Poisoned Honey Read online

  As the two of us came through the village, a boy directed us to a small house on the other side of Nazareth where Yosef’s widow lived with her older stepson. The rest of the family must have been out in the fields, because the house was empty. Yeshua’s mother knelt by a cook fire in the tiny courtyard, grinding spices for a stew.

  When Joanna told her that Yeshua had come to see her, Yeshua’s mother clapped her hands like a child. “I knew he’d come back for me!” She took a cloak and a sack, already packed, from a peg, and I realized that she meant to join us for good. Yeshua’s mother had a fresh, sweet look, I thought; she reminded me a bit of my grandmother.

  Yeshua’s face lit up as we approached the pile of boulders where he and the rest waited. Watching him and his mother embrace, I thought what a great joy it must be to have a son. And at the same time, what a dreadful blow it must be, to lose a son. Such a sorrow had untethered my grandmother’s mind.

  We traveled on, circling back through the hills toward the lake and Capernaum. Yeshua walked beside his mother from time to time. They didn’t talk much, but she touched his arm, and he smiled at her.

  Each village we passed through looked much the same: rough stone houses scattered over a hillside among terraces of grapevines and olive trees. In each, the stray dogs would rush out to bark at us as we neared the village. If the day was almost gone, there would be women at the well with their water jars.

  But the character of each village was distinct, the way families will be different from one another. In one village, the elder would come out to greet Yeshua and offer hospitality. In another, the elder would send a surly nephew to warn us away. In still another, the villagers would slowly gather, neither welcoming nor rejecting but waiting to see what we would do. Almost always there was a desperate mother or father with a sick child. In that case, Yeshua stopped to pray for healing, even if the village men were threatening him with rocks.

  If the people welcomed us, whether immediately or cautiously, Yeshua gave a blessing to each person. Then he had them sit down on a hillside, and he stood in front of them to talk.

  Yeshua began by gazing over the audience, whether it was twenty people or hundreds. He looked at each one of them with such fondness, as if he knew them well and was glad to be with them at last. And I saw the men and women gaze back at him like children with their father.

  Although they hung on every word of Yeshua’s, I don’t think anyone understood half the things he said. It wasn’t that he spoke in Hebrew quotations, as scholars in the synagogue often did. His words were plain—but mysterious: “The kingdom of heaven is in the midst of you.”

  Listening to Yeshua reminded me of when I was a child and tried looking at things upside down. His sayings turned my mind upside down: “Blessed are the poor.” “The last shall be first.” But then, when I thought about it, Yeshua’s behavior was as surprising as his words. He was courteous to the village elder, but he was just as courteous to the village idiot.

  Even more startling to the villagers, I think, was the way the women in our group were treated. When we were on the road, I’d almost get used to it. Yeshua listened to women, he talked to women; he expected us to have opinions and feelings and even valuable insight. Some of his male disciples accepted this more readily than others, but most of them followed his example.

  Then we’d enter another village, and I’d see again the puzzled faces as they watched me and the other female disciples. I could almost hear their thoughts: Who are these women, that they look men straight in the eye? Who allows them to speak freely in front of men? Surely the rabbi will rebuke them for their boldness? And I’d remember how unusual, almost unheard of, it was for men to treat women as Yeshua did. The most unusual thing about it was, Yeshua seemed unaware that he was doing anything out of the ordinary.

  One afternoon, as we walked another hilly stretch of road, Yeshua sought out my company. “Miryam,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about your gift for communing with the unseen world. You will be a bridge for the other disciples. They’ll need you for this.”

  “You are the bridge, Rabbi!” I protested.

  “Not forever,” he sighed. I opened my mouth to ask what he meant, but he went on quickly. “Let me tell you about the visions I had in the desert, before I came back to Galilee.”

  A few years earlier, Yeshua said, he had been unsure about how he should lead his life. He’d gone on a long, solitary fast in the desert, seeking an answer. For many days, he prayed for guidance and waited.

