chapter 04

For Susanna’s 15th birthday we went to visit her aunt and uncle in Jerusalem. Also my aunt and uncle but it was the first time that I had met them. I didn’t get to Jerusalem very often. For Jews they were very liberal. Uncle Boris didn’t wear a beard or tassels on his coat. He only went to synagogue because it was good business. He was a tailor and his wife, Aunt Dorthy, was an accountant. She was a woman, of course, being an Aunt and all, so she ran the company, her company, under Uncle Boris. With Roman occupation it was a little easier for women to get out of the kitchen.

Uncle Boris thought the whole Jewish tradition thing very funny. He practiced some of the traditions to appease his neighbors and customers and he assured us he was not the only one. He was convinced most people followed traditions simply because it was the custom to follow traditions. It was what people called culture. Everyone was supposed to be proud of his or her culture. No one stopped to wonder about it.

No one up until Israel met with the Roman Empire.

“Tell me about your boyfriend, Mary. Susanna tells me he’s quite the thinker.”

“He is. Him and John are both thinkers. Jesus is studying in Cairo. John in Bagdad. No one else from Nazareth has made it past Jerusalem.”

“What’s he studying.”

“Religion and philosophy mostly. He and John have a mission to find a way to wake up the world.”

“God bless them.”

“Neither of them believe in God. They are convinced the God of the Torah is a big con too give authority to the ruling class.”

Uncle Boris laughed.

“God has already blessed him then.”

We talked about our crazy forbidden boyfriends with Uncle Boris and Aunt Dorthy quite oblivious of the generation gap. We told them things we had told no one else. It felt good to let the secret out and have it harbored by two new accomplices. Uncle Boris thought the whole thing a grand event. He told us that our boyfriends where just about the exact backwards of what the Jews had been waiting for so many generations.

When we were done laughing about the grand paradox, Uncle Boris told us to dress up like modest Jewish women so we could go out for Jerusalem smoked meat sandwiches with mustard.

We walked down town, which was not far away, and came to everyone’s favorite restaurant. Across the street from Schwartz Meat House was another meat house that looked almost the same as Schwartz Meat House with the exception that not one person walked in or out. There was no line up to get in. At Schwartz they were lined up to get in and to take out.

“Why does everyone line up here and no one go to the other Meat House. Do they serve rat meat.”

“I don’t know, Susanna. Maybe because everyone seems to feel at home by Schwartz.”

It didn’t take too long to get into the large restaurant and be taken to a table. A waiter was wiping it down as another waiter put down hand towels and wine glasses.

There was not one empty table. Everywhere were men wearing white shirts slicing meat, making sandwiches and taking the sandwiches to tables. The place smelled like a big sandwich. It looked like theater. A dance theater.

Uncle Boris ordered a liter of a wine out of Africa and served us wine and ordered up smoked meat sandwiches. Until the sandwiches came, I watched the men. Not one woman was to be seen. And all the men were dressed the same except for the men cutting the meat. They had big aprons on. And hats.

I saw Uncle Boris watching me watch the goings on.

“I’ve never seen a place like this before.”

“What do you think of it.”

“It is like a theater. How much meat do they go through.”

“Enough to keep the ranchers wealthy.”

It didn’t take too long before the big thick sandwiches were danced to our table with quiet efficiency. The smell had been in my nose since we walked in the door. Even outside the door. And when I finally took my first bite it was a grand explosion of flavour. I ate the first half of the sandwich before I realized I had started. The second half took a long time but I ate every bit and was so stuffed and half drunk. Susanna put her head on my shoulder.

“I can’t finish it.”

Uncle Boris reached over the table and took the rest of her sandwich.

“Can’t leave it. Some cow sacrificed its life for this sandwich.”

Uncle Boris smiled.

“There is a beautiful dessert place on the other side of the temple.”

We all put our hands on our stomachs and looked at Uncle Boris and groaned.

“We can go there after the theater.”

Uncle Boris paid the bill and took his three women to an afternoon theater. It was a play loosely based on the Iliad.

There were many battles and Helene was portrayed as an evil whore who drove all the stupid men to battle with her misplaced beauty.

After they had all the actors lying dead on the stage we went for our dessert. Chocolate cake with chocolate from Africa. Sugar from Africa and coffee from Africa. So much beautiful decadence. From sleepy animal fat and wine to sugar, chocolate and coffee overload.

Uncle Boris was having so much fun leading us to such indulgence.

“It wasn’t Helene’s fault that men love to make war.”

Aunt Dorthy put her arm around me.

“Men are frustrated creatures, Mary. They don’t even know what they are fighting for. It certainly is not for the love of a woman. They stopped loving women when they stopped loving knowledge and started playing follow the leader.”

“Except Uncle Boris.”

Uncle Boris put his arm around Susanna and assured her there were still men who loved women, knowledge and peaceful wisdom.

So we retold the story and drank more coffee. Then we told our own story. We told of Jesus and John being men that walked side by side with the women and children. Teaching the love of life and giving women their power back.

