Free The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín Page B

comes here, who pays my bills and orders my affairs, told me that we would have to leave quickly once he died, that others would come to look after the washing of his body and burial, that there was a path at the back of the hill and if we were prepared to go towards it in ones, then he could ensure our escape, but even if we escaped, he said, someone would follow us, or come looking for us, so we would have to make our way through the night on foot by the light of the moon and the stars and hide each day where we could. I looked at him as he spoke and I saw something that I see still in him now – no grief, no sorrow, no fuss, somethingcold, as though life is a business to be managed, that our time on earth requires planning and regulation and careful foresight.
    ‘He is not dead yet,’ I said to him. ‘He is not dead yet. I will stay with him until he dies.’
    For a moment I glanced over towards the men at the side. I noticed that Marcus was missing and the man who had been following me was missing too. For a second, puzzled, I looked behind me to see if they were leaving or had joined some other gathering. I saw them then, both of them, and they were with the man who had been at the wedding in Cana, the strangler, and they were pointing towards me and Mary and our guardian, singling us out among the crowd. The strangler was watching and nodding calmly as each one of us was identified. Later, as the years went by, I would say to myself that the decision I made then was for Mary’s sake, that I realized that I had led her here and that now I was to be the cause of her being strangled. I remember what Marcus had told me, the man could do it without making a sound or leaving a mark. But it was not the possibility of Mary’s death by silent strangling, the image of her body writhing and resisting as his thumbs pushed in on her neck to break it, that caused me to run towards our guardian and to tell him that we must go now, go as he had said, stealthily in ones and then move fast, travel through the night to wherever we might be safe. It was myown safety I thought of, it was to protect myself. I was suddenly afraid, and more afraid now, sensing that the danger had edged towards me, than I had been all those hours.
    It is only now that I can admit this, only now that I can allow myself to say it. For years I have comforted myself with the thought of how long I remained there, how much I suffered then. But I must say it once, I must let the words out, that despite the panic, despite the desperation, the shrieking, despite the fact that his heart and his flesh had come from my heart and my flesh, despite the pain I felt, a pain that has never lifted, and will go with me into the grave, despite all of this, the pain was his and not mine. And when the possibility of being dragged away and choked arose, my first instinct was to flee and it was also my last instinct. In those hours I was powerless, but, nonetheless, as I went from grief to further grief, wringing my hands, holding the others, watching with horror, I knew what I would do. As our guardian said, I would leave others to wash his body and hold him and bury him when his death came. I would leave him to die alone if I had to. And that is what I did. Once I signalled my agreement, Mary slipped away first and we watched her go out of the sides of our eyes. I did not look at the figure on the cross again. Perhaps I had looked enough. Perhaps I was right to save myself when I could. Butit does not feel like that now and it never has. But I will say it now because it has to be said by someone once: I did it to save myself. I did it for no other reason. I watched our guardian slip away and I pretended not to notice. I moved towards the cross as if I were going to sit at the foot of it and wring my hands as I waited for his final moments. And then I slipped around the back. I pretended I was searching for something or someone, or a place to relieve myself where I could not be