Children of God

by Lars Petter Sveen

  “But what’s light without darkness? What’s the morning sun without the black carpet of night?

  “One day, a father went out to the island. He wanted to check if everything was all right out there. What he didn’t know was that there was a snake in the boat. A very bad snake. When the father’s boat came alongside the island, the snake bit him, and the father fell down dead. The children who came to see what had happened were also bitten. The snake went across the island and bit everyone it found. Nobody really knows how long the snake went on like this. But when the first adults went back out to the island, it was totally silent. There was only the sound of the waves, and the wind in the trees. They found none of the children alive.”

  “The grown-ups couldn’t understand it. Then they found the snake. The snake told them everything. How he’d sneaked onto the boat. How he’d bitten all the children. How he’d writhed and slithered.

  “‘But I’m a snake,’ he said. ‘I’m doing what snakes are supposed to do.’

  “And the adults agreed. A snake is a snake. So they threw him away, and then they went home, without their children.”

  The man starts smiling, raising his hands up in the air. He looks at Joseph, at Jehoahaz, at Jacob, at Jehu, at Omri, and then back at Joseph. Joseph is crying, and Jehoahaz is reaching his arms out toward Martha, saying, “Mommy, Mommy.” Jacob tries to look away, while Jehu and Omri stare down at the ground.

  “Right, Martha,” says the man. “Now it’s your turn.”

  Martha closes her eyes. She can hear the man smacking his lips, she can hear him breathing. Martha closes her eyes even tighter, and then she can hear her mother’s voice. She can hear the giggling of her brothers and sisters as they crawl and roll around her in the evening.

  “Come on,” says the man. “I want to hear my story.”

  Martha opens her eyes.

  “It’s not your story,” she says. “It’s ours.”

  And then Martha begins.

  “Far away from here, there’s a lake so blue, so blue. And in the middle of that lake is an island. Every summer, children went out to that island, with flowers in their eyes. Their parents gave them a hug, let them go, gave them another hug, then let them go again. ‘Take care of each other!’ they told them. ‘We’ll come and pick you up in a few days!’”

  “The children waved back, trying not to smile too much. As they were so excited. They were looking forward to hearing their own soft voices soaring like birdsong between the trees. They were looking forward to teaching each other songs and holding each other’s hands. Those days on the island were like a summer breeze. Warm and light, soft and good.”

  “But a snake made its way out to the island. One day, there he was, flourishing his tongue.

  “‘Ssss,’ he went. ‘Ssss, ssss.’

  “The children could see that this was a poisonous snake.

  “‘Dear snake,’ one of the children said, ‘what are you doing here?’

  “‘Ssss, I’m here to warn you,’ said the snake. ‘You must be careful of the wolf.’

  “‘Wolf? What wolf?’ the children asked him.

  “‘Ssss, you must be careful of the bear,’ said the snake.

  “‘Bear? What bear?’ the children asked him.

  “‘Ssss, you must be careful of the snake,’ said the snake.

  “And then he slithered straight toward them.”

  “The children ran off. Some of them hid among the trees. Some hid in a little cabin. Some tried to swim away in the water, but they had to give up and turn around. And there, at the water’s edge, the snake was waiting for them.

  “‘Ssss,’ said the snake. ‘Come to me.’

  “But just then, out from the woods behind the snake came a soldier called Cato. He was carrying a sword, and with one blow he cut the snake in two.

  “‘Come ashore,’ Cato shouted to the children out in the water. ‘Come out, come out,’ he shouted to the other children hiding among the trees and in the cabin.

  “And the children came flocking to Cato, they put their arms around him, and he put his arms around them.”

  “‘Dear children,’ said Cato, ‘I heard your screams all the way from where I was, so I stole a boat I found at the water’s edge to come out here.’

  “‘But you’re from the army of darkness,’ said one of the children. ‘Why are you saving children like us?’

  “‘I’ve been waiting to do some good,’ said Cato. ‘I’ve done so many bad things.’

  “‘Why have you done so many bad things?’ the children asked him.

  “Cato didn’t answer. But they all saw a tear run down one side of his face. Cato dried the tear and said, ‘I don’t know, I heard a story, a bad story, and I believed it. It was so long ago.’

  “The children took him by the hand and said, ‘Come with us and tell a good story, stay with us.’

  “So the children and Cato went across the island, and their voices soared like birdsong between the trees.”

  “No,” says the man. “That’s impossible.”

  Martha’s holding on to Joseph, and Joseph’s holding on to Jehoahaz, and Jehoahaz’s holding on to Jehu, and Jehu’s holding on to Jacob, and Jacob’s holding on to Omri. None of them are crying anymore. They stand there with their eyes open, smiling at each other.

  “How?” says the man.

  “We’re going home now,” says Martha.

  “No,” says the man. “Stay here.”

  Martha leads her brothers and sisters toward the house.

  “Stay here,” the man shouts behind them, but his voice is faint, so faint. They walk away from him.

  Martha doesn’t turn around; she just says, “Go, go.” And suddenly their father appears. He lifts up Joseph and Jehoahaz and asks Martha what’s happened. Martha turns around to point at the man, but there’s nobody there anymore.

