‘Are you not frightened of them?’ I ask my friend as we get on our way again.
‘I’m frightened only of how they suffer.’
‘How do you find the will to … to touch them?’
He stops walking. ‘Embrace me!’ he says angrily.
Terror pounds in my head, for he has touched five lepers and may spread their misfortune to me. Yet when he repeats his request, I take him in my arms and kiss his lips.
‘How did you overcome your fear of me?’ he asks as we separate.
‘My affection and respect for you would not permit me to refuse you.’
‘Exactly so.’
After the spires of Yerushalayim rise up at the western horizon, we reach the crossroads where we must separate, since Yeshua wishes to return to his disciples. ‘Will you tell me what you’ll do next,’ I ask.
‘I’ll go to the Temple later today,’ he says.
‘To talk to the priests?’
‘No, to tell them that God’s blessings must not be bought and sold.’ He holds up his hands when I question him further. ‘I’ve already told you too much.’
‘I’ve been told that the Romans are looking for an excuse to crush us,’ I say.
‘I’ve been careful not to provoke anyone since we were eight years old,’ he says, meaning, I can continue no longer.
‘Where are you staying in Yerushalayim?’
He replies that I can get word to him through his brother Yaaqov, then looks off towards Yerushalayim, and I can tell that he is eager to set sail from the island we make together. The fear that he will live the next months and years without me cleaves to my breathing, however.
‘Stay with me.’
I do not know who speaks these words; they escape my mouth of their own accord, as though fleeing a collapsing city.
He gazes down, searching for an adequate reply, but I do not wish to make him find one. ‘I’ll walk you part of the way to Yerushalayim, then turn back for Bethany,’ I tell him, and I lead him forward.
A short time later, I remember what Lucius told me about our conquerors. ‘The Romans may destroy the Temple if you provoke them,’ I say. ‘What then?’
‘Then,’ he replies, choosing his words carefully, ‘I shall build it back up before the next Sabbath.’
‘How will you do that?’
‘I’ll build a Temple from the temporal.’ He uses the word zeman for temporal. It can also mean to number, apportion or, by extension, to assign places to guests, so I conclude that he means to do away with the privileges of the priesthood and welcome all men and women to the Temple as equals. But that proves a misunderstanding; he explains that we no longer need a geographic centre. ‘The Sabbath is the holy centre of our lives and always has been, though most of us have forgotten.’
‘But your supporters will want a place of worship.’
Yeshua points to the broad sycamores and cedars along the side of the road.
‘Many people will not understand that trees are enough,’ I say. ‘And the priests will lose all their power if there is no Temple.’
‘You can’t lose what was never yours,’ he says, and he quotes Yeshayahu. ‘“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who confuse darkness for light and light for darkness.”’
‘Caiaphas will never give up his privileges without a fight.’
‘Caiaphas is a Philoromaios. All his knowledge of the law has not made him wise.’
‘He doesn’t need to be wise. He has authority.’
‘He has the authority Rome has given to him, nothing more. Very soon the sons of Esau will know they must put down their swords or leave.’
‘How will you convince them of that?’
‘I will make … life uncomfortable for them.’
‘Still, while Rome rules, Caiaphas remains a formidable enemy.’
Yeshua scoffs and gets on his way again.
‘Caiaphas has his robes,’ I call after him, meaning he has his magic. ‘He will fight you above and he will fight you below.’
My old friend returns to me. ‘Lazar, the Lord is with me. I’ll be victorious in this world because I shall be victorious in the world to come.’
‘Your eruv was the start of your campaign?’
‘It was a necessary … preparation.’
A group of pilgrims appears around a bend in the road and is coming our way. I do not wish to be seen by them. ‘I have to go back to Bethany now,’ I say. ‘But, if you send for me, I’ll come, even if it puts me at risk.’
He embraces me and says, ‘I know what sacrifices you’d make for me. I’ve known it since we were boys. Don’t think you’ve left anything unsaid between us.’
