The Implacable Hunter

by Gerald Kersh

  ‘Shrewd policy, you call it, to give your enemies a light lesson to learn by?’ asked Melanion.

  ‘In the long run, no, but Tiberius hasn’t got long to run,’ said Soxias.

  ‘Oh,’ said Melanion, ‘I thought you said just now that seventy was no age at all.’

  I said: ‘If people were capable of learning by experience, fools would be long extinct…. And what will be to do in Judea, do you think, Soxias?’

  ‘Now you know perfectly well, my dear Diomed, that you have given the Jews a bloody bone to snap over in your agitations against the Nazarenes.’

  ‘My agitations? It is my business to prevent agitations,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, yes, we know, we know. It is Melanion’s business to heal an abscess, but he does this by tickling it to keep it open.’

  ‘To drain,’ said Melanion.

  ‘Agitation,’ said Soxias obstinately, ‘agitation. What the Jews need is a fresh king to worship, execrate and squabble over.’

  ‘Little Herod?’ I suggested.

  ‘I wouldn’t give you that for his life!’ said Soxias, snapping his fingers. ‘But what’s your news from that quarter? I hear you got a letter from Jerusalem as fat as my wrist.’

  ‘How careless of me not to bring it. How can I rest in my bed tonight, knowing that I have neglected to let Soxias read all my private or official correspondence?’

  ‘I could have had it intercepted,’ he said, in his jocular way.

  ‘The year you do that, Melanion loses his bet, my friend.’

  ‘Seriously, what news?’

  ‘Paulus is harrying the Nazarenes,’ I said. ‘You know very well there is nothing much kept dark from you in Asia.’

  ‘Yes, I am keeping an eye on that boy. I like him. He made an impression on me, young Paulus. I could do a lot for a boy like that. Now if that one had other support, and Rome didn’t say no, and he had a fancy to strike for power, given the right time, I’d throw a little something onto his side of the scales. I would, you know! Paulus will be a man before his mother, yet. But Little Herod? Piss and wind!’

  I admitted: ‘Paulus has capacity. He has a certain power to stimulate. And he has the vitality of a swarm of ants.’

  But Melanion said sourly: ‘He is in the secondary stages of a clear case of janosity.’

  ‘What’s that?’ asked Soxias.

  ‘Janosity is a vertiginous state which, unless carefully treated, ends fatally in a convulsion of sinisity.’

  ‘Bah! Give me a wiry little one any day, and keep your loutish lobcocks,’ said Soxias. ‘The boy is sound as brass.’

  Melanion explained: ‘Janus is the God of Thresholds, and has two faces; he looks in two directions at once, therefore. Sinis – also known as Pityocampytes – was a giant whom Theseus slew by tying him to two pine trees and so tearing him asunder. Live like Janus, and you die like Sinis. Paul is trying to go in two directions at once. He will split himself. Janosity,’ said Melanion, with relish, ‘is the disease of the age –’ he enjoyed the sound of it ‘– janosity….’

  ‘Set up a new thaumaturgic branch of medicine and treat disorders of the mind with long words,’ I suggested.

  ‘Yes,’ said Melanion, ‘the most satisfactory cures I have ever effected, have been of diseases that I have myself invented. Sinisity … Pityocampytic … Hm!’

  In a month, every rich woman in Tarsus would have it.

  I said: ‘A person who cannot quite arrive at a certain decision, for example, you might describe as having a sinicpityocampytaceous diathesis of a janostic origin.’

  ‘Are you trying to teach me my business?’

  So, as a result of all this, I was able to add a post scriptum to my note to Afranius:

  ‘I do not know what rumours certain unscrupulous speculators may have put about to the contrary, but you will be happy to have my assurance that Caesar is in the best of health and spirits.’

  It is always wise to keep an agent supplied with fresh, up-to-date information, especially in Judaea, where the very air distorts truth. As for Afranius’s happiness in my assurance – why not? There never was a change of Caesars without some measure of trouble in the transition. I know that much has been said against Tiberius: that he was secretive, pimply-faced, cold and cruel; that he violated patrician matrons and raped their unweaned babes, buggered small boys and dumb animals, and so forth – that his private life, in short, was far from exemplary. But he kept it private, and the State was none the weaker or the poorer for his games in the Caprian grottoes. He had his little eccentricities, no doubt; but he was a fine soldier, and had worked very hard for Rome in his time.

