The Child Madonna - Chapter 21 'The Stoning'

Chapter 21 The Stoning
Mari had been walking to the market with her friend, Bilpah, exchanging gossip about weddings plans, which for the older girl were to be celebrated shortly before the rainy winter period sets in, some two months thence. Concentrating, as she was, on their discourse, Mari was not really watching the passing groups of people, though from time to time both girls were greeted by women from their part of the village, or mothers of their friends.

For some obscure reason, Mari suddenly looked up and, since she was facing the sun, distinguished shapes ahead of her with difficulty. Towering over other moving figures, though, was the bare head of a man through whose hair the sunlight was reflected, as though it were on fire. With a start Mari recognised the fair-headed stranger and before she could control herself, she realised she was trembling all over. As nonchalantly as she could, she remarked to her companion:

“See that man ahead of us, that one that is so much taller than the others, have you seen him before?”

“No, I don’t recognise him, but he is very distinctive, isn’t he! I bet he is the man I heard my father talking about last night.”

“Oh? What did you hear?”

“He said that there was a tall stranger in town, staying with Althaeus the tax-collector. He was appalled that a stranger could only get hospitality in that den of iniquity, but perhaps the man was up to no good.”

“We once had a stranger very like that man who asked for lodgings at our house. Uncle Eli wouldn’t let him stay, because he was afraid of Herod’s spies.”

“Perhaps he’s the same man. If he is a spy, only that collaborator would give him house-room.”

“Did your father say what his name was?”

“He did say. I can’t remember, I wasn’t really listening. I think it was Elijah or something like that!”

“What! The same name as the prophet?”

“Well, that’s what I heard. Perhaps he said something else similar and I converted it to ‘Elijah’ because of the name’s familiarity.”

“He’s not with anyone, I wonder where he’s going?”

“I know, let’s follow him. If it is to Althaeus’ house, it will not be far out of our way.”

The two girls, whispering conspiratorially behind their hands, kept other walking figures between their quarry and themselves, and sure enough, he turned down the narrow lane just before the market square.

“It is him!” confided Bilpah in jubilation as the man stopped outside Althaeus’ gateway. The stranger, caught in mid-stride, glanced quickly behind him and saw the two girls hovering at the corner. Mariam froze as his gaze pinpointed her own, and she felt embarrassment creep up her backbone. She knew that he knew that she had been following him. When would he contact her again? It was both the man who called on Eli several months ago, and the messenger who talked to her under the fig-tree. She knew that now for certain.

“Come on Bilpah, let’s finish our business in the market and get home!”

“What’s the matter, Mari, I thought you had plenty of time?”

“I’ve remembered something I promised Mum I’d do. Let’s get on quickly.”

“Alright if you must. I was looking forward to company and a good long natter!”

Over the evening meal, Mari tried to steer the conversation round to the stranger in the town, without displaying too much obvious curiosity. Her mother didn’t react at first, but luckily Rebecca took up the theme and said that James and Jude were talking about him during the afternoon. In the end, Anna eventually conceded that she was aware of the man’s presence, and that he had been seen in the town before.

“Uncle Eli knows it is the man who once asked for lodgings here. He still thinks he may be a spy. He’s seen him hanging around near this part of the village, appearing to watch our house. Don’t have anything to do with the man, any of you. He could be dangerous to know.”

Two days later Anna asked her daughter to go down to the well to fetch water.

“You needn’t hurry back. I don’t require the water immediately. The children are playing down there somewhere. If you find them, you can stay with them a while, but bring them back with you.”

They were there. As soon as they saw Mari coming they ran to her and mobbed her, all shouting at once. She tried to calm them down, laughing and joking with them. They were overjoyed to see her, she had not spent much time with them recently.

Rebecca said:

“There was a man here. All on his own, fetching water himself. Just fancy that!”

“And he asked all about you”, added Jude solemnly.

“What did you say?”

“He asked all about you,” the boy repeated patiently. “What you were like, you know, whether you played with us, and whether we liked you, that sort of thing!”

“I told him you were the best sister any girl could have!” chortled Rebecca breathlessly. “We all did. Even the boys said you were great, for a girl!”

“Did he say why he was asking the questions about me?”

“No.”

Did he say who he was?”

“No.”

“Did you ask him?”

“No.”

“A fine lot you are. Weren’t you curious why he was asking all those questions?”

