Under Tiberius
Page 29
He was so incensed by this that spittle sprayed from his toothless mouth and he tried to stand upright.
“How dare you!”
Then complacency came over him, and he said in a tone of reason:
“What does it matter in this world, one Jew more or one Jew less?”
He regarded me with the one eye of his reason.
“Go, then,” he said, “I have my inquiries, my experiments to pursue.”
At this time, there entered a servant who excused himself and respectfully informed the autocrat that his afternoon meal was ready.
There would be boar and stewed apples, pie of garlic and herbs, dried figs in honey, and his favorite white wine of Liguria.
It was then, for a moment, that he seemed to be not a monster, but merely a pitiable old wretch with the remnant of a smile on what was left of his face.
“So who is this Jew that we must save from the Jews?” he asked. “A name, a name; he must have a name.”
Parchment, ink, and reed were before him. I saw the seal of his ring press into soft bitumen.
36
THE AIR OF CAESAREA WAS HEAVY WITH HUMIDITY, RIDDEN with a foul humor that strong gusting winds could not drive away. The morning sky was a pall of gray. The sun, a hazy glare. This atmosphere disquieted the guts, and troubled the intake of breath through the nostrils.
I placed the sealed decree of Tiberius in Pilate’s hand. The prefect did not examine it, but asked after the condition of the emperor.
I told him.
Neither his voice nor his countenance changed. He looked me in the eyes and said:
“It is too late.”
I said nothing.
“Three days after you departed, Caiaphas and the Jews of Jerusalem gathered at the Antonia and demanded that your servant be executed as ordained. They were adamant, hostile, and caused a growing disturbance.
“I was forced to wash my hands of the matter; and their will was wreaked.
“He was taken with other criminals to Calvary, the Hill of the Skull, beyond the walls of Jerusalem; and there, with the others, he was crucified.”
Still, I said nothing.
“We should have counterfeited a decree. Or simply made as if there were one,” he reflected absently.
It was then that I spoke.
“If only you had suggested that before I left.”
“I did not think of it,” he said. “And as I think of it now, I dismiss it. For it would not have satisfied the eyes and suspicions of the high priest. No, yours was the only way. But time and events were against us.”
I stared at him. From me came these words: “A man’s life is a man’s life.”
“Yes.” He sighed testily. “But you can always buy another man.”
He seemed to regret the petulance of his manner.
“If it is of consolation,” he said, “I was told by the Roman legionary who befriended you that, much to the displeasure of the Jews, he pierced the side of your man deeply with his spear, so that his suffering on the cross would end in a span of hours, not days.
“Aside from that, it was just another crucifixion. The Jews, as usual, spread their robes and enjoyed their family meals while witnessing the agonies of those crucified. Through the mercy of the legionary, your Jesus was the first to be delivered from pain to death, the first to be taken down.”
I tried to picture it, but withdrew from what I pictured.
“He had no family present at Jerusalem?” asked Pilate.
“No,” I said.
“Then the iron spikes of his crucifixion would have been sold by the auxiliaries to medical men. They are much in demand for their alleged healing properties, in the treatment of the falling disease and other illnesses. Some people carry them about with them, even on the Sabbath, or wear them as amulets to prevent sickness.
“He would have been put in an unmarked tomb, perhaps with others, in the rocks to the west.”
There was in me a dire oppression like that which filled the sky and air of this day.
“It may also be of consolation,” Pilate said, “to know that in the end he denounced and betrayed you. He claimed that he was not your slave; that you had enticed and directed him in his pronouncements, that your fortunes might profit by them.”
I could hear the voice of Jesus, and his words about that which was within, which if you brought forth would save you, and if you did not bring forth would destroy you.
“A man who seeks to save his life will utter anything,” I said.
“This is true,” said Pilate, seeing that, at this moment, there was, for me, no consolation.
Nothing remained to be said. Nothing remained to be done. But still I stood there, saying nothing, doing nothing.
As he who passes from us is mourned, so passes mourning for him.
There was in me a feeling of guilt, and my first thought was that, somehow, I was responsible for his death. I shook loose this thought.
My second thought was that all his money was now mine. I did not shake loose this thought.
37
SUCH WAS THE END OF MY FRIEND. SUCH WAS THE END OF MY fortune-hunting days. Such was the end of the Word and the Way.
He is dust, as I soon will be ashes, unremembered. That the memory of me might dwell in you, as his has dwelled these fleeting years in me: this is all that I could ask. A young man wants the world. An old man wants only that the spent light of him glow for a moment after he is extinguished.
So it was that I returned to Rome, where sadness awaited me. My wife and my son, I discovered, were dead and gone, without a chance for me to have kissed them good-bye.
I became a sedate member of the Roman aristocracy. I did what rich equestrians do. That is to say, I did whatever those who are not rich equestrians are unable to do.
There was only you, my progeny and my heir-at-law, my heir of blood.
Sejanus was killed. A few years later, Caiaphas died. Then, at long last, Tiberius died. Some years later, Pontius Pilate died. Caligula came, and Caligula was killed. His uncle Claudius then was raised to the throne of Rome. I write this in the third year of his reign.
Is there a lesson to be learned from any of this? I do not know. Is there to be found in my life anything that might benefit you in yours? I do not know. If there is, I leave it to you to find it, or to believe you have found it. You are the sole heir of my estate. You are the sole heir as well of the truth of my life.
There is a cameo of some skill, carved by an artisan of Caesarea. It is, I think, a good likeness of me as I was before age made me hideous. That, too, is yours, if you want it.
I bade farewell long ago to those fools and betrayers of my story. Now I bid farewell to all fools everywhere. And I bid farewell to you, whom I love, and to the spirits of the others whom I did love; and to the breath of this life, and to the colors of this world.
We find the name of the Greek goddess Hera—our Juno—enclosed in the name of the Shemites’ goddess Asherah. So we see that the gods are one. We see that all things are enclosed in other things; and that which encloses all, we shall never know. It is beyond us.
For we are, all of us, nothing more than finite beings who seek to understand infinity; and this understanding shall never be ours.
The Jew and the Roman are one: a Janus who gazes at chaos from two different directions and sees different gods where really there are none. None. The Great Mother and the Great Father are one. At the same time, they are none. All gods are but phantoms, figments of the minds of men.
Trust no man, and trust no god. For, as all men have their birth in mortal flesh, so all gods have their birth in the minds of mortal men, and that source is never else than a marsh of disease and ill. Know that every prophet is a false prophet.
Only the weak, the meek and wretched of the earth, need the palliative of hope. Shun it. It is a lie and a self-affliction. Where you find misery, there will be hope; and where hope is found, there will be misery. The strong have their heaven in this
life. And, for all its greed, all its corruption, all its evil, injustice, and filth, this world is all of heaven we shall ever know.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nick Tosches lives in what used to be New York.
ALSO BY NICK TOSCHES
Novels
Me and the Devil
In the Hand of Dante
Trinities
Cut Numbers
Nonfiction
Dino
Hellfire
Where Dead Voices Gather
Power on Earth
Poetry
Chaldea
Collection
The Nick Tosches Reader
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Welcome
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
About the Author
Also by Nick Tosches
Newsletters
Copyright
Copyright
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Copyright © 2015 by Nick Tosches
Cover design by Keith Hayes
Cover copyright © 2015 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
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Frontispiece: Allegorical illustration showing the transformation of Mercury in the form of a snake nailed to a cross, from a treatise reputedly written and illuminated by Nicolas Flamel (c. 1330–1418) (vellum) / Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, France / Bridgeman Images
ISBN 978-0-316-40565-2
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