Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Retake

I spent a lot of today thinking about how to handle the possession of Joanna - even if I could get away with glossing over it. My current attempted solution is to refigure what I did yesterday.

"I used to love to watch her dance. Salome. Herodias's daughter, Herod's niece. Most people in the palace did. She seemed suddenly free. I had little pity for the woes of the Roman princess. Whatever those at the synagogue said my husband Chuza and I were not so lost in our faith and our traditions as that. But you could not deny that she was bound, in silken chains even tighter than any I had felt. But when she danced, she was free. Her body flung itself about, wild and passionate and bursting to live.

She transfixed me. The way she danced when she thought she was alone. Then I saw her on the day she danced for her uncle-father and aunt-mother. Hundreds of male eyes devouring her, cheering her on, and her own so free and flowing and beautiful movements becoming trapped in their leering gaze. It seemed a single thing, their eyes forming one trap. She silenced everyone with her dance. She silenced herself first. She silence every woman in the palace for days. Only Herod spoke, and though he offered her half the kingdom, nothing would free her from the trap of his gaze on the flesh she had bared in order to free it from her silken wrappings.

She silenced herself. She could not even imagine what to ask for. So her mother told her to demand the head of a prophet. And she was brought it on a silver platter. I said nothing. She had silenced everyone with her dance.

I had heard John speak, in the dungeons. Everyone in the palace had, and his followers came and went more than anyone talked about. He spoke as Salome danced - as if no one could touch him, as if only in speaking was he finally free. Even as he sat bound in chains. No one could bind him. He danced all the time. And with his words, the world seemed to shift around him. Our gazes fell on him, and he seemed to draw strength from them the way Salome never could for her dance. He seemed free in our gaze. And whenever anyone left his presence, whether in praise or anger, they left speaking. Their own voices rang out louder for days after.

If I had been with John when they came to take him, would I have spoken? If the last thing I had seen was not Salome silenced at last but John irrepressible and singing? They say he sang. Would I have spoken for him then? Would I have spoken at all?

I was silent, and they called it perverse. Did they not see that Salome had silenced us all? That they had silenced us all when they bound her in their gaze. When they took the only thing that made her free and turned it into a greater slavery? They said I grew strange. Silencing does that to you.

I let them lead me, pull my chains to guide me. Chuza took me to the new healer, thinking John had left a curse on me that only another holy man could remove. It was in His gaze that I found the words again. He met my eyes, and I felt all the other eyes upon me fade away. He asked my name, and He gave me permission to speak. Joanna. I am Joanna.

His name was Jesus, He replied. Will you come follow me, Joanna?

I said yes. He broke my silence.

It wasn't what Chuza had been looking for. He heard my mind, and my mind was to follow the eyes of the man who had set me free. As far as He would have me go. Chuza thought he had traded one demon for another in his wife, and he went home. But I stayed. I spoke my mind that far. But I silenced Chuza. I looked only at Jesus, and I silenced Chuza.

I followed Him through thick and thin. I travelled with other women. Women who knew what it was to be silenced. Women who knew now what it was to speak. I was there until the end, and when He died, I feared I would say nothing. I shouted in the crowd, but others shouted over me. I could not scream loud enough to be heard. The roar of the crowd silenced me, for all I shouted.

Of that Sabbath I remember only stillness and silence.

And then on Sunday, we came to say goodbye. The women whom Jesus had given leave to speak and freed from our flaxen chains. Who had gazed on us and set us free of all the gazes that had silenced us. Freed us from the fate of Salome. He was gone. And though angels said hope was not lost, we did not see Him. His gaze did not undo what the crowd had silenced.

But still I spoke. Still I spoke, and said that He had risen. I was not yet believed, but somehow His gaze seemed still to live with me. His gaze that cancelled out the silence. And then He came again, and in His gaze, I knew that I would be heard, though I had not yet guessed how."