‘If anything happens to me, then I would only ask you to visit Nahara and Yirmi from time to time. I wouldn’t want them to miss the opportunity to know you.’
‘Nothing will happen to you. You’ve been chosen by the Father.’ He slips his hands from mine and thanks me with words he has never said before – ‘for coming into my life’ – which moves me out of myself. I am looking at us both from far away – miles and years – when he says, ‘You’ll be with me in all I do. For the dream you had so many years ago is about to come true for all of us – even for the Lord Himself.’
And then he walks on without me.
28
A man removes his sandals and steps heron-like through a field of leeks, craving the wholesome feel of the earth – of all that hidden life – beneath his feet. He sits on an outcrop of stone beside a field of saffron crocuses, his bad leg stretched before him, gazing to the north, towards Natzeret. Tears come for a time, and he does not know why.
To calm his mind, he plans a mosaic of Yeshua ben Yosef as the Living Torah. His old friend will stand in an ancient stream, and four bee-eaters will watch him.
Yes, there will be four, not three; they will be the earthly forms of Mikhael, Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel.
And this is what he tells himself: I shall make my design in such a way that those who view it will see that they are an invisible presence in it – that its meaning depends on the depth of their vision. Those who have been chosen will see that Yeshua is the bridge between them and all that men and women might be. The others will see but a goat-ribbed man bathing in a modest stream. They will be certain I have wasted my time – and theirs.
The bee-eaters will perch in a terebinth, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and they will speak to Yeshua in their language.
We shall give you our feathery cloaks, they will say. So that your radiance does not blind your followers.
And I will give you eternal life, he shall reply with an upraised hand.
He will hold eternity in his fingers – a polished grey stone with a white stripe down its centre that he has found in waters that are forever journeying to the sea.
The mystery is in you and me, and it is far deeper than we usually think. It is much of what forms us and sustains us, and it is the greatest part of the beauty we see in heaven and earth and every living thing.
That is what I would most like to convey. If I can find a way.
I shall give Yeshua his wide-brimmed Greek hat, but no priest, oracle or emperor will make me cover his nakedness, for we must not hide the beauty of creation if we are to fulfil our promise. Why build a better world for creatures who are afraid of what is best in them?
At home, Mia tells me that Marta returned with the baby girl shortly after I left to meet Yeshua. ‘She was apologetic. She removed her curse from me and you. And she asked that –’
‘Let me guess – she asked for our forgiveness,’ I cut in with the sigh of a Sisyphus.
Mia nods and takes my arm, but I pull away, because I shall not be trapped so easily.
‘The three of us are a family,’ she says, meaning, You must always forgive her.
I keep my dissenting opinion to myself, since a quarrel would only ruin the rest of our day. I take a towel and scrub the road dust from my face and neck. ‘Where did she go las
t night?’ I ask.
‘The baby girl was burning with fever, so she brought her to Rut.’
Rut is Marta’s sister-in-law and a midwife. ‘And where is Marta now?’
‘She came home to change her robe. She told me she’ll return to Rut’s house this evening to check on the baby. She also gave me a talisman she made for Yeshua.’
Mia hands me a vellum square on a cord on which our sister has designed a muscular lion-headed man wielding an oversized sword. The figure is meant, I would guess, to be Maahes, the Egyptian lion-god who feeds on the guilty and defends the innocent.
The incantation she has written above the sword refers to the son of Yaaqov who was sold into slavery in Egypt: Yosef is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a spring.
‘Marta asks that you give it to Yeshua.’
‘It’s impossible. I can’t allow myself to be seen with him.’
‘Then I’ll bring it to him.’
When I hand it to Mia, she presses her lips to the lion.
‘Who scripted it for her?’ I ask, since, to our knowledge, Marta still does not know how to write.
‘She didn’t say. Any guesses?’
‘Someone who knows that the Jews of Alexandria regard Yosef is an earthly form of the Egyptian lion-god.’
‘Still, it seems a peculiar verse to choose.’