  But my note had not been on the road ten days before the next part of Afranius’s letter came – another bulky document.

  He wrote that Paulus did no business next day, after his meeting with Blind Nun. He went out, but came home in a hurry, having accidentally met in the street his old teacher, the Rabbi Gamaliel. It was curious, Afranius observed, that when one encountered a Jew purged of hate and cleansed of the pride of learning, one was likely to find a gentleman and a scholar – if he happened to have shed the habit of shrilly explaining himself like a belated girl with a bitten lip and a mossy arse.

  Such a Jew, said Afranius, was Gamaliel, at present in some disrepute for a policy of tolerance of the Nazarenes. Gamaliel was a great rabbi: co-disputator with the mighty Rabbi Hillel, a master of the Midrash, a refiner of the Law of the Jews.

  ‘Well, Saul?’ said Gamaliel.

  ‘Rabbi,’ said Saul, making an obeisance to the plain little man with the wretchedly wispy beard through which was plainly observable the outlines of a chin which was round, pink and cleft like an apple.

  ‘Well, Saul, well?’ said Gamaliel. ‘What is hateful to you?’

  ‘Much that is, is hateful to me,’ said Paulus.

  ‘Do you do to yourself that which is hateful to you, Saul?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No? Good. And to others, do you do what is hateful to you?’

  ‘Rabbi, these are hateful times,’ said Paulus.

  ‘Do you do to others that which is not hateful to you, Saul?’

  Paulus answered: ‘Rabbi, who takes pleasure in cutting off a rotten finger? Have I answered?’

  ‘You have answered like a child.’ Gamaliel then walked on, followed by several tight-lipped students, and Paulus stood, making pumps of his heels in his sandals, pallid with rage.

  He cried: ‘Who is Gamaliel? Is Gamaliel Hillel? And who is Hillel? Is he the Law? If the Prophets are not righteous, if the Angels of God themselves are not perfect – or Isaiah lied! – who is Gamaliel, who is Hillel? Where is the perfect Law, tell me, where is it? Where? It moves, it does; the Law moves! Do not unto others that which is hateful to thee. Aha, aha! And out of the same mouth, flogging a dunce, it is, This hurts me more than it does thee. What is this talk of Others and Thee? What constitutes Justice, then? How did I answer like a child? I hate a man who flips a statement over his shoulder and goes away! Parthian lawyer! Nazarene-lover!’

  Afranius was tempted to say: ‘Oho, little man! He got one in between the joints of your armour, did he?’ But he held his tongue. Paulus composed himself all in an instant.

  ‘As far as we know, Afranius,’ he said, ‘there are at least five Deacons. That is to say, Blind Nun knows five: Nicanor, Parmenas, Stephanas, Nicolas and Timon.’

  ‘Were these of Jesus’s original twelve?’

  ‘No, not that I know of. I’ve got their names, have no fear of that. They are lying low in some rat-holes. There’s one of them I particularly want to get my hands on. A certain Simon, son of Jona.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Afranius, in any group of that kind, there is always a clown, a lout, an amiable idot. You can’t get rid of him. He is a kind of huge, clumsy, foolish dog, slobbering with affection. He is willing to do anything for anybody. He always does it wrong. He is absolutely obedient, and drunk with adoration – without someone to whom he can trot to he
el, he is utterly lost. For all his uncouthness, you cannot be angry with him, for a harsh word would break his silly heart. He has a tremendous bark and a negligible bite. If you tell him that it is important to you that he stands on one foot all night long he will do so, without wondering why. Alone, he is always an abject coward. He is incapable of learning, and without will. This Simon is of such a type.’

  ‘What was he doing in the company of rabbis?’ Afranius asked.

  ‘Water-carrier, slop-emptier, porter, floor-sweeper, unhandy handyman, dish-wiper, watchman – the Nazarene stool-mender knew the value of such a fellow about the place. He liked the fellow. Simple Simon! Jesus degraded the Law for the understanding of idiots, but even so Simon could not grasp it. I likened him to a dog just now, I think. This Simon is something less than a dog. When Jesus was arrested, Simon pulled a knife, then dropped it and ran. A dog would have had somebody’s throat out. Gross cur! True, all the rest made themselves scarce enough, and Simon was the only one to sneak into court at his master’s trial. But when he was recognised, he bellowed, “Jesus? What Jesus? Who, Jesus? When, Jesus? Never heard of him! Stranger in town myself!” – or words to that effect; and ran for his life. A dog would have stayed…. Simon!’

