Though it is brightest day, inside this house there is little light, no more than that given by a small lamp at the far end of the one room. Inside, there is no air, yet there is a stink to make me gag. Yeshu seems not to notice, nor does Jude. As for Ismael, slipping off his sandals, he walks forward until he comes to stand by a mat near the back wall. Barefoot, Yeshu comes to stand beside him. I go in as far as I dare, allowing room to rush out again if I should heave.
And here is the howling man’s son, his dead face as perfect in the lamplight as an almond blossom, his body as perfect as an almond. No more than four, he will reach no higher age. Ismael howls again and rends his clothes. Comes now a whimper from the corner, and I turn my eye to see what must be the wife of Ismael and the children of Ismael. Her arms held tight at her sides, her fists balled, the mother weeps quiet tears of quiet sorrow. Her young, three little ones but each older than the dead boy and, most tellingly, all girls, huddle behind her skirts. This is a dark dead place, and it reeks of excrement and sick. I would be out sooner than I would leave a tomb.
But Yeshu drops to his knees and leans his head over the child’s chest, his red hair falling on the dead face. We watch this, even the indignant Gadia, in perfect silence. Yeshu touches the child’s cheek. At this, I hiss in shock and surprise—Father would never touch the dead. But Yeshu is touching the poor cold cheek, the still temple, then the dead boy’s neck up under one ear. Here, he holds still, keeping his first two fingers pressed against the tender blue skin. Now he leans his ear against the child’s chest. We watch as Yeshu raises his head, looks down into the unbreathing face, as he himself breathes out and in, in and out. And then, worse than his gentle touching, his odd probing, he begins to rub the child’s unmoving chest.
I am barely breathing myself, have almost forgotten to breathe. I have seen dead things; the dead are everywhere among us. I have seen dead children, younger than this sweet boy, even babies lately at their mother’s breast, but I have never seen a dead body touched, never. This is for those who do such things, lowly people Father and his friends scarcely know exist. It is unclean; it is forbidden by Noachite Law. Yea, Balaam! Father and his friends would be expected to go to the Temple. They would be required to ritually cleanse themselves with lustral water.
Yeshu takes the body in his arms, he raises it from the mat, and then he raises himself from the dirt of the floor. Carrying Ismael’s dead son, Yeshu walks out into the sunlight, and—perfectly transfixed—so do we all. Yeshu does not stop until he comes to the trough Eio has drunk from, the trough Eio still stands by, switching her tasseled tail against the tormenting flies. Leaning down, he places the boy on the ground by the trough, and then he takes the end of his mantle and plunges it into the water. With this, he begins cleaning the body, beginning with the face. By now we—the mother, the father, Jude and Gadia, the little girls, and John the Less—all stand in a disbelieving circle around them, each of us peering down at this amazing thing. Yeshu pays us no mind but goes on wiping the sick from the body, rubbing its hands, its legs. And then there comes something I think I might swallow my tongue to see. The tender eyelids flicker; lids blue with death move.
All back away in fear. Except Jude, who moves not at all.
The eyelids flicker again, a corner of the small mouth moves. Yeshu is once more dipping his mantle in the trough, and I see he means to daub more cold water on the child’s brow, but before he can do so, the wife of Ismael throws herself between him and her son. “Ahhheeeiii,” she screams. “Matti! Matti!” I am sure she would push Yeshu away if he had not already quietly removed himself.
He stands beside me, the end of his mantle dripping, and I look at his face as he looks down at the child and its mother. To me, his face grows more beautiful by the day.
Ismael has slipped to his knees and holds the mother who holds the child. The child, Matti, who has opened his eyes, looks about him in immense surprise, and who should not be surprised, finding himself alive when he was dead?
Gadia, he who no doubt tried curing the boy in some way or another, has been standing over all three, his face a picture of ill temper mixed with superstitious awe, when suddenly he twists his head to look directly at Yeshu, more white in his eye than iris. “Who are you to have brought back the dead?”
Yeshu’s voice is as low as Gadia’s is high. “The boy was not dead.”
