The Gospel According to Lazarus

by Richard Zimler

  I then adapt a story that our Torah master, Rabbi Baruch, once told me. ‘When I was a boy of nine and living in Natzeret,’ I begin, ‘a nasty-looking viper followed me home on Yom Kippur. Yeshua used a powerful spell to force the creature to tell us why it was pursuing me, and it opened its mouth as though to attack us, but, instead, the soul of a man rose out of it, and it was a dark and red-glowing thing, like a burning shadow, and he confessed that he had been a tailor I’d once met with my father, and, when he recognized me passing in the street, he followed me, for he wished to confess his sins to someone he’d known in life. The tailor –’

  ‘Is this the truth?’ Hannah cuts in, running an uneasy hand down her neck.

  ‘Why would I lie?’ I ask her, and I continue my story before Mia can contradict me. ‘The tailor explained to us that, after he was murdered two months earlier, he possessed the body of a snake so he might avenge himself upon his wife. He told us that he still slithered into her bed every night and forced her to couple with him. And do you know why he wanted vengeance, dear Hannah? Because she’d dishonoured him after his death by permitting his murderer inside their home so that he might gloat over his body!’

  Hannah’s eyes cloud with tears. ‘That’s a horrible story!’ she tells me.

  ‘Eli, was that really necessary?’ Mia asks me disappointedly.

  Sensing a defeat going far beyond this time and place – a test failed – I am about to ask Hannah to please simply grant my request and leave, but, as I begin to speak, she makes an error of judgement. ‘Everyone knows how kind I am’, she interrupts, ‘and that I’d never do anything to hurt anyone. So I don’t know why you are so eager to make me leave.’

  ‘Hannah, how can you not be embarrassed to speak so highly of yourself?’ I ask. ‘And why can’t you understand that the dead deserve our respect?’

  My cousin removes her headscarf, which means she plans to continue this argument for as long as it takes to get her way. ‘Mia, please tell Eli how I helped your dear mother after your father died,’ she says. ‘He must have been too young to remember.’

  Speaking of those desperate days to my sister is another error; she will not lie about our mother’s suffering simply to be kind to a visitor. ‘Helped my mother?’ she exclaims in disbelief. ‘In all those desolate months, during our worst moments of despair and poverty, you came to see us all of once!’

  ‘That’s not true! I remember I brought you barley soup the first time, and then, there was another time, after your mother got ill –’

  ‘Enough, Hannah! If you want the truth, our mother always hated having you in our home.’

  ‘Eli, are you under the illusion that returning from the dead has made you into an important man?’ she asks scornfully, and her husband adds, ‘To us, you’ll always be just a pathetic little labourer who has memorized too much scripture!’

  A moment later, Hannah thrusts her royal spear into me as far as she can. ‘You’re an embarrassment to your family!’ she says with a sneer. ‘And you always will be!’

  I smile then, because that particular insult will permit me to voice a sentiment I’ve been meaning to express to a great many neighbours and relatives since I came of age. ‘Causing embarrassment to you and all the other sanctimonious simpletons in my life is the Lord’s way of telling me that I’m on the absolute right path.’

  She is so stunned by my words that it takes her a few moments to locate the shreds of her righteousness, and by the time she does I have turned away from her and passed into the courtyard. ‘We shall pray for you, Eli!’ Hannah calls after me.

  If I go back to her I shall strike her, so I keep walking.

  After Hannah has vented her continued outrage on poor Mia, she finally departs. I ask our cousin Ion to guard the front door and instruct him to let no one enter except Yeshua or his followers. I very likely ought to realize that I have terrified Mia with my outburst, but I am aware of little beyond my own nervous discomfort at that moment.

  A short while later, as I anoint Uriyah with Mia’s oils, my exhaustion is replaced by the comforts of ritual. We all share the same needs is what the movements of my hands mean, and, even if it isn’t true, I am, for the moment, part of a community that includes every being that has lived and died.

