The Book of Longings

by Sue Monk Kidd

  The deluge went on for several minutes, and in the aftermath, I experienced a great calm. I said, “Why would Judas be so brazen as to reveal his intention to me?”

  “That is hard to know. Confessing to you may have been a way of alleviating his guilt.”

  “When it comes to overthrowing the Romans, Judas feels no guilt.”

  “He may have been trying to find the boldness to go through with it. Like throwing your money bag over a wall to ensure you’ll climb over.”

  She was doing her best to humor my need to understand at least some part of Judas’s warped design, but I realized how futile it was. “I’ll never understand any of this,” I said. “And right now, it doesn’t matter. It only matters that I get to Jerusalem.” I stood and peered over the wall toward the road, another anxiety taking over—Haran and his soldiers.

  At that same moment, Skepsis and Diodora entered the courtyard. “Theano has died,” Skepsis announced. “Diodora and I have just finished preparing his body—”

  “Has something happened?” Diodora interrupted, noticing my reddened eyes. Or perhaps it was the taut, menacing air.

  I picked up Judas’s letter and read it to them, then tried my best to elucidate Judas’s plan. Diodora, who knew nothing of Jewish messiahs and radical Zealots, seemed utterly mystified. She enfolded me in her arms. “I’m happy you will see your husband, but I am sad you will leave us.” She turned to her mother. “Will you go, too?” she asked in an unassuming way, but her face betrayed her fear.

  “I’ll remain here,” Yaltha said, looking past Diodora to me. “Having found Diodora, I cannot leave her again. I’m getting too old to make the journey anyway, and Egypt is my home. I’m content here among the Therapeutae. It will grieve me to be separated from you, Ana, but I cannot leave.”

  I felt a crumpling inside, but I refused to let my disappointment show. I said, “I understand, Aunt. Your decision is as it should be.”

  Shadows had begun to darken the edges of the courtyard, and Diodora went into the house for a lamp, though I had the feeling she left out of kindness, not wanting me to see her joy.

  She returned with a look of confusion on her face. “The woman sleeping inside—she’s the servant in Haran’s house who showed me to your quarters.”

  “Yes, Pamphile,” Yaltha said. “She delivered the letter from Judas. She was weary. I helped her with some chamomile.”

  We settled around the glowing circle of lamplight and I posed the question that loomed over everything. “How will I get past the soldiers?” I looked at their faces—I had no answer. They stared back—they had no answer either.

  “Is there no way to leave here except by the road where the soldiers stand guard?” Diodora asked. “Is there a footpath that skirts around them?”

  Skepsis shook her head. “We are hemmed in by the cliffs. The road is our only way of leaving, and the soldiers are positioned too close to the gatehouse to miss anyone who comes and goes from here.”

  “Could you disguise yourself somehow?” Diodora asked. “As an old woman? You could cover your head and use a crutch.”

  “I doubt they’d be fooled by that,” said Yaltha. “It’s far too risky. But . . .”

  I prodded her. “What is it? We must consider everything.”

  “Pamphile will leave tomorrow. The wagon she arrived in is large enough for you to hide in the back.” She glanced at Skepsis, shrugging uncertainly. “What if we concealed her beneath the sacks that store the vegetable seed?”

  “The soldiers always search the carts that bring flour and salt,” Skepsis said. “They would search Pamphile’s wagon, too.”

  They grew quiet. A thin, gray hopelessness crept into the air. I didn’t want them to give up. It was true I no longer believed in the God of rescue, only the God of presence, but I believed in Sophia, who whispered bravery and wisdom in my ear day and night, if I would only listen, and I tried now to do that, to listen.

  What I heard was hammering. Faint, but so clear I thought for a moment Pamphile had wakened and was rapping on the door from inside the house. The realization that the sound resounding in my head was actually a memory startled me. I knew instantly what that memory was. I’d heard it that morning while watering the animals. It was the hammering from the woodworking shop as Theano’s coffin was being built.

