“Who is it up to?”
“Well, it’s up to the Lord, my father.”
“Well then go ask him.” She leaned on her staff and tapped a foot. “I’ll wait.”
“But…”
“You would deny a dying woman her last request?”
“You’re not dying.”
“You’re killing me here. Go check. Go.”
Joshua looked at us all sheepishly. We all looked away, cowards that we were. It’s not as if any of us had ever learned to deal with a Jewish mother either.
“I’ll go up on that mountain and check,” Joshua said, pointing to the highest peak in the area.
“Well go, then. You want I should be late for the Passover?”
“Right. Okay, then, I’ll go check, right now.” Josh backed away slowly, sort of sidled toward the mountain. Mount Tabor, I think it was.
Mrs. Zebedee went after her sons like she was shooing chickens out of the garden. “What are you, pillars of salt? Go with him.”
Peter laughed and she whirled around with her staff ready to brain him. Peter pretended to cough. “I’d better go along, uh, just in case they need a witness.” He scurried after Joshua and the other two.
The old woman glared at me. “What are you looking at? You think the pain of childbirth ends when they move away? What do you know? Does a broken heart know from a different neighborhood?”
They were gone all night, a very long night in which we all got to hear about John and James’ father, Zebedee, who evidently had possessed the courage of Daniel, the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Samson, the devotion of Abraham, the good looks of David, and the tackle of Goliath, God rest his soul. (Funny, James had always described his father as a wormy little guy with a lisp.) When the four came back over the hill we all leapt to our feet and ran to greet them—I would have carried them back on my shoulders if it would have shut the old woman up.
“Well?” she said.
“It was amazing,” Peter said to us all, ignoring the old woman. “We saw three thrones. Moses was on one, Elijah was on another, and the third was ready for Joshua. And a huge voice came out of the sky, saying, ‘This is my son, with whom I am well pleased.’”
“Oh yeah, he said that before,” I said.
“I heard it this time,” Joshua said, smiling.
“Just the three chairs then?” said Mrs. Zebedee. She looked at her two sons, who were cowering behind Joshua. “No place for you two, of course.” She started to stagger away from them, a hand clutched to her heart. “I suppose one can be happy for the mothers of Moses and Elijah and this Nazareth boy, then. They don’t have to know what it is to have a spike in the heart.”
Down the riverbank she limped, off toward Jerusalem.
Joshua squeezed the brothers’ shoulders. “I’ll fix it.” He ran after Mrs. Zebedee.
Maggie elbowed me and when I looked around at her there were tears in her eyes. “He’s not wrong,” she said.
“That’s it,” I said. “Well, ask his mother to talk him out of it. No one can resist her—I mean, I can’t. I mean, she’s not you, but…Look! Is that a seagull?”
Part VI
Passion
Nobody’s perfect…. Well, there was this one guy, but we killed him.
ANONYMOUS
Sunday
Joshua’s mother and his brother James found us outside of the Golden Gate of Jerusalem, where we were waiting for Bartholomew and John, who were looking for Nathaniel and Philip to return with James and Andrew, who were off trying to find Judas and Thomas, who had been sent into the city to look for Peter and Maggie, who were looking for Thaddeus and Simon, who had been sent to look for a donkey.
“You’d think they’d have found one by now,” Mary said.
According to prophecy, Joshua was supposed to enter the city on the colt of a donkey. Of course, no one was going to find one. That was the plan. Even Joshua’s brother James had agreed to be part of the conspiracy. He’d gone ahead to wait inside the gate, just in case one of the disciples had missed the point and actually came back with a donkey.
About a thousand of Joshua’s followers from Galilee had gathered on the road to the Golden Gate. They had lined the road with palm fronds for Joshua’s entrance to the city, and they were cheering and singing hosannas all afternoon in anticipation of his triumphant entrance, but as the afternoon wore into evening, and no colt showed, the crowd gradually dispersed as everybody got hungry and went into the city to find something to eat. Only Joshua, his mother, and I were still waiting.
“I was hoping you might talk some sense into him,” I said to Mary.
“I’ve seen this coming for a long time,” Mary said. She wore her usual blue dress and shawl, and the usual light in her face seemed faded, not by age, but by grief. “Why do you think I sent for him two years ago?”
It was true, she had sent Joshua’s younger brothers Judah and Jose to the synagogue at Capernaum to bring him home, claiming he was mad, but Joshua hadn’t even gone outside to meet them.
“I wish you two wouldn’t talk about me like I’m not here,” Joshua said.
“We’re trying to get used to it,” I said. “If you don’t like it, then give up this stupid plan to sacrifice yourself.”
“What do you think we’ve been preparing for all of these years, Biff?”
“If I’d known it was this I wouldn’t have helped. You’d still be stuck in a wine amphora in India.”
He squinted to see through the gate. “Where is everyone? How hard can it be to find one simple ass?”
I looked at Joshua’s mother, and although there was pain in her eyes she smiled. “Don’t look at me,” she said. “No one on my side of the family would ever sacrifice a straight line like that.”
It was too easy, so I let it go. “They’re all at Simon’s house in Bethany, Josh. They aren’t coming back tonight.”
Joshua didn’t say a word. He just climbed to his feet and walked off toward Bethany.
“There is nothing you can do to stop this from happening!” Joshua screamed at the apostles, who were gathered in the front room of Simon’s house. Martha ran from the room crying when Joshua glared at her. Simon looked at the floor, as did the rest of us. “The priest and the scribes will take me, and put me on trial. They will spit on me and scourge me and then they will kill me. I will rise from the dead on the third day and walk among you again, but you cannot stop what must happen. If you love me, you will accept what I’m telling you.”
Maggie got up and ran out of the house, snatching the communal purse from Judas as she went. The Zealot started to rise to go after her but I pushed him back down on his cushion. “Let her go.”
We all sat there in silence, trying to think of something to do, something to say. I don’t know what everyone else was thinking, but I was still trying to formulate some way for Joshua to make his point without giving his life. Martha returned to the room with wine and cups and served each of us in turn, not looking at Joshua when she filled his cup. Joshua’s mother followed her back out of the room, I presumed to help her prepare supper.
In time, Maggie came back, sliding through the door and going directly to Joshua, where she sat down at his feet. She took the communal purse out of her cloak and from it she pulled a small alabaster box, the sort that was used to store the precious ointments that women used to anoint the bodies of the dead at burial. She tossed the empty purse to Judas. Without a word, she broke the seal on the box and poured the ointment on Joshua’s feet, then untied her long hair and began to wipe the oil from his feet with it. The rich aroma of spices and perfume filled the room.
In an instant Judas was on his feet and across the room. He snatched the box of ointment off the floor. “The money from this could have fed hundreds of the poor.”
Joshua looked up at the Zealot and there were tears in his eyes. “You’ll always have the poor, Judas, but I’m only here for a short while longer. Let her be.”