  Out in the wilderness, wandering among barren outcrop-pings of rock, Yeshua had had visions of the power he could seize. “Miryam, I saw that I could be as mighty as Herod Antipas.” His voice turned grim. “I could gather an army tomorrow, march into Tiberias, and push the tyrant off his throne.”

  His words called up my view of the world, years ago, from the top of Mount Arbel. I had seen the earth cut up into sections ruled by unjust governors and kings and emperors, grabbing from each other like selfish children with toys.

  My heart hammered, almost choking me with excitement. “Yes!” I cried out. “You aren’t the new Moses—you are the Anointed One!” Why hadn’t I seen it before? Of course: our beloved Yeshua was the Messiah! Yeshua was shaking his head but I rushed on, “Not only Galilee but the whole world—you can conquer it! You can rule in peace and righteousness!”

  Yeshua looked at me sorrowfully, waiting until I calmed down and closed my mouth. “Yes, Miryam, that’s what our people want. I wanted it, too, when I saw that vision. I burned to rush out, raise my army, and smash the tyrants. But if I did sit on Antipas’s throne, what would that accomplish? What if I even overthrew the Romans and reigned as emperor?”

  His tone of voice was low and soft, but it made shivers of horror run down my spine. I remembered a time I’d tried to forget, when the demons had crowned me Queen Mariamne. I remembered my drunken glee at my own power.

  “In the end,” Yeshua went on, “it would only accomplish a great evil. It would turn me into Herod Antipas, or into Caesar. And Satan would have another worshipper.” He gazed into my eyes. “Do you see, Miryam?”

  Shuddering, I nodded.

  After a pause, Yeshua spoke again. “No, I’m not working for a kingdom that will rise and then fall, like Herod’s or Caesar’s. My kingdom is the kingdom of heaven on earth. For those who dwell in it, it lasts forever. Do you understand?”

  I remembered the moment when I was healed, and how a world of wonders had opened to me. I nodded again.

  “You do see, Miryam! You do understand! Thanks be to the Lord.” Taking me by the shoulders, Yeshua kissed me on one side of my face, then the other.

  “Thanks be to the Lord!” I echoed.

  Yeshua always talked with me in view of the other disciples, and I could tell from their looks that the men wondered why he spent so much time with me. “Rabbi,” I overheard Simon saying that evening, “why do you speak privately with Miryam? What could you have to say to a woman that you couldn’t say in front of me?”

  A plaintive note in his voice made me think of my uncle Reuben, watching my grandmother gaze lovingly at my father. It made me sad. Why was there never enough love to go around?

  “Simon the Rock!” sighed Yeshua. “How well your nickname suits you!” (By this time, the rabbi had given me a nickname, too. Finding out about my family’s smelly business, he began calling me Sardine Mari.)

  As if Yeshua hadn’t just indicated that Simon had said something dense, Andrew went on in the same vein. “It’s bad enough, Rabbi, that people see you traveling with women. They’re saying it doesn’t look right, for a holy man. It gives people the wrong idea about your Way.”

  “So you think women have no place in the kingdom of heaven?” asked Yeshua gently.

  “No, of course, women can contribute money for the mission,” said Andrew. “But they ought to stay at home.”

  “Andrew, Andrew!” Yeshua sighed again. “Where should I begin? Let me tell you two a story….” />
  I waited for a day to let Yeshua’s words to Simon sink in. Then I found a chance to speak with him out of earshot of the others. “I only want to say, I would never try to take your place with the rabbi. I can see how precious you are to him. He depends on you.”

  Simon looked at me half-suspiciously, but he said, “Do you think so?”

  “Everyone knows it,” I said earnestly. “You’re the most solid, dependable one of all the disciples. That’s what he means, even when he teases you and calls you the Rock.”

  I was only speaking the truth to Simon. But there was a larger truth behind it: every one of us was precious to Yeshua. He spent time with each of us, somehow giving each one his full attention. I remarked on this to Joanna, and she nodded. “He’s so eager to find the jewel in each person,” she said, “so sure the jewel is there.”