  The sound formed into an idea. I said, “There is one way for me to leave here safely, and that’s inside Theano’s coffin.”

  They sat there with blank faces.

  “I would not be inside the coffin long, only until Pamphile drives the cart an ample distance past the soldiers. I will take any risk to reach Jesus, but this one puts me in the least peril. The soldiers would never think to open the coffin.”

  “That is true,” Diodora said. “Violating the dead is a serious offense. One can be put to death for opening a tomb.”

  “And for Jews, a corpse is unclean,” I added. I tried but was unable to read Yaltha’s expression. She must have thought my idea was elaborately strange. “I believe it is the very boldness of the notion that will cause it to work,” I continued. “Do you think differently, Aunt?”

  She said, “I think the idea of you riding away in Theano’s coffin is absurd, but it’s also ingenious, Little Thunder.”

  My eyes rounded—no one had ever called me Little Thunder but Jesus. I received the name from her like a charge. Go, be boiling clouds and lightning spears and sky-splitting roars.

  “Now,” she said. “Let’s imagine how you will accomplish this insane act.”

  All of us turned pointedly to Skepsis, who was studying the trails of blue on the back of her hands. None of this could be done without her. I was proposing we confiscate Theano’s coffin, requiring another one to be swiftly constructed for him. Furthermore, if Skepsis entered into the deception, she would deceive the whole community.

  “Lucian is our biggest concern,” she said. “If he suspects it’s not Theano in the coffin, he’ll convey his suspicions to the soldiers, and Ana is certain to be discovered.” She fell quiet, mulling further. When she lifted her face, her eyes were doing their owlish dance. “Theano’s wish was to be buried here on our grounds, but I’ll put out word that he wished to be buried in his family’s tomb in Alexandria. This is quite typical for our wealthier members. Of course, Theano’s family is not rich, but they would have enough for a mud-brick tomb, I’m sure. I’ll tell everyone that the servant who delivered the letter—what was her name?”

  “Pamphile,” I answered, amazed at the intricacies she was working out. Until this moment, Lucian had not received a thought from me.

  “I’ll explain that Pamphile was sent from Theano’s family to bring his body to Alexandria. This should resolve the matter.”

  “It should also put an end to the outpost of soldiers at our gate,” said Yaltha. “If Ana is no longer here, there will be no need for the soldiers.”

  “What about you?” said Diodora, looking at Yaltha. “Haran would still wish to arrest you.”

  Skepsis lifted a finger. I knew this to be a good sign. “When Ana is well away, I’ll address the community, stating she has returned to her husband in Galilee and Yaltha has taken the vows to remain part of the Therapeutae for life. It will not take Lucian long to put this news in Haran’s ear. I think Haran will be relieved to have a legitimate reason to put an end to all this.”

  “My brother will at least be thrilled to no longer pay the soldiers from his own money bags. The only reason he has kept the outpost going this long is so not to be perceived as backing down.”

  I admired the scheme that had just come into being and feared in equal measure that it would fail.

  Diodora said, “What will we do with poor Theano during all of this?”

  “That will be easy. We’ll keep him concealed in his house until Ana is gone,” Skepsis said. “Then we three, along with Gaius, our ca
rpenter, will give him a proper burial without Lucian’s knowledge.”

  It sounded anything but easy.

  “And Gaius is trustworthy?” Yaltha asked.

  “Gaius? Most certainly. When I leave here, I’ll ask him to begin work this very night on a second coffin and to create two small holes in one of them for breathing.”

  That detail sent a shudder through me. I imagined the tight, airless space and wondered for the first time if I could go through with this.

  “The community has been notified to gather at the first hour tomorrow to say the prayers for the dead for Theano,” Skepsis said. “You should be among us, Ana.”

  “When will she be placed in the coffin?” Diodora asked. Her eyes were wide and worried, and I thought she was feeling the tight, airless space, too.

  “After the prayers, Ana, you slip away to the woodworking shop, where Gaius will lightly nail you inside the coffin. Four short nails, no more. I’ll instruct him to place an awl in the wagon for Pamphile, but also one inside the coffin so you may pry the lid yourself. Then he and his helper will load you onto the wagon. Meanwhile, I will keep Lucian occupied.”

