by Marek Halter
She did not know long they remained like this, bound together. Perhaps only until the wagon jolted again or day rose completely.
Obadiah was speaking to her of his love and his joy at being in her hands. Together, they remembered their encounter in Sepphoris, how he had led her to Barabbas and how he had saved Joachim. She thought she heard him laugh. He was telling her things she did not know. The shame you felt if you were an am ha’aretz and you saw a girl like her. He was telling her about happiness and the hope of happiness. He had wanted to fight so that she would be proud of him.
She mustn’t be sad, because thanks to her he had done something that made him happy: He had fought so that life could be more just and evil weaker. And she was so close to him, so close that he could melt into her and never leave her. He would be her angel, such as Almighty Yahweh, it was said, sometimes sent humans.
Without even realizing it, she was smiling at him, even as a howl of terror swelled in her breast. Obadiah’s eyes stared into hers, burning her heart with a possible and impossible love, radiant with hope. She responded with all the promises of life of which she was capable.
Then a more sudden jolt than the others tilted Obadiah’s head to the side, and the light went from his eyes like a wire being cut, and Miriam knew he was dead.
She screamed his name at the top of her voice. In a frozen trance, she threw herself on him.
Rekab pulled so violently on the reins that one of the mules jerked sideways, almost breaking its harness. The wagon came to a halt. Miriam was screaming herself hoarse. Barabbas jumped down from the bench. One glance inside the wagon was enough.
He clambered in, seized Miriam by the shoulders, and pulled her off Obadiah’s body, which she had been shaking as if it were a sack. She pushed him away with astonishing force. He toppled over the handrail and fell heavily in the road, among the dust and stones.
Miriam stood up, screaming more loudly, lifting Obadiah’s corpse as if wanting to show heaven the immensity of the injustice and grief that was overwhelming her. But her legs, numbed by the long hours of stillness, could not carry her. Under Obadiah’s weight, she in turn toppled over into the dust. She lay there motionless, Obadiah’s body rolled into a shapeless ball beside her.
Barabbas ran to her, stomach tight with fear. But Miriam was not even unconscious. Not a single bone in her body was broken. When he touched her, she pushed him away again. She was crying with great wrenching sobs, the tears turning the dust on her cheeks to mud.
Barabbas moved back, terrified, at a loss what to do. The wound in his thigh had reopened, and he was limping. Rekab went to give him support. Both men were stunned to see Miriam get to her feet and threaten Barabbas with her fist. “Don’t touch me!” she cried like a madwoman. “Never touch me again! You’re nothing. You’re not even capable of bringing Obadiah back to life!”
THE cries were followed by a surprising silence, broken only by the wind sighing across the sand and in the prickly shrub.
Rekab waited a moment, then went to Obadiah’s body and took it in his arms. The flies were already swarming, attracted by the smell of death. As Miriam watched icily, he placed the body in the wagon and carefully covered it, his gestures as tender as a father’s.
Barabbas made no attempt to help him. He was dry-eyed, but his lips were trembling, as if he were searching for the words of some long-forgotten prayer.
When Rekab climbed down again from the wagon, Barabbas went to Miriam and made a gesture of powerlessness, of inevitability. She was crouching on the ground, huddled as if she had been hit. He might have tried to lift her, but he did not dare.
“I know what you think,” he said angrily. “That it’s my fault. That he died because of me.”
His voice was loud in the surrounding silence. Miriam, though, did not flinch. It was as if she had not even heard him. Barabbas grew agitated and turned to Rekab for support. But the coachman, standing motionless by the mules with the reins in his hands, bowed his head. Barabbas limped to one of the wheels and leaned on it. “You condemn me, but it was a mercenary’s spear that killed him!” He waved his fists, his muscles taut. “Obadiah loved fighting. He loved it. And he loved me, too, as much as I loved him. Without me, he wouldn’t have survived. When I took him in my arms, he was only a child. A little brat no bigger than this.”
He struck his chest violently.
