The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín Read Free Book Online Page B

could end the world if he wanted or make things grow to twice their size and I know that I turned away from her without filling my water jug and I walked back to the house and did not come out until the following day. I lived in a haze of waiting, trying still not to think or remember. I moved quietly within the four walls of the house or the garden or the fields. I needed very little nourishment. Sometimes one of the neighbours left food hanging from a hook by the side wall and when night fell I collected it. One day, when the knockingwas louder and more insistent than usual and there was a man’s voice shouting, I heard the neighbours gathering in the road and telling whoever it was that there was no one inside. When the voice asked if this was not the house of my son and if I did not live within these walls, the neighbours told him yes, but that the house was empty now and locked and no one had been near it for some time. I stood on the inside of the door, listening, barely breathing, hardly making a sound.
    I waited and weeks went by. Sometimes I did hear news. I knew that he had not gone to the mountains again and I knew also that Lazarus was still alive and, indeed, had become a subject for intense discussion at every well and every street corner, at every place where people gathered. I knew that people now waited outside Lazarus’s house to catch a glimpse of him, that all of the fear of him had gone. For those who gathered and gossiped it was a high time, filled with rumours and fresh news, filled with stories both true and wildly exaggerated. I lived mostly in silence, but somehow the wildness that was in the very air, the air in which the dead had been brought back to life and water changed into wine and the very waves of the sea made calm by a man walking on water, this great disturbance in the world made its way like creeping mist or dampness into the two or three rooms I inhabited.

    When Marcus came I was expecting him. I heard knocking for a while and then I heard him asking a neighbour where I was. I opened the door for him. The shadows were gathering, but I did not light a lamp; it was a month or more since I had used a lamp. I offered him a chair at the table and then some water and some fruit. I told him to tell me what he could. He said that there was only one thing he had to tell me and I should be ready to hear the worst. He said that a decision had been made to deal with the situation. He stopped for a moment and I thought it might be that my son would be banished or commanded not to appear in public or speak again. But I stood up and went towards the door and, for what reason I do not know, made as though to leave the house so I would not have to hear what he would now say. But I did not reach the door in time. He spoke flatly, firmly.
    ‘He is to be crucified,’ he said.
    I turned and I knew from his statement that there was only one question to be asked.
    ‘When?’
    ‘Within a short time,’ he said. ‘He has moved back towards the centre of power and there are even more followers. The authorities know where he is and they can capture him at any time.’
    And then I found myself asking a foolish question, but a question I had to ask.
    ‘Is there anything that can be done to stop this?’
    ‘No,’ he said, ‘but you must leave here as soon as it is dawn. They will come looking for all his followers.’
    ‘I am not one of his followers,’ I said.
    ‘You must believe me when I say that they will come looking for you. You must leave.’
    I remained standing and I asked him what he would do.
    ‘I will leave now but I can give you an address where you will be safe in Jerusalem.’
    ‘Where I will be safe?’ I asked.
    ‘You will be safe for the moment in Jerusalem.’
    ‘Where is my son?’
    ‘Close to Jerusalem. The site for the crucifixion has been chosen. It will be near the city. If there is any chance for him, it will be there, but I have been told that there is no chance and that