“We didn’t think at the time,” said Salome, biting her lip and thinking hard. “He seemed so friendly and so interested. He seemed to like you and wanted to know if we did too! I’m sure he didn’t mean you any harm, he was much too nice for that.”

“Did he say anything else?” Mari looked at the circle of children in mock exasperation. Benjamin looked at Mari.

“He said he helps the poor and he was glad that you are mercy!”

“No, you silly,” contradicted James, “he said Mari.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“He must have meant merciful then.”

The children began to lose interest in the topic of conversation and begged Mari to join them in a game.

“Provided you help me lift this water up in a minute. And come home without any argument !”

And so they played. They helped Mari draw the water, and came when she called them without loitering. But when they got home, Mari was still shaking.

Something was wrong. The streets of the village had seemed empty, just a few women hanging around at their doors, gossiping in little huddled groups.

“What’s happened, mother, why are there so few people about?”

“All the men are down at the synagogue.”

“Why?”

“That Samaritan girl living with Althaeus has been caught red-handed in adultery.”

“You mean Rachel?”

“Yes, that’s the girl.”

Mariam was frightened, her mind immediately flew to Althaeus’ lodger. Not her stranger, he couldn’t have done that, he was only with the children an hour or two ago!

“Who was she with, mother?” She waited in trepidation for the answer.

“Joshua, the potter’s eldest son. Shame on him, with a young wife and three tiny children. It’s them I feel sorry for, they’ll probably be driven from the village.”

“What will they do to Rachel?”

“I don’t know, that’s why the men are meeting at the synagogue at the moment. They are questioning her and Joshua and passing judgement on them. I don’t give much for Rachel’s chances, she’s pretty unpopular everywhere and no-one’s got much sympathy for Althaeus. Most of the men have condemned her already just to spite that obsequious trickster, though he is probably as angry with her as everyone else. After all, she’s all he had, and now she’s humiliated him.”

“What a mess. I don’t think she’s ever been very happy.”

“Well, she won’t be now, when they’ve finished with her. She’ll be lucky to escape with her life.”

“They won’t really condemn her to death, will they?”

“I wouldn’t discount it, my child. It’s not that unusual, especially when a loose woman or prostitute is taken with a Jewish family man. She has violated the most sacred family ties, a sin abhorred above all others. Leave it at that, Mari, there are little ears listening and it’s not necessary for them to know all the details at their age. Get the two girls to give me a hand with grinding the wheat.”

Even as Mari turned to carry out her mother’s command, she heard Eli calling in the yard:

“Ah, Mariam, there you are. Come with me!”

“Why, where are we going?”

Anna had appeared at the door of her house, looking quizzically at Eli and Mariam.

“Down to the synagogue. The Samaritan girl, Althaeus’ whore, has been condemned. I know she’s pestered Mariam and the children. Come and see her retribution!”

Anna held up one hand as if in remonstration.

“Eli, it’s not necessary to expose Mari to that brutality, surely?”

“It will do her good to see how we deal with immorality in this village, she’s got to learn sometime and better now before she’s tempted.”

“Our Mari would never behave like that girl!”

“I’d rather not see, please,” pleaded Mari, her face paling with shock.

“Nonsense,” said Eli drumming his staff on the ground with impatience, “I’ve told you to come, so stop arguing, girl, and practise some obedience for once.”

Mari looked hopefully towards her mother, perhaps anticipating further objection from that quarter, but Anna was just shaking her head ruefully. She had seen Eli’s determination, and knew it was useless to try to dissuade him.

Mariam had to interject a couple of running steps to keep up with Eli who was striding towards the synagogue, along with a number of other women and youths who had heard the rumour and were hurrying to satiate their curiosity.

“What is going to happen? What are they going to do to Rachel?” asked Mariam breathlessly.

“You’ll soon see, my girl. And let it be a lesson to you. Never, never be tempted. The Lord God abhors such immorality and roots it out for destruction. Do not have any pity for the girl; it is God’s punishment that you will see inflicted.”

As they neared the synagogue, Mariam could hear a noise, and she flinched from the unruly mob which she saw as soon as they turned the last corner. For the crowd was everywhere, running, heaving, loosening rocks and stones from the hillside, from the rough track, even from the walls of the neighbouring houses. Men and youths were red and sweating, their outer garments stripped and thrown over walls or on the bare earth.

