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Tell me more about the angel,” I ask her. “Tell me more of how it kissed your neck, caressed your heart in glowing hands. Tell me more how you fell through the floor when it turned its holy eyes to yours,” and there is envy in my eyes, there is jealousy.
And she tells me that she did not fear, that she knew the angel loved her, that it came to her with the air of a dear friend, and I vomit behind my teeth, because good God, how many times have I come to her a dear friend? How many times have I held her hand and helped her to stand?
How many times have I been the one to toss a coin into her beggar’s bowl, to sit down beside her with my own? How many times have I watched Joseph’s hands with loathing, how many times, how many times have I tasted sweet bread and known my dear friend Mary is singing for her supper? How many times have I longed to sing beside her? I, too, am starving, but I cannot sing. I can cry, and I can tear my throat to table scraps, but I do not have a voice that makes me beautiful.
Is that how the angel found her? One lonesome night as she clawed her way to a meal and a rest? Was it watching her, a talent scout, nestled between the shadows of the weary men? Was it almost entirely unseen? Or did she go to it, did she seek it out? Did she pray and pray and pray until something gave? I do not want to believe that, because I have prayed, and I have not drawn prosperity to me. I have not even called controversy. Did she pray and weep? Did she come to it as a dear friend?
I want her to shut up about the son of God. I want her to be silent. One day, there will be people in the street who preach the philosophy of her son. One day, there will be people who revere the gift that she gave to them. She has given me nothing. Our closest days are bitter, my birthday month has withered away like a dead flower. She laughs and smiles in the square, she laughs and smiles as her son grows, she beams when he is complimented. I almost see the angel’s eyes in the back of hers, is it selfish of me to hate her joy? To want that beautiful creature to abandon her? Is it so selfish of me to wish we could be poor again? To wish we sat together on a street corner and pleaded for kindness from anyone who passed?
“Tell me more about the angel,” I ask her, touching the strands of her hair between my fingers. I had held her hand when she delivered, I had brought her water, stale though it may be. I placed a coin in her bowl she had left by the piles of straw, like it would make her lucky.
“Tell me, was it kind to you?”
And she laughs, and she tells me that yes, it was kind, that it painted strokes of beauty and tender care upon the backs of her eyelids. I cannot stay inside with her, even if I was the one who asked. I cannot imagine an angel as gentle. I cannot imagine her loving someone. I do not ask Joseph how he feels. I cannot confide in him this, I am not even close enough for that, am I?
I hate the son of God because he is not my own, I hate the praises given. They will paint beautiful paintings of him, they will paint these paintings and they will sing the scriptures. There are shrines that Mary keeps, statues and paintings, things that keep her close to God. I want to be close to God, I want to be as special as she is, because perhaps we will be equals again. Perhaps, our conversations will not be empty, will not be hollow. Perhaps, she will speak to me for hours, into the night as the candles burn down. She spends her hours praying so I know she has the time.
I have tried to paint him, myself. I have tried to capture eyes that did not come from her, in a face that did. I have wept and screamed as I painted, but how is this any different from placing a coin in her bowl. She placed hers in mine first, the day we met, as she was seeking home and saw me there, hungry. I said thank you, kind one, but as she turned to walk away, with hair starting to silver in the fading light, I wished I had said I love you.
I have tried to paint him, have given my blood for it, but it is not good enough for a shrine, not good enough to make her smile and glow, not like the paintings real disciples have made, the kind that seem to shine in the sun. I will grow up to skim through the Bible, and yet I wonder why my devotion has no substance beyond my love for her. I cannot paint her son without painting her, and to paint her is intimate enough to kill me.
“Tell me more of the angel,” I ask her, “how did it happen?” Because I cannot take it any longer, and she smiles, and she burns like a rainbow in the sunlight. She always appears to me this way, her face a visage of euphoria.
“The angel needed someone,” she says. “The angel needed someone, and I did not see that with terror. I am not one to get starstruck, perhaps,” she says, and I bite my lip until it bleeds, because I do, I do, I do.
And I ask her, “when you pray, is it there?” And her hair glitters as she nods, and all you can feel is loathing for God, for choosing her.
And if I did not care about preserving her happiness, if I did not care about hurting her, I would say “Mary, did you know that I loved you too? Is an angel still more lovable than another woman, still less alien? When the angel kissed your palm like a servant, did you imagine me there? I would have, if I were you. Did you know that I hate how happy you are, because you’re leaving everything behind? Mary, how many times must I paint your son for you to know I love you?”
But she is my dearest friend, and so I tell her, instead, “You are truly blessed.”