  Yaltha held out her knotty hands to me and I took them. “I’ll go with Ana to the woodworking shop to make certain everything is done as prescribed,” she said.

  “I’ll go, too,” Diodora said. “We want no danger to come to you, sister.”

  A noise came from within the house. Then footsteps. Pamphile called, “Yaltha? Ana?”

  “I tell you,” I said, “the greatest danger to me is Pamphile refusing to open the lid!”

  Yaltha laughed. She was the only one to understand my uneasy jest.

  xxviii.

  At first, Pamphile seemed agreeable to our well-laid plan, but when I told her Lavi must travel with me to Judea, she rolled out her lower lip and folded her arms over her chest. “Then I will not do it.”

  Behind me, I heard Yaltha, Skepsis, and Diodora sigh with one accord. For the past half hour, the three of them had been like a small Greek chorus, offering refrains and harmonious sighs while I tried my best to convince Pamphile to join our subterfuge. We were crowded into the holy room, which had grown thick with the smell of palm oil from the lamps. Yaltha had left the door open to the courtyard, but the little room was stifling. A trickle of sweat darted between my breasts.

  “Please, Pamphile,” I pleaded. “My husband’s life may depend upon your answer. I must get to Jerusalem and stop my brother.”

  “Yes, so you said.”

  She enjoys this, I thought, this power she holds. “It’s too dangerous for me to travel alone,” I said, feeling the words like stones in my mouth. “Without Lavi I won’t be able to go!”

  “Then you must find someone else,” she said.

  “There is no one else.”

  “This needs to be settled quickly,” Skepsis interjected. “If you are leaving here by coffin, I must alert Gaius right away. And Pamphile must come with me and stay at my house for the night. Otherwise, some will wonder why a servant from Theano’s family would lodge with you.”

  Yes, please, take her.

  I tried again. “If you’re worried Lavi may not return to Alexandria, I assure you I have enough money to purchase his passage back. I’ll show you, if you like.”

  “I don’t care to see your money. I trust that you would send him back.”

  “Then what is it?” Diodora asked.

  Pamphile’s eyes shrank. “I have already lived apart from my husband for five months because of you. I don’t intend to do so any longer.”

  I did not know how to get through to her. She was lonely for her husband. How could I blame her? I glanced helplessly at Yaltha, who stepped past me, closer to Pamphile, in order to make some last effort. I remember thinking: We’ve come to the split in the river. I felt, whether or not it was true, that my life would be decided now. It would rush one way or go the other.

  Yaltha spoke with uncommon gentleness. “Did you know that Ana has been apart from her own husband for two years?”

  I saw it then—a softening in Pamphile’s face.

  “I’m sorry for the months you were separated from Lavi,” I told her. “I know the pain of it. I know what it’s like to lie in bed and ache for your husband, to wake up and feel his absence.” Even as I said these things, I felt Jesus moving around the edges of my vision like a lost dream.

  She said, “If Lavi left, how long would he be gone?”

  A smidgen of hope. “Three weeks, perhaps. No more.”

  “And what will become of his position at the library? Will they receive him back?”

  “I correspond with a scholar there,” said Skepsis. She was thumping her finger impatiently on the table. “I’ll make certain your husband is given leave.”

  Pamphile dropped her arms to her sides. “Let it be as you wish,” she said.

  * * *

  • • •

  I COULD NOT SLEEP that night, even with Yaltha’s chamomile. My thoughts spun. It was the deep of night, but I rose from my mat and stole past Diodora and Yaltha, who were making quiet slumbering sounds.

  Standing in the darkened holy room, I felt the finality of being here. My large woolen travel pouch sat on the table, stuffed full. Diodora and Yaltha had watched in silence as I’d packed it. It contained the pouch that held my red thread, Judas’s letter, the mummy portrait, money, two tunics, a cloak, and undergarments. I’d left the new black-and-red Alexandrian dress for Diodora. I would have no use for it anymore.

