The Galilean Secret: A Novel (36 page)

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

BY TORCHLIGHT JUDITH COULD SEE THE THREE DYING MEN ON THE CROSSES, BUT LITTLE ELSE. She took her eyes off Dismas for a moment to reach for Gabriel. Panic seized her when she grabbed nothing but air. He was gone. She had lost him in the darkness. She began to grope through the crowd. “Gabriel! Gabriel ben Zebulun! Where are you?”

She moved right and then left, questioning whether she should have told Gabriel about her pregnancy. She couldn’t keep secrets from him anymore. Nor could she let Dismas die without knowing about his child. After Gabriel rescued her from prison, she had thought that he loved her enough to understand and forgive. How wrong she had been.

She wove through the crowd like a woman possessed, her voice nearly as desperate as those moaning from the crosses. “Gabriel ben Zebulun! Has anyone seen Gabriel ben Zebulun?” Finally she got tired of hearing people say no, and walked back toward Dismas.

Near his cross she stumbled on something on the ground. She bent down and recognized what it was. The scroll! She picked it up and held it to her breast. At least she would have the letter from Jesus to comfort her. Someone latched on to her arm. She turned and heard a reassuring voice. “Thank God you are out of prison,” the voice said. In the dim light, she made out the tear-streaked face of Mary Magdalene.

Judith held out the scroll. “This belongs to you.”

“What is it?”

“The letter that Jesus wrote you.”

Mary took the scroll. “How did it get here?”

“Nicodemus gave it to Gabriel. He was here earlier, but I lost him in the darkness. He left the scroll behind.”

Mary Magdalene took Judith’s hand. “I am so thankful to have the letter back. It will become my most treasured possession.” Mary led her near Jesus’ cross, and Judith recognized his mother standing there with two other women and a young, dark-haired man with delicate features. She stared at the suffering men on the crosses and couldn’t stop sobbing. She had known about the Zealots’ plan to cleanse the Temple. Couldn’t she have tried to warn Jesus? If she had succeeded, he could have been spared this suffering. She shifted her gaze to Dismas and pressed a fist against her trembling lips.

Tears dripped onto her hand as she stared. Never again would she hold those arms. Never again would she whisper secrets into those ears or gaze longingly into those eyes or hear that voice pleading for one more chance. Never again would she fight with him and then make up and make love, drowning the hurt in passion’s depths. She longed to climb up and take him down and carry him home, wherever home was, and nurse him back to health. But it was not to be. She had deserted him on the eve of his greatest battle. If only she had convinced him to leave the Zealots with her . . . now it was too late.

She ran a hand through her hair, feeling partly to blame for his agony and praying that it would end soon. Kneeling down, she covered her face with her hands. She had made so many mistakes, failed so many people. But she couldn’t go back, couldn’t undo the mistakes or heal the hurt she had caused. She could only stay and keep her vigil.

Mary Magdalene slipped an arm around her shoulders. Judith pointed at Dismas. “He’s the man I told you about, the one I ran away with. He was arrested during the revolt at the Temple. His brother, Gabriel, rescued me from prison; then he left me too. Oh, Mary, I have no one, and it’s all my fault.”

Mary Magdalene squeezed Judith harder. “We must be strong for these suffering men. Please pray with us.” Mary brought Judith into the group. Judith recognized the women who had been in the house when she was arrested, and also the disciple named John. When Jesus saw the group clustered together and weeping and praying, he fixed his gaze on his mother. “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to John, “Here is your mother.”

Mary Magdalene and the others were embracing Jesus’ mother. His mother’s sobs crushed Judith’s heart as she joined them, yet the older woman’s steady rhythmic breathing, and the firmness with which she held the arms around her, spoke of her deep inner strength. Although Judith’s future appeared as uncertain as the return of the sun, she took courage from the women who included her in their circle of grief and prayer.

Jesus’ concern for his mother reminded Judith of his closeness to women. How she yearned for such tender love from a man. But Gabriel was gone and might never come back. She had humiliated him on their wedding day; she was pregnant with his brother’s child—perhaps he could never forgive. Never believe she had changed.