“He was dead!” Ismael, it seems, is not done with howling. “Matti was dead! But now, he is alive!”
And the whole family sets to sobbing and wailing and exclaiming that the man come among them is a magician! That he is surely a famous healer! That he must be a great this! And without doubt a wondrous that! While the man Gadia has decided to call out to Adonai in a tremendous voice, yelling would he please take notice of what miraculous thing has happened here! And then it occurs to all of them at once to demand to know Yeshu’s name. This terrible clamor calls others out of their houses, and in moments I see we will be swallowed up by all who live in this village.
Jude looks at Yeshu and Yeshu at Jude: they mean to be away as fast as they can. With a cluck of my tongue for Eio, we are off up the road before another moment passes.
Later, the town safely behind us, I say, “Yeshu, you are sure the boy still lived?”
He smiles the smile I so love. “Would you have the dead called back from the Kingdom?”
I do not know how to answer this.
Two days later, we are in Shechem. The most wondrous thing about Shechem is that it is the city of my beloved Addai’s birth. Because of this, I look about me with much interest.
Shechem sits high on the back of a mountain. But unlike Jerusalem, there stands nearby a taller mountain, Mount Gerizim, and it is this mountain the Samaritans call sacred. Walking through the main gate in the city wall, I stare up at this farther mountain trying to mark the ruins I know must be there. If Father has shouted once about the abomination on this high place, he has shouted a dozen times, for there was once a temple on Mount Gerizim. To the people of Samaria—loathed men, women, and children by Father and his friends for not loving Father’s Sanhedrin, which means they refuse to recognize its authority, and for not believing as the Jews believe that God expresses himself through history but believing instead God expresses himself through the person—this Temple was the most important in all the world; for the Samaritan it was the true Temple, which must explain why the Jews in the form of the Maccabees took it in mind to destroy it. Yet Addai says his fellow Samaritans still go to their mountain as the Jews to their Temple.
Standing now in Shechem’s main market square, I see there is not much to tell a Samaritan city from one that is Jewish. The houses are jumbled one against the other. The streets are narrow. There are no parks or public buildings or museums or ways wide enough for a chariot. There are no chariots. There is sound, a constant hubbub rising up from whatever it is people are doing in a given moment. There are Greeks here, as there are Greeks everywhere. The Greek tongue is spoken around me, as I hear it spoken everywhere. Here, as everywhere, there are Roman soldiers, and catching sight of my first example, a splendid fellow with long strong legs, and on each leg a kneecap the size of Tata’s best pottery bowl, I try not to flinch, but I do shrink back behind Jude. As for the brothers, two noticeable “once Sicarii,” the sight of a Roman soldier seems not to stir a single red hair on their heads. In turn, the soldier pays them no mind, merely strides along on his wonderful legs with their wonderful knees and right out the gate we have just come in, shoving all out of his splendid way. No doubt to a Roman, all Jews look alike.
There are groups of travelers just like us. There are caravans great and small coming, and there are caravans great and small going. There are dense flocks of goats and of sheep, stirring up clouds of grit and dust, each flock raucous with stink. Pushing through the usual melee, there are a few wealthy townspeople such as I once was. Pushing against the rich are the sellers of everything under the sun. And, of course, there are thieves. But what is tru
ly here, as they are truly everywhere, are the poor, whose numbers are as the ants in the dirt. These are as disregarded by soldiers, as by merchants, as by thieves. For once, I do not disregard them. Remembering how I first thought of Addai, poorly robed and without sandals, I stand regarding them intensely until I am pulled away by Jude. Looking back, I say, “The poor have at least the neglect of thieves.”
To which Yeshu says, “If all had, would any steal?”
I take this in as I can, as a farmer stores grain, against the day I might understand it. Of all those whose voice has rung on my interested ear, Yeshu’s is by far the most surprising, and a surprise is the most interesting thing of all. For where Seth and Philo asked questions of philosophy that I still struggle to answer, Yeshu now asks questions of moral right and wrong I also have no answers for. Perhaps because I am the daughter of Josephus, or perhaps because I am a Jew, or perhaps because I am simply human, I have taken such things for granted—but now? The most surprising thing of all turns out to be how hard it is to look at old things as if I have not seen them before.
