John stepped into the glow of our lamps and peered around the circle of faces, his eyes lingering on me, and I realized I’d seen him before. He’d been one of the four fishermen who’d traveled home with Jesus from Capernaum all those years ago and talked in the courtyard late into the night. Young, gangly, and beardless then, now he was a broad-shouldered man with thoughtful, deep-set eyes and a beard that curled under his chin.
Studying him closer, I realized I’d also seen him earlier today on Golgotha. He was the man who’d approached Jesus as he hung on the cross and who, like me, had been turned back by the soldiers. I offered him a sorrowful smile. He was the disciple who’d stayed.
He settled himself on the courtyard tiles while Martha muttered absently about the empty wineskins, finally setting a cup of water before her guest.
“What has brought you here?” asked Mary of Bethany.
His gaze shifted to me and his face turned grave. Wedged between Mary and Tabitha, I reached for their hands.
“Judas is dead,” John said. “He hanged himself from a tree.”
vii.
Shall I confess? Part of me had wished my brother dead. When Judas had turned Jesus over to the Temple guard, he’d breached some sacred boundary in me. I’d offered him that gesture of pity as he’d stood in the distance on Golgotha, but in the aftermath, it was mostly hatred I felt.
In those blank, bewildered moments, as Mary and Salome and the others waited for me to respond to the news of Judas’s death, it occurred to me that Jesus would attempt to love even the lost, murderous Judas. Once, when I’d ranted to him about some slight Judith had done to me and declared my loathing of her, he’d said, “I know, Ana. She is difficult. You don’t have to feel love for her. Only try to act with love.”
But he was Jesus, and I was Ana. I wasn’t ready to let go of my animosity toward Judas. I would do so in time, but right now it saved me. It left less room inside for pain.
The silence went on too long. No one seemed to know what to say. At last, Mary of Bethany said, “Oh, Ana. This day is a desolation for you. First, your husband, now your brother.”
Something about these words caused a flash of indignation. As if Jesus and Judas could be mentioned in the same sentence, as if the loss I felt over them could be compared—but she meant well, I knew that. I stood and smiled at them. “Your presence has been my only solace this day, but I’m overcome now with weariness and will retire to sleep.” I bent and kissed Mary and Salome. Tabitha rose and followed me.
I curled onto the mat in Tabitha’s room, but could find no sleep. Hearing me toss about, my friend began to play her lyre, hoping to draw me into sleep. As the music moved through the darkness, grief rose in me. For my beloved, but also for my brother. Not for the Judas who betrayed Jesus, but for the boy who pined for his parents, who endured our father’s rejection, who took me with him when he walked in the Galilean hills, and who always took my part. I mourned the Judas who gave my bracelet to the injured laborer, who burned Nathaniel’s date grove, who resisted Rome. Those were the Judases I loved. For them, I buried my face in the crook of my arm and cried.
viii.
When I woke the following morning, the sky was white with sun. Tabitha’s mat was empty and the smell of baking bread floated everywhere. I sat up, surprised at the lateness, forgetting for a single, blissful moment the ruin of the previous day, and then all of it returned, winding itself around my ribs until I could barely breathe. Once again, I wished for my aunt. I could hear the women out in the courtyard, their soft, droning voices, but it was Yaltha I wanted.
I stood at the doorway, trying to imagine what she would say to me if she were here. Several minutes passed before I allowed myself to remember that night in Alexandria when Lavi brought