‘The descendants of Yosef are said to be immune to the evil eye,’ I explain. I do not add, And, whether he was aware of it or not, whoever wrote this is also warning Yeshua that he is in dire need of a lion’s fierce protection.
I need to take Yirmi to Rabbi Elad and start work at Lucius’ villa, but there is a promise that I must first keep – and a message I must deliver.
The nine-year-old daughter of my neighbour Onesimos the jeweller has imbibed a decoction made with the seed-heads of poppy. In consequence, she has fallen into a twilight sleep. I find her curled into a ball on her parents’ bed, murmuring in the universal language of fever. Her jaw is puffy and hot to the touch, and her breath is sour. Onesimos’ wife tells me that this wickedness began as an abscess in a molar. Why was the tooth not pulled? She whispers that they have no money to pay a barber or surgeon. She and her husband fear that the girl will die if I do not help her, so I speak a verse from the Psalms over her: He shall give his angels charge over you, and they shall raise you up in their hands, and no unseen evil shall have any power over you.
Onesimos’ poverty has made him lax with the Holy One’s commandments on cleanliness; his daughter’s face and neck are soiled, and dirt crescents her fingernails.
I tell her parents where Old Baltasar lives and that he will extract the tooth and give her a potion which will reduce her fever. ‘Ask him to come to me for payment,’ I add. ‘And wash her before he comes here or he’ll give you a vicious lecture.’
To thank me, Onesimos puts a snake-headed brass torc of his own creation around my right wrist. It is slender and crudely fashioned – a trinket for snake-worshippers and Passover pilgrims – but it is more than he can afford to give me, so I try to hand it back to him, but he refuses to accept it.
‘Blessed are those who give too much,’ he tells me.
On the road to Yerushalayim, I explain to Yirmi that I must pay a call on Annas ben Seth before I entrust him to his tutor. My son and I escape the throng of pilgrims following me only when a house slave gives us entry to the priest’s home. The sumptuous waiting room is perfumed with frankincense and painted with frescoes of aristocratic men and women in the lifelike style favoured by the Romans. The slave tells me they are Annas’ illustrious ancestors.
The priests in his family are pictured in ceremonial dress – with portentous countenances and poses – while the laymen all hold a scroll as a symbol of learning in one hand and a bunch of grapes – the fruit of the Tree of Wisdom – in the other. While I am examining the painter’s technique, the house slave shuffles back into the room and tells me that Annas is unable to receive me. I entrust my papyrus to him and also speak the message aloud, so that there can be no misunderstanding: Unless I have your permission, I shall never appear in any square or street or building in Judaea with Yeshua …
It raises my spirits to hear my son reading the precisely measured prose of his hero, Herodotus, to Rabbi Elad: The Egyptians were the first to discover the solar year and to portion out its course into twelve parts. They obtained this knowledge from …
Already Yirmi recites Greek with such swift confidence – his cadences so apt and euphonic – that I know he will live out his dreams and journey far beyond the Erythraean Sea in the east and the Pillars of Hercules in the west.
Work cheers me as well, for I am a child at play when I choose my tesserae and ease them into place. At such times I am certain that by creating grand and allusive figures from tiny chinks of stone I am also fighting on the side of all that is small and easily overlooked.
Just before my midday meal, Lucius comes to the edge of the swimming pool. His eyes are puffy and red, and his bottom lip is bleeding. ‘Make yourself ready!’ he says in a hushed and pressing tone.
‘Lucius, what’s happened?’ I reply, but he hurries away without answering.
A moment later, Annas comes limping across the garden towards my ladder, on the arm of bodyguard with a dark complexion and a tangled bramble of thick black hair. His expression is grave. Might my note have offended him in some way? ‘Honourable Annas ben Seth,’ I call out, ‘you mustn’t risk a fall. I’ll come up.’
I make for the ladder, but he calls down, ‘No, you shall not escape me. Stay where you are!’
My gaze slides behind me towards my hammer, which is within reach, but I dare not to pick it up; preparing a defence might only prompt an attack.