Poor or rich, old or young, a speaker of Greek or a misser of an eye or a limb, a man or a woman or a child, even a thief, the people of Shechem go about in the same clothes, they wear their hair and their beards the same, there is the same smell to them; in short, there is nothing but a thought between themselves and the Jews, and an old thought at that. Yet Jude walks among them as if they might, at any moment, sprout horns from their foreheads. And he does this merely because they are Samaritans. But Yeshu goes among them as he would among flowers in a field, with a tender look for each. Some smile back, some do not. Some shy away from the pleasure he takes in them. It makes no difference. Yeshu seems content that we do what we do. Leading Eio, I am content to be doing anything, and not back in the settlement alone and without Salome. Though I admit that with all that we see and all we do, my grief lessens.
It is gone the sixth hour. Above us, the sky is as gray as ash and seems closer by the hour, for this is the season of the rain. All morning it has filled itself with water, and any moment now it will let its water go—how it rumbles from end to end with discontent.
So soon as we see Shechem’s well, Yeshu stops as we are become accustomed to stopping, puts back his head cloth so that his hair and his beard and his alikeness to Jude is easily seen, and when enough are gathered round us, more than a dozen this day, curious to hear him, as all are curious to hear a storyteller, he tells them one of his newest about a rich man and his two sons. One son was dutiful, but the other was a wastrel who willfully left his father’s care. Yet when the wastrel came home again, hoping for welcome, the father lavished as much wealth and as much love on the wastrel as on the dutiful. Jude and I have heard this now several times, and I marvel how each time Yeshu tells it, I find more in it to hear. Or, perhaps, Yeshu puts more in its telling. He does not tell the people who the rich man is, or who his faithful son might be, nor does he tell them the true name of the prodigal son. He hopes they will see what is meant for themselves. I see that the people hear what they will. Do they know the rich man is gnosis, which is the Kingdom of God? That the faithful son is he who is always with the Father in the Kingdom, and all that the Kingdom has is his? But the prodigal son is the man who has turned away his face; he who is “Dead” and does not “know” the Kingdom. By prodigal son Yeshu means every man and every woman we meet. By prodigal son, Yeshu means also himself as he was, before he awoke and turned his face once more to the Father and by so doing, came again to the Kingdom. Yeshu means, like the prodigal son, he was Dead and now he Lives, that he was lost but now he is found. He means that they too are prodigal sons, lost not in sin or unrighteousness as the Poor and the prophets would have it but in ignorance of who they are and where they are. By his story, Yeshu means that we can all go home where the Father awaits us.
I do not think they hear this. But how could they hear, when they do not know the Kingdom of God? Nor do they know what is meant by such a thing as “home.” Still, whether they hear or they do not hear, oftentimes there are those who linger for more. People gather and, having gathered, would engage this man who tells them stories, he who travels with a twin of himself, and with a female donkey who carries nothing. There is almost as much wonder that a beast does nothing but nibble at whatever she can reach, and bray when she feels called to, and roll in the dust whenever it suits her, as over my magic. Though, as the days have gone by, I become less and less a market magician and more and more a silent youth listening intently to every word anyone says, for as Yeshu talks more, I need do less.
This day in Shechem, of those at the well, one woman stands alone. There is something about her of Tata. Like Tata, there seems an understanding that leads to pity. There is also something about her of Theano, the Pythagorean Therapeutae. She is prideful, but it is not overweening. There seems also a certain scorn for those around her. The others shun her, turn away their faces so that she might not catch their eye, yet she is as a queen among them. Watching, I am somewhat ashamed I hide my sex, that I am not such a woman, that I must act as a man to be a woman such as this.
When Yeshu’s story ends, some leave, some do not, but the woman has come only for water. As others stay to question Yeshu and as an older man touches him for attention, she dips her cup in the basin. It is to this woman that Yeshu chooses to speak, softly saying, “Give me to drink.”
