Faith Like Wine Read online

  "I have not traveled far."

  "I did not say you had." His smile faded. "You may take away the disguise now. I am not afraid."

  I unwound the scarves to show him my unnatural pallor, my too-red lips, my too-green eyes. I smiled to show my sharp teeth.

  "A long road," he said, unmoved. "It will be longer still, Joanna. Have you the strength?"

  "I -- " I swallowed; begging did not come to me as easily as even mock humility. "Can you help me, master?"

  "Did not Simon Magus promise to heal you?" I bowed my head, but he continued, kind and merciless. "My rival took you in when you were dying and promised you everlasting life. Are you happy with your bargain?"

  "No." I felt tears welling up but they were mortal tears, and my body no longer knew them. "No, master, please, help me. I went to Simon Magus because I needed -- Master, I asked you for healing and you said my time was done."

  "It was."

  "He said he could -- give me -- "

  He took the plate of figs that I had refused and chewed on one while I sat in silence, ashamed. He sipped from a bowl of wine Judas handed him.

  "I only want to die," I said at last. Judas, wide-eyed, sank back on his haunches and shook his head. "I killed a man, master, because I was so thirsty. I can't bear it anymore. Please, give me rest."

  His eyes were full of sorrow and pain, knifing through me and leaving ice in their path. I reached out to him and touched his hand. He did not draw it away.

  "It is not my place to take your life," he said. "But I can give you rest, of a kind."

  He reached into a pack leaning against a cracked wall and found a sturdy sharp knife. He held it out toward our joined hands and, before I knew what he would do, drew it across his own wrist. I cried out, and Judas lunged forward and grabbed for the knife. The master hissed a little with pain and held our joined hands over the empty bowl that had held his wine.

  His blood dripped like jewels into the plain clay, fast at first, then slowing. When he turned his wounded wrist upward to show me, there was no cut at all.

  "Drink," he said, and let go of my hand. I looked down at the bowl.

  He'd only bled a little, but the bowl shimmered with blood, full to the brim. I raised it and sipped, the raw fire of it burning down my throat and into my veins. It tasted of honey and flowers and tears, and I drank until the bowl was empty.

  "You will not need to kill," he said. I clutched the bowl to my breast and bowed, no mock humility this time, wishing I could weep for joy. Here was the water of life, in my body, and in my heart I felt the pulse of God. "When you hunger, the bowl will fill again."

  "Master, what do you ask of me?" I whispered. Simon Magus had asked, everyone had always asked. There were no gifts, only exchanges.

  His hand touched my graying hair, gentle as the wind.

  "Walk your road," he said. "Walk to the end, where you will find your healing."

  ****

  I waited at the train platform in the beating fury of the sun, protected by a hat and heavy clothes and a parasol topped with faded satin flowers. It was early morning, the sunrise an orange cream confection behind the unlovely black hissing box of the train. Passengers scuttled around me, bound here and there, clutching hats against the white steam and cool breeze.

  I held a single suitcase in my left hand. The burden was too precious to set down, even for a minute.

  Sister Aimee's party emerged from the station, a threadbare gaggle of white dresses and severely dressed, sober-faced men -- her roughnecks had passed through earlier, loading baggage and tents. Near the center of the crowd I saw the porcelain curve of her face, a lovely smile. She had her hand on the shoulder of a young girl who walked with her.

  I did nothing, said nothing as the party passed me on the way to the train. Pride had always been my downfall, but I could not beg, not now, not ever. I watched them board, one by one, and no one so much as glanced in my direction.

  Then Sister Aimee turned, one foot on the iron steps, and looked directly at me with a smile warmer than the furious sun.

  "Sister Joanna," she said, and the sound of her voice silenced those around her. It woke tingles in my back; I fought them off with a straightening of my shoulders. "Come to see us off?"

  No begging. Not now, not ever. I met her eyes.

  "I come to join you," I said. Her smile faded. Perhaps she was thinking of what I was, what the presence of so much shadow might do in the midst of her light.

  "Do you?" she asked. My hand tightened around the grip of my suitcase and I willed it to relax. Her assistants were frankly staring, whispering among themselves. There was doubt in Sister Aimee's eyes, moving like clouds over a clear sky. I was something old and unknown, something dark. I had a second's grave disquiet and thought, I should not have come. It's too late to go home.

  She held out her hand to me. I moved forward, skirts brushing aside those who stood in my way, and realized as I arrived that I had no free hands to take hers. I must put down the suitcase, or put away the parasol.

  I folded the parasol. The sun pressed on me with cruel, unforgiving hands, burning even through the layers of clothes, through the straw hat that shaded my face. I pressed the parasol into the crook of my arm and reached out to take Sister Aimee's hand. Her fingers folded warm around mine.

  Only a moment of agony, and then the cool shadow of the train was around me, and Sister Aimee's fingers touched my face. I couldn't see her; even so small an exposure to the sun had turned my vision to grays and blacks. It would be minutes or even hours before I could see clearly again.

  "Brave," she commented, a smile in her voice. "Come aboard, Joanna. We have a long way to go."

