Song of the Magdalene Read online

  I didn’t wait for the end of his prayers. I couldn’t bear witnessing my parents’ love in that tallith — a love that seemed to swathe Father and distance me in my present isolation. I left.

  I thought often of trying again to talk with Father. But every time the thoughts came, the knowledge followed: The Creator was the only true healer for a malady such as mine. After all, when Abraham went to the exorcist, no good had come of it. And last year when Shiphrah and Jacob brought their deformed baby girl to a traveling exorcist, the baby died in his hands.

  So I didn’t tell Father. And I hardly saw him, anyway. The long, hot season was always his busiest time for arranging trade. He stayed away for two or three weeks at a time.

  When Father returned from a journey, he lingered around the house for a day or two, praying thanks to the Creator and renewing himself. On those days, I tended our kitchen garden. This could not be a sham. If Father was to find me at home, I would be home as a righteous woman devoted to the details of daily family life.

  I grew lentils, beans, cucumbers, peppers, lettuce. I dug the earth with a vengeance new to me. The perimeter was onions and shallots and leeks. The area most in the sun was reserved for eggplant. The area most in the shade overflowed with chicory, endive, cress, and parsley. Everything thrived. The irony spurred me on. I reserved a section for a rock garden and the purslane spread there as though it were on the naked shores of the Dead Sea, the shores Father had described. Everything, everything thrived.

  Hannah didn’t mind it when I wouldn’t go with her to the well, for the garden this year did much better than it had ever done under her care. No weed strayed into this dirt without being plucked mercilessly. No beetle nibbled on a lettuce leaf without being crushed by my thumbnail. If I kept vigilant, if I worked assiduously, a fit could not take me by surprise.

  When Father was busy with trade, however, I went to the valley early in the morning and came home late at night. Hannah said it wasn’t right that I should spend so many hours alone. She invited me to join her in making bread and spinning wool. She looked at me with eyes that longed to help me solve the secret problem she sensed growing within me. I tried to soothe her, but I failed. Hannah had lived with us too long not to recognize my wanderings as flight. But in one thing I succeeded: Hannah swore to keep my confidence. She told Father nothing of my visits to the valley.

  Each silence on her part, each confidence on my part, while they didn’t make us grow closer to one another, made us grow separate from Father. There were days when I feared the loyalty of Hannah — when I questioned for the first time the need for the separateness of women.

  And the claws of my deception tore at my soul. I was mindful to watch Father and Hannah for signs of vulnerability. I didn’t worry about Abraham. He already knew a devil. Father and Hannah, however, might need protection. And so when Father raised his hands and said firmly, “Shema yisra’el,” calling upon Israel to listen, when Hannah inspected the meat carefully to make sure it had been completely bled, I rejoiced inside. They followed the laws; they were pious. Neither of them would become the host of a devil. Neither would need refuge.

  The valley was my refuge. I climbed the sycamores and in the very treetops I sang. I begged the Creator to look upon me. To do what I could not bear to have any human do — to pity me. I begged the Creator to forgive me for not going to the mikvah, for coming to the valley, for whatever impurities I hid from myself. When I climbed down, I did not dance. I had given up dancing. This was my own kind of atonement. The Creator knew how much my feet had rejoiced in dancing before. The Creator knew that I atoned.

  I hung my shifts in the brightest sunlight and watched them fade. And I never mentioned pomegranates. No more crimson for me. Mother’s colors faded away.

  No more fits came. But I didn’t know whether that was because the Creator had heard me and answered my song prayers, or because the demon within was waiting quietly. In the absence of fits, there was no way to know. I sang, day in day out, week in week out. I walked and walked and walked. Each night I slept the sleep of exhaustion.

  CHAPTER THREE

  This self-imposed exile in the valley might have gone on forever if it weren’t for Abraham. One day as I was leaving the house, he called to me.

