Mary of Nazareth

by Marek Halter

  “Is that what you believe?” Nicodemus interrupted, all amiability gone from his voice now. “Then you believe in something insane. You can’t just conjure up an army or a war. You can’t turn a band of paupers into soldiers capable of defeating mercenaries hardened by years of combat. Your rebellion will result in lots of bloodshed, and all for nothing.”

  “You’re saying that because you hate the am ha’aretz!” Barabbas exploded. “Like all the Pharisees, like all the rich people in Jerusalem and the Temple, you have nothing but contempt in your hearts for the poor. You are traitors to your people.”

  “What do you suggest we do, Nicodemus?” Joachim asked, trying to temper Barabbas’s anger.

  “I suggest we wait.”

  The angry cries of Mathias and Barabbas, Levi and Eleazar, shattered the warm, still air.

  Nicodemus raised his hands authoritatively. “You asked for my opinion. I came all the way here to give it. You could at least hear me out.”

  Reluctantly, the others granted him the silence he was demanding.

  “You’re right, Barabbas, Herod’s house is in chaos. In which case, why anticipate God’s work? Why shed blood and heap suffering on suffering, when the Almighty is already punishing Herod and his family? You should believe in the Lord’s foresight. It is he who decides on matters of good and evil. As far as Herod and his ungodly family are concerned, his justice is already at work. Soon, they will be gone. Then it will be time to bring pressure to bear on the Sanhedrin.”

  “I understand what you’re saying, Nicodemus,” Joachim said. “But I fear it’s only a dream. All that will happen is that Herod will die and another madman will take his place—”

  “How ignorant you all are!” Giora yelled, a wild look in his eyes, unable to contain himself any longer. “And what bad Jews! Don’t you know that there is only one person who can save us? Have you forgotten the word of Yahweh? The one you are waiting for to save you, you band of ignoramuses, is the Messiah! He alone, do you hear me? He alone will save the people of Israel from the mire into which it has sunk. You’re so stupid, Barabbas. Don’t you know that the Messiah cares nothing for your swords? All he wants is your obedience and your prayers. If you desire the end of the tyrant, come with us to the desert and follow the teachings of the Master of Justice. Come and add your prayers to ours in order to hasten the coming of the Messiah. That is your duty.”

  “The Messiah, the Messiah! That’s all you and your kind ever talk about! You’re like babies longing for their mother’s breast. The Messiah! You don’t even know if he exists, your Messiah! Or if you’ll ever see him. On every road in this land, you see fools crying out that they’re the Messiah! The Messiah! It’s only a word you use to disguise your fear and cowardice.”

  “Barabbas, this time you’ve gone too far!” Nicodemus cried, his cheeks scarlet.

  “Nicodemus is right,” Rabbi Jonathan said, already on his feet. “I didn’t come here to listen to your ungodliness.”

  “God has promised the coming of the Messiah,” Eleazar the Zealot said, pointing an accusing finger at Barabbas. “Giora is right. Our purity will hasten his coming.”

  “But so will our swords, for they come down on the ungodly like a prayer,” Levi the Sicarion said.

  The cries subsided.

  “All right, I understand,” Mathias sighed, putting his hood back over his head and standing up.

  Everyone looked at him, suddenly anxious.

  He gave Barabbas’s shoulder a friendly pat. “You gathered an assembly of crybabies, my friend. Herod is right to despise them. With these people around, he can still reign for a long time. There’s nothing more for me to do here.”

  He turned on his heel. The crickets and cicadas were chirping, but the only sound anyone heard was the rubbing of his sandals on the ground as he left Yossef’s yard without another word.

  IN the coolness of the kitchen, Miriam and Halva were listening out for the slightest noises coming from outside. After the departure of Mathias and the long silence that ensued, the men resumed their discussion—this time so quietly, it was as if they were afraid of their own voices.

  Miriam approached the door. She could hear Joseph of Arimathea speaking calmly, but so low that she had to make an effort to understand him. He, too, believed in the coming of the Messiah, he was saying. Barabbas was wrong to see this belief as a weakness. The Messiah was a promise of life, and only life could give rise to life, quite unlike Herod, who gave rise to death and suffering.