  ***

  He had a huge, expansive house outside Jerusalem's walls, surrounded always by knots of people seeking blessings or miracles or just a good look. He also had disciples, rough men, ready with fists and knives. Two of them were on duty outside the door when I arrived in my leper's disguise; one reached down to find a rock to throw. I pulled the veil away and showed my face. The one with the rock grinned and shrugged and tossed the stone over his shoulder. The other just spat near my feet and settled back against the wall more comfortably.

  No pauper's hut would have done for Simon Magus. Inside, soft lamplight glimmered on fine cedar tables, delicate pottery, gold lamps and jars. The floor was covered with soft carpets and furs. A doorway at the other end of the room was covered by a black drape that glittered with sewn gold coins; they chimed in the cool evening breeze. The air simmered with costly incense, gifts from rich benefactors.

  "Simon?" I called. The coins chimed. Outside, the guards laughed coarsely.

  "You used to call me 'master'," he observed. I whirled to find him standing quite near me in the shadows. As he came into the light I saw that he wore a new robe, no doubt another gift. The umber and gold of it put sparks in his large dark eyes, made his skin seem gilded. Beautiful Simon. Never a man born so beautiful. "I missed you, Joanna."

  His voice sounded sad and fond, and it shamed me. I found myself looking away and knew that weakness would destroy me unless I was careful.

  "I went to him," I said. He reached out to touch my cheek and it was like being touched by fire, beautiful and agonizing at once. Before I could recover he was gone past me to settle himself on a thick tasseled pillow -- master greeting servant.

  "And how did you find the carpenter?" Simon made the word sound faintly scandalous. "Still working miracles, is he?"

  I had the bowl hidden inside my robes. My hand brushed it before I could stop myself, like a woman betraying a disgraceful, ill-gotten child. He saw it, of course; I saw the delight flare in his eyes.

  "What miracle did he work for you, my love?" he asked, voice low like a cat's purr. "Did he offer you forgiveness for your sins? Did he heal you? Oh, no, my apologies, I see he did not. Too bad, really. That would have been a miracle."

  I stood silent, watching him, his beauty like a whip against my skin. Simon made a grace
ful gesture with his hands and produced from thin air a gilded bowl of wine, which he drank slow, measured mouthfuls.

  "Thirsty?" he asked. I shook my head. "Liar. Joanna, I will forgive these indiscretions of you with my rival if you will sit and drink with me. Will you do that?"

  I had lain there on those same soft pillows, fever burning me to ash, and he'd lifted my head and held a bowl to my lips and said, drink, woman, drink and live, and I had taken bitter mouthfuls, feeling the stain of it in my soul even as I swallowed. If I had been strong, I would have spit it out. Would have refused a second mouthful.

  But I had drained the bowl, and now I had to pay the price for that selfishness.

  "I believe in him. I am going to join him," I said quietly. "I came to tell you."

  Silence. The curtain of coins tinkled like dreams broken. Simon held his bowl in both hands, mouth curled into a smile, and watched me.

  "Then do that," he said, and shrugged. "What do I care? You are nothing, less than nothing. You served Herod, and betrayed him by skipping off to follow your carpenter when he crooked a finger; you turned your back on the carpenter when you sickened, and came to me for miracles. Now that you are well, you betray me. You are a whore of the spirit, Joanna."

  It seemed impossible that he could still hurt me so deeply, but the casual chill in his voice, the sharp edges of the words, made me feel sick with grief. I looked down at my clenched hands. When I looked up again, Simon was gone. There was a hollow in the pillows where he'd sat. Outside, the guards laughed. Where had he --

  His hand closed around my throat from behind me, dragged me into the heat of his embrace. He had strong hands, clever hands, and before I could fight he reached beneath my robes and pulled out the bowl.

  "This?" He let me go, and I whirled to face him, terrified by the sight of my salvation in his casual grasp. He turned the bowl this way and that, looking at the poor quality of the clay, running his fingers across the uneven surface. "A miracle? Perhaps a miracle that the potter managed to give it away. Here."

  He tossed it to me. I clutched it gently, like a newborn. Simon's smile was no longer beautiful, only wide.

  "Or is it this one?" He snapped his fingers and another bowl appeared, identical to the one I held. He tossed it toward me; I caught it, fumbling, panicked. "Perhaps this one?"

  He produced another bowl, and another. The fourth I could not catch; it fell against the corner of a cedarwood table and smashed. I went to my knees and scraped blindly at the mess.

  When I looked up from gathering the fragments, distraught, I saw him looking down on me with rage in his eyes. Perhaps he knew then how completely he'd lost me.

  "Put them down," he ordered. "Put them all down."

  I tried to keep the bowls, tried desperately, but they writhed out of my fingers and thumped to the carpet, one after another.

  "Simon -- " I could not beg, not even now. He raised his foot and brought it down on the first bowl. It shattered into a thousand dusty pieces.

  "Come back," he invited, and put his sandaled foot over the second bowl. I shook my head, not knowing whether I was denying him or denying the moment's pain. "Come back to me and I'll forget all this foolishness."

  Another bowl smashed into clay dust and shards. One left. I stared at it with fevered eyes.