On Annas’ command, the bodyguard jumps down into the pool with a casual bravado that seems to indicate a little too much wine at breakfast – a favourable sign for me – then climbs halfway way up the ladder so that he can guide his master’s sandalled feet on to the highest rung. From above, Lucius secures the old man’s shoulders.
Lucius calls the bodyguard by the name of Malchus.
The old priest is clothed in a white tunic decorated with embroidered pomegranates at the collar. His double-stranded necklace of lapis-lazuli beads is so heavy that he leans forward as he walks.
I offer him hearty greetings, but he waves them off and targets me with furious look. ‘You’ve lied to me, Eliezer ben Natan!’
Sweat is suddenly pouring from my brow, and my scalp itches as if infested with lice.
‘Your note indicated that you wouldn’t see Yeshua again,’ he continues, ‘but you were with him this morning!’
How could he know that, unless … Could Yeshua’s brother Yaaqov have betrayed us?
‘Have you nothing to say in your defence?’ Annas demands.
My thoughts shoot off in a dozen frenzied directions, but I am unable to locate a believable lie. ‘I … I went to Yeshua to bid him farewell,’ I begin. ‘We were far from Yerushalayim, and we weren’t seen by anyone. I’ve kept to my vow. I’ve told you the absolute truth.’
‘Scorpions hide under such truths as those you give me,’ he snarls. ‘You shall confess to me exactly what Yeshua told you of his plans,’ he commands.
‘We spoke of our childhood.’
‘What else?’
‘Nothing else. Old companions speak of past times when they are forced to part.’
Annas makes a dismissive clicking sound with his tongue. ‘You’ve disappointed me,’ he says.
Disappointing a tyrant is a sacred duty is the reply I dare not make.
Who can say where the tactics of a cornered man come from? I hold the torc on my wrist up to Annas. ‘Yeshua also gave me this as a parting gift. That’s why he asked to meet me.’
The priest, eager to seize this advantage, summons his bodyguard to take it from me. To play my part, I fall to my knees and implore him to be permitted to keep it. When the brute grabs my arm, I struggle so vehemently – and
believably – that he slaps me across the face, which is good fortune, because tears come of their own accord and make my pleading perfectly believable.
Annas examines the torc closely while I wipe my eyes. Objects worn for many years become extensions of our very selves, of course, and the priest’s covetous expression makes it clear that he believes he can make magical use of this one to subjugate Yeshua.
Will he now permit me to take my midday meal?
Unfortunately, the priest’s expression does not soften, as I had hoped. Instead, his attention shifts to my mosaic floor. He scans Ziz from crown to tail with a wrinkled, disquieted face and kneels to press his crooked hand over the thumb-sized figure looking out of Ziz’s left eye, then hobbles across the arms in the menorah, careful not to step on any of the black flames.
I realize then that I have made a fatal error. The snake-headed torc – above all, my desperation to keep it – has given him the idea that I may know how to make use of its occult properties.
Has he recognized the flames of my mosaic menorah as entry points to the Palace? I am certain of it when he stops and stares at the central candle-holder, which is lit with the scintillating black sun I have often seen in visions.
After his eyes close, his breathing slows and his shoulders sag; he is considering what he has seen. The affecting grace in his gnarled old body and intelligence in his wizened face make me realize that my loathing for him has made me underestimate him.
When his eyes open, he grins at me. I have unmasked you, he is telling me.
I begin an appeal for mercy, but he waves away my effort and turns to Lucius.
‘I know little about mosaics. Would you say this work is any good?’
‘Are you … asking my opinion, honourable Annas?’ Lucius asks in his trembling, heavily accented Aramaic.
‘Yes.’
‘First, I would say that Eliezer is quite gifted,’ he tells the priest.
I thank Lucius with a nod, but he closes his eyes to me, which I take to mean This is all the help I shall risk giving you.
‘And second?’
The Gospel According to Lazarus Page 20