  That evening, Martha can’t get to sleep. She lies awake until after her mother’s told her stories and put the light out. She lies awake until all her brothers and sisters are breathing calmly and softly. It’s not evening anymore, it’s night. And Martha can feel that she doesn’t like evenings best anymore. Everything gets so dark. What if the light never comes back?

  13 THE GREAT FIRE

  Over forty years have passed, there’s been an uprising in our land, and rumors are spreading that Roman troops are heading toward Jerusalem. Over forty years, all that time, and I can still see Nadab in my mind’s eye. His red hair and his beard. His whispering voice that last night, the way he said my name, “Jehoash, Jehoash,” the way he fell out of the darkness. Sometimes he turns up in my dreams, covered in fire. Other times we’re all there, the whole band of us. Like we were before everybody was taken away. Like I was before I was caught.

  Dear God, I know you’ve shown me mercy, I know the gift I’ve been given. You read my heart, you see my soul.

  My master, the one who owns me now, won’t show me any mercy if he reads this. But he’s old, I’m older, and the time we have left here in this world is short. He took me out of a life of devastation and violence. I was brutal and swift, more fierce than the wolves in the wilderness, flying like the eagle hunting its prey, my judgment and pride laws unto themselves. But now I’m powerless and still as the fish of the sea, until the Lord God drags me up with his hook.

  Before my time is over, I want to ask what isn’t in my power to answer. When will God claim his right and bring us his kingdom of justice and peace? When will God’s kingdom come?

  Everything that’s happened recently has made me think of Nadab again. It’s strange, as the time he was with us was short. But he was a sign, I can see it now, he was carrying within him everything that would follow. Something was working through him. In a way, he sacrificed himself for us. What he did that day in the Temple didn’t set prisoners free, he didn’t come storming in with an angel’s sword or spear. He just spoke, he fought his way through so that he could speak out. Maybe there was nobody apart from me and my brother
, Jehoram, who heard and remembered what Nadab said that day. But it changed us, I’m sure of that. It even changed Reuben when we told him everything, even as tough as he was. Nadab’s words changed everything for me.

  I think that Nadab was full of justice. I think he died in peace. And now, now there’s nothing left. Nothing of him or of Jesus of Nazareth, after all these years. But his followers have grown in numbers, they travel about, I’ve met some of them myself. They all tell stories about how Jesus was taken down from his cross, how he was carried to a cave. And there, in the cold rock, is where he’s said to have risen again and left his tomb.

  I’m the only one left of those of us who took down Nadab. I’m the only one who can smile about it all now. But stories like that, where good doesn’t die, I think they bring his followers together. The same way stories bring us all together. When they tell each other about him rising again from the realm of the dead, some of them start wailing, pulling at their hair, or tearing off their clothes. Others fall silent. Others still are filled with rage and call for them to fight. But there are also many people who don’t follow Jesus, who’ve barely heard his name, who’ve been fighting against the ruling powers for a long time. They have something else, other stories, pulling everything together.

  Recently, there have been more cases of assassins, knife murderers turning up everywhere, even in the Temple. When I was young and was with Nadab, I met two young men who were on such a mission. I couldn’t understand who they were then, I couldn’t understand what they were thinking. I knew little of how our people lived, and I was one of the very people who were destroying things. But everything’s changed. I can see that the young men I met then were signs of what was to come, of how everything in our land would change for the worse. Their thoughts, their clear aims, and blind faith all spoke to the brutality and extremes that have only grown since then. I don’t know whether Nadab could already see this then, but there was something working through him, something pulling at him when we killed those two young men outside Jerusalem. Maybe he wanted to do some good, to do as he thought Jesus would’ve done. Maybe he’d just had too much of all the bad things we did. I have no way of knowing, but the way everything’s turned out, seething and bubbling like a pot of boiling water, makes me think more and more that Nadab and Jesus could see the warning signs and wanted to raise our attention to what was coming.

  Now, when I hear these stories about Jesus, it strikes me that they’re never complete. They’re broken off at the ends, they begin suddenly, they never end, they just keep on going, and sometimes I can’t understand what I’m being told. Sometimes they mention a name, sometimes several, but the names make no sense to me. I just hear Nadab, I know that he must’ve heard many of the same stories. About how they shared a meal, how they were all gathered together. About how Jesus chased away demons. About how he rose again and came to them in the evening, while they were walking along. I’ve tried to join it all up, to get it to fit together, but they’re different stories, I can see that now. There’s no longer one Jesus, there are several. I know that the leading followers want to make one story, and they’re struggling to hold on to this single story. They’re struggling to make us see the clear pattern according to which the world is, and was, arranged. But I’m so much older now, my time will soon be over, there are so many stories. It’s impossible to see any pattern. I don’t try to understand, I just try to see. I don’t have the knowledge to put everything together. And even if such magical, devout knowledge were to exist, everything would still be moving about, like desert sand in the wind.

