Iscariot: A Novel of Judas by Lee Tosca

Author:Lee, Tosca [Lee, Tosca]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction / Historical
ISBN: 9781451683769
Publisher: Howard Books
Published: 2013-02-05T08:00:00+00:00

calloused Levi might now be--what did that mean?

168

No. I had seen what I had seen--not only in the sign of the lepers, but in my heart the night by the lake.

That night I penned a message to Zadok:

The blind see and the lame walk. The multitude grows.

I did not mention Levi.

169

19

It was good that I sent that message then and not delayed a day. Two days later, I am not certain what I would have said.

The first thing that happened was that the Magdalene returned. She came, waiting until the end of the day after Jesus had healed enough people for them to seem like one long sea of faces to me.

There were by now a thousand gathered in the foothills of Capernaum to hear him speak. A thousand--

But still not enough.

When I saw her climbing up the hill through the crowd, I was struck by the look on her face. I had always thought her comely, but now, wearing her anticipation like a bridal veil, her hem in her hand like a girl as she hurried toward us, I wondered what it was that made me unable to look away.

And then I realized it was the very purpose in her gaze, the joy shining on her face. She was beatific.

When she had made her way through the crowd to Jesus, who was always answering a question or holding a child or taking into his arms for blessing whatever baby some peasant woman handed

170

him, he laughed and kissed her as though she were his mother or sister.

I would never understand him! Why? Why must he flout propriety? Did he not see the turning heads? Did he not hear the gasps of those nearby or note the scandalized looks?

I remembered the words of Levi: Beware of him.

And yet, even as I thought it, a pang of jealousy shot through me as she took his hands and kissed them, and I wasn't sure who I envied more--her, or him.

Later that day, she came to me, having brought more coin with her for the communal purse. It was a strange thing, taking money from a woman like a fishwife taking an allowance for market from her husband, and I was conscious of her hands, so slender, as she passed the bag to me.

"Why do you return?" I said to her. "Why do you return, knowing they'll call you harlot or worse for the mere fact that you follow him, knowing others watch and judge you both--and not kindly?"

"I've enslaved myself to him," she said. "I wanted freedom once, but no longer. I want no freedom without him and his teachings. Ah, I see. You worry I come to him as a woman to a man. Do you really think it's like that?

You, Judas, who misses nothing?"

I felt the heat rise to my face. I had never heard a woman speak so bluntly, having been all my life more accustomed to the silent and passive languages of women that were a code all their own.

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