  ‘What do you want him for?’ asked Afranius.

  ‘Why, didn’t you know?’ asked Paulus, laughing. ‘Simon is to be a very important man in Jesus’s Kingdom. Firstly, the whoreson chip-cutter nicknamed him Cephas, or Petros, or Peter, because this Simon was as ponderous and dense as a lump of stone. Then, when Peter wanted to know what would be his share of God’s Kingdom, this Jesus laughingly said that he could be doorman. Probably he was thinking of clumsy Hercules, who was made hall-porter for your Olympian gods. “And can I hold the keys?” this simpleton asks. Jesus says, “Yes, yes.” “And will they be golden keys?” “Yes, yes, yes, golden keys. Be quiet now.” The rest may have laughed. But Simon, or Peter, took it very seriously, and has since become portentous, I am informed – and therefore conspicuous. But he remains a coward and a fool; and I can crack him, that one!’

  ‘The way you are going, my young friend,’ said Afranius, ‘you’ll crack yourself, sure as Herod. How long since you slept?’

  ‘There is so much to do, and so little time,’ said Paulus, by way of reply. His mouth, Afranius wrote, was puckered and compressed, and his cheeks were hollow – it was as if he had sucked all the blood out of his little body into his sombre and congested eyes. Afranius drew a nervous picture of a terribly strange little face, exsiccated and strained, drained to pale green with bruise-coloured shadows, dry lips like yellow ochre, white gums, pale-blue teeth, black tongue.

  ‘Or ate and drank?’ continued Afranius.

  ‘I do not eat or drink until after sundown,’ said Paulus.

  ‘Since when?’

  ‘Since I came to Jerusalem.’

  ‘And how long is this foolery to go on?’

  ‘Until my mission is completed here.’

  ‘A madman’s vow!’ cried Afranius. ‘Since when did a man work best on an empty stomach? Diomed would not approve.’

  Paulus said: ‘And who is Diomed? I serve God.’

  ‘A god that sends his men out to work for him without breakfast doesn’t deserve to have servants,’ said Afranius.

  ‘I do what I do of my own free will.’

  ‘Oh, if your God has no say in the matter, that’s different, of course. Or does he starve you as some fools starve watchdogs, to make you more ferocious?’

  ‘Afranius, there are some things you will never understand.’

  ‘I understand all kinds of things,’ said Afranius. ‘I have known zealots who starved themselves light-headed and mistook their fantasies for visions. I have known men who worshipped a woman with eight arms, who lay upon beds of nails; and others who served some goddess with a huge behind, who stood with one arm upraised until it withered. You wear, of course, a hair shirt under your robe?’

  ‘Do I?’ asked Paulus, flushing a little.

  ‘Yes, I can see you do. Well, my boy, mark my words, you’ll get used to it, as a soldier gets used to the chinstrap of his helmet. Then you’ll look for something sharper to scratch yourself with. Why, poor fellow, only a hair’s breadth divides you and Little Lucius, after all!’

  ‘Oh, indeed?’

  ‘Ay, indeed. The principle is, of course, that if you can take your mind quite away from your body, it will explore the ethereal. But there are as many devils as there are gods in the ether, my young friend – so take care! Love the good world.’

  But Afranius wrote that, in his opinion, Paulus was doing penance; for, as he said, the Jews are the only people in the world who actually make a luxury of a tormented conscience, and are so constituted that the guiltier they feel, the better they feel. Paulus really was doing to others that which was hateful to himself, was punishing himself therefore and, in truly perverse Jewish fashion, twisting imaginary virtue out of the affair.

  Nun came to Paulus again late that night, and said: ‘Master, tomorrow they are sending Stephanas.’

  Afranius wondered why Paulus leapt up and shouted: ‘What? What? They are sending what, you blind dog?’

  Terrified, Blind Nun whimpered: ‘The Messenger, Master – the Messenger, the Deacon Stephanas…. What have I said?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Paulus, ‘I was thinking of something else. For stephanos, in Greek, signifies a crown.’

  ‘What should I know of Greek, Master?’

  ‘Well, well, go on, go on.’

