chapter 04

For Liz's 15th birthday we went to visit her aunt and uncle in Jerusalem. For Jews they were very liberal. Uncle Boris went to synagogue because it was good business. He was a taylor 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.

Uncle Boris thought the whole thing very funny.

"Tell me about your boyfriend, Mary."

"He's studying in Cairo."

"What's he doing."

"He's trying to find a way to wake up the world."

"God bless him."

"He doesn't believe in God."

Uncle Boris laughed.

"God has already blessed him."

Uncle Boris got Liz to tell him about John, the other forbidden boyfriend. Then when he was done laughing he told us to dress up like Jewish women so we could go out for Jerusalem smoked meat sandwiches with mustard.

Across the street from Schwartz Meat House was another meat house with no line up to get in. By Schwartz they were lined up to get in and to take out.

"Why doesn't anyone go to the other Meat House."

"I don't know, Liz. Maybe because everyone seems to feel at home by Schwartz."

It didn't take to long to get in 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.

Uncle Boris ordered a liter of a wine out of Africa and served us wine and ordered up smoked meat sandwiches.

Liz and I were both very drunk from the wine and all the meat.

"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.

"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.

"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."

"Except Uncle Boris."

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

So we retold the story and drank 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.

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.

Liz 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 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 out of an alter with horns that burnt animal fat and parts day and night. We are foolish animals."

I was standing close to Jesus in the synagogue. He was talking to John with a few elders listening in. With their jaws hanging.

Sammy Simpleton made a nobel effort of confrontation with Jesus.

"How can we be our own ancestors. If you are a son of Israel you reject your own blood."

"Blood is all the same. The Arabs and Egyptians, the Greeks and Romans, the Africans and Chinese. We are all the same animal."

"Animal. Man is not an animal. Man is made in God's image and women are his helpers."

"That is a mad notion. If anything, we are woman's helpers. Protect 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."

Jesus was still explaining things to Sammy Simpleton 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 Galilee 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.

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.

I was given house arrest. I was permitted to go to synagogue and I was permitted visitation rights from Sammy Simpleton and Liz.

Sammy came to help me with the holy scriptures.

"Sammy, you are kind and clever. I will not marry you."

"I'm not going to marry."

"Then why do you court me."

"To please my parents."

It dawned on me that his sexual interest might be similar to what sometimes happened with Liz and me. 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 some city states.

I watched him and listened. And I could see that he had seen the same things as Jesus had seen.

My parents were very happy to see that I was seeing Sammy more often with an element of enthusiasm.

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 me sharing his 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."

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

"What are you going to do in Istanbul, Mary."

"I'm going to study theater. And Dance."

"What a grand idea."

Uncle Jesus loved the theater and admired those who had the will to do performance.

"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. I'd be happy to take you to the city theater."

Uncle Jesus told us about the city theater. Then we got around to philosophy and I noticed that there was very little Jewish about the aunts and uncles of Jesus in Cairo. The world was so different than Galilee.

After eating our giant chicken, we walked down town to have a look at the theater. The Murder of Anid was playing its last night and Uncle Jesus knew someone at the front door and he took us inside to a private booth. The last act was about to start. 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 Anid killed his servants who might have wanted him dead.

In the end, his wife killed him by pushing him from the parapet. Then she murdered his brother and took the son to be her lover. Which was a little silly on account he had not reached puberty.

"That's the Greeks for you."

Uncle Jesus smiled 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. Howie."

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."


mary helene chapters 07 - 09