The Testament of Mariam

by Ann Swinfen

  Melkha’s wedding took place in the autumn of that year when I was eight and Yeshûa was twenty. My mother was near her time and there was a sense in the family that the pattern was changing. One member was leaving, a new one was coming. There were other changes in the village. Yehûdâ had left home and gone with one of his father’s caravans to Greece and Macedonia. He would be away for months, perhaps not returning until the following summer or even later. I knew my brother missed him, would have liked to go with him on this adventure beyond the village, beyond the Galilee, beyond even Judah itself, but there was no reason for him to go. He would never be a merchant. He was our father’s eldest son and must follow his trade. All that autumn and the following winter and spring, he worked with a kind of desperate intensity, as if he were trying to find something in the work of his hands that would satisfy the restlessness of his mind. He seemed also to be containing with difficulty a kind of suppressed anger, though I could not understand why he was angry. Sometimes it would burst out, in a sudden sharp word; sometimes he would throw down his tools and make off into the hills, where he would roam alone until nightfall. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, he found more time to teach me, whenever we could both escape from the seemingly unending work. It was easier for him. Our father had five sons to help him. With Melkha preparing for her marriage, our mother had only me.

  When we could, Yeshûa and I would meet in the olive orchard which lay just below the village, on the slope leading down to the river. It is the practice in our dry lands to plant each olive tree in its own earth basin hollowed out of the ground, to encourage the rain, when it comes, to gather there and feed the tree. Olive trees grow as twisted and lumpen as old men, and their roots, writhing between these earthen basins, are like huge snakes turned into wood. Our trees were hundreds of years old, so the olive orchard was a place of mounds and hollows and bending trunks, where half a legion could have hidden unseen. Here we would sit, while my brother taught me.

  I could read now in Aramaic, which he taught me first, and the Hebrew of the scriptures, and Latin. Recently he had begun to teach me Greek. Yet another alphabet, but I enjoyed learning new alphabets, it was like unlocking a door to a secret room, or being given a magic incantation which summoned up a whole new world of stories and people and ideas. My knowledge was still small, but I had an ear for languages, and each time we read together I was a little more confident. He taught me to write—first with my finger in the loose earth at the base of the trees, then with a charred stick on broad shavings from my father’s workshop. That autumn he taught me how to split and shape a fine reed into a quill, and how to make a simple ink from lamp black and gum.

  Sometimes we met for these lessons no more than once a week. On a few wondrous occasions we met three times. But as the day of Melkha’s wedding drew near, my mother wanted me constantly at her side, sewing, cooking, packing up the store of goods that Melkha would take with her as her dowry. My mother’s pregnancy tired her more than usual this time, and she was short-tempered, complaining that everything I did was wrong, then bursting into tears and apologising. Melkha had grown nervous and jumpy since the merchant Adamas had returned from his travels and she realised that she could no longer revel in the privileged status of betrothed girl. Soon she would have to leave her home and move to Sepphoris. She would have to share the bed of a man almost as old as her father, who had already buried two wives and had a grown-up son. And while he was in Egypt Adamas had grown fat and greasy. He touched me sometimes, with fingers like chunks of meat roasted on a skewer, so that I recoiled and he laughed. Melkha, in dread I suppose at what lay ahead of her, wept suddenly and without warning. Suddenly and without warning, too, she would turn on me. I seemed to be weeping a good deal as well, what with my mother and Melkha and Ya’aqôb’s pious platitudes and Yeshûa’s restlessness and a feeling in the house that made my head ache, as though a thunderstorm was brewing.

  When my brother and I met for my lesson about a week before Melkha’s wedding, it was to prove the last of these meetings for nearly two months, though I did not know it at the time. We found a comfortable seat on an old gnarled root under the shade of one of the oldest of the olive trees. There was a pleasant breeze blowing, with the heat of summer declining softly into autumn. Over our heads the wind lifted the leaves, setting their silver undersides glinting, like the jingling harness ornaments of a king in majesty, and from time to time a shower of ripe olives would patter on to the hard ground around us with the sound of some small animal scampering past.

  Together we recited a berâkâ, a blessing on our lesson, and then he asked me to repeat in Hebrew the verses from the Pentateuch which I had been learning. It was a passage I loved, about Yahweh’s creation of the world, and I repeated it without a mistake.

  ‘Now, Mariam,’ he said, ‘we will write the name of each of the animals you know in Hebrew, as you have learned it, then in Aramaic, as you would speak it every day. Then we will see how many you can name in Latin and in Greek.’

  His lessons were like a game, and soon I was reciting and writing the names of the animals in all four languages.

  ‘Are there other languages I could learn?’ I asked, for I was hungry for knowledge. ‘How many languages are there in the world?’

  He laughed. ‘That I do not know, little sister. These are all the languages that I know myself. But there is Persian, and Egyptian, and Syrian, as many languages as there are peoples.’

  ‘How I would like to see them all,’ I sighed. ‘All those strange people in the world. Where they live and how they speak and what they eat and wear.’

  I saw that look come over him, that I had seen so often recently, as though he was looking beyond me to some distant place.