Eli propelled Mariam towards the kernel of the mob, past groups of women clustered at the periphery, to the front where one or two of the other rabbis stood, seemingly impassive in their long white robes. In front of the semi-circle of the crowd was the bare white wall of the western flank of the synagogue, the sunlight glaring back at the excited mass. Before them was a simple post, with an iron link fastened to the top, the place where summary justice had been meted out to generations of miscreants, by means of the lash.

A sudden shriek went round the crowd and the youths, still gathering rocks, came running. For round the side of the synagogue two men were dragging the struggling girl who was trying wildly to free herself from them. She was barefoot and unveiled, her hair had been roughly shorn, and her tunic was hanging free, ungirdled. She herself was not crying out, because she was saving all her energy for her frantic efforts to escape; a vain effort, as she was bound to the men by both her wrists. They dragged her over the rough ground towards the stake, and she suddenly went limp and began to scream and curse them with verbal violence.

The men had got her to the post, and two more untied her and forced her wrists into a noose which was secured to the ring so that Rachel was stretched, facing the crowd, almost on tiptoe. Her face was contorted, she was still shouting out in fear and anger.

Rabbi Jethro held his arms in the air to bring the crowd to order. The deafening noise subsided until only the girl’s howls rend the air.

“Shut her up,” commanded his voice, and one of the men at the whipping post delivered a stinging blow across her mouth, then seized the neckline of her tunic and ripped it in one movement to her waist. The shock of the slap and the violence of the tearing of her cloth had silenced the girl momentarily, and Jethro hurriedly addressed the crowd:

“We have found Joshua ben Matthew and Rachel of Samaria guilty of adultery and condemn them according to the Law of Moses. Joshua has been banished with his family from our town and we are here to carry out the sentence to which this whore has been condemned. She shall be stoned to death!”

Mariam was tugging at her uncle’s sleeve and seeking to bury her face in his robes.

“It’s awful, she is so young,” choked Mari, nearly in tears, “I want to go, I don’t want to see this.”

Eli pulled the girl brutally away.

“Don’t be so soft, I insist you watch everything. It will teach you a lesson you’ll not forget. Now pull yourself together and see what befalls a girl who disgraces this community.”

Rachel had begun to scream and cry out again and amid her howls, Jethro gave the order for the stoning to commence. A rain of stones and rocks peppered the thrashing girl; one had caught her leg drawing blood. A second wave of stones, then more haphazard missiles, as the assailants groped for more rocks, each in his own time. One or two of the larger rocks were beginning to find their mark with sickening thuds, causing immediate shrieks of pain torn involuntarily from the girl’s lips. Her legs were smothered in blood, one arm was dangling from the stake at an awkward angle as if it had been broken, her torn tunic was now gaping open to reveal stinging red and broken flesh; her tunic was stained in an ever widening circle of blood around her groin where a large rock had smashed into her now creating a scream of anguish which had overwhelmed everything that had gone before.

Until this moment Rachel had thrown her head around to defend herself from the missiles aimed at her face. The pain now besetting her body, her exhaustion, the blinding sun beaming straight into her eyes, took their toll and she began to slump. She stopped trying to evade the stones. Two consecutive rocks caught her about the head, one above her eye, the second breaking her mouth and nose, causing blood to spurt.

Mariam clutched at Eli, who forced her head up and turned it so she had to look.

A further volley of rocks was now finishing the girl off. From her limp position, she would seem, mercifully, to have been unconscious. The rocks battering her body drew further blood at each direct hit, her tunic was soaked through and torn, her head was now gashed open, her legs were broken.

Mariam was now gasping for air, arms flailing as Eli held her.

“Please, can we go, I’m feeling ill, please uncle!”

Eli was wondering whether to take any notice of the girl, when she retched and was violently sick right at his feet. He waited until she seemed to have emptied her entrails, then hustled her from the front of the crowd to the rear, where he scolded her and wiped her face with a cloth.

Mariam was sobbing now, coughing up phlegm and vomit, wiping her face haphazardly with the cloth her uncle had thrust in her hands.

“For goodness sake, pull yourself together. Do not have any pity for the whore; consider the damage she has caused. Think of Joshua’s wife and family: think of all the families she has violated over the years; think of the insults she hurled at you, even accusing your own father.”

Mariam was so absorbed in herself that she did not react to her uncle’s words.

