The women had wrapped the corpse in linen and anointed it with fragrant oils. I could smell sandalwood and jasmine amid the acrid sweat of the mourners as I made my way to the front and stood by Joshua. He looked past the priest and was staring at the corpse, his eyes narrowed in concentration. He was trembling as if taken by a chill wind.
The priest finished his reading and began to sing, joined by the voices of hired singers who had made the journey all the way from the Temple in Jerusalem.
“It’s good to be rich, huh?” I whispered to Joshua, elbowing him in the ribs. He ignored me and balled up his fists at his sides. A vein stood out on his forehead as he burned his gaze on the corpse.
And she moved.
Just a twitch at first. The jerk of her hand under the linen shroud. I think I was the only one who noticed. “No, Joshua, don’t,” I said.
I looked for the Romans, who were gathered in groups of five at different points around the perimeter of the crowd looking bored, their hands resting on the hafts of their short swords.
The corpse twitched again and raised her arm. There was a gasp in the crowd and a boy screamed. The men started backing away and the women pushed forward to see what was happening. Joshua fell to his knees and pressed his fists to his temples. The priest sang on.
The corpse sat up.
The singers stopped and finally the priest turned to look behind him at his dead mother, who had swung her legs off of the slab and looked as if she was trying to stand. The priest stumbled back into the crowd, clawing at the air before his eyes as if it some vapor was causing this horrible vision.
Joshua was rocking on his knees, tears streaming down his cheeks. The corpse stood, and still covered by the shroud, turned as if she was looking around. I could see that several of the Romans had drawn their swords. I looked around and found the commanding centurion standing on the back of a wagon, giving signals to his men to stay calm. When I looked back I realized that Joshua and I had been deserted by the mourners and we stood out in the empty space.
“Stop it, now, Josh,” I whispered in his ear, but he continued to rock and concentrate on the corpse, who took her first step.
The crowd seemed to be transfixed by the walking corpse, but we were too isolated, too alone now with the dead, and I knew it would only be seconds before they noticed Joshua rocking in the dirt. I threw my arm around his throat and dragged him back away from the corpse and into a group of men who were wailing as they backed away.
“Is he all right?” I heard at my ear, and turned to see Maggie standing beside me.
“Help me get him away.”
Maggie took one of Joshua’s arms and I took the other as we dragged him away. His body was as stiff as a walking staff, and he kept his gaze trained on the corpse.
The dead woman was walking toward her son, the priest, who was backing away, brandishing the scroll like a sword, his eyes as big as saucers.
Finally the woman fell in the dirt, twitched, then lay still. Joshua went limp in our arms.
“Let’s get him out of here,” I said to Maggie. She nodded and helped me drag him behind the wagon where the centurion was directing his troops.
“Is he dead?” the centurion asked.
Joshua was blinking as if he’d just been awakened from a deep sleep. “We’re never sure, sir,” I said.
The centurion threw his head back and laughed. His scale armor rattled with the tossing of his shoulders. He was older than the other soldiers, gray-haired, but obviously lean and strong, and totally unconcerned with the histrionics of the crowd. “Good answer, boy. What is your name?”
“Biff, sir. Levi bar Alphaeus, who is called Biff, sir. Of Nazareth.”
“Well, Biff, I am Gaius Justus Gallicus, under-commander of Sepphoris, and I think that you Jews should make sure your dead are dead before you bury them.”
“Yes sir,” I said.
“You, girl. You are a pretty little thing. What is your name?”
I could see that Maggie was shaken by the attention of the Roman. “I am Mary of Magdala, sir.” She wiped at Joshua’s brow with the edge of her shawl as she spoke.
“You will break someone’s heart someday, eh, little one?”
Maggie didn’t answer. But I must have shown some reaction to the question, because Justus laughed again. “Or perhaps she already has, eh, Biff?”
“It is our way, sir. That’s why we Jews bury our women when they are still alive. It cuts down on the heartbreak.”
The Roman took off his helmet, ran his hand over his short hair, and flung sweat at me. “Go on, you two, get your friend into the shade. It’s too hot out here for a sick boy. Go on.”
Maggie and I helped Joshua to his feet and began to lead him away, but when we had gone only a few steps, Joshua stopped and looked back over his shoulder at the Roman. “Will you slay my people if we follow our God?” he shouted.
I cuffed him on the back of the head. “Joshua, are you insane?”
Justus narrowed his gaze at Joshua and the smile went out of his eyes. “Whatever they tell you, boy, Rome has only two rules: pay your taxes and don’t rebel. Follow those and you’ll stay alive.”
Maggie yanked Joshua around and smiled back at the Roman. “Thank you, sir, we’ll get him out of the sun.” Then she turned back to Joshua. “Is there something you two would like to tell me?”
“It’s not me,” I said. “It’s him.”
The next day we met the angel for the first time. Mary and Joseph said that Joshua had left the house at dawn and they hadn’t seen him since. I wandered around the village most of the morning, looking for Joshua and hoping to run into Maggie. The square was alive with talk of the walking dead woman, but neither of my friends was to be found. At noon my mother recruited me to watch my little brothers while she went to work with the other women in the vineyard. She returned at dusk, smelling of sweat and sweet wine, her feet purple from walking in the winepress. Cut loose, I ran all over the hilltop, checking in our favorite places to play, and finally found Joshua on his knees in an olive grove, rocking back and forth as he prayed. He was soaked in sweat and I was afraid he might have a fever. Strange, I never felt that sort of concern for my own brothers, but from the beginning, Joshua filled me with divinely inspired worry.
I watched, and waited, and when he stopped his rocking and sat back to rest, I faked a cough to let him know I was coming.
“Maybe you should stick with lizards for a while longer.”
“I failed. I have disappointed my father.”
“Did he tell you that, or do you just know it?”
He thought for a moment, made as if to brush his hair away from his face, then remembered that he no longer wore his hair long and dropped his hands in his lap. “I ask for guidance, but I get no answer. I can feel that I am supposed to do things, but I don’t know what. And I don’t know how.”
“I don’t know, I think the priest was surprised. I certainly was. Maggie was. People will be talking about it for months.”
“But I wanted the woman to live again. To walk among us. To tell of the miracle.”
“Well, it is written, two out of three ain’t bad.”
“Where is that written?”
“Dalmatians 9:7, I think—doesn’t matter, no one else could have done what you did.”
Joshua nodded. “What are people saying?”
“They think that it was something the women used to prepare the corpse. They are still going through purification for two more days, so no one can ask them.”
“So they don’t know that it was me?”
“I hope not. Joshua, don’t you understand that you can’t do that sort of thing in front of people? They aren’t ready for it.”