Some of the older men at the tables next to us seemed quite disgusted with all our talk of power to the living woman of knowledge.

The word Blasphemy made it over to our table often enough that Uncle Boris stood up and looked around at all the mutterers.

He didn’t say anything. He just looked at the scared old men and they hid behind their ugly beards. And planned their next murder.

We left the dessert house and Uncle Boris and Aunt Dorthy sat with us in a park till it got dark.

“My parents don’t know that I am going to go to Cairo to be with Jesus. They don’t approve of him.”

“It’s your life, Mary. My parents didn’t approve of Boris either. But it is you that wants to live with Jesus, not your parents. They want you to have a secure life. But security without love is not much fun. Life isn’t a business transaction.”

“He will make some money teaching.”

“Sounds to me like Jesus is a very clever boy. A clever boy will be a clever man. And that is a very nice kind of partner to have when you grow older.”

“I hope we love each other like you and Uncle Boris do when we get old.”

“Don’t get old, Mary, just grow older. The years will go by but you don’t have to get old. When you have children, let them remind you how to be young. Just stay interested in life and you won’t get old.”

I believed her. She was as old as my mother and had as many children and she still looked bright and it was plain to see that she and Uncle Boris still adored one another. It gave me hope to see it.


chapter 05

Jesus was back for the summer. He was charged like a wild beast and my insides screamed for his physical attention. It was next to impossible to get it. My parents were watching every move I made. Sammy Simpleton and his parents came every Sunday to make plans for my life.

Susanna was also getting pressure from her parents to marry a priest or a lawyer. One must forget about childish ideals and be practical. And everyone knows, without money, life is a bitch.

So was I. And I was in love with a true bastard who rejected just about everything about his ancestors.

“Our ancestors were us. As we were more stupid than now. There is no future in honouring the past. Making a religion based on mad pimps and warlords who made a religion based on an alter with horns that was built under the random rituals dictated by hysterical insane inbred Moses to burn animal fat and parts day and night. It is outrageous madness. It is trite. It is an insult to intelligence. Not only is religion an insult but religion is an outright attack. A brutal tyranny to inflict ignorance on the masses so that they will obey the self-chosen ruling class of murdering, raping thieves. We are foolish animals to put up with such a farce.”

I was standing close to Jesus in the synagogue. He was talking to John with a few elders listening in. With their jaws hanging down to the polished by slaves floor. There was no doubt that Jesus refused to be held down by fear of blasphemy.

Sammy Simpleton made a noble effort of confrontation with Jesus.

“How can we be our own ancestors.”

“We are always the same creatures. Always part of the all. Only in life do we experience. Our souls and bodies are one. They can not be separated.”

No one really understood what he meant. They thought he was purposely abusing the know facts. That had been written in a book of contradictions.

“If you are a son of Israel you reject your own blood.”

“I do not reject my own blood. I reject a mad religious law of blatant dictatorship. Blood is all the same. The Arabs and Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans, the Africans and Chinese. We are all the same animal. There is nothing different in our blood. There is no such thing as a race with any significant different difference from any other race.”

“Animal. Man is not an animal. Man is made in God’s image and women is made from man to serve him.”

“That is a declaration of war against women. That is a myopic mad notion. If anything, we are woman’s helpers. Protect them and provide for them while they are pregnant and care for them so that they can have a calm and safe environment where their child can take its time to grow up with other children. Our whole system of business is a confrontation with life. We make women our slaves, embrace war and pillaging and move piles of gold from one bunch of murdering kings to the other.”

John had managed to distract the priests while Jesus went on explaining things to Sammy Simpleton. It was not an argument. They were in a strange dance of words and I was starting to see and understand its workings when my mother led me away.

“I don’t like you listening to Jesus.”

“My life does not belong to you, Mother. I love Jesus and when he leaves this dried up land to go to Istanbul, I am going with him. I don’t care if you disown me or cut me out of your will or sell my reservation in the cemetery.”

I would have continued but I received a slap on the face. Right there in the synagogue.

According to the laws of our ancestors, I was wrong to believe my life belonged to me. There were laws and I was under them. Until I left my father’s house, his word, the word of our ancestors, was my law.

Bullshit.

I was given house arrest. I was permitted to go to synagogue and I was permitted visitation privileges from Sammy Simpleton and Susanna.

Sammy came to help me with the holy scriptures.

“Sammy, you are kind and clever. I am learning to like you and I am thankful for your assistance with understanding that Torah but I will not marry you. I am already married to Jesus.”

“Not in the synagogue.”

“No. In the desert.”

Sammy smiled and tried to picture what kind of service we might have had. He didn’t ask.

“I’m not going to marry.”

“What.”

“I have no intention of getting married.”

“Then why do you court me.”

“To please my parents. To keep them off my back for a little while.”

I smiled and kissed Sammy on the cheek. He blushed and started talking about Moses and his tent inside the tent. The holy place where no one was permitted. And he told me about the children they took as slaves when the Israelite army destroyed city-states.