  “Is that how you felt—when he healed you?” I asked. I knew that Joanna had first come to Yeshua with a wasting illness.

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “The rabbi made me see what my life could be if I understood that the Lord loves me—loves each one of us—so dearly.”

  “It’s a shock to feel so cherished,” I said, thinking of the moment when I stared at Yeshua through the fishing net.

  “And another shock to realize how much he expects of you,” said Joanna wryly.

  Indeed. I thought of what Yeshua had told me, that I would be a bridge to the unseen world for the others. The very idea made me gasp. And yet, I saw that I’d already begun to serve in this way: for Matthew as he waited for a sign to follow Yeshua, and for the young mother who asked about the mustard seed. Maybe I’d even helped Simon to feel more confident of his worth.

  Each one of the disciples seemed to be growing their gifts, as fast as barley sprouts when the rains come. Late one afternoon, as we stopped to camp between villages, Matthew joined me in gathering firewood. He told me that his brother, James, had set about memorizing all of Rabbi Yeshua’s sayings and deeds. He was talking to the other disciples, gathering whatever each one remembered.

  “Your brother can remember as much as twenty others put together?” I was impressed.

  Matthew explained that before James joined Yeshua’s family, he’d studied with a scholarly sect near the Dead Sea. “They taught him how to store many scrolls’ worth of words in his mind. For instance,” Matthew said with a note of pride, “James can recite the Torah from beginning to end. So I told him the deeds I knew about: how Yeshua cast out your demons, and also how Yeshua healed the possessed man on the other side of the lake.”

  “Does James know the rabbi’s saying about the kingdom of heaven being like a mustard seed?” I asked.

  “Yes, I reminded him of that one,” Matthew assured me. “Also ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they—’” He had to stop, overcome with emotion.

  I finished the saying for him: “‘For they shall receive mercy.’”

  After I’d been with Yeshua’s family for a few months, I ran across someone I’d never expected to see again: Ramla. I’d assumed that she’d gone back to Tiberias after the elders of Magdala banished her, but she turned up in Bethsaida-Julias.

  Yeshua generally avoided cities, which were expensive and inhospitable to strangers. But at this time, he was more concerned with avoiding Herod Antipas’s soldiers. Friends had brought word that Antipas wanted to question the wandering preacher who drew such large crowds. So we left Capernaum and headed for the east side of the lake, outside Antipas’s territory. Just over the border, we came to the city of Bethsaida-Julias.

  And there, in a curtained stall in the market, was a woman in shimmering robes and a crescent-moon headdress. She scowled when she caught sight of me, but I went up to her anyway. “Shalom—”

  She cut me off. “Spare me your poisoned honey. You saved your own skin, didn’t you, and let the council drive me out of town? I suppose you wouldn’t have lifted a finger if they’d flogged me, too.”

  I flinched at “poisoned honey.” I knew how it felt, to be betrayed by someone I trusted. “I did you wrong,” I admitted. “I hope you’ll come to forgive me.” I started to explain how I’d become controlled by the demonic spirits I met in my private garden, and how, under possession, I’d done harm to everyone around me.

  But the more I explained, the angrier Ramla looked. “Demons!” She gave a caustic laugh. “What a good excuse! Stars above, now I feel a possession coming on, and it’s forcing me to …” Deliberately she leaned forward and spit in my face. “I hope you’ll come to forgive me,” she added in a mincing tone.

  I wiped my face. “I do hope so, even if you don’t believe me. For your own sake, won’t you at least come into the Jewish market and listen to Rabbi Yeshua?”

  “Yeshua of Nazareth, that one?” Ramla made the sign to ward off the evil eye. “I’ve heard of him. If he had his way, all the magicians of Galilee and Judea would be out of business.”

  “Don’t you remember what you said, that afternoon at Susannah’s house?” I pleaded. “You told us it was a time of new beginnings. You were right! Rabbi Yeshua’s message could be a new beginning for you, too. Please come and listen.”