  ‘There will be a meeting tomorrow at midnight. I shall be on the watch. The signal is, a long knock and a short knock, then a short knock and a long knock.’

  ‘So Stephanas is his pretentious, his treasonable and blasphemous name, is it? Go on.’

  ‘The meeting will be in the cellar of Chislon, the wine merchant.’

  ‘Chislon, eh? The mealy-mouthed hypocrite!’

  ‘Yes, Master. He has a great cellar, quite deep, where he ages certain wines.’

  ‘What else should a wine merchant age in his cellar?’

  ‘He also stores cheese there. The cellar is to be reached by the warehouse door. But there is another door at the end, a trap-door.’

  ‘Good. But this Chislon has watchmen of his own.’

  ‘Yes, master, but when Stephanas comes they will be down below, eating God’s body and drinking God’s blood –’

  ‘Take care what you say, blind man!’

  ‘Master, that is what they say. It is bread and wine, but after it has been blessed it is taken as the body and the blood of Jesus.’

  ‘You said God.’

  ‘Master, is it my fault if they say Jesus was the one and only Son of God? Who partakes of Jesus partakes of God Himself – that is what they say, I did not say so. How could I say so? Would I be here if I believed so?’

  ‘This is most filthy blasphemy!’

  ‘Yes, master.’

  ‘And you, blind beast – do you not get your share of bread and wine and blessings?’

  ‘Last of all, Master.’

  ‘Tomorrow night you will have to do without.’

  ‘A mouthful of wine, a crust of bread – is this something to do without?’

  ‘And you get no money?’

  ‘Alms for watching. A miserable pittance, Master.’

  ‘How many will be there?’

  ‘Who can say? Sometimes more, sometimes less; it might be forty, or fifty, or eighty.’

  ‘Of what kind, what condition?’

  ‘All kinds, Master. Mostly Jews like us –’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I mean, mostly Jews. Some Syrians, some Greeks, some Romans.’

  ‘How long does this mummery go on?’

  ‘One hour, two hours, three. The Deacon preaches. The people bring food, and eat supper. Then before dawn they disperse, in ones and twos, to avoid attention.’ Nun hesitated. ‘Master …’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘You will bring your people only in
ones and twos?’

  ‘Ha! A lucky day, that, when I take lessons in tactics from blind beggars!’

  ‘And Master … you will tie me up, as if you had overpowered me?’

  ‘Rest assured of that.’

  ‘Thank you, Master.’ Blind Nun fawned. Then: ‘Master … on account … just a little more?’

  ‘What? I gave you three silver denarii yesterday. That is more than enough to keep the likes of you for half a year!’

  The man squirmed, and muttered: ‘For the likes of me, learned Master, more than enough. But – have mercy, did I ask for eyesight? I am … there is … a girl, sir, who dances without moving her feet.’

  Afranius was surprised by a gush of pity for this wretch. But Paulus said: ‘You disgust me, you creeping thing!’

  ‘Master, it is something stronger than I am. Cursed be the hands that gave me sight!’ Nun’s anguish was horrible.

  ‘Yes. And so now all Jerusalem will be talking about Blind Nun, who is giving silver in handfuls to whores who dance without moving their feet, eh?’

  ‘No, Master, no, no! For after tonight I shall not meet Selma again.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She, too, will be in Chislon’s cellar,’ said Nun.

  Without a word, Paulus threw him five more silver pieces. Nun had to shut his eyes in order to find them. Afranius heard him mutter: ‘She despises me, but I can pay her price this once.’

  ‘She prostitutes herself and gives to the Nazarenes?’ asked Paulus.

  ‘Master, she says, “I sell what I have and give to the poor, and the lips I pray with frame no double meanings.”’

  ‘And you love this whore?’

  ‘Master, I hate her.’

  ‘Go.’

  Nun went. Afranius felt, he wrote, as if he had fallen into a deep pit leaving his heart and bowels in the air above him.

  When he, too, left, Paulus was sitting absolutely still, staring unblinking into the flame of a lamp. Next day he had a map, or diagram, of Chislon’s premises, together with a perfectly simple and workable plan of action…. Here I noticed a certain change in Afranius’s way of writing: I felt an astringency in it, together with a flatness of tone, such as one detects in the manner of an honest man compelled by duty to make a distasteful statement. He wrote: