about the countryside causing no end of sedition?” And for once, it was as a woman behind which Salome found shelter. For being only a woman, how could she know where such a man might be found? Who would entrust a mere woman with such knowledge? Enough of this, and the Greek had walked away in disgust.

  Tata assures me that no man has been hurt. No woman defiled. So far, the soldiers have not returned. But they might return. Or if not, they will come for us another day in another place, and they will surely find us. And in that moment they will take Yeshu as they took John, and who knows how such an unthinkable thing will end? I am sick with all this. I am frantic. We must leave, and we must leave now.

  But where will we go? We are so many. How will this be done?

  Within moments of learning that Yeshu would be arrested, this also happens: Where there was nothing but the evening come down and the rustling of night bird and beast, now suddenly there is the woman, Megas of Ephesus, and there are her slaves, more than I saw in Taricheae; and there are her wagons and the mules that draw them. And there are the horses. Persian horses.

  The sorceress has come after us.

  An hour later, our people are gone this way and that way, fading into the shadows so quickly and so completely, the camp by the Sea of Galilee is as empty of them as if it, and they, had never been. I think of the white storks that each year pass overhead—the people leave less track even than these. One more hour, and the caravan of Megas, famous sorceress, travels openly along the Via Maris, due south to Scythopolis in the Decapolis. But within it, hidden away in the largest wagon of four wheels, is Yehoshua, famous fugitive. Within it also is hidden Jude, so alike to Yeshu, Megas hides him as well so that he is not mistaken for “he who causes sedition.” And though Yeshu might protest, he is not listened to. For this once, Jude is allowed his way, and we all of us breathe easier that this is so.