Selections from The Secret Magdalene

FROM THE ELEVENTH SCROLL

When Yeshu’s story ends, some leave, some do not, but the woman has come only for water. As others stay to question Yeshu and as an older man touches him for attention, she dips her cup in the basin. It is to this woman that Yeshu chooses to speak, softly saying, “Give me to drink.”

There is a moment of shock all around. The people are scandalized that this man, a Galilean by his accent, would speak to this woman. The woman is startled anyone speaks to her at all. Yet she is quick to recover. She looks at Yeshu, at Jude, at myself. She does not look at a single one of her fellow townspeople. She says, “How is it you ask drink of me, a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.”

Yeshu smiles at her, and it is so loving I hurt for it being hers. “If you knew God’s gift, and who it is that says to you, ‘Give me to drink,’ you would have asked for, and I would have given you, living water.”

Because there is something in her proud eyes as she hears this, because there is a quickening of her breath and a tremor in her lips, I am compelled to reach into her. I find it is as easy as slipping under the skin of Eio, as easy as turning towards myself, as easy as—by the stars! What I find alarms me. She hears Yehoshua of the Nazorean! Her hearing quickens my own breath. Have we not come out from over the Sea of Reek to have people hear? Have I not promised Yeshu this should be my delight as it is his? Why then do I not open my heart to this one—a woman!—who is the first to hear? I know my answer before I have finished asking myself. I am jealous. There. I have said it. I will say it again. I am jealous. Eloi, Eloi! I shall put this away from me.

The woman with the cup looks upon Yeshu, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where shall you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us this well? Are you more than the John who baptizes and who is called the Messiah?”

It seems almost without thought that Yeshu has an answer. He says, “Whoever drinks from this well will surely thirst again. Does it not seem there is no end to hunger and thirst and the desires of the heart, no end to the sorrows of woman and man?”

“Yes,” replies this Samaritan, “and a prudent man would say that what seems to be so, is so.”

Yeshu laughs. “Woman, that is well said! But as I am what I am, I say to you, whoever drinks of the water I can give will never thirst, for I offer living water from the well of everlasting life.”

I shift uneasily, as do the people hearing these words. Yeshu has said nothing like this before. Before, he has only told a story, answered a few questions, has been careful in what he might say and how he might say it. But here in the city of Addai, something about this woman has made him say more.

The woman of Samaria dips her cup in the water and hands the cup to the storyteller. Yeshu takes it from her and from it deeply drinks, and as he does, she says, “Sir, give me this water so that I would not thirst.” Then, lifting her fine dark eyes to those around who listen with open mouths, and looking at them one after the other, she says, “And so I need not come here again to draw water.”

Yeshu looks at none but the woman. “Go,” he says, “Call your husband, and return here.”

All around I feel the movement of people drawing nearer. They would not leave this well for their very lives. I know why I am interested, but what so interests them? As firmly as she has said all else, the woman answers, “I have no husband.”

Behind me, comes a clucking of tongues, a sly snickering. There begins a faint hissing. But Yeshu smiles a smile of warmest love. “Again, how well you answer. You who have had five husbands.”

Five husbands! This woman has had five husbands? I have never heard a woman have so many, nor any who would wish to. Though I do remember Herodotus writing that in Libya it was once the woman with the most lovers who was honored, but he also wrote that a mare once gave birth to a rabbit, and I have assumed that in some things Herodotus was perhaps a bit credulous. But no wonder the people remain to hear. Salome would laugh with delight to know this woman lived. I struggle mightily with myself not to hate her.

“And the man you live with now is not your husband.”

Comes such a murmuring of the people around us. Tongues that clucked now wag, and by this, and by the look on the woman’s face, I understand that what Yeshu has said is true. And that this is why the woman is shunned. The woman’s eyes have grown round and rounder. “Sir!” she says, “Even as you are a Galilean, yet you are a prophet.”

Yet again, Yeshu laughs. He is delighted with this woman. “Even were I what you say I am, I tell you an hour comes; I say to you that the hour is already here, when no mountain is needed to know the Father. Nor any temple be it Jewish or Samaritan, or yet Nazorean.” Yeshu turns to the others now, all of whom listen closely, though who knows what they hear? “You worship you know not what, and you abase yourself yet you know not why, but I would give you what is in me to give. I would give you what is in you to know. Not only do you seek the Father, but the Father seeks you, and yet you are not apart.”

At this, the woman regards Yeshu as she might regard a new husband. She has heard him; I know she has heard him. Now, I think she hears more. “I know the Messiah is coming. Have we all not heard that John the Baptizer is he? I know when this Messiah comes he will tell us all things.”

Yeshu touches her brow as he once touched mine. “I am one who can tell you things of the All.”

I begin to think Yeshu’s way of saying a thing numinous. By the hour, his words move closer to the poetry of Julia of Alexandria. Just to hear Yeshu’s words from Yeshu’s mouth is worth every step I take, no matter where it leads.