by Jamie Buxton
“End this world, create a new one, and rule in glory.” The old woman spoke for the first time. “He had been dreaming of it since he was fifteen.”
“But the city! The people! What’s going to happen to them?” Flea said. “I don’t want to die and come back to life! I don’t want to be ruled by him or anyone else!”
“You’ve got to be ruled by someone,” the old woman said. “Wouldn’t you rather be ruled by the son of God?”
Flea thought of the Temple. The echoing courts, the great empty Sanctuary, the fire altar, the slaughtered lambs, the blood. “No,” he said.
Mari stamped her feet. “But it’s all nonsense. We knew Laz and his fool of a sister as well as anyone. He never died! He stank because he never washed and he looked half-dead because he never ate unless his idiot sister fed him like a baby. She was desperate and asked Yeshua to help. Yeshua’s brilliant idea was that they should bury him alive—he was halfway to death anyway—because if he saw what it was really like to die, he might pull himself together. That was all the plan was meant to be until Mat and Shim got hold of the story and started spinning a yarn, claiming that Eleazar had really died and Yeshua had really brought him back to life.”
“There’s a Roman spy who wanted to find out what his secret was so he could use its power,” Flea said.
“Yeshua never had power,” Mari said. “Not that sort anyway.”
“I saw it,” Flea said. “One of my gang couldn’t talk and Yesh cured him.”
Mari’s expression hovered between pity and impatience. “Kids like you, a moment’s attention makes a difference. It’s no bad thing—I don’t think that for a minute—but it’s no big secret either, no great power. Be kind to each other instead of cruel and the world’s already a different place. Yesh knew that. He should have stopped there.”
“That’s it?” Flea asked. “Just, ‘Be nice’?”
Mari gave him a level look. “It’s hard enough, believe me. Do you know what I am?”
Flea shook his head, though he had an idea.
“I give myself to men,” she said. “So I know bodies. I know flesh. I know what can come back to life and what can’t. Yeshua—my dear, sweet, kind, stubborn, clever, impossible Yeshua—is beyond bringing back.” She smiled sadly at Tesha, who had been standing very still all the while, trying to make it look like she wasn’t staring. “I was like you once, sweetheart. A pretty little girl. I became a prostitute so I didn’t starve to death. But there was a trade-off. Hunger wasn’t killing me but little by little the work was. You know, I tried to drag Yeshua into bed the first time I met him.”
“I tried to rob him,” Flea said.
Mari gave him a quick smile. “He just looked at me nicely—your word—and said, ‘Let’s do this the other way.’ He meant, Let’s do love the other way. He meant, You don’t have to sell yourself to me. He meant, I love you anyway because you’re you. He meant, There could be a world made of people being kind to each other and this could be the start of it.” She paused. “But why couldn’t he have just left it at that? Why do men always have to bring death into it? And power? And destiny? And movements and leaders and followers? Or maybe I’m just tired. Or maybe it’s the only way things get done. I mean, we’re angry enough with that fat, pompous uncle of his but at least he got him buried.”
“What?” Flea said.
“Of course we did the women’s work—washing that poor, torn body—but after that we were kept well away. Yusuf owned the tomb, so he took care of it. How could he? How could they?”
Grief replaced anger, and her howl seemed to tear away the last shreds of her dignity. She collapsed, crawling over to the mother and curling up so her head was in the older woman’s lap.
Tesha tugged at Flea’s arm. “We should go,” she whispered.
Flea shook his head. “We’re missing something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. It’s like a big hole. It’s there but it’s not there. What’s there but not there? Tesha. Help me.”
“There and not there? Is that a riddle?”
“Not a riddle. But like a riddle!”
“A trick, then? What are you talking about?”
Flea’s mind blazed. “A trick. He loved tricks. That’s it! Hunt the king! You put down three beakers, move them around and ask the crowd which one of them has got the coin under it. But what’s the trick? What is the only way it could work every time?”