  “To believe in the coming of the Messiah is to be certain that God hasn’t abandoned us. That we deserve his attention and are strong enough to bear and defend his word. Why do you want to deprive our people of this hope and strength, Barabbas?”

  Barabbas made a face, but Joseph of Arimathea’s words struck home, and the others around the table agreed.

  “However, you are right about one thing,” Joseph of Arimathea went on. “We can’t simply fold our arms when confronted with suffering. We must reject the evil that Herod spreads. We must act in such a way that goodness becomes our Law; we must do all we can, we men, to make life more just. It is that, and not only prayer, as Giora believes, which will make the coming of the Messiah possible. Yes, we must unite against evil….”

  “He speaks well,” Halva whispered, squeezing Miriam’s arm. “Even better than your Barabbas.”

  Miriam was about to reply that Barabbas was not “her” Barabbas, but when she turned to Halva, she saw that there were tears in her eyes.

  “My Yossef hasn’t opened his mouth, poor man.” She smiled sadly. “But perhaps he’s the one who’s right. None of these fine phrases lead anywhere, do they?”

  Anguish took hold of Miriam. Halva was right. A thousand times right. And it was terrifying. She was witnessing the despicable folly of men.

  Her father and Barabbas, she knew, were both good, strong men. Barabbas spoke well and knew how to persuade and lead others. Joseph of Arimathea was surely the wisest of all, and the others, even Giora, had no other desire than to do good and behave honestly. They flaunted their knowledge and power, but it was their powerlessness that made them clash so intolerably.

  “He’s gone for good!”

  It was Obadiah, returning out of breath from having run after Mathias.

  “I called to him and asked him to come back, but he just raised his arm and waved good-bye.”

  He, too, had a lump in his throat and tears in his eyes. He, too, was discovering that the men he most admired were powerless, and the shame of it gripped his heart.

  Outside, Nicodemus was asking Joseph of Arimathea, with a touch of bitterness, if he had lost his head. Did he, too, want to take up arms? No, Joseph answered, violence wasn’t the solution. This drew another ferocious retort from Barabbas. Giora intervened, repeating in his shrill voice his usual litany on prayer and purity, and crying that violence was only valid if it was the will of God.

  Halva sighed. “Are they starting again?”

  “If they keep quarreling,” Obadiah said gloomily, “Barabbas will leave. I know him. I wonder how he’s managed to stand Giora and the fat man from the Sanhedrin all this time.”

  Meanwhile, Joachim was trying to calm everyone down. This meeting had failed, he said, with bitterness in his voice. They might as well admit it. Quarreling as they were doing only demonstrated how weak they were and how strong Herod and the Romans were. He was angry with himself for having forced them to make such a long, pointless journey.

  “It’s never pointless to search for the truth,” Joseph of Arimathea said calmly, “even if the truth we discover is an unpleasant one. And there is one point about which we are all in agreement: The worst enemy of the people of Israel isn’t Herod, it’s our own lack of unity. That’s why Herod and the Romans are strong. We have to unite!”

  “But how?” Joachim cried. “Judea, Samaria, and Galilee are divided, just as we are divided in the Temple and in our interpretation of the Book. We may be sincere, but we quarrel.
You’ve just seen it for yourself.”

  Was it the sadness in her father’s voice? Halva’s tears of discouragement? Obadiah’s disappointment? Or Yossef’s stubborn silence? Miriam was never to know.

  Whatever the cause, she could not help herself. She grabbed a large basket of apricots that she had just made ready, hurried out into the yard, and walked right up to the men, her chest and face burning. They fell silent, their faces hardening in surprise and reproach. Ignoring that, she placed the basket on the table and turned to her father. “Will you allow me to say what I think?” she asked.

  Joachim did not know what to reply and looked questioningly at the others. Giora was already raising his hand to dismiss her, but Nicodemus took an apricot from the basket with a condescending smile and made a sign of approval. “Why not? Go ahead and tell us what you think.”