“I was the one who saved him from the clutches of those traitors in the Sanhedrin, after respectable people like you had let his parents die of starvation! I gave him everything. Food and drink and a roof to protect him from the rain and cold. I taught him how to live by stealing, I taught him how to hide. Every time we went into combat, I feared for him, the way a brother fears for his brother. But we are warriors. We know the risks we take! And why we do it!”
He gave an unpleasant, anguished laugh.
“I haven’t changed my mind. I’m not afraid. I don’t need to stick my nose in books to know if I’m doing something good or bad. Who will save Israel, if we don’t fight? Your women friends in Magdala?”
Miriam had still not moved. She seemed impervious to the words he flung at her like stones.
Incredulous, powerless, his face racked with pain, he confronted this indifference. Taking a few unsteady steps, he cast his eyes up to heaven.
“Obadiah! Obadiah!”
Around them, the crickets fell silent. Again, the only sound was the wind in the thorns.
“There is no more God for us!” Barabbas screamed. “It’s over. There’s no more Messiah to wait for. We must fight, fight, fight! We must strike the Romans or be slaughtered by them….”
At last, Miriam raised her head and looked at him, coldly, calmly. With an almost mechanical gesture, she picked up a handful of dust and scattered it over her hair, as a sign of mourning. Then she gathered the tails of her tunic and got unsteadily to her feet.
Rekab took a step forward, fearing that she might collapse again. But she walked all the way to the wagon. Before climbing in, she turned to Barabbas and, without raising her voice, declared, “You’re stupid and narrow-minded. It isn’t only Obadiah who died because of you. Women and children died too. A whole village. And your companions and those of Mathias. For what? For what victory? There was none. They died because of your stubbornness. Your pride. They died because Barabbas wanted to be what he will never be: the king of Israel….”
At these words, he swayed. But what most overcame him was the glacial contempt on Miriam’s face.
“It’s easy to condemn me, but at least I dare.”
“You’ll never be the strongest. You’ll only bring blood and suffering where there is already blood and suffering.”
“Didn’t you come to find me to help save your father? You weren’t too bothered then if people killed or got killed! You’re quick to forget that you, too, were in favor of a rebellion!”
She nodded. “Yes. I’m at fault too. But now I know. It’s not the way. This is not how we will impose life and justice.”
“How, then?”
She did not reply. She climbed into the wagon and lay down next to Obadiah’s body, placed her head against the blanket covering him, and embraced him.
Barabbas and Rekab stood there, stunned. At last, Rekab asked, “What shall we do? Go back to Magdala?”
“No,” Miriam murmured, her eyes closed. “We must go to Beth Zabdai, to Joseph’s house. To the Essenes. They can cure the sick, and bring them back to life.”
Rekab thought he had misheard her. Or else Miriam was a little mad with the exhaustion. He threw a glance at Barabbas, ready to ask him a question. But tears were streaming down the cheeks of this brigand admired by everyone in Galilee.
Rekab lowered his eyes and took his seat on the bench. He waited a moment for Barabbas to join him.
As Barabbas did not move, Rakab cracked the reins on the mules’ rumps and set off.
THEY entered Damascus just before nightfall. Several times, Rekab had stopped to let the mules res
t, taking advantage of these brief halts to check on Miriam’s condition.
She seemed to be asleep, although her eyes were open. Her arms were still wrapped around Obadiah’s body. Rekab had filled a cup with water from one of the jars.
“You must drink, or you’ll get ill.”
Miriam had looked at him as if she barely saw him. Because she did not take the cup, he had dared to put his hand behind her neck and force her to drink, as she had done to Obadiah during the previous night and the days before that. She had not protested. On the contrary, she had let him do it with surprising docility, closing her eyes and thanking him with a vague smile. Rekab had been surprised by the way she looked. For the first time, Miriam’s face was that of a girl, not an austere, intimidating young woman.
At the entrance to the opulent gardens that surrounded Damascus and enclosed it in a splendid casket of greenery filled with bustling crowds from the poorer parts of the city, Rekab stopped again. This time, he carefully closed the curtains.