“I don’t know,” Tesha said, “because I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Mari lifted her head. “People called him a king, like David and Solomon. What are you thinking?”
Flea closed his eyes and thought. “When he pretended to pull coins from people’s ears, was there really money in their head?”
“No.”
“Then why on earth did I ever think there was a coin under the beaker? How could I have been so thick? It’s misdirection. There’s no coin under the beaker and there’s no body in the tomb! Hunt the king! That’s what we’ve got to do!”
Now Mari and Matta were on their feet.
“I should have known.” Flea slapped his forehead with his palm. “I learned it when I was a grave robber. Kings always had two tombs: one that looked like a real royal tomb and another, secret one. The robbers were meant to go for the big tomb but the body and the grave goods—the treasure—were in the secret one. Did you actually see him buried?”
“No, like I said. It was his uncle Yusuf. Are you saying…” Mari gestured to the tomb mouth blocked by the big rock but was interrupted by a piercing whistle from the cliffs above. Big was waving and pointing to the floor of the quarry, where a small procession was approaching: the followers, led by Mat and Shim.
Then Yesh’s mother said, “The earth will eat us,” and the ground started to shake.
The scaffold trembled, knocking Mari against Flea. He threw himself flat as she rolled past him. She threw out a hand and he just managed to grab her as she fell from the platform. For a heartbeat she was hanging on to Flea and he was gripping the splintery wood of the platform, which was rocking and swaying like a tree in the wind. Flea felt her weight begin to drag him over, then a thin, tattooed hand snapped down onto Mari’s wrist and held on long enough for her to swing her legs back onto the platform.
Flea found himself looking into the shrewd eyes of Yesh’s mother, peering out from under her headscarf. “Not the first time she tried to get a man in trouble,” she said. “This time it was your turn to rescue her.”
As Mari hauled herself up, Matta gave a quiet cry and pointed to the tomb.
The earth tremor had shaken the round stone that blocked the entrance. It had rolled away and left a gap big enough for a man to walk through.
“It’s a sign!” Matta cried.
Flea stood shakily. The tomb’s roof must have cracked, letting in light. Inside, a shadow moved.
Through the gap left by the round stone, a hand appeared.
It was clean, and the wrist, where the grave robe fell back, was hairy. Mari fell to her knees. Matta screamed. Flea felt as if his entire skin was shrinking. It lifted his hair and stretched his mouth and eyes wide open.
“Is it time?” a voice asked. “It is time.”
Gray light fell on a figure, dressed in white, taller than Yeshua ever was and better formed.
“What does it mean?” the mother asked in a cracked voice. “Is it my son? Is it my son?”
It was Yesh and it wasn’t Yesh. It was man and it was not man. It was there and then nothing was, because the earth shook again, the scaffold cracked, and everything changed as the dust rose and the sun broke through the low cloud and turned the air golden.
MANY DAYS AFTER
57
Although the world did not end, although the city did not rise and throw out the hated Romans, although beggars did not become kings and the dead did not dance in the streets, they all heard about Yeshua in the days and weeks that followed. He had been seen again at th
e tombs, bathed in light and robed in glory. His followers had been approached by a stranger out walking and, guess what? It had turned out to be him.
Or Him.
You could touch His wounds—you could even put your hand right inside His body if you dared. His blood could cure anything, if only you could drink it. He floated. He flew. Finally, He was taken up to heaven in a flaming chariot. Then His followers went north and took the stories with them.
The stories made Flea smile. He remembered how he had first imagined the magician when he came to the city, and although he’d lost his appetite for making up stories of massacres and world-saving heroics, he had told a particularly fine tale to the Grinderman.
The old knife sharpener had been setting up his grinding wheel on the street near the fountain where Flea used to get the water for the gang.
“Hey, Grinderman—got anything for me?” Flea called out. “Any gossip? Any news?” He threw him a copper coin.
