Song of the Magdalene Read Free

could go. I had gone once myself, three years before — after Mother’s funeral. If I went there now with myheart open, maybe the Creator would have mercy on me. Maybe the Creator would cleanse me of my demon.
    But if I went to the mikvah, all would know I was unclean. They would wonder. They would ask. And if the Creator did not choose to cleanse me, I would have exposed myself for naught.
    I thought of telling Father. I could ask him to take me to a healer. I was ready to drink the water of Dekarim, extracted from the roots of palm. I was ready to walk to the hot baths at El Hamma on the Sea of Galilee. I was willing, oh so willing. I would even go to an exorcist. Hannah had taken Abraham to an exorcist in Capernaum long ago.
    I approached Father once. “Father, may I speak with you?”
    Father smiled. “Yes, Miriam. Later.”
    I watched as he took off his shoes, washed his hands, and unfolded his tallith — the prayer shawl — carefully. Of course it was prayer time. I knew that. I just hadn’t been thinking, I’d been so enveloped in my own need. I put out my fingertips and touched the feather tassel tips of the tallith. Mother wasn’t clever at embroidery, soFather’s tallith had been bought. But Mother had added these tassels. They were white, like the original tassels. The only difference was that she had counted out the threads herself and knotted them. Each corner had a tassel of eight threads, totaling thirty-two — the number that matched the word for “heart.” When Father prayed, knots of Mother’s love brushed his arms.
    I didn’t wait for the end of his prayers. I couldn’t bear witnessing my parents’ love in that tallith — a love that seemed to swathe Father and distance me in my present isolation. I left.
    I thought often of trying again to talk with Father. But every time the thoughts came, the knowledge followed: The Creator was the only true healer for a malady such as mine. After all, when Abraham went to the exorcist, no good had come of it. And last year when Shiphrah and Jacob brought their deformed baby girl to a traveling exorcist, the baby died in his hands.
    So I didn’t tell Father. And I hardly saw him, anyway. The long, hot season was always his busiest time for arranging trade. He stayed away for two or three weeks at a time.
    When Father returned from a journey, he lingeredaround the house for a day or two, praying thanks to the Creator and renewing himself. On those days, I tended our kitchen garden. This could not be a sham. If Father was to find me at home, I would be home as a righteous woman devoted to the details of daily family life.
    I grew lentils, beans, cucumbers, peppers, lettuce. I dug the earth with a vengeance new to me. The perimeter was onions and shallots and leeks. The area most in the sun was reserved for eggplant. The area most in the shade overflowed with chicory, endive, cress, and parsley. Everything thrived. The irony spurred me on. I reserved a section for a rock garden and the purslane spread there as though it were on the naked shores of the Dead Sea, the shores Father had described. Everything, everything thrived.
    Hannah didn’t mind it when I wouldn’t go with her to the well, for the garden this year did much better than it had ever done under her care. No weed strayed into this dirt without being plucked mercilessly. No beetle nibbled on a lettuce leaf without being crushed by my thumbnail. If I kept vigilant, if I worked assiduously, a fit could not take me by surprise.
    When Father was busy with trade, however, I went to the valley early in the morning and came home late at night. Hannah said it wasn’t right that I should spend so many hours alone. She invited me to join her in making bread and spinning wool. She looked at me with eyes that longed to help me solve the secret problem she sensed growing within me. I tried to soothe her, but I failed. Hannah had lived