  Hannah had gone to the well early, as usual. She drew the water and returned before the women with children gathered there. She would indulge in talk with the older women, but never with the young mothers. Most days Hannah took Abraham with her. She pushed him in a handcart Father had fashioned. It was because of Abraham that Hannah left when the women with children came to the well; I knew this. No mother ever had to tell her child not to go near Abraham, for Hannah whisked Abraham away before there was any need. No mother had to fear Abraham’s demon.

  I was allowed to stay behind at the well and play if I liked. And in the old days, before my first fit, I had done that often. Now I never did. Now I usually didn’t even accompany Hannah and Abraham to the well.

  On this morning, however, Abraham was at home. The night before he had slept poorly. He woke cranky and complained of the heat. He said he couldn’t bear the women’s busy voices at the well that day. So Hannah left Abraham behind, propped outside the door, where he could catch a bit of air.

  And he called to me.

  At first I wasn’t sure I had actually heard him. But he repeated, “Come here.”

  When I was small, I’d talked with Abraham many times, naturally, of nothing in particular. Other people found him hard to understand because his lips didn’t move the right way. But I had no trouble knowing what he meant. Only these days we didn’t have much to say to each other.

  Still, I knew many things about Abraham. I knew he had little control over his legs and left arm. I knew his head stayed to one side because he couldn’t right it. Had some flaw within Abraham’s soul invited his demon, just as a flaw had invited mine?

  I stood beside him and spoke gently. “What is it?”

  He looked at me with steady eyes and I was afraid for a moment that he was unable to speak right then. I felt sure his eyes were telling me to pay attention.

  My first thought was that he was in pain. He needed Hannah. “How are you?” I leaned close over him as I spoke.

  “Afflicted.”

  I straightened up quickly.

  Abraham showed his teeth. His shoulders moved. And I realized suddenly he was laughing. Abraham was making a joke of himself.

  “You shouldn’t talk that way.”

  “You shouldn’t go off alone.”

  I suppressed a gasp and clasped my hands together. Of course Abraham would know I’d been off alone. We had no relatives hereabout, so there was no one’s house that I could pass the day in. I should have expected Abraham would figure it out. He might have even overheard me tell Hannah I was going to the valley.

  I pulled on my fingers, one after the other. “If you tell, it will be awful for everyone. Father will make Hannah go away.”

  “I won’t tell.”

  Abraham was older than me. Above his lip a fine fuzz held bits of crumbs from his morning bread. He wouldn’t tell. He knew what it would mean for his own life if he did. I folded my hands together and spoke with forced calm. “Why did you call me?”

  “Take me with you.”

  “With me?” The words made no sense. “Where?”

  “Wherever you go.” Abraham moved his lips with care, working to make each word clear. “You’re strong. Push me in the cart.”

  It was true. Though Abraham had to be at least thirteen, I was sure I weighed more than him, much more. Perhaps if he could stand, he’d be taller than me. But, then, Abraham had never stood. He never would. Abraham would never stand with the men in the holy services reciting prayers, though I knew he had memorized many of them. I had heard him mumbling holy words to himself as he sat before the fire on a winter’s day. I had even heard him cry out passages from the scriptures in dreams sometimes. This youth who held the Talmud so dear would never
make the traditional pilgrimages to Jerusalem with the other men, would never stand in the court of men in the Temple.

  I considered his frail body now with dismay. “What would you do?”

  “The same thing I do here.”

  I looked around. The late summer sun would grow too fierce for Hannah before long. She would return. If we were to go, we had to go fast. Could I push Abraham in the cart all the way to the valley? And how could the cart move among the tree roots? “I don’t know. It would be hard.”

  “Lonely.” Abraham spoke loudly. “Your feet used to fly around the room, graceful and light. Now you are anchored like a boat at midnight. You must be lonely. I am.” His blue eyes sparkled. My own eyes were so dark, they bordered on black. But Abraham’s eyes were like the Sea of Galilee. They were like the heavens. They compelled me.