“There’s no point in them seeing you,” he said by way of explanation.
But he was mainly thinking of Obadiah’s corpse. If one of the peasants noticed it, a crowd might gather, and it would not have been easy to explain away.
But Miriam seemed not to hear him. Some time later, he inquired after the village of Beth Zabdai. Directions were soon forthcoming: The village was two leagues from the outskirts of Damascus, and was known to everyone as the village where people were healed. And, fortunately, the path that led to it was wide enough for Rekab to drive the wagon along it without too much difficulty. Situated to the west of Damascus, and surrounded by fields and orchards, the village consisted merely of a few whitewashed buildings. The flat roofs were covered in creepers. The walls had no windows on the outside, but enclosed inner courtyards. The house before which they stopped had only one large wooden door, painted blue. A smaller door set in it, just big enough for a child, made it possible to enter without it being necessary to open the main door. There was a bronze knocker.
Rekab brought the team to a halt, got down, and went and knocked at the door. He waited and, because no one came, knocked again, more loudly. Still no response. He did not think they would open. As the sky was already red and night quite close, this was not very surprising.
He turned back to the wagon, anxious to announce the news to Miriam, when the smaller door half opened. A shaven-headed young Essene in a white tunic put his head through and looked at Rekab suspiciously. This was the hour for prayers, he said, not for visitors. They would have to wait for the next day if they wanted medical care.
Rekab ran to the door and held it before the Essene could close it. The young man started to protest. Rekab grabbed him roughly by the tunic and pulled him to the wagon. He lifted the curtain. The young Essene, who was crying insults and struggling furiously, breathed in the smell of death. He froze, opened his eyes wide, and saw Miriam in the darkness of the wagon’s interior.
“Open the door,” Rekab growled, letting go of him at last.
The boy straightened his tunic. Uncomfortable at the sight of Miriam, he lowered his eyes. “It’s not the rule,” he said stubbornly. “At this hour, the masters forbid us to open.”
Before Rekab could react, Miriam spoke.
“Give my name to Joseph of Arimathea. Tell him I’m here and can’t go any farther. I am Miriam of Nazareth.”
She had sat up a little. Her voice was gentle, which embarrassed the young Essene even more than what he saw. He did not reply, but ran back inside the house—without even closing the small door behind him, Rekab noticed.
They did not have long to wait. Joseph of Arimathea came running, accompanied by a few of the brothers.
He did not bother to greet Rekab, but jumped into the wagon. Before he could question Miriam, she uncovered Obadiah’s face. He immediately recognized the young am ha’aretz and let out a moan. Miriam murmured a few barely comprehensible words. Rekab realized that she was asking Joseph to bring the boy back to life.
“You can do it, I know you can,” she muttered, as if she had lost her reason.
Joseph did not waste time in replying to her. He seized her under the arms and called to his companions to help him get her down from the wagon. She protested, but she was too weak to struggle. She held out her hands to Joseph, imploring him in a voice that gave him gooseflesh, “I beg you, Joseph, perform this miracle…Obadiah didn’t deserve to die. He has to live again.”
With a tense, grave face, Joseph stroked her cheek without a word. Then he made a sign for her to be taken inside the house.
LATER, when Rekab had parked the wagon in the courtyard, and Obadiah’s body had been taken out of it, Joseph joined him. Gently, he placed a hand on the coachman’s shoulder.
“We’re going to take good care of her,” he said, pointing to the women’s quarters, where Miriam had been taken. “Thank you for what you did. The journey must have been rough. You must eat and get some rest.”
Rekab pointed to the mules, which he had just freed from the yoke. “They have to be looked after and fed, too. I’m leaving again tomorrow. The wagon belongs to Rachel of Magdala. I have to get it back to her as soon as possible.”
“My companions will look after the animals,” Joseph said. “You’ve done enough for today. Don’t worry about your mistress. She can wait a few more days for her wagon. Then you’ll be able to give her good news about Miriam.”