  While I prepare Uriyah for burial the next morning, I spot Yirmi stealing timorous glances at me from Mia’s bedroom. I summon him to me and tell him of the obligations we have to the dead. From the way he shivers in my arms, I can sense that he is standing in the shadow of his own mortality, so I cut short my explanations and tell him all that a boy his age needs to understand: ‘Everyone deserves an honourable burial, just as all of us deserve a good and fruitful life. And if he hasn’t any kin to perform this mitzvah, we must.’

  ‘But why aren’t you afraid of touching his body?’ Yirmi whispers to me.

  ‘Because the dead wish us well if they wish anything at all.’

  ‘How can you be certain?’

  If Hannah had not insisted so vehemently on seeing Uriyah, would I have known what to reply? I caress my son’s cheek so that he will remember the lesson my cousin has just taught me. ‘What I am sure of is that it’s the living who fail to show compassion and common sense at times of grief, and who all too often cherish the misfortune of others.’

  Flies have begun gorging on the wound across Uriyah’s throat, so I cover it with a linen cloth, which I fix in place with the beach-stones that I brought back years ago from Alexandria. Soon afterwards, Maryam of Magdala and Yohanon come to visit. They have already heard what has happened to Uriyah, and I speak to them of my certainty that his murder was meant as a warning for me – and that because of this I cannot permit myself to be seen with Yeshua or any of his disciples.

  Maryam tells me that an undertaker has accompanied them to my home and is waiting outside with his donkey cart. I hand her the ring that Mia took from Uriyah’s finger.

  The undertaker has long curly hair and smells of sesame paste. He grips Uriyah under his arms and lifts him into his barrow. The scars on the boy’s back catch my attention again.

  ‘A letter theta has been etched into his right shoulder,’ I point out.

  ‘The mark of his master,’ Yohanon says.

  ‘Uriyah was a slave?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He didn’t mention that.’ While wondering what else Uriyah failed to tell me, I ask if he was truly a Samaritan.

  Maryam confirms to me that Uriyah was from Shalem and that it was there that they first met him. ‘The little mischief-maker robbed us!’ she adds, and her eyes shine with amused admiration. It is a look that reminds me that there is a great deal in Maryam I would like to know.

  ‘Robbed you how?’ I ask.

  ‘He slipped into our camp as silent as a scorpion and took away two of our packs.’

  ‘When we awakened,’ Yohanon says, ‘we tracked his footsteps to a stream, and we found him standing on the bank, devouring one of our fish.’ Yohanon grimaces. ‘Eli, he was eating it raw! I don’t even think he’d removed the scales.’

  ‘Around his feet were iron anklets,’ Maryam tells me in an outraged voice. ‘He told us later that his uncle had first put chains on him when he was only five years old. Can you imagine? Later, when he was twelve, his uncle sold him to a wealthy Roman builder. When we met him, he’d escaped and was being hunted by slave-catchers.’

  Without my asking, the rest of the story of how Uriyah came to follow Yeshua spills out of her, as if it had been consuming all her deepest emotions for far too long. I have the impression that Uriyah meant something to her that she doesn’t entirely understand and hopes to learn by speaking to me of him.

  Here is what she tells me.

  When Uriyah spotted us approaching him, he didn’t flee. Maybe he’d decided to stop running and fight. He’d broken the chain between his legs, but he had been unable to remove his iron anklets. At least, that’s what we’d thought. Yeshua walked towards him with his arms open in greetin
g, but the boy grabbed his axe and shouted, ‘I’ll chop off your head if you come any closer! I won’t be taken back!’

  Yeshua lifted off his tunic and threw it ahead. ‘It’s too big for you,’ he said, ‘but you still have some growing in you, and it will fit you within a year.’ He then removed his sandals and tossed them to the boy as well.

  ‘Why would you give me your clothing?’ Uriyah asked suspiciously.

  ‘Because it’s mine to give.’

  ‘But now you’ll be naked.’

  Yeshua laughed and replied, ‘Naked we came from our mother’s womb and naked we shall return.’

  ‘How did you find me?’ the boy asked.

  ‘The others followed your footsteps, but I heard your cry for help.’

  Uriyah kneeled down then to pick up Yeshua’s tunic, but, on touching it, he drew back his hand as though from a fire. ‘Have you put a curse into your tunic?’ he asked.