  "You don't belong with him, Joanna. You know that." He raised his foot. In his dark eyes, my reflection flickered and stretched into shadows. "I am doing you a favor, you know."

  There was a film of red at the bottom of the last bowl. As I watched, it bubbled up, a magic spring of life. His foot came down toward it.

  I leaped forward and knocked him away. He fell against a table and overset a lamp and jug; wine spilled over his robes and the carpets in a purple tide. I scooped up my bowl and drained it in two quick, guilty gulps and backed away, toward the doorway, as Simon turned on me.

  He did not scream, he did not curse. He only stared. It was enough.

  I lunged out into the darkness, between the two startled guards, and ran, leaving strips of leper's gauze flying on the wind as I ran toward the moonlit walls of Jerusalem.

  Someone waited at the side of the road. The moonlight touched his face and his kindly smile.

  "He said you'd come this way," Judas said. "It's not safe to walk alone."

  I cast a look back at Simon's house. He was standing in the doorway, arms folded, watching me go.

  ***

  It was a queer change, sitting behind Sister Aimee as she exploded into the fury of her belief; she directed it out, at all those hungry faces, those empty eyes. In the backwash, where I sat, there was only a tingle of power, nothing like the tide I'd been swept away on before. I was grateful, in a way. One should not know God so closely on a daily basis.

  I learned quickly that every revival looked the same -- another empty field, sometimes dry, sometimes muddy, another town on the horizon. Sometimes the crowd was older, sometimes younger. The routine was grinding. Sister Aimee preached and prayed far into the night, rose with the sun and participated in the camp chores like anyone else. I did one-handed tasks, like fetching water or scrubbing clothes; everywhere I went in the sunlight, I carried my parasol. One acute young lady said that I must have a skin disorder, perhaps leprosy, that made my skin so white. They all thought it was highly appropriate that Sister Aimee should count a leper among her followers, though privately they must have wondered why I hadn't been healed.

  I realized, as I knelt beside a lake in Idaho and scrubbed spots of mud from the hem of Sister Yancy's dress, that I had done such work before. I had only misplaced the memories, never forgotten. They loomed so close now that I could smell the dust of Jerusalem, feel the harsh fabric on my skin, see the heat shimmer from the stones of the courtyard where I had gone daily to fetch water. I had been shunned there, too, and had gone at odd hours to avoid the curses and thrown stones of the other women.

  I pushed the painful, precious memory aside and scrubbed industriously. A cooling shadow fell over me, and I squinted up to see Sister Aimee dropping down next to me, a load of washing in her arms.

  "I thought I might find you here," she said. She had not spoken to me -- to anyone -- for days now, lost in the routine of preaching, healing, sleeping, working. She was visibly worn, and had a tremble in her hands that had not been present before. "How are you, Joanna?"

  "I am well," I said. "You're tired."

  She gave a little laugh and lowered her head toward her work, soaking the clothes, wringing them, scrubbing them with soap. The water was very, very cold. Her fingers took on a more pronounced shiver and a bluish tint.

  "Perhaps I am," she admitted. "Perhaps that's all it is."

  I stopped working and watched her. I had been traveling with her for almost a year, though the time hadn't seemed so long. A year was nothing to me, but for her, burning so bright, a year was an eternity.

  "Did you notice, last night?" she continued more slowly. "Something felt wrong. I felt -- lost. I called, but he didn't come, it was only me. Only me."

  I had noticed, and not only last night. Some nights Sister Aimee seemed to be searching for that fire I'd always seen so clearly before; nurturing a spark, not a conflagration. Sometimes she'd fallen into a routine, like a salesman's patter. Perhaps that was to be expected, as weariness gutted her spirit. Even he had needed rest.

  "I'm afraid," Sister Aimee said. She was staring down at the petticoat she was wringing, and there were tears coursing down her cheeks. "Oh, sister, what if he never comes back? They come looking for miracles, you know. For faith. What if I have nothing to give them?"

  I took the petticoat from her and put it aside, dried her chilled hands in the folds of my skirt. She put her head on my shoulder and I rocked her gently, stroking her hair. My poor prophet, burning so bright.

  What happens when the candle burns out?

  I should have known better than to come here and destroy her faith.

  ***

  He stepped out of the sha
dows like fog swirling, a simple trick he often used to impress his followers. I was carrying a jar of water across the courtyard, hurrying to get out of the burning sun, but I came to a breathless stop when I saw him. The sun pressed on me like the hands of a giant, and my arms tightened around the heavy jar. I was going blind, but he stood out like a brilliant stain on the dark.

  "Fetching water?" Simon Magus asked, and leaned his shoulders negligently against the rough stone wall. He looked the part of a savior -- beautiful, wide eyes as gentle as an angel's. "Sweet Joanna, surely our misunderstanding didn't lead you to slavery to a Galilean carpenter? What will people say?"

  "Go," I said, not loudly because I did not want the men inside to hear. "Go, please. You have no right to be here."

  "I have every right." Simon Magus stood straight and tugged his robes into place. "Come into the shadows, my dear, before you burn yourself beyond repair. Such as you don't belong in the light."