Word of Mary’s demonic possession and the priest’s failed exorcism soon reached the ears of the people. When the rabbi died not long after, the townsfolk accused her of having cursed him. Life became an unbearable round of humiliation and disgrace and having no other recourse, the family moved from Magdala to Bethany, where no one knew them, and where Mary, Lazarus and Martha, could live without shame.
Here they were to remain, and such would have been Mary’s life had Lazarus not set out after a spiritual calling, in search of a man called…John the Baptist.
25
RECOGNITION
Mariam, stepmother of Jesus, had been sorrowful on the day Jesus had journeyed away from their home for Engaddi. Wearing her mourning mantle and veil, she had watched him from the dry stonewall with her back straight as a rod, waiting for him to turn, but he had not turned. He had walked down and onward without looking back, and was soon gone over the hill to the township carrying the food she had made for him in a bundle.
Recalling that day she grieved, for she had not told him what she had seen in his eyes when they had spoken of Engaddi. She did not know why her voice had fled from her.
Since then, the years moved in a noiseless chain of days woven together by those unspoken words. The time waiting for him was long. Now and again, she would take a moment to observe the road, hoping to see his form coming over the rise. But he did not come.
Sometimes, when the others were busy and she had a moment to herself, she would go to Joseph’s deserted workroom, where Jesus had often fashioned tables and doors, and chairs, and other useful things. She would touch the hammers and nails and hold up the saws, she would let her hand roam over the cool anvil or take up a piece of wood to smell its fragrance. In all these trivial things she sensed the soul of Jesus. Jesus who had always seemed so troubled in his heart.
Her sons and daughters and relatives had never understood him and thought his behaviour more and more strange and incomprehensible. ‘Why does he speak so little?’ they asked. ‘Why does he stare at walls? He behaves like one who is above the ordinary, for he does not do ordinary things: he leaves his home and his family to live the life of a vagabond; he refuses to continue his father’s trade, and he will not take a wife and maintain the lineage of his fathers. If he thinks himself a sage, why did he not remain in Jerusalem? Now this further arrogance! What man went to Engaddi to live at the Motherhouse without taking vows? What man imagined himself so high as to impose conditions on the perfect ones?’
She wished that she had defended him from their unkind words and mocking smiles; she wished that she had sat with him more, listened to his part, and consoled him.
But she had not. What had prevented it? She did not know.
One day, pondering these things while sitting on a stool in the workshop, she fell to observing the sun coming through the slats in the roof. Rays of light had stolen into the dark corners and in them dust motes floated like warm snow. These began to form themselves into a shape, which came to stand before her, as bright as day.
Was this Jesus? Jesus, with his soft-spoken eyes and his mother’s smile, made from sunlight and air?
She felt his spirit incline towards hers, desiring to draw out all the worldly dross of her life.
As in a dream, she poured herself out, all her weaknesses, her fears, her longings and hopes. She asked him to forgive her for not being a better mother, for letting the others speak ill of him. She told him then of all the disappointments of her life, and in so doing a feeling of strength began its slow descent into her spine to make her steadfast.
Now she felt she could say what she had failed to say out loud to him before he left.
‘In my heart you are my son, Jesus!’
From that moment in the workshop her soul became full with calm acceptance. Peace now replaced the never tiring round of thoughts that had previously tortured her, and she grew to be as still as the moon, as steady as the sky, as sure as the rhythm of day and night. She did not seek to understand this joyful feeling, since it was a thing more suspected than seen, and had come from a singular meeting of souls – far removed from the comprehension of an ordinary mortal. And so she did not speak of it to anyone.
The afternoon she saw his silhouette come over the hill, as if rising upwards from out of the deepening sky itself, she could not believe it; her breath was near taken away with happiness.
She came to him shyly and took his load from him and led him to the house. He was older, weary and thin, and her heart was troubled by the look in his eye. She had Salome prepare him a bath while she readied him a meal of bread and olives and goat cheese. He ate sparsely and afterwards did not wish to sleep, but wanted to speak with her.