And why should he believe? He probably feared that she would betray him again. Thinking about the word
betrayal
caused a knot to form in her throat and tears to form in her eyes. Betrayal was a prison worse than Pilate’s. The prison had no walls, but shame kept her locked inside. And the prison was darker and lonelier than any Rome ever built.

Hearing Dismas’ wailing set her body shaking, and she couldn’t stop. He was suffering; so were Gabriel and his parents and hers—on crosses of the heart. Her betrayals had constructed the beams and driven in the nails. Now she could never escape the prison inside her, never be released from the sentence of shame, never come home to innocence.

It seemed unfair that she would have to pay for her sins for the rest of her life. But as she stared into Golgotha’s darkness and smelled the smoky torches, the sweaty bodies, the bloody flesh, she realized that questions of fairness were not allowed here. Crucifixion was not fair. It was evil, and here evil reigned. She, too, had done evil, and no amount of explaining could free her from the consequences of her actions.

She shivered as she thought about raising a child without a man. How would they eat? Where would they live? The questions tormented her until she remembered Mary Magdalene’s words:
You are afraid because you have not learned to trust. . . .

Judith sighed and closed her eyes, momentarily shutting out the horror of the crucifixions.
I don’t want to lose Gabriel. But if he cannot forgive and wholeheartedly commit to a new future with me, I must let him go.

Another cry rose from the cross, its strained guttural sound startling her. This time Jesus lifted up his head and exclaimed, “I am thirsty!” The plea followed soon after his words to his mother, and Judith sensed that he was pleading for more than a drink. He had spent his life thirsting for God and his kingdom, for honest relationships, for justice and peace. His lament cut to her soul, and she became aware of the chalky dryness in her own mouth.

She watched Mary Magdalene turn a cunning eye toward the soldiers and set the scroll on the ground. Mary waved Judith over, pointed to a jar of the soldiers’ sour wine and told her to grab it when the men were distracted in conversation. Judith waited until the soldiers were laughing at a coarse joke, ran and picked up the jar, Mary Magdalene at her side. They went to Jesus’ cross, and Mary dipped a sponge into the sour wine and lifted it to him on a hyssop branch. Jesus sucked the wine briefly, but when the soldiers saw what was happening, they shooed Judith and Mary Magdalene away. As they returned to the group, Jesus cried out, “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?”

The words tore at Judith’s heart. She glanced up at Jesus. An expression of utter abandonment contorted his face. His eyes were clamped shut, his mouth twisted into a grimace, his chin tucked against his chest as if rooted there. Appalled and sickened by the horror, she turned away, expecting to see only darkness, but a canopy of stars covered the heavens. She lifted both fists and shook them and said as Jesus had, “Why, God? Why do the heavens appear so peaceful when there is such anguish on earth?” But her cry, like Jesus’ expression of forsakenness, was greeted by an indifferent silence.

In the face of such horror, it did seem that God had forsaken Jesus. It was all too much. She withdrew from the women. Jesus had lost his hope; hers was gone too. She had managed to remain strong through the battles at Qumran and the conflict with Judas Iscariot and her decision to leave the Zealots, but now she had no strength left. She was estranged from Dismas, from her family, from the Zealots, from Gabriel. She needed to flee Golgotha and never look back. But as she turned to go, she felt a hand on her shoulder and heard Mary Magdalene’s voice. “Judith. . . Judith of Jerusalem, don’t leave. We need you—and you need us.”

Judith stopped. She wanted to keep going but couldn’t. The women’s tortured eyes stared longingly at her. The crowd’s jeering rang in her ears, crueler as Jesus neared death.

“Ha! He is calling Elijah to rescue him!”

“A suffering Messiah? What a joke.”