Rekab hesitated, torn between protesting and accepting. Joseph impressed him. His benevolence, his calm, his bald skull, his gentle blue eyes, the great respect shown him by the young Essenes bustling around the house—everything about this man intimidated him. At the same time, his heart was bleeding. He could not stop thinking about what he had just lived through, so far beyond anything he could ever have imagined.
Joseph squeezed his shoulder affectionately, then led him to the main room of the house.
“I didn’t know this young man Obadiah very well,” he said. “But Miriam’s father, Joachim, said a lot of good things about him. This death is a sad one. But then all deaths are sad and unjust.”
They entered a long, white, vaulted room, furnished only with a huge table and benches.
“You mustn’t worry about Miriam,” Joseph said. “She’s strong. She’ll feel better tomorrow.”
Again Rekab was impressed by the attentiveness shown him by the master of the Essenes. Even in Rachel’s house, he wasn’t treated with such consideration. He looked into Joseph’s blue eyes and said, “Barabbas the brigand was with us last night. He was the one who brought the boy to Magdala….”
Joseph nodded. He invited Rekab to sit and sat down next to him. A young brother put a platter of semolina and a cup of water in front of them on the table.
His hand trembling a little, Rekab raised a first spoonful to his mouth. Then he put the spoon down, turned to Joseph, and started to tell him all about the horrors he had seen on the journey.
CHAPTER 12
MIRIAM took longer to recover than Joseph had foreseen.
She had been put in one of the small rooms in the woman’s quarters, in the north of the house. At first, she had protested. She wanted to be near Obadiah. She refused to rest, to calm down, to be reasonable as she was asked. Every time one of the handmaids told her she had to take care of her own health, not Obadiah’s, since he was dead, Miriam would insult her without restraint.
Nevertheless, after a difficult day during which she struggled and screamed constantly, the handmaids managed to get her to take a bath, eat three spoonfuls of semolina in milk, and drink some herb tea that put her to sleep without her even being aware of it.
This went on for three days. As soon as she opened her eyes, she would be fed and given a narcotic herb tea to drink. When she woke again, she would find Joseph beside her.
In fact, he came to visit her as often as he could. While she slept, he would watch her, anxiously. But when she opened her eyes, he would smile and utter calming words.
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She barely listened to him. Tirelessly, she would ask him the same questions. Couldn’t he treat Obadiah? Wasn’t it possible to bring him back from the land of the dead? Why couldn’t Joseph perform this miracle? Wasn’t he the most learned of doctors?
Joseph would merely shake his head. Avoiding giving cut-and-dried answers, he would try to divert Miriam from her anxieties and her obsession. He never mentioned the name Obadiah. His main concern was to get her to eat and, as soon as possible, to drink the potion that would put her to sleep.
Joseph never came alone to see Miriam. Within the community, the rules did not allow a brother to remain alone in the company of a woman. So he was always accompanied by the most brilliant of his disciples, a man named Geouel, from Gadra, in Perea. He was barely twenty, with a thin, rather bony face, and eyes that were constantly judging everything and everyone he saw.
Geouel admired Joseph greatly. But his uncompromising attitude often concealed his real qualities and irritated his companions. Joseph tolerated this prickly character, although he sometimes mocked him affectionately. Most often, he used him to keep his mind alert, like a man putting cold water on the back of his neck early in the morning to wake himself up.
When Miriam, stubbornly ignoring Joseph’s replies, repeated her questions for the fourth time, Geouel declared, “She’s losing her mind.”
Joseph did not agree. “She’s refusing to accept something that makes her suffer. That doesn’t mean she’s losing her mind. We all do it.”
“Which is why we can no longer tell the difference between God and Evil, Darkness and Light….”
“We Essenes,” Joseph remarked with a smile, “believe that he who has died may live again.”
“Yes, but only by the will of God Almighty. Not through our own powers. And only if the man who will live again has lived a life of perfect goodness…which is certainly not the case with this am ha’aretz!”