Prologue
“The devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved...”
Luke 8:12
John had been running for his life for nearly two days. Though he was finally safe, he still could not shut his eyes. He had risen to wash his hands and face countless times, but he kept returning to his straw mattress with the feeling of filth all over him. He expected to see images of blood, torture, or pain—anything dealing with what had happened—but they never came. Instead, the only sensation was grime, the greatest weight from the smallest grit.
After several eternal hours, John finally surrendered to his insomnia and decided to sit in the dark of the common room until the sun came up. He hoped, frailly, that perhaps some peace would come in the hope of a new day. As John waited, his weary back propped against the slowly cracking wall, he expected to cry, but there was too much for his heart to manage. He tried thinking of Joshua—nothing. He tried thinking of the nails—nothing. He tried thinking of blood and water puddling in separate pools on the ground—still nothing.
He kept trying. The curtain tearing, the earthquake, the eclipse, the horrid screaming—nothing. It was still too much for him to process; the heart can handle only so much. He had to find something more removed. So he turned his thoughts to Mary, and at once his heart unleashed the tears his eyes had been withholding all day, filling the cracks in the floor and forming small pools of grief and sorrow.
Joshua had told him to care for Mary—the dying wish of a beloved friend. It was strange, though, since Joshua had other brothers, and they were well off enough. Why Joshua did not ask them confused John, but he could not have denied his beloved friend. John was unable to recall the image of Joshua’s request—it was still too much—but Joshua’s voice echoed in the pulse he felt beating in his fingers. John wept quietly for—an hour? an eternity? he could not tell—until his soul’s well finally ran dry. He stood up from his chair and wiped his chapped eyes. He walked over to Mary’s room, reasoning ultimately that his only comfort would come from bringing about hers.
Cracking open the door, a wave of suffering assailed John, as if all his sin were laid bare before the Lord. No, not before the Lord, where there might have been some measure of mercy; rather, John’s sins were exposed before the dark and empty void he always feared lay just beyond the veil of his consciousness. Hate had brought its full fury upon this room, forging it into what was perhaps more of a tomb than the one Joshua now occupied. John thought he caught glimpses of demons in the shadows out of the corner of his eye, but the dim light of a mostly melted candlestick in the corner showed only a still and quiet, but awake, Mary lying above the blanket on her side. She was turned away from the candle, casting a shadow over her face, but her eyes shimmered faintly in the darkness, pouring out a devastation as hard as iron.
“M—” John stammered. They had not said a word to each other since he brought her home the last evening, and he did not know where to start. How do you give solace to the mother of a publicly executed criminal? “Can—can I get you anything—” he began to ask, but his tongue choked when he tried to use her name.
Mary did not respond; she did not even move. John stood uneasily and watched the woman glare like a statue at a fixed point, her soul slipping slowly into space. There was no sadness in her face; her cheeks were dry and her breathing regular. It seemed as if Mary had heaped the whole of her grief upon the room, and it carried that burden for her. Whether this was the room’s mercy on Mary or Mary’s wrath on an undeserving home, John could not tell. It crossed his mind that he should tread lightly, lest both become fixed on him.
With Mary’s eyes fixed on her own shadow against the wall, John’s heart sank into her anguish, a misery beyond grief, beyond rage, beyond angst. There would be no comfort here. This room had become a temple to pain, the god all men fear most, and John could not overcome such a deity. His gaze remained on Mary for another moment, trapped in her gloom, until he finally dropped his head and turned away.
Mary said nothing as John left. He considered leaving the door cracked so he could hear her if she called, but with even the slightest opening, he still felt the teeth of her agony gnawing at him, trying to rip and pull his soul into that void. John reluctantly closed the door and sat again in the common room, even less able now to consider the full weight of his heart.
It would be dawn soon, and again John wondered if a new day would bring any comfort, but what little hope he had was grappled by the wrath of woe. If the sun saw yesterday what he had seen, it would not dare to shine again. It ought to consider itself failed that, for all its brilliance and heat and power, it could not prevent this calamity. Its shame ought to engulf it, as John’s pain had him, and it should for this disgrace hide itself eternally.
No, there was no comfort in the sun, and even less in God, who so clearly was either powerless or loveless. Either He could not stop Joshua from dying, and so was not the Almighty of whom the prophets spoke, or He did not stop it, and so was not good, for surely allowing Joshua to die—especially like that—could not be justified. It would be the greatest evil—viler than all of Babylon, a greater sin than all of Rome could commit. And if that was the nature of God—either weak and not worth any offering of faith, or malevolent and not worth any offering of love—then John was done with Him. He would no longer worship a god no stronger than man; he would no longer sacrifice any lamb to cleanse his sins before a wicked god.