  I went to the side of the house and fetched the handcart, wondering whether I could really do it. Hannah did it, and I was already almost as large as she. Still, I was only ten. I leaned over Abraham, hooked my arms under his armpits, and pulled him into the cart. He was even lighter than I’d thought. Hannah often lamented the fact that he barely ate, but now I was grateful for it.

  His right hand managed to grasp the side of the cart. He struggled to get comfortable. I knew the position he preferred. I tucked his legs under him and rested him against the two logs Hannah kept in the cart for that purpose.

  Abraham smiled. “Hurry.”

  A sudden thought stopped me. “Hannah will worry.”

  “Wonder.”

  I shook my head. “What are you saying?”

  “Hannah will wonder, not worry. There is nothing to worry about for me. What more harm could come to me?”

  I stared at Abraham. It was true that no one would harm him. Those who had palsy were ignored, not tormented. “You could have an accident. You could die.”

  “Is not death welcome?”

  When Mother was dying, when she knew there was no chance left, she called me to her bed mat. She told me that the true calamity is not that we die, but that we must travel through life. I saved her words. No one before or since ever said such words to me. As I grew older, I came to see she had told me that to comfort me, so that I wouldn’t fear for her as she passed from life. My mother died days after giving birth to Father’s only son, who died as well. I remembered her voice, low and rich, full of whispers. I remembered her thick hair and long fingers. I slept under the gaze of her night eyes.

  I respected Mother’s last words. But now I reexamined them from my new position in life. I had been cast out from the holy, cut off from Israel and Israel’s rewards. What did death promise me, the host of a demon?

  Yet Abraham might be a sinner, too, and here he was, still believing that death was welcome. He must know fully the fate of sinners, for Abraham was knowledgeable. His uncle Daniel had taught him well, even though others behaved as though Abraham didn’t exist. And Father had taken over Abraham’s education after Daniel left. He taught him geography and history and so many things I’d never know. I looked at Abraham’s intelligent eyes. Maybe Daniel and Father had been compelled by those eyes as much as I was now.

  I folded Abraham’s left arm across his chest and pushed the cart down the street. We turned off quickly at a path that led away from the well. It would be longer this way — much longer. But we couldn’t risk being seen by Hannah or the watchful Judith or anyone else.

  The cart went easily over the low grasses, but as they got higher, the going got more labored. Still, we were already out of sight of anyone going to or coming from the well. I slowed my pounding heart. I stooped and took off my sandals, slipping them into a corner of the cart. I would go before the Creator on feet that knew His earth. I pushed steadily, keeping my mind on the job at hand.

  Abraham made small noises of appreciation, and before long I found myself looking around as though through his eyes, seeing the valley as though for the first time. The undergrowth was still free of roots, for the land didn’t turn instantly to forest. Instead, it seduced with almost a casualness, beginning with the sparse olive groves, ashy gray and blue. These were the main source of our wealth. The fruits were pressed for oil that served in cooking, lighting, medicine, even in anointings in holy services. Next we passed the fruit orchards, plum and pear, branches bowed with almost-ripe fruit.

  Abraham’s moans grew louder. I knew he was marveling at the beauty, for our valley was indeed beautiful. Not all the world was beautiful. The year I turned seven, the year Mother died, I convinced Father to take me along on his travels. Had Father always gone alone on business like most of the men in our village, he’d never have even thought of taking me. But, like the Roman men, he brought his wife with him everywhere. It wasn’t that he adopted Roman ways. It was just his own way: He wanted Mother by his side. I knew my presence on that journey would help to fill the void that Mother had left. Even at seven, I knew.

  I traveled with Father southwest to Nazareth and then much further south to Jericho. I saw the red sands and the baked clay. I saw stony soil where only olive trees grew. I even saw date palms outside Jericho, though most of the date palms grew even further south in the great Ghor basin.

  So I had learned that land could be barren or rich; ugly or beautiful. I looked around now with grateful eyes. Pride strengthened my step. In the valley here the trees stood so thick in spots that now, in midsummer, the sun could not penetrate between the leaves, such was the glory of this land.

