Bright Dark Madonna. Elizabeth Cunningham

At least I didn’t think he would. There was certainly no one else I could approach about hightailing it with the unborn scion of David back to a heathen whorehouse. Because that’s where I knew I wanted to go. That was my place now, not Glastonbury, not Mona, not even Tir na mBan. Temple Magdalen, where my beloved had finally returned to me—or more precisely was returned to me, more dead than alive, by a good and desperate Samaritan.

      I slipped away from the kitchen to the vineyards where I suspected I might find Lazarus clucking over the vines, trying to protect them from the hot dry wind, for the harvest would begin soon. Mature vines offer shade and, as many lovers have discovered, camouflage. As I searched the vineyard, there was a lull in the wind, and I could hear Lazarus speaking to someone—unusual enough in itself, as he was a man who avoided conversation, if possible. I drew nearer and recognized Mary B, speaking in a low intense tone, accompanied by terse gestures. She must have come from Jerusalem that morning and gone straight to find her brother, for she had not stopped by the house. They were so intent on each other, they did not notice my approach. All right, I’ll admit it, as soon as I could hear their words, I did step behind a fig tree and listen.

      “Do not ask it of me,” said Lazarus in a tone more anguished than angry.

      “It is not I who ask it. It is he.”

      I felt that prickle of alarm that was becoming more and more familiar to me at the sound of that pronoun spoken in a certain tone. Or perhaps I should say invoked.

      “But how do you know, Mary?”

      “How can you not know is more the question. Lazarus, you of all people should know who he is. He called you back from death!”

      If I’d had any doubt (and I didn’t) which “he” she meant I knew now for sure. It was Lazarus who took me by surprise.

      “Actually, he didn’t.”

      Mary was silenced for a moment.

      “Lazarus, what can you mean? We were all there when he called you from the tomb and you came forth.”

      “I wasn’t dead,” he said in a low voice, as if it were a shameful secret.

      “You were. I was there. Martha and I anointed you and swaddled you for the grave with our own hands.”

      “Do you remember what Mary of Magdala did then?”

      I couldn’t see Mary B’s face but I could feel her frowning.

      “I was beside myself with grief; I wasn’t paying attention to her. I don’t think she was with us when we, well, prepared your body,” Mary paused, perhaps suddenly struck by the strangeness of reminiscing about a burial with someone who had been the corpse. “No, she wasn’t with us. Martha told her to go away. She was angry with her. I can’t remember exactly why, but then Martha has never liked her.”

      “I can remember.”

      “You—”

      “I keep telling you, I wasn’t dead. She tried to tell you, too, but you and Martha wouldn’t listen. Finally, I told her not to bother.”

      “You…were talking to her.”

      “She was with me at the river. The whole time.”

      “What river?” said Mary; I could hear her increasing confusion and distress.

      “You know, the river,” Lazarus repeated helplessly. “There’s a shoal in the river where you have to wait, until Moses calls you.”

      “A place between life and death? There is no mention of such a place in the Torah,” Mary’s mind clicked into action. “It sounds pagan, perhaps Egyptian.”

      “Moses was there,” Lazarus reminded her.

      And Isis had been there, too; I had seen her. Mary B wasn’t so far off. All rivers belong to Isis, but Moses had been quite at home. Well, why wouldn’t he. He’d spent his earliest infancy floating on the Nile.

      “And you say Mary of Magdala was there with you? How can that be?”

      Lazarus shrugged and then threw up his hands. “I don’t know, Mary. Maybe it is a mistake to talk about these things. But I will tell you one thing more. I didn’t want to come back. I came back for him, because he wept, because he was my friend, and he needed me. And now he’s gone.”

      And Lazarus began to weep, and Mary reached for him, and tried to comfort him.

      “But he’s not,” she said. “He’s still with us, whenever two or more are gathered together in his name. That’s what he said that last night. Remember? We have to love each other now as he loved us.”

      I was weeping now, too. I did love Mary and Lazarus. I wanted to go and join their embrace. I took a step towards them when Mary spoke again.

      “Don’t you see, Lazarus? We need you to be part of our community, our communion, our ecclesia. You and Martha, and Mary of Magdala, too. She shouldn’t be hiding out here. None of you should. How can you keep yourselves separate, apart from his ecclesia when you were so close to him in life?”

      I tensed, waiting for Lazarus’ answer, hoping it would give me a clue to my own answer, for it seemed the question was also directed to me. I wouldn’t be able to dodge it much longer.

      “Forgive me, Mary, my mind is not as quick as yours. I still don’t understand why you want me to sell the land. Or why he wants me to, if you say he does.”

      Sell the land! I was shocked. Lazarus lived for the land, and Jesus had always loved this place and found such comfort with Lazarus talking about crops and weather.

      “In the Jerusalem community, we own all things in common, don’t you see? No one is rich; no one is poor. We are not bound by blood ties or by obligations of rank or function. We are one in the Spirit. Everyone equal. Men and women, master and slave. For we are all servants, and we are all priests. We are all one in his name.”

      I could not see her face, but her voice was shining. The curse of being born a woman, a source of great bitterness to her, had been lifted from her by the grace of the Spirit. She was free to be who she was born to be. Her exultation was equaled only by her determination that nothing and no one should stand in the way of the new order.

      “You want me to sell the land?” Lazarus repeated, still struggling to take it in. “And give the money to, to…”

      “The community,” Mary prompted. “It’s not what I want that matters, it’s what he wants, what he’s asking of us all.”

      It was back to that. Suddenly I’d had it.

      “Mary!” I stepped out from behind a fig tree.

      “Mary,” she whirled around. “What are you doing here?”

      “Eavesdropping, obviously.”

      “It saves me having to fill you in, then.” Mary B was practical. “You need to know what’s going on and stop sitting around like a fat, mindless sow.”

      “I love you, too, Mary.”

      “All I’m saying is you need to come to Jerusalem. You need to be part of the community. It was never my idea to whisk you off here, even though you did make a fool of yourself in the porticoes.”

      “Whose idea was it then?”

      “Guess.”

      “Peter’s? Well, no doubt he spake unto Peter and said unto him: get the wife of my bosom the hell out of here before she ruins everything.”

      Mary eyed me warily; she knew I was up to something, but she didn’t know what yet. She liked a good argument, but I didn’t always follow the rules of rabbinical debate. In fact, I hardly ever did.

      “Why are you mimicking James?” she asked.

      At that point, Lazarus, seeing his sister distracted, began to back quietly away, but Mary B reached out and grabbed