Free The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín

saw no one I recognized. It was the voice I recognized, the sounds he made that belonged only to him. I stood and looked around. There were other things going on – horses being shoed and fed, games being played, insults and jokes being hurled, and fires lit to cook food, with the smoke rising and blowing all around the hill. It seems hard to fathom now that I stayed there andwatched this, that I did not run towards him, or call out to him. But I did not. I watched in horror, but I did not move or make a sound. Nothing would have worked against the quality of their determination. Nothing would have worked against how prepared they were, and fast-moving. But it seems odd, nonetheless, that we could have watched, that I could have made a decision not to put myself in danger. We watched because we had no choice. I did not cry out or run to rescue him because it would have made no difference. I would have been cast aside like something blown in on the wind. But what is also strange, what seems strange after all these years, is that I had the capacity then to control myself, to weigh things up, to watch and do nothing and know that that was right. We held each other and stood back. That is what we did. We held each other and stood back as he howled out words that I could not catch. And maybe I should have moved towards him then, no matter what the consequences would have been. It would not have mattered, but at least I would not have to go over and over it now, wondering how I could not have run towards them and pulled them back and shouted out words, how I could have watched and remained still and silent. But that is what I did.
    When I could, I asked our guardian how long it would take for him to die and was told that becauseof the nails and the amount of blood he seemed to have lost and the heat of the sun then it could be quick, but it could still take a day unless they came and broke his legs and then it would be quicker. There was a man in charge, I was told, and he knew how to make the time go faster or slow it down, he was an expert, that is what he did in the same way as others were experts in crops and seasons, the time to harvest the fruit from the trees, or the time it took a child to come into the world. They could make sure, I was told, that no more blood would be spilled, or they could even turn the cross away from the sun, or they could use spears to pierce his flesh, and this would mean that he would die within hours, before nightfall. This would mean that he would die before the Sabbath, but for this, I was told, permission would have to be given by the Romans, by Pilate himself. And if Pilate could not be found, then there were always men among the crowd who could stand in for Pilate and give permission. I almost wanted to ask if there was still time to save him, if he could be rescued and still live, but, in reality, I knew that it was too late for that. I had seen the nails before they went into the space between his wrists and his hands.
    Then I saw that other crosses were being raised with men tied to them with ropes, but the wood seemed to be too heavy, or the crosses had been badly made, and each time they had them standingthe crosses would slip over and fall back to the ground.
    I was watching anything, a cloud billowing across the sky, a stone, a man standing in front of me, anything to distract me from the moans that came from close by. I asked myself if there was anything I could do to pretend that this was not happening, that it had happened in the past to someone else, or that it was going on in a future I would never have to live through. Because I had been watching with such care, I could tell that a group of men, some Romans, some Elders, stood by the side, and they had horses, and it was how they observed the scene and circled around each other that made me realize that they were the ones in control, that many other events here were random, part of the day before the Sabbath, but these men seemed