The Grinderman caught it and pretended to faint. “Heard one about a flea,” the Grinderman called back. “Bit a lot of people, and when they tried to squish him he just hopped away.”
This made Flea feel very happy. “Here’s one for you. You know that old magician that got himself crucified? They say his blood’s magic after all. One drop will cure any disease. Two drops and you live forever. Yusuf the Merchant’s hanging on to the body. Going to make himself another fortune.”
The Grinderman winked and tapped his long nose with a dirty finger.
Within hours a mob had gathered outside Yusuf’s palace, calling for Yeshua’s blood. They broke in, wrecked the place, set it on fire, then set off to loot his warehouses. Yusuf escaped with his life, but not much else.
Flea felt it was justice of a sort. He had gone to see Yusuf just as soon as the earth had stopped shaking and they’d stopped running from the tombs, screaming like a bunch of babies. Flea had led the boys and Tesha into the city through the Dead Streets and then headed straight for Yusuf’s palace: Flea to get answers, the others to beg for food.
The city was rank.
All the people who should have left after the feast were still squatting in their makeshift shelters, huddled in doorways, staring out of windows.
They looked angry. Bored. Confused.
Fathers guarded their families with knives and lengths of wood. The streets stank of human waste, rotting food, smoke. On one corner two men screamed at each other, one saying it was the end of the world, the earthquake proved it, they should all go to the Temple and make sacrifices. The other man was shouting that they should band together, attack the Temple, raid its coffers, get back some of the money they’d been pumping into it all these years. Each man seemed to have supporters, who knotted together into sides …
Flea led the gang through the slums and into the Upper City. Earthquake damage showed more starkly in the wide, empty streets: jagged cracks in walls, broken tiles in the streets, breaks in the smooth paving where the ground had heaved. At Yusuf’s palace one of the doors was off its hinges. The children peered in. Water from the fountain gushed over the marble flagstones and drained through gaps in the slabs. The place seemed deserted.
“Smash and Grab should get to the kitchens and take as much as they can,” Flea said. “I’m going up.”
He pointed to the steps that led to the banqueting hall and the main bulk of the palace. Tesha and Big came with him—Tesha because they did most things together now, Big because he was unimaginatively brave.
They found Yusuf up two more flights of stairs, in a small tower room that looked out over the city. He was there with another man who looked forgettable, though Flea knew him only too well.
Swags of flesh drooped from Yusuf’s face. His beard was untrimmed and his blue robe with the golden stars was crumpled.
“What are you doing here?” he barked.
“We came from the tombs,” Flea said.
“All the people were meant to be there to bear witness, but the city’s on lockdown. They were meant to rise up. It’s too late, isn’t it?”
Below them the slums looked like a rotten honeycomb. After the earthquake, fires had started all over the city and their smoke mixed with the fumes from the Temple’s fire altar.
“What was in it for you?” Flea asked. “Yesh said beggars would become kings, but you’re not a beggar.”
Yusuf laughed. “You thought that he was talking about you? Still, I suppose everyone thought Yeshua was talking about them; that was his particular gift. But no one had the faintest idea what he really meant, and maybe that was his gift as well. You could make it mean anything you wanted.”
“So it was never going to happen? The poor were never going to be rich?”
“Everything’s relative, boy. When you live under foreign occupation, you learn to talk in code. The Romans make beggars of us all. We grovel to them for favors but they’re quite capable of snatching everything away. It’s intolerable, you understand. Intolerable. No one can live like this, and that’s what I wanted to change.”
Yusuf drew himself up, as if he were giving a speech, then collapsed. “It seemed so straightforward. Poor old Yesh would sacrifice himself like he wanted to and Yak, his brother, would take his place in the tomb. A crowd would gather, the stone would be rolled back, and there he’d be! Not that bruised, ruined figure broken by the cross, but a fit man, reborn bigger and better.”