  Let me tell you about Nadab, or let me tell you how I remember it now. He was a criminal when I met him; I was a criminal, we all were. He lived by my side, we killed, we stole, we looted. We came looking for violence, we advanced as a group, we scoffed at those who believed in something bigger, at those who took orders from other men. We derided every city that was built, sneaking in and out, fleeing from guards and soldiers, sweeping on like the wind, and then we were gone.

  But Nadab heard the stories about Jesus, and he tried to share it all with us, in his own way. I didn’t understand, I couldn’t then, but now I’m trying. Nadab went into Jerusalem with us. There we lost him. He went to the Temple and caused a riot, he talked about Jesus, and then he was caught and killed. He was a man of violence, but he died for a belief. He died for something bigger than himself, bigger than the Temple and the Holy Place in there, bigger than the immense empire to which the occupying forces have annexed this land. It’s a belief they can’t wash away.

  Even if Nadab’s gone, I say that he lives on.

  And what about me? I’m still alive, and whoever lives through everything must see everything too. I was the one who took Nadab down from the cross. I helped to carry him to the cave. I sat by Reuben’s side when he passed away. I was there when my brother, Jehoram, was killed by the guards of the man who became my master and owns me now. And those first words I heard from my new master are the ones that became the life I’ve now been living for many, many years, but that will soon be over: “The Lord God will let you live, for you shall be my servant.”

  So I was dragged back, kicked and beaten, and taken on as an apprentice by my new master. I taught myself to read, to write, to count. I learned, every day, how to follow my master and observe everything that happened around him. When the evenings came, I was to report on what I’d seen, all while the man who owns me listened and nodded.

  Don’t think that this was an easy task; don’t think that I was given a new life with no drawbacks! No, it was never forgotten where I came from, what I was. Even though I was given food, I didn’t sit at anybody’s table. Even though I was given a roof over my head, I didn’t sleep well at night. The other servants wouldn’t talk to me. My master’s mercenaries would walk out of rooms when I walked in. Nobody wanted anything to do with a former murderer, a thief. In spite of this, I taught myself to read, I taught myself to write, I taught myself to count. I was dressed in good clothes, and I washed every evening. But I was still something my master had dragged in from the wilderness.

  It’s not my story I’m telling, neither is it Nadab’s story. I want to tell the story of what’s stirring in our land as all the cords are stretched back as far as they’ll go.

  These have been painful years for our people, painful years for this country. It’s as if a sickness had come over us, and we’d started eating each other. We’ve had a drought that’s destroyed our harvests, but the rulers still demand their taxes. I’ve been told of people who have nothing to eat, of children who fall asleep never to wake up. Our land has been afflicted by bands of thieves, more of them now than when I was young. People calling themselves prophets are popping up like weeds after the rain, and people follow them. People are getting together to protest, they’re doing it here, in Jerusalem, they’re doing it out there, in the other cities, and in the wilds. And every time, they’re suppressed and persecuted by guards and soldiers. The procurators have been harsh rulers, not least Cumanus and Felix. Last year, around this time, there was an uprising. The priests and the other rich families support the present rulers, enlisting and paying their own soldiers to collect taxes and duties, and to take care of security.

  None of those who’ve been in power have done anything to change all of this, and now it’s too late. Everything’s coming to an end now.

  I’m telling you all this to try to understand why all this brutality’s emerged and why the young are so angry. They’re like the two men we killed so many years ago, the ones we were supposed to accompany to Jerusalem, and who were so blinded by their faith. Just like them, a number of the youths of today have a burning desire to spread chaos, an irrepressible will to go through with everything, and a belief that means they don’t fear death. These assassins, whatever name we give them, whatever we call them, are only a symptom: the desperation and heartlessness that this sickened form of governance has brought about. When nobody can see what to do, when everything you
do is attacked, when all other means are used up, that’s when desperation thrives.

  I went with my master to the Temple one day and saw one of the killings myself. We were walking together, with me at the back of the group, when we heard the screams. I ran up, as my master wants me to see and observe everything. A man from one of the rich families had been stabbed in the side, underneath his armpit. He was already dead, and people were running around, shouting. That’s their tactic: to creep up to traitors in the crowds, kill them, be the first ones to create panic, and then disappear. This is their way of showing that none of the powerful or wealthy are safe.

  They kill, and they spread fear. But look at our country. Look at how a few benefit from the suffering of the many, look at how the Roman Empire is forcing its gods on us. Look at how the leaders, and those who collaborate with them, are suppressing us and blaspheming God. These young knife murderers are assassins, but what if the rulers are turning us into assassins? What if the priests and the well-heeled, holding out one hand to the people and the other to the rulers, are the ones creating all this violence? I think Nadab found some eternal truths in the little he heard about Jesus, and then he chose to follow it. All the way to his death. I think these young people who are causing havoc now are doing the same thing. But while Jesus spoke peace and acted in peace, these people talk of violence and act though warfare. While Jesus let himself be captured and killed, these people strike back.

  I struggle to condemn them, even though I can see that the path they’re leading our country on will lead to loss.

  Look at all those who’ve been killed, look at all those who, unarmed, prayed peacefully for a little glimmer of light in the immense darkness. Where are they now? Look at how they were suppressed, hunted down, and killed! What’s left, I ask you, what’s left?