  Ramla wasn’t paying attention; her eyes were on someone behind me. I turned to see a man with two young boys in tow. “How much for a good fortune for each of my sons?” he asked.

  “Only a silver denarius apiece, sir,” said Ramla, beckoning them into the curtained booth. As I left, I heard Ramla say in her best Egyptian accent, “Of course, I cannot guarantee the outcome of the reading, sir. Ramla only discerns the truth as it is revealed in the stars.”

  What is it that makes one person listen to Rabbi Yeshua and another close her ears? As we left the city, I asked Yeshua that question. “Nothing makes them listen, or not listen,” he said. “They choose.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  MIRYAM FROM MAGDALA

  Now I am living a new life, my life as Miryam from Magdala, disciple and dear friend of Rabbi Yeshua. This life is so different from the life of Mariamne, daughter of Tobias, or wife and widow of Eleazar, or sister of Alexandros, that it’s hard to believe I’m the same person. And yet, I know this is what I was born for.

  I would gladly spend the rest of my life this way, with the rabbi and his odd mix of followers. But I sense that a change is coming. We’re planning a trip to Jerusalem for the Passover next spring, and then … I don’t know.

  Sometimes Simon’s mother-in-law chides Yeshua, “Rabbi, you’re tired; you should rest. You’re so thin … sit and eat!”

  He looks at her fondly and answers, “Time is short.” The simple words fill me with dread.

  And what of the sparrow? I began my story with a sparrow, so I’ll end the same way. Here’s another of Rabbi Yeshua’s upside-down pronouncements: “Your heavenly Father cares about every sparrow that falls to the ground.”

  When I heard Yeshua declare that last sentence, I blurted out, “He does?” I seemed to be a young child again, grieving over the sparrow felled by my brother’s slingshot. Then, I’d been sure that no one but me cared about the small, common bird.

  Now I see, with the eyes of my soul, that every sparrow is a messenger from heaven.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  For centuries, people have imagined Mary of Magdala as a reformed prostitute. We’ve seen her portrayed this way in numerous paintings and sculptures, books and movies. So it’s hard for us to accept the fact that there is no evidence that she was ever a prostitute of any kind. The text of the Gospels (and other texts written close to these dates) gives no such indication.

  Depending on which Gospel you read, they do say that she was a follower of Jesus, one from whom he drove out seven demons. (“Seven” used in this sense means “completely,” “to the nth degree.”) The Gospels also say that she stood by him while he was crucified, that she discovered the empty tomb, and that she was the first to see the resurrected Jesus.

  During the centuries following Jesus’s lifetime, information about the role Mary played i
n his movement was gradually lost. In the sixth century, Pope Gregory I (probably with good intentions) preached sermons identifying Mary Magdalene with the “sinning” woman who washed Jesus’s feet with her tears (Luke 7:37–39) and with the “woman taken in adultery” (John 8:3–11), although there was no reason to think either of these women was Mary Magdalene. The legend of the Magdalene, the repentant whore, was officially launched.

  In medieval times, many legends grew up around Mary Magdalene, including one that she traveled from Galilee to southern France, where she lived for the rest of her life and performed many miracles. Recently the bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code has promoted this legend, as well as a more controversial one, that Mary was Jesus’s wife and the mother of his child. But I haven’t found any convincing evidence that Mary of Magdala ever traveled outside Galilee and Judea, or that she was married to anyone, much less Jesus, at the time she was following him.

  What does seem reasonable to assume about Mary is that:

  she was from Magdala, a town on the shore of the Sea of Galilee (Lake Gennesaret);

  she was tormented by what she believed to be a horde of demons;

  she was healed by Jesus and joined his movement;

  she became one of his closest disciples.

  Working from these points, I began to write my story.

  All my quotations from the Bible follow the Revised Standard Version, 1977, published by Oxford University Press.

  THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2010 by Beatrice Gormley