  It was midmorning by the time I lifted Abraham from the cart and helped him stretch out in the grass, protected from the searing summer sun by the shade of a plane tree.

  I sat beside him. Abraham groaned and thrashed around until he was lying on his side. He looked at me.

  My mind raced. Immediately I wished I hadn’t brought him here. I hadn’t been thinking clearly at all. What would happen if I had a fit while Abraham was here with me? He might tell.

  The burden of secrecy was heavy. I was suddenly exhausted with it. People would find me out sooner or later. And I was already isolated — by my own trips to the valley. What did it matter if Abraham told them?

  Only I shouldn’t have brought him along. What would happen to him if I had a fit and died here? He would starve to death. And starvation was the cruelest of deaths.

  “I’m taking you home.” I stood up.

  “Sit down, Miriam.” Abraham’s voice was stern.

  I sat. Abraham had never ordered me before. But it was his right: He was male and he was older. Yet the strangeness of this sudden turn of events confused me. My heart was loud in my ears. Abraham was the son of our servant.

  He clutched my shift with his right hand, that hand that seemed to do part of his bidding. His hand was long and slender and white. My eyes moved from his hand to his face once more. If he were a girl, he would be beautiful. Only no one would see his beauty because he was twisted.

  “Do whatever it is you do here. Ignore me.”

  I nodded. “All right.” I gently unfastened his fingers from my shift. Then I stood and went to the nearest sycamore. I climbed high and sang. Every time I looked at Abraham, he seemed to be in a new position. He never looked comfortable, though. But he didn’t call to me. He didn’t seem to need me. I sang until my throat was hoarse. Finally, I climbed down.

  Abraham didn’t acknowledge my presence at his side for a long while. This was odd. The Abraham I knew, for all his lacks, was alert and aware. I scratched my arms restlessly. The tension between us mounted. I refused to be the first to speak. Incipient anger pecked at my neck. The boy was contrary.

  “So this is meadow grass.” Abraham plucked a blade with his right hand.

  “You know meadow grass. Hannah and Father have taken you places. And Daniel did, before them.”

  “They never laid me on the ground.”

  So that was it. Abraham was angry with me! I stood up quickly. “I’m sorry. I thought you’d prefer it to the cart.” I bent to lift him.

  �
�I do. Sit, Miriam.”

  I sat on my heels, ready to jump up again.

  “Is that mint over there?”

  I went and picked him some leaves. “And here’s chamomile, as well.” I added a few curls of the spice.

  “And the yellow flowers?”

  I smiled. “Dandelions. But they are nothing compared to what else grows here.”

  Abraham chewed on the mint leaves. “What else?”

  “In the spring this meadow is strewn with red anemones.”

  “Spring is brief in Galilee.”

  “Brevity makes it that much more beautiful. The yellow jasmine winds through the trees behind us in such profusion you think they are the sun itself.”

  Abraham didn’t answer.

  “And that hill,” I pointed, “the narcissus are so thick, you can’t walk there without trampling them.”

  “You know the flowers by name.”

  “The herbs, too,” I said, hearing my mother’s voice come from my own mouth.

  Abraham closed his eyes.

  I waited. Then I cleared my throat. “Do you want to go home?”

  He opened his eyes. “No.” He looked at me and mischief crept into the smile lines around his mouth. “When you were singing before, I never heard anything like that. Do you imagine you’re at a funeral?”

  “A funeral?”

  “The words are hardly appropriate for the dead, though you do wail them with sadness.”

  I tossed my hair over my shoulder. “I sing wherever and whenever I want.” My voice was defiant, though I knew he was right. In Magdala the only place I had heard women sing was at funerals.

  “Where did you learn the words?”

  “I made them up.”

  Abraham laughed.

  My cheeks went hot. “You’re rude, which hardly becomes you. ”

  Now he laughed harder. “You have spirit, Miriam. And you sing well. But there are better songs to sing. Songs that heat the blood.” Abraham rolled onto his back and looked up at the sky. “Do you want me to teach you the words?”