“Be glad that such a viper has been removed from the earth and that men are free from her temptation.”

Mariam rubbed her eyes with the soiled cloth, and looked up between her tears, to focus quite by chance on the solitary figure of Althaeus standing silently at the edge of the crowd. He was not shouting or crying or joining in with the mob. He was looking dazed, forlorn, confused.

“Please God be merciful to them”, whispered Mariam in a tiny voice.

“What did you say, Mariam?”

“I said a prayer.”

“Pray that you always remain pure and worthy of your husband.”

Eli averted his eyes from Althaeus, whom he had now seen.

“Go home, Mariam. I have matters here I must attend to.”

She was alone now. Others had stayed to the bitter end, to hurl useless stones in vengeful wrath, obliterating the last vestiges of humanity from the crumpled torso, and watched the cutting down and burial outside the consecrated area. As she stumbled over the rough track, not looking where she was going, she could still hear the baying of the crowd, the shouts of derision, she could smell the sickly odour of sweat and fear. Once more she staggered to the verge, and retched, but this time, although she felt her stomach heave, she could do little to assuage the nausea. She was now shaking from head to toe, feeling faint.

I can hold back no longer. She must be comforted.

She senses suddenly my strong arms round her shoulders.

“Mariam, calm yourself, do not be afraid!”

At first she thinks it is her uncle, or perhaps Clopas who must have been there somewhere in the crowd. But my voice is different; she knows instinctively who it is.

“Mariam, your pity speaks well of you. Trust your own judgement. You are right to be appalled. Do not let them harden your heart.”

“Sir, it was awful.”

“Go home, Mariam, draw new strength. I’ll come to you soon, to acquaint you with God’s will for your young life. Go home now, and be comforted in the arms of your mother. She will understand.”

Mari nearly choked as the bile rose in her throat and she expelled another stream of vomit over the rough stone guttering. She coughed and spat out the last foul remnants of her mouth, and wet her parched lips with her roughened tongue. She straightened up and again mopped her dripping brow, then looked round to see her comforter. He was gone; nowhere to be seen. Had she imagined his presence, his words to her? Surely not, they were not expected. Yet how could he disappear so quickly?

She half thought of searching for him; then she was overcome with unutterable tiredness, and it was as much as she could do to drag herself through the empty street back to her home. She leant against the door of her house and pushed through it, flinging herself face down across the mattress in the corner. She lay there, sobs shaking her body, while Salome, Rebecca and Benjamin stared at her, frightened and confused.

“Why is Mari crying, Mum?” shouted out Rebecca. “Has someone hurt her
again?”

Anna came hurrying through from the yard at the side of her room where she was baking bread.

“Oh Mari, love!” She looked at the others. “No, nothing has been done to Mari. She is upset because of what she’s seen. Don’t bother her now, go and play with James and Jude, all of you.” Anna chased the whining children out into the courtyard, then sat alongside Mari on the mattress, lifting and cradling her head in her lap.

“The first time is dreadful, I know. I was older than you when I saw my first stoning and it disturbed me greatly even though I knew it was deserved. You’ll get used to it, Mari, it’s a rough old world, I’m afraid.”

Mari lifted her eyes to her mother. They were blazing, seemingly in anger, and Anna recoiled in shock.

“I do not want to get used to it. To treat anyone like that, whatever they have done, is evil.”

“Mari, do not misplace your sympathy. The girl was evil too. And what about the family she has destroyed?”

“Has killing Rachel helped?” Did Joshua’s wife want her dead?”

“Perhaps she did, Mari, who can tell? Things she has said and done have upset you mightily in the past; there have been times when I could imagine you joining in the condemnation.”

“If that is the case, mother, I pray for forgiveness. I too bear guilt for wanting such a thing to happen. Now that I know what it means, I cannot bear the knowledge.”

“Mari, I did not mean to blame you. You must not think that. You could not hold yourself responsible in any way. For goodness sake , child, you are much too sensitive. Forget Rachel. She was not worth your pity. Think of yourself, think of your future. Joseph will soon be home again for a few days, don’t be all miserable; he will not understand or tolerate your reasons.”

“Leave me for a few minutes, mother, I’ll try to cope. Let me have a cup of water and when I feel a bit better, I’ll go and fetch the children, they’ll not let me dwell on things.”

“Good girl, that’s a sensible attitude.”