Though the night inched by with only the gritting of his teeth to mark the time, John’s anger subsided somewhat as the sun came over the hill and shed its pale morning light onto his gloom. With this frail new hope, John again decided that his only comfort would be in caring for his new mother. Breakfast, he thought, was in high order. It was Passover, after all, and they were still Jewish. Even rejecting God in his heart did not take that away. He set the fire and began baking the matzah. The heat of the embers brought a meager amount of warmth to his body, and soon to his spirit as well. It was enough, John thought, to get through the next hour, and perhaps, he dared to hope, the one after that.
Mary’s door opened slowly as the fire’s heat and John’s frail hope blew toward the night-chilled room. He did not have to turn to know Mary was glowering at him, but he looked anyway to see what she meant by it. Once more, Mary’s face showed no emotion—no anger, no sorrow, no grief, not even fatigue—the room was still feeling everything on her behalf. This house had been a lover to her for so long, investing its soul into hers, that it, like Samson the old Jewish legend, would make rubble of temples for her sake. And for this, Mary spurned her house, furiously cleaning every part of it.
The house wept tears of soap and mop water as John looked helplessly at Mary, unable to muster the courage to approach her misery. With every scouring scrub of the floor, the echo of her cleaning grew louder, the room’s sweat thicker, and the sun’s light paler.
John finished baking and plating the matzo, hoping Mary would break her fast. After setting it on the table, he knelt beside her and placed his arm lightly on her shoulder. “Mother—” She jerked her head away and glared at him crossly. John felt a small quake beneath his feet as he said the name, and he thought his eyes might sink into the back of his head from the force of Mary’s stare.
John had always been bullheaded, so he tried again. “Mary,” he said, placing his hand on her sponge, “it’s time to eat.” Mary wrenched away and pushed John off her shoulder; her scowl drilled into his eyes as she resumed her scrubbing. John fell back on his heels as the entire home fixed its sorrowful rage on him, oppressing his will. No matter how much Mary maligned it, the house would love her and act on her behalf. John could feel the ground sink beneath him, opening a chasm that threatened to jettison his soul straight to Hades.
And so John gave up on Mary for the day and his appetite for the moment, deciding to cast the bread out the window for the birds. What would he do now? He could not eat without Mary; he certainly could not sleep, nor leave her. But her weight was too much for him; this house would destroy his soul if it remained like this.
Nothing, then, was the only answer. He simply had to be patient; no one could remain in mourning forever, even for such a tragedy as this. It may take days, weeks, or months, but she would eventually release the house—and him—from her despair. For Joshua, he thought, for Joshua he could endure that. He must endure that.
Almost as soon as John sat down, a knock at the door startled him. John did not have the stomach for sitting shiva, not now—maybe not ever. Mary certainly was not capable of it; she behaved as if mourning could be cured by mopping, scrubbing the wood to its grain. Indignantly, John looked over at the door, and then at Mary, his contempt for the knocker obvious.
Mary stopped cleaning and turned her head to John, motioning toward the door. Surely she didn’t want him to answer it? With another knock, she motioned again, and reluctantly John stood and went to the door. As he opened it, a woman’s eyes met his and stilled his tongue before he protested.
The pale woman was quite wrongly dressed, with richer fabrics than any Jewish woman would ever dare to wear, and more than a few superfluous buttons and ornaments. She was appropriately covered, more so than many respectable women—even her neck was mostly hidden by her collar—but any person wearing such clothes and jewelry would have been thought wholly vain. Yet, seeing the face beneath her oversized hat, there was not the faintest conceit in her demeanor. Her eyes showed mercy, not pride; hope, not hubris.
John had seen those eyes before—they were Joshua’s. They were not, he thought; they could not be. But still, they were. Their color, like Joshua’s, was indiscernible, changing with the light, but the same love poured from them, the same gravity; they filled one’s heart with humility. John stood mesmerized, much as he had three years before when he had first met Joshua by a lakeside not too far away and yet an eternity behind, and the woman slipped by him to set her feathered hat on a small counter in the corner.
Mary stared at the woman in shock, raising slowly to her feet and backing herself nervously into a corner, sponge still in hand. John stared worriedly at Mary, seeing that she was anxious, even afraid, at this woman in her home. He tried to speak up as the woman put her coat down. “Miss, it’s not a good time,” he said, attempting to motion her to the door.
“No!” Mary screeched. Not having spoken in over a day, she had limited control over her voice, but Mary managed still to convey her disapproval. She coughed to clear her throat. “No. She can stay.”
Mary and the guest stared at each other for a moment; the woman’s closed smile never broke. It had a sort of annoying softness to it, John thought, like she might ask him to dinner at the same time she pulled back his fingernail. It was an entirely unsettling grin, not frightening, but far too glad for anyone, especially living near Jerusalem.
John was pulled out of his stupor as the visitor spoke to Mary. “You seem surprised to see me,” she said.