  “No, no, no!” Giora protested. “I don’t want to hear anything from this girl!”

  Joachim took offense at this. “This girl is my daughter, Giora,” he said, turning red. “She and I both know the respect we owe you, but I haven’t brought her up to be ignorant and submissive.”

  “No, no!” Giora repeated, getting to his feet. “I don’t want to hear anything from unbelievers….”

  “Speak,” Joseph of Arimathea said in a kindly tone, ignoring Giora’s anger. “We’re listening.”

  Miriam’s throat was dry. She felt as though her body was hot and cold at the same time. Embarrassed and yet unable to hold back the words she was burning to speak, she gave her beloved father a look that seemed to be asking him to forgive her.

  “You all love words,” she began, “but you don’t know how to use them. You can’t stop speaking. Yet your words are as sterile as stones. You fling them in other people’s faces in order not to hear what’s being said. Nothing can unite you, since each of you considers himself the wisest….”

  Giora, who had already walked away, now spun around, sending his long beard swaying. “Are you forgetting Yahweh, girl?” he thundered. “Are you forgetting that every word comes from him?”

  Painfully but bravely, Miriam shook her head. “No, Giora, I haven’t forgotten. But the word of God that you love is the one you study in the Book. It makes you a learned man, but it does not help to unite us.” The confidence of her tone astonished them.

  She looked at their stunned faces, saw their anger and incomprehension. She feared she had offended them, when all she had wanted to do was help them. Speaking more softly now, she went on. “You are all learned men, and I am nothing but an ignorant girl, but I have listened to you and I see that your knowledge leads only to argument. Who among you could be the one everyone listens to? And if you managed to defeat Herod, what would happen? Would you argue like before and fight each other? The Pharisees against the Essenes? Everyone against the Sadducees?”

  Barabbas laughed. “So you, too, are waiting for the Messiah!”

  “No…I don’t know…You’re right: There are many who stand up and cry, ‘I am the Messiah.’ But they achieve nothing. They have dreams, but those dreams are sterile. What’s the point of urging the people to rise against Herod if none of you knows what you’re leading them to? Herod is certainly a bad king; he brings us nothing but misfortune. But who among you could be our king of justice and goodness?”

  She lowered her voice, as though she were about to tell them a secret.

  “Only a woman who knows the price of life can give life to that person. Didn’t the prophet Isaiah say that the Messiah will be born to a young woman?”

  They stared silently at her, their faces frozen in amazement.

  Now Giora laughed. “I think we understand. You want to be the mother of the Liberator. But who will be the father?”

  “The father doesn’t matter….” Miriam stared into the distance, and her tone became incantatory. “Yahweh, holy, holy, holy is his name, will decide.”

  No one said a word, until Barabbas leaped to his feet, his face distorted with rage. He walked up to Miriam so abruptly that she stepped back.

  “I thought you were with me. You said you wanted this rebellion, that there was no point in waiting! But you’re like all girls: One day you say one thing and the next day another!”

  Giora laughed again. Joachim placed his hand on Barabbas’s wrist. “Please,” he said, forcing himself to lower his voice.

  Barabbas pulled his arm free and beat his chest, grimacing in disgust. “If you’re so intelligent,” he cried to Miriam, “you ought to know this: I’m the one, I, Barabbas, who will be king of Israel!”

  “No, Barabbas, no. Only the man who knows no other father, no other authority than the Lord, our father who is in heaven, will have the courage to confront the order brought about by the wickedness of men and change it.”

  “You’re mad! I’m the one, I, Barabbas. I’m the only one here who has never known a father. Barabbas, the king of Israel! You’ll see….”

  He turned on his heel and strode off toward the path leading out of the yard, still crying, “Barabbas, the king of Israel! You’ll see….”

  Obadiah ran after him, making a distressed grimace at Miriam as he left.

  Barabbas’s cries had dispelled the others’ astonishment. Nicodemus and Giora both laughed scornfully.

  “The boy’s mad. He’d be quite capable of plunging the whole country into bloodshed.”