There is a moment of shock all around. The people are scandalized that this man, a Galilean by his accent, would speak to this woman. The woman is startled anyone speaks to her at all. Yet she is quick to recover. She looks at Yeshu, at Jude, at myself. She does not look at a single one of her fellow townspeople. She says, “How is it you ask drink of me, a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.”
Yeshu smiles at her, and it is so loving I hurt for it being hers. “If you knew God’s gift, and who it is that says to you, ‘Give me to drink,’ you would have asked for, and I would have given you, living water.”
Because there is something in her proud eyes as she hears this, because there is a quickening of her breath and a tremor in her lips, I am compelled to reach into her. I find it is as easy as slipping under the skin of Eio, as easy as turning toward myself, as easy as—by the stars! What I find alarms me. She hears Yehoshua of the Nazorean! Her hearing quickens my own breath. Have we not come out from over the Sea of Stink to have people hear? Have I not promised Yeshu this should be my delight as it is his? Why then do I not open my heart to this one—a woman!—who is the first to hear? I know my answer before I have finished asking myself. I am jealous. There. I have said it. I will say it again. I am jealous. Eloi, Eloi! I shall put this away from me.
The woman with the cup looks upon Yeshu, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where shall you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us this well? Are you more than the John who baptizes and who is called the Messiah?”
It seems almost without thought that Yeshu has an answer. He says, “Whoever drinks from this well will surely thirst again. Does it not seem there is no end to hunger and thirst and the desires of the heart, no end to the sorrows of woman and man?”
“Yes,” replies this Samaritan, “and a prudent man would say that what seems to be so, is so.”
Yeshu laughs. “Woman, that is well said! But as I am what I am, I say to you, whoever drinks of the water I can give will never thirst, for I offer living water from the well of everlasting life.”
I shift uneasily, as do the people hearing these words. Yeshu has said nothing like this before. Before, he has only told a story, answered a few questions, has been careful in what he might say and how he might say it. But here in the city of Addai, something about this woman has made him say more.
The woman of Samaria dips her cup in the water and hands the cup to the storyteller. Yeshu takes it from her and from it deeply drinks, and as he does, she says, “Sir, give me this water so that I would
not thirst.” Then, lifting her fine dark eyes to those around who listen with open mouths, and looking at them one after the other, she says, “And so I need not come here again to draw water.”
Yeshu looks at none but the woman. “Go,” he says. “Call your husband, and return here.”
All around I feel the movement of people drawing nearer. They would not leave this well for their very lives. I know why I am interested, but what so interests them? As firmly as she has said all else, the woman answers, “I have no husband.”
Behind me, comes a clucking of tongues, a sly snickering. There begins a faint hissing. But Yeshu smiles a smile of warmest love. “Again, how well you answer. You who have had five husbands.”
Five husbands! This woman has had five husbands? I have never heard a woman have so many, nor any who would wish to. Though I do remember Herodotus writing that in Libya it was once the woman with the most lovers who was honored, but he also wrote that a mare once gave birth to a rabbit, and I have assumed that in some things Herodotus was perhaps a bit credulous. But no wonder the people remain to hear. Salome would laugh with delight to know this woman lived. I struggle mightily with myself not to hate her.
“And the man you live with now is not your husband.”
Comes such a murmuring of the people around us. Tongues that clucked now wag, and by this, and by the look on the woman’s face, I understand that what Yeshu has said is true. And that this is why the woman is shunned. The woman’s eyes have grown round and rounder. “Sir!” she says, “Even as you are a Galilean, yet you are a prophet.”
Yet again, Yeshu laughs. He is delighted with this woman. “Even were I what you say I am, I tell you an hour comes; I say to you that the hour is already here, when no mountain is needed to know the Father. Nor any temple be it Jewish or Samaritan, or yet Nazorean.” Yeshu turns to the others now, all of whom listen closely, though who knows what they hear? “You worship you know not what, and you abase yourself yet you know not why, but I would give you what is in me to give. I would give you what is in you to know. Not only do you seek the Father, but the Father seeks you, and yet you are not apart.”