His voice rose and the words tumbled from his lips. “Have you seen Yak when he sweeps his hair back like Yesh? With a trimmed beard it would have worked. People would have done anything for him. Anything at all. Then it all went wrong. The Romans put the city on lockdown, and then that earthquake … I’ve got Abbas Barabbas out there ready to take on the Roman garrison with ten thousand citizens behind him all calling out the Chosen One’s name and no Chosen One to follow.”
“But…” Flea tried to think. Just before the final quake he’d seen the followers walking toward the tombs across the quarry floor. Yak had been with them; he was sure of it. Or was he?
Yusuf continued. “We could have blocked the gates to the Fortress and taken the governor’s palace. Held him as a hostage. They’d have negotiated. The city would have been ours.”
“The Romans knew. They would have been waiting for you. But I’m not here to listen to you boast. I’m here to find out about Jude.”
“Jude? Oh, you mean Judas. Why would I care about him?” Yusuf looked honestly puzzled.
“He killed him.” Flea pointed at the man who stood behind Yusuf. His arm shook with fury.
“Really?” Yusuf looked amused. This made Flea even angrier.
“He was everywhere. When Yeshua first crossed the bridge into the city he was there, carrying a water pitcher. He was at the trial, making sure the crowd called for the governor to save Barabbas. He was in the Pleasure Gardens when Yesh was arrested, so he knew Jude had arranged to meet me under the tree by the city dump. Jude was the only person who was trying to stop the madness. He killed him, all right.”
“And what can you do about it?”
“I don’t know. But if I matter so little and you’re so important, maybe you can tell me why. I just…” But his voice was trembling too much. He felt Big step up next to him.
“Come on,” Big said. “Tell us. Whatever the story is, we can’t do anything about it. Or maybe you’re not as powerful as you claim to be.”
Now Tesha was on his other side and Flea felt stronger.
The silence stretched, seconds that Flea counted with the thud of his heart. At last Yusuf spoke, an odd twist to his face and tension thinning his voice. “It’s true, Jude could have made things very difficult. He didn’t get through to Yeshua because my nephew was a very remarkable man, but he could have influenced the others. In any movement there are leaders and followers, there are doers and there are passengers, people along for the ride. I thought Jude was a passenger. Oddly, he was a doer. He should have been eliminated weeks ago.”
“Eliminated. Yo
u mean murdered.”
“You think any of this has been easy for me?” Yusuf’s eyes were suddenly hot. “You know, Yeshua used to love my stories when he was a boy. I used to fill his head with sailors’ tales, from the east, from the west. He listened, oh, how he listened. I told him about a land where the teachers go around with a begging bowl because they think happiness only comes from having nothing. I told him about green lands to the north and west where they spill their gods’ blood on the ground every spring to make sure they have a good harvest. I told him about lands of ice and fire where the people don’t feel the cold. I told him how we could travel there together, but he wanted to die! Do you understand? He wanted to! I just wanted to make sure he didn’t die in vain.”
“I watched him die,” Flea said. “He felt he had to. I don’t know if that’s the same as wanting. I still want to know about Jude.”
“Are you sure?” Yusuf asked.
“Yes.”
“Then…” He nodded to the man behind him.
The man stepped forward. When he spoke, his voice was as dull as everything else about him.
“He was dead when I got there. There was no one else around. For my money, he killed himself.”
“He would never do that. He would never have left me.”
“You have to face it,” Yusuf said. “Who mattered most to Judas, you or Yeshua? Come on, child. He killed himself as an act of faith. He couldn’t stop Yeshua from going through with the prophecy, so he decided to join him. If he died, he died with Yeshua; if he came back to life, he would join him forever. At the end, he showed himself to be a coward.”
“No!” Flea screamed. “You’re the coward. You sent Yesh to his death while you sat in your palace getting fatter and richer. I hope it falls down around your ears. I hope it crushes you to death! You just use people. You’re as bad as the Romans. No, you’re worse. They conquer people and exploit them. But you, you screw over your own countrymen.”