The notion seemed daft to John—Mary was clearly stunned. Besides, John had known Mary and her family for half his life. He was sure he would have heard something about a woman like this. Her hat alone would have warranted a story or two.
Mary’s posture eased slightly, and she moved slowly toward the woman, wrought with disbelief. “Have I aged so much, dear, that you do not recognize me?” the woman asked.
Mary reached out slowly and touched the woman’s face with uncertainty. As her fingers met the visitor’s eerily perfect skin, a rush came over Mary, as if a wave of relief had washed upon her. The house somewhat relinquished its reign over John’s heart, as if grief was still shouting, but from behind some unseen wall. John could finally feel his soul breathe again, like a sudden burst of wind into a cave.
Mary gasped and retracted her hand. The visitor’s smile never wavered, and indeed seemed to grow. “Oh good,” she said. “You do remember.” She looked to John as if she expected something. He stared at her for an anxious moment, not sure what she wanted. She cleared her throat and looked down, indicating the chair next to her.
“Oh.” John faltered and awkwardly pulled out the seat for the lady. Definitely not Jewish—she was completely out of place, and seemed to take for granted some rather irregular customs. But more than that, John thought, she was entirely too jovial. Surely, this house would oppress her heart as it had his; the yoke of grief ought not to spare anyone.
“I’m here to tell you something, Mary,” the woman said as she ceremoniously seated herself and crossed her feet under her chair. Mary walked across the common room slowly. John expected her to protest, but instead she pulled back her chair and sat quietly, slightly hanging her head and placing her hands on the table. Her motions, John thought, seemed almost involuntary.
The peculiar woman waited through the uncomfortable silence before speaking again. “You know, the last time I visited you, you sang for me,” she said distantly, her eyes lost in the ceiling. She brought her gaze downward, through Mary, and onto the table. She fixed on a bit of string and began toying with it. “It was so beautiful. I was hoping,” she continued, lifting her eyes to Mary, “you might do it again for me today.”
Mary kept her head still, but raised her eyes to meet the woman’s. She moved as if to speak, but hesitated before replying, “I don’t think I’ll be singing for you today, Mashab.”
John was still standing behind the woman with his hands on the back of her chair, watching their interaction. His shock had worn off now that it was clear Mary knew the woman, but his curiosity was not at all satisfied. He stood in wonder as he attempted to solve this riddle.
“Well that’s a shame, dear,” Mashab said. “It did cheer me so. Later, perhaps, but the first things must come first, my child. Like I said, I again have something to tell you, but today, I have a story for you.” Her smile grew again, but still showed no teeth. “It’s about our son.”
The great emotions of the past few days had rendered John’s mind somewhat impaired. It had begun to accept the woman’s idiosyncrasy, but her last phrase left his head in a mess. “I’m sorry,” he finally got out. “Our son?”
“Oh no, dear,” Mashab said, indicating John, “not our son.” She nodded to Mary and clarified, “Our son.”
John breathed and almost replied, but stopped short in his bewilderment as Mashab turned back to his adopted mother. Mary decided to resolve his confusion. “John, kindly serve this woman some breakfast.” John yielded his rights to an answer—and for the moment, his sanity—and returned to kindle his baking fire.
Mary choked on her next words: “About our son?” she asked, seeming as if she wished to be anywhere else. Her body retreated into her chair, and with it her eyes to her lap, fidgeting uncomfortably. “What about him?” she asked.
“He has a friend whose story you need to hear,” Mashab said, rubbing the string between her fingers.
“I know all his friends,” Mary replied curtly, and her head sank further into her chest, away from the ageless woman. Her voice softened rudely as she muttered, “Their stories all end the same way as mine.”
Mashab’s smile relaxed somewhat, but did not break. “Even if I concede that, my child—and you will note that I do not—they all arrive at your end differently, and what is merely difficult for you may be truly unbearable to another.” She paused for a reaction, but Mary gave her none. “Some have lost a great deal, more even than you have.”
Mary lurched forward in her chair, slamming her hands on the table and glaring intently at Mashab. She raised her voice, “Who? Who could have possibly lost more than I did?” Her eyes glistened with her first tear. “That was my son!”
“Our son,” Mashab retorted in a harsh but controlled whisper, finally breaking her smile. John glanced over his shoulder at the women sitting there, but at this point he knew better than to interfere with either of them. Feeling in the wrong, Mary gradually relaxed her posture. “Our son,” Mashab corrected her again, “but this person lost more still. His story is wrought with loss, in fact, more than any should have to bear, but such was his lot, for both good and ill.”
“How is that supposed to help me?” Mary sulked, crossing her arms.
“I did not say I was here to help you,” the woman replied. “I said I was here to tell you a story.”
Part I: Sin
How you have fallen from heaven,
Morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nations!
You said in your heart,
“I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne
above the very stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon.
I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.”
But you are brought down to the realm of the dead,
to the depths of the pit.
Isaiah 14:12-15