  I could hardly bear to look at the niche where my ten codices were stacked in a beautiful leaning tower with my incantation bowl perched on top. It wasn’t possible to take them with me. I might’ve carried a second bag and squeezed in five codices, maybe six, but something inexplicable inside me wished the books to remain all together. I wanted them here among the Therapeutae, where they might be read and preserved and perhaps cherished. I moved about the room, telling everything goodbye.

  Yaltha’s voice came from the doorway. “I will safeguard your words until you return.”

  I turned to her. “I will likely never return, Aunt. You know that.”

  She nodded, accepting what I’d said without questioning it.

  “After I leave, place my writings in the library with the other manuscripts,” I said. “I’m ready now for others to read them.”

  She came and stood close to me. “Do you remember the day in Sepphoris when you opened your cedar chest and showed me your writings for the first time?”

  “I’ve not forgotten it, nor will I ever forget it,” I said.

  “You were something to be reckoned with. Fourteen years old and full of rebellion and longings. You were the most stubborn, determined, ambitious child I’d ever seen. When I saw what was inside your cedar chest, I knew.” She smiled.

  “Knew what?”

  “That there was also largeness in you. I knew you possessed a generosity of abilities that comes only rarely into the world. You knew it, too, for you wrote of it in your bowl. But we all have some largeness in us, don’t we, Ana?”

  “What are you saying, Aunt?”

  “What most sets you apart is the spirit in you that rebels and persists. It isn’t the largeness in you that matters most, it’s your passion to bring it forth.”

  I gazed at her, but could not speak. I went down on my knees; I don’t know why, except I felt overcome by what she’d said.

  She placed her hand on my head. She said, “My own largeness has been to bless yours.”

  xxix.

  The coffin lay on the floor in the middle of the woodworking shop smelling of fresh wood. Yaltha, Diodora, and I gathered beside it and stared somberly into the empty cavity.

  “Don’t think of it as a coffin,” Diodora advised.

  “We mustn’t delay,” Gaius said. “Now that the prayers for T
heano are over, members will be lining the path, wanting to proceed behind the wagon as far as the gatehouse. We can’t risk one of them wandering nearby and finding you. Quickly, now.” He gripped my elbow as I stepped into the coffin. I stood there a moment before sitting, unable to think of the wooden box as anything other than what it was. I told myself just not to think at all.

  Diodora bent and kissed my cheeks. Then Yaltha. As my aunt hovered over me, I tried to memorize her face. Gaius placed the travel pouch at my feet and the awl in my hand. “Hold on to it.” I lay back and looked up into the bright room. The lid slid over me. Then darkness.

  The coffin juddered as Gaius hammered in four nails, causing my head to knock against the bottom. In the stillness that followed, I became aware of two thin beams of light. They reminded me of the fine strands of a spider’s web lit with sunlight and dew. I turned my head and found the source, a tiny perforation on each side. My breathing holes.

  The coffin was lifted with a jerk. Unprepared for it, I let out a small cry. “You’ll have to stay quieter than that,” Gaius said, his voice sounding far away.

  As they carried me outside, I braced for another jolt, but the coffin slid smoothly into the wagon. I couldn’t tell when Pamphile climbed in, maybe she was there already, but I heard the donkey bray and felt the lurch of the cart as we started down the hill.

  I closed my eyes so as not to see the coffin’s lid, which was a hand’s breadth from my nose. I listened instead to the rumble of the wagon, then to the muffled singing that began to follow us. Don’t think, don’t think. It will be over soon.

  When we made a sharp turn north, the singing receded into the distance and I knew we’d passed the gatehouse and turned onto the road. Moments later, one of the soldiers shouted “Halt!” and the wheels on the cart ground to a stop. The beat of my heart came so hard, I imagined the sound of it streaming out through the air holes. I was afraid to breathe.

  The soldier addressed Pamphile. “We were told a man among the Therapeutae died. Where are you taking him?”