  ‘Why would I wish to curse you?’ Yeshua replied.

  ‘I saw you healing the people of a village once, years ago, so I know that you have great powers. How do I know you haven’t turned to evil?’

  ‘Because I always try to be worthy of the lilies of the field and lift my face towards the truth,’ Yeshua replied. ‘Now, what’s your name, young man?’ he asked.

  ‘Uriyah ben Avram.’

  ‘Come to me, Uriyah, for I mean you no harm and you need help, and my companions may soon lose their patience and ask me to leave without you, and I fear that if we abandon you, you’ll soon be caught.’

  As the boy reached him, Yeshua took his hands, which were soiled and scarred. He bent to kiss them, but Uriyah pulled them back. ‘No!’ he protested.

  ‘I was once a slave, too,’ Yeshua told him. ‘So we meet as equals.’

  ‘When were you a slave?’

  ‘We were all of us slaves to Pharaoh at the time of Mosheh. I walked behind him then, just as I walk behind him now. Every sunrise, in my morning prayers, he and I journey together to the Promised Land.’

  ‘The way you speak, it isn’t how …’ The boy shrugged to end his sentence, unwilling to risk offending Yeshua, who embraced him and told him he need not fear any of us.

  Yeshua then helped Uriyah put on his tunic. Later that morning, we went to see an old friend, a blacksmith, and Yeshua borrowed a chisel and a hammer. ‘Now we shall remove those anklets of yours,’ he told the boy.

  Uriyah nodded his agreement, but, as Yeshua was working, he burst into tears. ‘Please stop!’ he pleaded.

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I’ve had them on so long … It feels like you’re removing my feet!’

  Maryam’s voice caves in as she finishes her story. When I go to her, she whispers something to me that still makes me come to a halt in the street on occasion. ‘Uriyah told me when we were alone that he would never take Yeshua’s tunic off, because it had been worn by the Melekh ha-Mashiah.

  It is not the first time I have heard Yeshua called our Anointed King, but the way Maryam covers her mouth when she speaks the words makes my spirit tremble.

  Secrets confided to friends sometimes summon others, and I tell Yohanon and Maryam that Uriyah gave me to understand that it was a miracle that Yeshua was able to remove his fetters.

  ‘No, nothing of the sort,’ Yohanon replies dismissively. ‘The chisel was sharp and the hammer sturdy. Yeshua has long known how to use such tools.’

  Yohanon keeps a list of Yeshua’s miracles, and he regards it a sacred duty, so I am loath to challenge his verdict. And yet this seems an exceptional case. ‘Uriyah told me that the freedom Yeshua gave him was a miracle,’ I say. ‘And surely the scars of slavery that he carried in his flesh since he was five years old made him understand what took place between him and Yeshua far better than any of us.’

  A fraction of an hour later, as the undertaker’s donkey cart turns the corner at the end of my street, I am struck by how easily friends and acquaintances enter and exit the tiny stage I inhabit. Is it so with everyone? It is surely a great and important failing that we do not know how to keep our loved ones with us for ever.

  Inside the cart, the tunic that once belonged to the Melekh ha-Mashiah again covers Uriyah’s nakedness, as he would have wanted. I performed that mitzvah myself.

  And here is what I think now, so many years later: how strange it is that we have so little control over who will converse with us only briefly, like Uriyah, and who will remain with us for ten or twenty years or more; and even more peculiar that a young bricklayer who walked with me on my journey for no more than a couple of hours has never faded from my memory. Indeed, he appears in my mind more worthy of the good and long life he never had than on the day he decided to hide his greatest truth from me.

  27

  Marta makes a noisy exit from her house as Mia and Yehudit are preparing supper, complete with the mutterings and repetitive coughing she indulges in when she wishes to draw attention to her suffering. A little while later, I discover that she has left with the sunburned baby girl that Mia rescued from a dungheap.

  ‘She must be taking her to the orphanage,’ Mia says, but there is doubt in her voice, and she runs her hand back through her hair as though assaulted by intolerable terrors.