I watched him and listened. And I could see that he had seen the same things as Jesus had seen. He had found the same tyranny in the story. He surprised me. Which made me like him even more.

My parents were very happy to see that I was seeing Sammy more often and with an element of enthusiasm. Talking for hours with him about the various characters in the holy scriptures.

Our parents thought they had succeeded in pairing us.

Everyone was a little surprised when Sammy went to a monastery and I climbed out my bedroom window and went with Jesus to Istanbul.


chapter 06

We stayed a month in Cairo with Uncles Jesus so Jesus could work with Jesus and Jesus to earn some money so we would have an easier start in Istanbul.

His aunts and uncles and cousins were really beautiful. Jesus shocked none of them with his philosophy and they had no problem with us sharing a bed.

The business was crazy. There were more than 100 furniture builders working in three different shops. Wood, raw lumber, came in every day and furniture went out every day.

And every evening Uncle Jesus or Uncle Jesus took Jesus and me to a restaurant.

“This is the best restaurant for ostrich. So we should leave if you don’t like ostrich.”

“What’s an ostrich”

“It’s a real big bird that can’t fly.”

“Like a giant chicken.”

“With a much longer neck. And not quite as pretty.”

So we stayed. No one had anything against giant chickens. At least not dead ones.

“What did you say you were going to do in Istanbul, Mary.”

“I didn’t. I’m going to study theater. And Dance.”

“What a grand idea. I love theater. Not an easy endeavor. But I am certain a very rewarding one. A wealth of history. How very exciting. My wife won’t go to the theater with me. Finds it too vulgar and confusing. We have some great theater here. In fact, we can catch the last half of The Murders of Constipatus if we skip desert.”

Uncle Jesus told us about the architecture of the city theater. Then we got around to philosophy and I had trouble imagining that Uncle Jesus was a Jew. There was very little Jewish about any of the aunts and uncles of Jesus in Cairo. The world was so different outside of Nazareth.

After eating our portions of giant chicken, we walked down town to visit the theater. The Murders of Constipatus was playing its last night. Uncle Jesus knew someone at the front door and explained that I was going to study theater and needed to get a taste of it. Uncle Jesus’ friend took us inside to a private booth. The second act was about to start. Uncle Jesus and Jesus and I were shown to our seats next to someone Uncle Jesus knew. They kissed cheeks like Jews but they were both clean shaven.

Trumpets started blaring and I jumped a little. Then I smiled at Jesus and took his hand. He sniffed the top of my head and we watched as the paranoid King Constipatus killed his son and nephew because his second wife who was obviously a board sorry lying bitch, accused her step-son of wanting to have his way with her. Which, of course was completely mad for she was a wretched creature and the son had more women than any one man could handle. After he had the skin pulled off of his son and nephew then had them cut into pieces and dragged through the city behind a horse, King Constipatus discovered that his wretched wife had lied. His son and nephew were innocent. So the King had his wife skinned and cut up and dragged through the city.

This didn’t impress the priests so much so the King told them if they ignored the crime he would declare their religion tax free and built a few grand temples and give them the right to rob any nonbelievers and kill them. Because they did not follow the holy law. And anyone that wasn’t married, when they died, their wealth would be turned over to the priests. No nonbeliever could receive inheritance from a believer.

In the end, his kingdom was a madhouse. King Constipatus had turned the land into a wallowing frightened dictatorship. He was converted by the priests to their holy tax free religion and it was declared that God would rule the world with an iron fist. And a steel sword.

“That was very up lifting.”

Uncle Jesus laughed at me then lead us out and up the street to a Chinese tea house.

“Where is China.”

“North east of where John studies. We’ll go to the university tomorrow and I’ll show you some maps.”

“Can you just skip out of work.”

Uncle Jesus smiled. Which I translated to: Jesus can do as he pleases.

It pleased Jesus to get up early in the morning and work till noon most days and take me to places he knew, such as the university and libraries and parks. Uncle Jesus took us out at night.

Sometimes he took us to scary looking places where theater of a different kind was performed. Often works that local writers had written.

They weren’t at all the scale of the grand city theater but they had much more interesting perspectives.

Jesus, my lover, was convinced they were all telling approximately the same thing. He was also convinced they were calling out to him to do what it was he had to do.

“What do you have to do, Jesus.”

Jesus smiled.

“Mary Helene, my love. I don’t know. And this is likely a good thing. For if I knew, I’m certain I would be paralyzed with fear.”

“No you wouldn’t. You are master over the devil.”

“I try hard to keep it at bay.”

“You are not alone in the battle. I have seen how the woman and children, even complete strangers, fill you with love and support. Even the cats and dogs are on your side.”

Jesus made such wonderful love with me that night. Like a hungry animal that wanted to eat his way inside me.

The devil didn’t come near the house the whole time we stayed in Cairo.


mary helene chapters 07 - 09