Mothers, Mothering and Sex Work by Rebecca Bromwich and Monique Marie Dejong

Author:Rebecca Bromwich and Monique Marie Dejong
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Demeter Press
Published: 2015-07-23T04:00:00+00:00

6.

Many years later, after her reunion with Jesus and his subsequent death, Maeve returns to Temple Magdalen to give birth to Jesus’s posthumous child. She has fled the disciples, who tolerated her as Jesus’s eccentric wife, but who now consider her a most unfit mother for the Saviour’s son. They have begun to mass outside the gates. (Reginus is also a freed Roman slave who has found true love with native Galilean Timothy.)

What we came to call the Siege of Temple Magdalen began on a small scale: Just Peter, James, Andrew, John, and a few of the other disciples who came from the area standing, almost politely, outside our gates. They might even have been mistaken for suppliants seeking our usual services—(Oh the shame of it! That’s how determined they were)—except that they refused our invitation to come inside. To step foot in a pagan temple whorehouse would clearly render them instantly unclean. God only knows for how long and what they would have had to do to become clean again. Nor did they invite me to come out. According to the Law, a woman is unclean for forty days after the birth of a male child and for eighty days if the child is female. But clearly they wanted to know if I had given birth yet, and if so—to a son or a daughter? There was debate within the walls of Temple Magdalen as to what and how much to tell them.

“Personally, I don’t see what’s wrong with lying,” said Reginus.

Everyone was having an indoor picnic in the inner chamber where Sarah and I remained tucked up.

“What do you mean by lying?” Berta wanted to know. “You can’t mean—”

There was a flurry of gestures and utterances as all the women present warded away all evil from lovely, healthy Sarah, who had gone to sleep again for the time being. Infant mortality was all too real a specter. No one wanted to speak of it out loud.

“Nothing terrible. Just, well, how about I claim paternity? Or Timothy could. Or better yet, both of us could. We could stage a loud, public argument with name-calling and fist-fighting and everything. Couldn’t we, Sweetie?” He appealed to his lover. “It would be fun.”

“Honey, everyone on the lake knows we’re together,” pointed out Timothy.

“Well, we could get a few of the regulars to join in the brawl, just to add to the confusion.”

“But what about Mary’s reputation?” objected Judith. “She is or was a respectable, married woman. (At least for a time.) The widow of our beloved rabbi.”

“Respectable might be a slight exaggeration,” I said, gazing at Sarah, asleep with her perfect little mouth twitching now and then. “Haven’t you heard that I was tried for adultery in Jerusalem? If I have a reputation, you may assume it’s bad.”

“Frankly, I have never heard of men fighting to claim paternity of a whore’s daughter.” Dido, as always, injected a note of reality. “Usually they fight to deny it.”

“That has possibilities, too,” Reginus persisted. “We could all point fingers at each other.

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