BENGALURU: She says, ‘I speak of one whose name you do not know to hear.’
Now she notices a third figure standing to her side, a rough figure slouching slightly. Unlike the smug strangers in white, this man’s robe is dusty, as if he has been working many hours in the sun. She thinks it might be the gardener come to tidy up after his exertions, for it is the first day after the Sabbath. Perhaps he took the body away before dawn and has returned to clear the tomb. Who gave him permission, she asks, to move the Rabbuni? Tell her where 16 he is, so she may go and tend to him. The gardener scrutinises her, a look of amusement on his face. She notices that his eyes are too large for his head, shining eyes set prominently in their sockets. He says a familiar word.
‘How do you know my name?’ she asks.
He makes no reply. Instead he asks questions. Why does she weep? If there is no difference between knowledge and faith, why believe, why not merely apprehend, or perceive without understanding? What use perception if it does not lead to sight? Why does she not see that which is in front of her? Only then does she understand that it is he, changed so much she did not recognise him. Of course he is different. How could he be the same? He has died, as all men die, but now he has returned, as no man does.
‘Rabbuni,’ says Mary of Magdala.
‘Yes.’
‘I thought you died.’
‘I did die.’
‘I thought you died for ever,’ she says, embracing him.
‘You cannot hold me,’ he says, extricating himself. ‘I am no longer of those who may be held.’
He lifts his hands and shows her the crusted wounds in his wrists, deep excavations already healing. She wants to kiss the gouges in his flesh. He tells her there is no pain. Sometimes the wounds itch, but he cannot do anything about that. It is as if his limbs no longer belong to him, and this, he says with a laugh, is an unaccustomed, happy feeling. He tells her that some part of him is still in the world, but the smallest, least useful part. Even this will soon pass into light.
Then he speaks of different kinds of light. He tells her that bright light is the least conducive, a 17 physical barrier that does not allow the spirit to pass. Halflight is better. And there is always light, even when it is invisible to the eye. He speaks in this way for some time. She does not know how long, because she has no sense of time passing. Her senses are enclosed in the words. He ends by telling her to speak of the things she has seen, because she has witnessed all that happened to him and now she is the first to witness his return. When she speaks of the things she has seen, she must remember to say her name.
This is the book that begins with the end. This is the book that begins with one Mary and ends with another. And because her name has been lost or misplaced or maligned, I say it here:
Mary of Magdala.
(Excerpted from Names of the Women by Jeet Thayil with permission from Penguin Random House)