“Only a fool would challenge Rome. He’s getting what he deserves.” Jesus was heaving now, gasping for breath, convulsing, his voice raspy, distant. His words were indistinct, as if he were trapped in a deep ravine that muffled his cries for help. Her own breathing became labored in sympathetic response to his, her lungs constricting in spasms of coughs and sobs. In the prison Jesus had spoken of forgiveness and said it was possible for her to receive it, even to forgive herself. She felt the crushing weight of her own condemnation and the condemnation of everyone she had betrayed. In that moment she sensed from some hidden place that Jesus understood her suffering, that in a mysterious way he was suffering with her and for her. His love ignited like a flame inside her, spreading warmth through every bone and muscle. She felt that he loved her as no one ever had or could and that the flame would never die. Golgotha’s darkness and stench and brutality no longer mattered. She would stay with him.

In the next moment Jesus straightened, mustered his strength and proclaimed triumphantly, “It is finished.” The crowd fell silent, amazed. It appeared that his energy was completely spent, but he sighed and said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” Judith let out a cry of sorrow and knelt in front of him. He slouched forward and became still.

She reached for the other women. They tightened their embrace around her and one another. The earth began to rumble. Streaks of lightning flashed across the sky. Thunder boomed. Rocks cracked, the ground split in places, people dove for cover. The centurion stared up at Jesus, scarlet robe in hand. When the earthquake ended, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God.”

Judith noticed the other soldiers grimacing at their commander’s words. Their expressions of disbelief increased as the darkness began to lift and the sun broke through. The centurion saw the scroll on the ground and retrieved it. He unfurled the papyrus and scanned the letter.

“What do you have there, Longinus?” a scar-faced soldier asked.

The centurion came to the end of the scroll. “Something better than the robe.” He pointed at Jesus. “It’s a letter from this mysterious man.”

Judith accompanied Mary Magdalene as she approached Longinus in horror and said, “The letter belongs to me. You have no right—”

“Not anymore.” Longinus cut Mary off, stepping toward Dismas with several other soldiers.

In the murky light and fragile quiet, they picked up clubs, preparing to break Dismas’ and Gestas’ legs, and thus speed their deaths. Longinus had the scroll in one hand, a club in the other. Judith charged toward him, but Mary Magdalene caught and held her back.

“Haven’t they suffered enough?” Judith fought to break free.

It was no use. She cringed as Dismas cried out, “Please, have mercy!” Longinus and two other soldiers proceeded to smash Gestas’ and Dismas’ legs, eliciting wails of anguish from both. As Dismas continued to moan, Judith covered her ears and closed her eyes, but the hideous sound cut through her. She shook her head in disbelief that she was really here, that this was really happening. She and Dismas had been together for only a few months, but she felt years older. In the beginning anything had seemed possible—riding into the morning on horseback, defeating the Romans, building a family together. When they ran away, she had believed in true love—believed in it as much as she believed in the moon and sun and stars—but she had lived several lifetimes since then, and the belief had betrayed her as surely as she had betrayed Dismas and Gabriel. Now it was ending in agony and death. If she could go back and start over, she would make different choices. But there was no going back.

She opened her eyes and gazed up at Dismas. Within minutes, his head slumped to his chest and he died, as did Gestas. She tried to push the soldiers away, but they ignored her and went on to Jesus, whom they saw was already dead. The scar-faced soldier stabbed him in the side with a spear, causing a mixture of blood and yellow bile to gush forth. Then Longinus and the other soldiers began to leave with the crowd.

Judith stayed by Mary Magdalene’s side as she ran and caught up with him. “That letter is all I have to remember Jesus by.” Mary held his arm. “Please don’t take it from me.”

Longinus showed no emotion and shook her off. “I lost the robe, but the letter is mine.” He walked away with the other soldiers. Only four of his men remained behind.

The crowd was thinning, and as Judith walked back to the other women with Mary, she asked, “May I stay with you for the Sabbath?”

Mary appeared stricken, her face red from crying. She grasped Judith’s arm. “Of course you may. We are going back to the upper room, where we had our last meal with Jesus. We’ll spend the Sabbath there.”

While Mary was still speaking, two older men approached. Dressed in the long robes of Pharisees, one of them was carrying a shroud and wet cloths, and the other, two large jars. Judith recognized the heavier of the men as Nicodemus ben Gorion. He greeted the women mournfully and introduced his friend, Joseph of Arimathea, an average-size man with a pleasant face and graying black hair.