LITMIR.BIZ

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someone shouted.

      So ended my first official grace. If you’d like to use it at your table, you’re welcome.

      When it was time to go to bed, after more praying, preaching, and singing, Miriam and I were given sleeping pallets and a place on the floor in the women’s dormitory. I did not know if there was a wing where couples or families slept or if those people went home to their own households. Our roommates appeared to be mostly widows and virgins, though there were a couple of women with young children who were not wearing widow’s weeds, so perhaps they had husbands somewhere. I was too tired to ask questions that first night, and not even the old woman’s (whose name turned out to be Dorothea) long sawing snores could keep me awake.

      We were all up at dawn, with Mary B leading us all in chanting Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu Adonai Echod. (Hear O Israel the Lord thy God, the Lord is One). Her voice was strong and deep and more musical than I remembered. I could hear her happiness or maybe happiness is the wrong word, even beside the point. She was where she was meant to be, doing what she was born to do. Her face had always been thin and on the sallow side, but now, as she faced east and caught the dawn light she looked luminous.

      When we had washed and dressed ourselves, the next order of the day was to gather to go to the Temple to pray—before breakfast, much to my dismay.

      “Mary,” I grabbed hold of her arm and her attention. “I think I’ll just stay here. Help out in the kitchen or something.”

      “We all go together as a group. You’ll be assigned a work position later. Don’t worry. This is more important.”

      “But aren’t I unclean, or something?” I said hopefully.

      “You’re not bleeding,” Mary B stated.

      “But I’m with child. Listen, Mary, I’m not kidding. No food, no prayers.”

      “You are impossible. All right. Go to the kitchens; get something you can eat quickly and quietly. But you have to come to the Temple. I’ve taken a big risk bringing you right into the heart of the community after what happened in the porticoes. So please don’t draw attention to yourself. Just do what everyone else does. You’ll catch on. Hurry. It’s time to go.”

      She was busy, and I decided not to argue with her, as long as she didn’t come between me and the demands of my pregnant body. So I grabbed some fig cakes and munched discreetly as we walked along in the early morning light, singing Hosannas to the son of David, who as far as I could tell was still nowhere in sight.

      Mary B and I had both forgotten something: The sign in three languages, Latin, Greek, and Aramaic, that stated bluntly outside the gates of the Court of Women: No pagan may proceed beyond this point. Anyone who is taken shall be killed, and he alone shall be answerable for his death. Or her death, as it were, which is to say, mine.

      (In case there is any doubt on this point, no, I never converted to my beloved’s religion; I wasn’t even a God Fearer, as gentiles who kept Jewish Law were called. Not that I wasn’t afraid of YHWH sometimes. Who wouldn’t be, considering his reputation? I had even prayed to him on a couple of desperate occasions, but we generally steered clear of each other. I am the daughter of warrior witches and a priestess of Isis. You can’t get more pagan than that. Though I have been known to trespass in sacred precincts forbidden to me, I needed a stronger motivation than worshipping an invisible god who insists—a little too vehemently—that he’s the only game in town.)

      I quietly dropped behind the others. With the several Jerusalem households walking en masse, our group was so large I did not think I would be missed at prayers. So I began to wander around the Court of the Gentiles where all the teaching and commerce took place. Despite the riot my beloved had started almost a year ago now, business was as brisk as ever. Why weren’t the apostles and co. out here upsetting tables, if they wanted to continue his work? A stupid, bitter question, I knew. Because actions like that had eventually gotten him crucified, that’s why. Now here I was a year later, and peasants were still being ripped off, forced to buy sacrificial animals from the Temple at inflated prices instead of offering their own.

      I found myself wandering up and down the aisles of the dove vendors—the sacrifice of the poor. Miriam herself had come from Galilee to offer two doves in thanks for Jesus’s birth when her time of uncleanness had passed. Anna had once said to Jesus, “Don’t scorn the doves, Yeshua, they have given their blood for you and for many.” On the day of the riot, Anna had materialized mysteriously and urged me to open the cages and set the birds free. But if I tried anything today, I would only cause trouble, draw attention to myself (my besetting sin) and I had promised Mary B I wouldn’t. So I just stopped and stood before the cages, trying to make that low whirring sound in a useless gesture of solidarity.

      “We can buy some.” I turned and there was Miriam standing beside me.

      “Are the prayers over already?” I asked, surprised.

      “I didn’t go in; I followed you. It doesn’t matter which side of a wall I’m on, the angels know where to find me.”

      That was true enough. I didn’t see them or hear them, but there was a certain quality to the air when they were around her, breezes that lifted the hem of her garment and the tendrils of her hair when everything else was still.

      “Let’s buy some doves,” Miriam prompted. “In Anna’s memory.”

      “I don’t think Anna would like us to sacrifice them,” I objected.

      “Did I say anything about burnt offerings? No, we’ll free them, of course. That’s what Anna used to do. She was quite mad, you know.”

      Miriam’s matter-of-fact pronouncement on Anna’s sanity struck me as hugely funny, but I managed not to laugh out loud.

      “I’d love to free some doves,” I said. “But I have no coins.”

      The realization hit me. Not only did I have no money to buy a dove, I had no means at all. I was completely dependent on the community.

      “Here.” Miriam reached into her pocket and displayed a palm full of shekels.

      “Where did you get that money?” I was curious and a little alarmed.

      “I found it,” Ma said vaguely, shrugging as if it were not important.

      “Found it? What do you mean?”

      “I couldn’t sleep last night, so I went to the kitchen to find something to eat. I was opening jars, looking to see what there was, and I found money.”

      “And you took it?”

      You are probably more shocked than I was. For me, she was just my crazy mother-in-law, which was bad enough, but not the Ever Blessed Virgin Mary, the only other mortal besides her son born without the taint of original sin. Well, Queen of Heaven or not, she had just told me she’d had her hand in the cookie jar.

      “Why not?” she said. “If I had found figs or almonds I would have taken them.”

      Ma was serene in her logic, but I was nonplused. I came from a country of cattle raiders, who regarded stealing each other’s herds as sport, but she was one of the children of Moses. As I recalled, there was a commandment that expressly said: Thou shalt not steal. What was she thinking?

      “How much did you take?”

      “Just what would fit in my palm,” she said righteously. “I’m not greedy, Mary of Magdala. Now are we going to buy some doves or not?”

      I threw up my hands, by which I meant, I am not going to make this decision; in no way do I want to be implicated in stealing ecclesia funds. Miriam interpreted the gesture to suit herself.

      “Vendor,” she said. “I want as many doves as I can buy with these.”

      When the others emerged from their prayers, they found Ma and me with our four newly purchased doves, a pair each in small wicker cages, headed for the gardens where Anna used to sit.

      “See!”

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