  ‘But I don’t suppose we ever will,’ I finished.

  ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘I don’t suppose we ever will.’

  Years later, we were sitting on a stone terrace in front of a house in Capernaum after dining with friends. Behind us, the sun was sinking beyond the hills of Galilee and its last rays capered and sparked on the small waves of the Lake of Gennesaret. On the shore a few feet below us, some fishermen were unloading their evening catch, and my brother raised a hand to them in greeting. It had been a long and tiring day, but it was peaceful now, the palms casting their long-fingered shadows across our feet, the small town quiet after the bustle of the day. It was unusual for us to be alone, for most of our waking hours he was surrounded by his companions and followers, with more and more strangers clamouring for his attention, while I was busy about my duties with Susanna and Salome and Yoanna and the other women. Perhaps they had all retired early that day. I do not now remember.

  ‘I have always wondered,’ I said, ‘why you taught me as a child. Taught me to read and write. Gave me the gift of languages. The gift of learning. No one else would have done it. Why me, out of all our brothers and sisters?’

  He turned and gave me a slow radiant smile, and took my hand.

  ‘Because you were filled with ru’ah, the gift of the Spirit. I knew it the first time I saw you as a baby, gazing up at me with those strange blue eyes of yours.’

  I looked down at our joined hands, and felt my eyes fill with inexplicable tears.

  Chapter Three

  To this day I insist that we say a berâkâ over our meal, though I know my children and grandchildren think it is a sign of my foreignness, my not-quite-Roman outlook on life. The sardines are excellent and I congratulate my daughter-in-law Fulvia on not cooking them to a charred and broken mess (which she has been known to do). She blushes and stammers, and I am ashamed that I praise her so little. Perhaps I am turning into my mother? I must take more trouble with her, treat her more kindly. We can only afford two household slaves, and three to labour on the farm with Manilius, so all of us have to work hard at manual tasks. From time to time Manilius hints that if he could be allowed to build up his wine business, the farm would earn a much greater income and the whole family would benefit. Howe
ver, he is an obedient son and will not go against my wishes while I live. I expect he will not have long to wait.

  ‘I heard something at the market today,’ I say, turning the glass of wine in my hand, then taking a sip for courage.

  They look at me expectantly—Manilius, Fulvia, and the children: Marcus, the eldest, and the twins, Julia and Petronius. I see at once that they think it is news of Sergius. Perhaps he has decided to marry? Or he wants to come home to the farm? Could it support another adult—or perhaps another man’s work would make us more profitable? I read these thoughts behind the eyes of Fulvia and Manilius. The children are momentarily interested, then somehow sense that it is nothing that impinges on their world.

  ‘Two men from Judah—from Palestine,’ I say. ‘They bring news of trouble in the country. There is rebellion stirring. More Roman troops sent out there. Terrible reprisals. Villages burned, their inhabitants slaughtered.’

  They look politely shocked. It is as if I told them a child’s folktale of wickedness. It has no reality for them. I feel a sudden sharp ache. I have felt it more often of late. There is no one who remembers, who knows. Even amongst my family I am a stranger. Incautiously, I let something slip, which I should not. The words fall from my lips before I can stop them and at once I wish I could call them back.

  ‘Your uncle,’ I say, turning to my son, ‘your uncle Ya’aqôb, bishop of Jerusalem, has been murdered by the high priest.’

  Later, I hear my son and his wife whispering together.

  ‘Of course,’ says Fulvia, ‘she is growing very old.’

  ‘I often hear her talking to herself,’ Manilius admits it reluctantly. ‘She seems to be holding conversations with someone called Yeshûa. There was no uncle. I suppose it happens to all old people, they begin to wander in their minds and memories. But I never thought my mother . . .’

  They move away, out of earshot.

  Melkha’s wedding was a great occasion in the village, everything that my father could afford. There had not been a wedding for some time and, as was the custom, everyone was invited. Because she was the first of his children to marry, my father wanted to do all that was best for her. It would smooth the path to matrimony for the rest of us as well. The bridegroom’s parents were long dead, but this did not seem to trouble Adamas, and—to speak of him in fairness, which is difficult for me—he did his part in providing for the feast, as well as paying my father the bride-price for Melkha.

  My sister looked enchanting in her wedding attire. She was a beautiful girl and her eyes shone with delight. She seemed to have put aside her doubts of recent weeks and to be eager to take up her new role as a wedded woman. She had been marriageable for two years, since she was a little past twelve, and perhaps she was growing impatient at her lack of status. There had always been the worry that Adamas might die during his long journey into Egypt, in which case she would have been regarded as a widow. No woman, I suppose, wants to be a widow without first having been a wife.

  After they made their vows before all the village under the linked crowns of fresh flowers (gentians and the little rock roses, which my mother and I had arisen before dawn to plait), Melkha threw back her veil to reveal her face to all the company. Her veil was of the most delicate silk, almost transparent, a gift from Adamas. With the help of her friend Martha she had been stitching it all over with flowers and leaves in the finest of threads. They had even worked long after sundown, with no light but the simple oil lamp which burned day and night in our main room, and their eyes had grown red and their fingers pricked and sore. But Melkha had bathed her eyes with cold spring water in which herbs had been soaked, and the redness had passed. I thought my parents were more red of eye than she, to see her leaving home, though it was a good marriage.