  That she and I can imagine Marta capable of infanticide – as revenge against us – is something we acknowledge as our eyes meet. Mia stops me at the door. ‘You’re worn out, Eli,’ she whispers, ‘and in any case, you won’t be able to catch her. She knows the labyrinth of Yerushalayim’s streets as well as you do.’

  A half-hour later, the women at the orphanage confirm our worst fears; they have not seen Marta for at least a week.

  During supper, Mia and I picture the crime our sister may have already committed. Inside our glum silence, it becomes evident to me that we are unable to predict how our actions will hurt others – even those, like the baby Mia rescued, to whom we are tied by only the slenderest of filaments.

  I discover then what I would like for others to say of me after I am gone: Lazarus ben Natan, who did as little damage as he could.

  Pity the father whose preoccupations make him unaware of the mysteries and miseries of an adolescent son; Yirmi bursts into tears as the rest of us admire the platter of almond biscuits that Mia carries to us. In a resentful voice, he refuses to tell me what is troubling him. Once we are behind his closed door, however, he starts to weep. I gather him in my arms and apologize for being so negligent of late. To press his slender chest to my own is to feel the oddness of our separate bodies.

  After all these years together, Yirmiyahu ben Eliezer, do you know that I am still not sure where you end and I begin?

  I sit him down opposite me on his mat. He catches his breath and dries his eyes with his fists, exactly as he has done since he was an infant.

  ‘Lean forward,’ he tells me, and he pinches a crumb out of the whiskers that I have allowed to grow of late on my chin. I take advantage of our closeness to brush his silken hair out of his eyes.

  Strange are the deliberations of a man who knows that he has lost both control of his life and the will to counsel his children. It occurs to me that if the Almighty were to take pity on us and transform Yirmi and me into the sleek and beautiful animals – Galilean foxes, for instance – instead of a fearful father and his tacit son, he and I would get past this impasse by continuing to groom each other. I would lick the tangles out of his thick red fur, and he would sniff at my neck with his twitchy black nose and gnaw on my leg to see how far he could provoke me before I would tap him with a parental paw, and, when we’d had enough of tasting and testing each other, we’d trot off side by side in our confident, stiff-legged way, certain right up to the tufted tips of our ears that we’d understood all we’d ever need to understand about each other.

  But we have been born as children of Adam, which is why I shake my head at my own awkwardness.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Yirmi asks.

  Dare I reveal my peculiar thoughts to my son? ‘I
f you could become any animal you wanted, which would you chose?’ I ask.

  ‘A tiger,’ he replies confidently.

  ‘Why a tiger?’

  He bares his teeth and growls.

  ‘Do we need a fearsome beast in our lives?’ I ask.

  ‘You do.’

  ‘Ah, I see. My need for protection is what has upset you?’

  When he nods, I say, ‘Listen closely, Yirmi. Whoever is behind Uriyah’s death won’t risk incensing the crowds who follow Yeshua by hurting me. No harm will come to me or any of us as long as I’m careful. And I intend to be very careful from now on.’

  ‘I don’t want you leaving the house,’ he says.

  ‘I have to go every morning to Lucius’ villa. Otherwise, I shall not earn enough silver to keep us fed, and you and your sister and Aunt Mia will have to make do with berries and herbs foraged along the hillsides.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind, if it would keep you safe.’

  ‘Nahara might.’

  As though I have misunderstood everything about him and his sister, he says in a voice ceding to despair, ‘Nahara would do far more than that to keep you with us. She would do anything for you!’

  Tears appear again in his eyes, which inevitably summon my own. So hesitant am I to give him any counsel, however, that I realize once again what a poor substitute I am for his mother. How many times have I learned and forgotten that this son of mine tends to spot trouble everywhere he looks? Rabbi Elad, who tutors him in Greek, says that Yirmi’s soul was born in the River Kokytos, whose waters are the sum of all our tears, but the truth is that he was scarred too soon and too deeply by his mother’s death. Still, perhaps there is a way I can turn this oversight to my advantage.

  ‘You and I will make a deal,’ I tell him.

  ‘What kind of deal?’

  ‘If I give you my word that I shall not meet with Yeshua or any of his disciples or friends in public, you must stop being so concerned about me.’