  “He’s a good boy, a brave boy,” Joachim retorted. “And he’s young. He can keep alive a hope we’re no longer capable of sustaining.”

  He looked at his daughter and gave her a sad, gentle smile in which Miriam thought she saw a reproach.

  The other men’s silence condemned her more surely than words. She ran off to the kitchen, numb with shame.

  CHAPTER 8

  IT was the dead of night. Only the regular chirping of a tireless cricket broke the silence around Yossef’s house. Dawn could not be far off.

  Unable to sleep, Miriam had left her bed near the children. She was waiting for the light of dawn while all the while dreading it, wishing that the darkness around her would never end.

  She could not help reliving the madness that had come over her and compelled her to speak out in front of the men. Nor could she forget the shame she had brought on her father. And Barabbas! She would have liked to run after him and beg his forgiveness.

  Why was he so full of pride? She admired him and would always be grateful to him for what he had done. She had certainly not wanted to hurt him! And yet he had left convinced that she had betrayed him. And Obadiah has gone with him….

  The grimace Obadiah had given her as he followed Barabbas still brought a pang to her heart.

  The others had left Yossef’s house with the same distress on their faces. Eleazar the Zealot, Rabbi Jonathan, Levi the Sicarion…Nicodemus and Giora had been in a particularly bad mood.

  Only Joseph of Arimathea had not fled. He had politely asked Halva for a bed for the night. The road to Damascus was a long one, and he preferred to rest before going back.

  Miriam had not had the courage to apologize to them. Suddenly, words had failed her. Most of all, she had not wanted to open her mouth for fear of saying something else that would hurt them.

  She had not even had the courage to appear at the evening meal, although Halva had kissed her with all the tenderness of which she was capable and assured her that she had been right, a thousand times right, to tell them the truth, even if they had not wanted to hear it.

  But Halva spoke with a heart overflowing with friendship, and her trust in Miriam blinded her to the point of madness.

  No! It was Giora who had told the truth: She was only a girl full of pride who interfered in things that did not concern her. She had sown discord among them as if casting a stone into their gathering. How stupid she had been! When all she had wanted was to unite them!

  Why, oh, why wasn’t it possible to go back in time and put right what you had done wrong?

  NOW the sky over Nazareth was growing pale. The early
morning cold, damp with dew, had numbed Miriam without her being aware of it, absorbed as she was in her own thoughts, reproaches, and doubts.

  It was only at the last moment that she heard footsteps behind her. Yossef was approaching, a large blanket in his hands and a smile on his lips.

  “I was getting ready to go and take care of the animals, since Barabbas seems to have given up being a shepherd.”

  He looked at her—her red eyes, her trembling lips, the gooseflesh on her bare arms—and frowned. “I hope you’re not mad enough to have spent the night here?” He put the blanket over her. “Warm yourself, or you’ll catch cold,” he said, tenderly. “The dawn is deceptive.”

  “Yossef, I’m so angry with myself,” Miriam murmured, the words rasping her throat, and seized his hand.

  “Why, dear Lord?” Yossef asked, keeping her hand in his.

  “I’m so ashamed…I should never have spoken the way I did to all of you yesterday. I shamed not only myself, but you and my father, too.”

  “Are you mad? Shamed? Quite the contrary. I didn’t say a word because I’m not very good at expressing myself, especially with someone like Giora around, but I was so happy to hear you! It was like honey flowing into my ears. Oh yes! At last, someone was saying what we needed to hear.”

  “Yossef! You’re not thinking about what you’re saying!”

  “What do you mean? It’s what we all think. Your father, Halva, even Joseph of Arimathea. He said that to us last night. If you hadn’t hidden yourself away, you’d have heard.”

  “But the others fled….”

  “With shame, yes. They definitely felt ashamed. They knew that what you said was right. They had nothing to add. You are right. We’re unable to join together in a single will. Messiah or no Messiah, the man who is capable of uniting us and leading us has not been born yet. For people like Giora or Nicodemus, that isn’t an easy truth to admit.” He sighed and shook his head. “Yes…we all have a lot of soul-searching to do.”