by Marek Halter
Claudia the Roman agreed and said, I have never seen my husband so afraid. If I go to him today, he will not recognize me and will throw me in jail.
Barabbas was proved right. Three months have gone by, and already the disciples who were with my son on the first day have scattered. Only John is still with me. The others fish in the Lake of Gennesaret. To salve their consciences, some say I am mad.
In Jerusalem, the Sanhedrin teaches that Yeshua was not born the way he was in fact born. They say, His mother, Miriam of Nazareth, is a madwoman who slept with demons. She did not want anyone to know. She invented a story to conceal the facts of her son’s birth.
You, my sisters, who are now following the teachings of Mariamne, say, If Miriam had not done what she did, Yeshua would be great today. They would not have forgotten him. You say, Miriam, his mother, refused her son’s death, but the Almighty wanted him to die in order to provoke a rebellion. Now, nothing will happen.
But I answer, You are mistaken. The Almighty does not care about our rebellion; he cares about our faith. Rebellion is in our hands as long as we support life against death and light against darkness. I wanted my son, Yeshua, to remain alive as long as nothing has been accomplished of what gave birth to him. The Romans are still in Jerusalem, injustice reigns over Israel, the strong slaughter the weak, men despise women…
You say, Yeshua is alive today, but no one cares to listen to him, except his three remaining disciples. You say, On the cross, he made us ashamed, and out of his suffering revenge could have been born.
I answer, Revenge is as worthless as death. Leave it to the Lord, the Almighty, the Master of the Universe. That is a word of Yeshua. Put me on trial, for I committed the sin of impatience at Cana. God is angry. I did not let my son die. God is angry. But how could the Almighty, God of Mercy, be angry to see Yeshua alive? How could he choose grief and curses instead of joy and blessings? How could he want tomorrow to be only darkness in which humiliation and mutual hatred reign? May the Everlasting Lord forgive a mother’s pride. A mother who gave birth to Yeshua, revealed him to the world, and kept him alive. For ever and ever. Amen.
This is the word of Miriam of Nazareth, daughter of Joachim and Hannah, known as Mary in the language of Rome.
MONTHS LATER, I RETURNED TO WARSAW. ONCE AGAIN, I found myself outside the door of the dilapidated apartment on Kanonia Street, in the old town. Maria recognized me, and understood immediately why I was there.
She did not need to ask me any questions. Her smile and the look in her eyes were eloquent enough. She seemed more tired than before. But the light in her eyes was as fresh and eternal as a child’s.
“I had the text translated and read it,” I said.
She nodded, smiling even more.
“What about you? Did you read it? Do you have a translation?”
“Abraham Prochownik told me the story.”
“If he didn’t die on the cross,” I asked, “how did he die?”
She shrugged, irritated at having to say something so obvious.
“Who are you talking about? My Jesus? My Yeshua? I told you. He died in Auschwitz.”
ALSO BY MAREK HALTER
Lilah
Zipporah, Wife of Moses
Sarah
FOOTNOTES
*1At this point in the scroll, part of the text is missing, where a damp patch has caused the material to tear.
Return to text.
*2Here, three lines of text are missing because of a tear. Only a few words remain on the left-hand side of the scroll, which do not by themselves allow for a viable reconstruction.
Return to text.
*3This part of the scroll is badly deteriorated, presumably because it has been handled more than the others. Damp and wear have made about twenty lines illegible. For a further twenty lines, only a few fragments are decipherable.
Return to text.
*4Here, the scroll has been torn, perhaps deliberately. The missing part is large, and the two torn edges are held together by a thread of red silk.
Return to text.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Translation copyright © 2008 by Crown Publishers, a division of Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
www.crownpublishing.com
CROWN is a trademark and the Crown colophon is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc.
Originally published in France as Marie by Éditions Robert Laffont, Paris, in 2006. Copyright © 2006 by Éditions Robert Laffont, S.A., Paris.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Halter, Marek
[Marie. English]
Mary of Nazareth : a novel / Marek Halter ; translated by Howard Curtis.
p. cm.
I. Curtis, Howard, 1949– II. Title.
PQ2668.A434M3713 2008
843'.914—dc22 2007041790
eISBN: 978-0-307-40977-5
v3.0