An Echo in the Darkness(120)
“Then why do you weep as though you had part in his crucifixion? You had no part in it.”
“I’d like nothing better than to think I would have remained faithful. But if those closest to him—his disciples, his own brothers—turned away, who am I to think I’m better than they and would have done differently? No, Marcus. We all wanted what we wanted, and when the Lord fulfilled his purpose rather than ours, we struck out against him. Like you. In anger. Like you. In disappointment. Yet, it is God’s will that prevails.”
He looked away. “I don’t understand any of this.”
“I know you don’t. I see it in your face, Marcus. You don’t want to see. You’ve hardened your heart against him.” She started to walk again.
“As should all who value their lives,” he said, thinking of Hadassah’s death.
“It is God who has driven you here.”
He gave a derisive laugh. “I came here of my own accord and for my own purposes.”
“Did you?”
Marcus’ face became stony.
Deborah pressed on. “We were all created incomplete and will find no rest until we satisfy the deepest hunger and thirst within us. You’ve tried to satisfy it in your own way. I see that in your eyes, too, as I’ve seen it in so many others. And yet, though you deny it with your last breath, your soul yearns for God, Marcus Lucianus Valerian.”
Her words angered him. “Gods aside, Rome shows the world that life is what man makes of it.”
“If that’s so, what are you making of yours?”
“I own a fleet of ships, as well as emporiums and houses. I have wealth.” Yet, even as he told her, he knew it all meant nothing. His father had come to that realization just before he died. Vanity. It was all vanity. Meaningless. Empty.
Old Deborah paused on the pathway. “Rome points the way to wealth and pleasure, power and knowledge. But Rome remains hungry. Just as you are hungry now. Search all you will for retribution or meaning to your life, but until you find God, you live in vain.”
Marcus did not want to listen, but her words penetrated, causing him unrest. “One of our Roman philosophers says our lives are what our thoughts make of it. Perhaps therein lies the answer to how I’ll find peace for myself.”
She smiled at him—a tolerant, half-amused smile. “King Solomon was the wisest man who ever lived, and he said something similar hundreds of years before Rome existed. ‘For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.’” She looked up at him. “On what does your heart dwell, Marcus Lucianus Valerian?”
Her question shot straight through his soul. “Hadassah,” he said hoarsely.
She nodded, satisfied. “Then let your thoughts dwell upon her. Remember the words she said. Remember what she did, how she lived.”
“I remember how she died,” he said, staring out at the Sea of Galilee.
“That, too,” the old woman said solemnly. “Walk in her ways and see life through her eyes. Maybe that will bring you closer to what you’re looking for.” She pointed down the hill. “That’s the path she always walked with her father. It’ll take you down to the road and on to Gennesaret, and then to Capernaum. Hadassah loved the sea.”
“I’ll see you back to Nain.”
“I know my way. It’s time you found yours.”
His smile was pained. “You think you can evict me that easily, old woman?”
She patted his arm. “You were ready to go.” She turned away and started back along the path they had followed together.
“What makes you so sure?” he called after her, annoyed that he had been so easily led.
“You brought your coat with you.”
Bemused, he shook his head. He watched her go back along the path and realized she had bought the bread and wine for him, for his journey.
He sighed. She was right. There was no going back for him. He had stayed as long as he could bear in the house where Hadassah had lived as a child. All he had found there was dust and despair and memories that were like ashes in his mouth.
Marcus looked north. What hope had he of finding anything different along the shores of the Sea of Galilee? But then, hope had never been a part of this quest. Anger had. But somehow, along the way, his shield of anger had been stripped from him, leaving him defenseless. Emotions in turmoil, he felt naked.
She loved the sea, Deborah had said. Perhaps that was enough reason to go on.
He started down the hill, following the same path Hadassah had.
28
Alexander slammed his goblet of wine down, sloshing the red fluid onto the table. “She was the one who sent you to the arena, and now you’re telling me you want to go back to her?”