  The bridal pair walked arm in arm from the kenîshtâ to the other side of the main square, where trestle tables had been set up for the wedding feast. Our own courtyard was too small to accommodate so many and the party had taken over the whole village. The table were heaped with honey cakes, dishes of lentils flavoured with precious saffron, roasted aubergines, artichokes, black and green olives, great loaves of wheaten and rye and poppy bread with fresh butter (unfamiliar to us) provided by Shim’ôn of Keriyoth from his cows, as well as the usual small bowls of olive oil for dipping, small rounds of goat’s cheese wrapped in vine leaves, smoked fish from Gennesaret, slivers of dried beef also from Shim’ôn, great flagons of wine and small jugs of the potent date liquor that some of the men would drink as evening drew in. Downwind of the tables, a fat sheep was turning on a spit over an open hearth. Melkha and Adamas sat at the head of the table under a canopy, with my parents and the village elders, while my brothers were dispersed about the tables amongst the guests. I was relegated to a lower table with the children, having been given strict instructions to watch over Eskha, who had been over-excited all day and was ripe for mischief. I was resentful that my brother Shim’ôn, who had not yet become bâr mitzvâh, Son of the Law, was allowed to sit amongst the adults, but after a while, when I had stuffed myself with food and drink, I was glad that we were allowed to leave the tables and run about the village streets. It was two years and more since I had been allowed to play with a child’s freedom.

  Away from the adults, we ran shrieking through the alleys and courtyards of the village, scaring the street cats into streaking up fig trees for refuge and setting the house dogs barking on their chains. I slithered once on wet autumn leaves and sat down suddenly on the hard-packed earth, but one of the girls hauled me to my feet again and we ran on, eager to find a hiding place, for one of the boys had shouted that it was a game of seek-and-find-me.

  The other girl, whose name was Judith, pointed to the chicken house belonging to one of her neighbours and we pushed our way inside. An indignant hen squawked and fluttered out, but the rest were scratching in the dirt outside, so we hoped we would not be discovered. It was smelly in there, and we sneezed once or twice from the dust and the feathers, but we covered each other’s mouths with our hands to suppress the giggles and crouched there as quietly as we could. Judith’s hand was warm and sticky and smelled of figs. Gradually the shouts of the other children died away in the distance and we relaxed.

  ‘Your sister has got a rich man for her husband,’ said Judith.

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t like him. He’s always touching me and he’s fat and he smells.’

  Judith put on a wise look.

  ‘He’s much older than she is, so he’ll do everything to please her. That’s what my mother says. Otherwise, another man might covet her. She’s very beautiful.’

  I was shocked. ‘To covet her—that is against the Law.’

  ‘It may be against the Law, but it happens. That’s what my mother says.’

  This was making me uncomfortable and I crawled forward towards the door. I had remembered that I was supposed to be minding Eskha, and I didn’t know where she was.

  ‘Wait,’ said Judith. ‘They may still be out there, watching for us. My eldest sister will be betrothed soon. She wants to get your brother Yeshûa, even though he isn’t rich like Adamas.’

  I felt suddenly sick and pushed past her out of the chicken house. There was no sign of the other children. I ran off, calling to Eskha.

  It was nearly sundown before the bridal couple left for Sepphoris. My parents were worried because most of the journey would be made in the dark, even though it was no more than two hours away, but Adamas was rich and had provided for this. He had brought finely caparisoned camels to ride, and slaves bearing flaming torches to light the way. It seemed he was in a hurry to carry my sister off to his bed before there was any more delay. His son led off on one camel, Adamas following on another, pure white and immensely valuable, with Melkha sitting before him in the crook of his fat arm. She looked pale now, with heavy shadows under her eyes. I thought she was frightened.

  We said a berâkâ for their safe journey, scattered seeds for fertility in their path, and crushed a pomegrana
te. Eskha began to cry, so I took her hand and led her home. My parents and their guests would continue with the feast until the tables were cleared, but I was glad of an excuse to leave. After I had put Eskha to bed, I carried my own bedroll and rug up to the roof. Before many weeks were out, it would be too cold to sleep up here, but I wanted to escape from the enclosing walls of the house.

  I had fallen asleep at last, despite the discomfort of having eaten too much, and the stars had wheeled round to midnight or later, when I woke to the sound of someone coming up the stairway to the roof, then stepping softly over the straw mats. I raised my head. I recognised him from the silhouette cutting out his shape from the stars.

  ‘Yeshûa?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mariam. Did I wake you?’

  He laid out his bedroll a few feet from mine and sat down on it cross-legged.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ I sat up and faced him, pulling my thin rug around my shoulders. ‘Is it over?’

  ‘Yes, everyone has gone home. Time to sleep now. Say the prayer with me.’

  I did as I was bid and lay down again. I heard him take off his sandals and settle himself.

  ‘Why did you come up here?’ I asked.

  ‘I thought you might want the company. Would you like me to go away?’