Collected Stories of Reynolds Price

by Reynolds Price

  The voice said “Now. Golgotha - here.”

  Golgotha, Calvary—the Place of the Skull, the hill where Jesus bled to death in spring daylight. First my fingers clenched in fear—the mouth would scissor down this instant and take the arm I’d volunteered. But I knew this was a tourist stop; I had to be safe (where though were the tourists?). Then while I couldn’t begin to see down that black hole, my fist spread open and my fingers moved. They found the chiseled sides of a socket in rough live rock maybe eight inches square—a neat chill socket.

  The voice said “Cross was standing there - inside - your - hand.”

  I looked behind for human company.

  The monk was in place, his piercing eyes, his tin cashbox, the roll of American toilet paper—a human at least, eight feet away. But he said it over, “Cross of Jesus Christ here now, here - in - your - hand.”

  My strong right hand, that had served me well but had started to tire these past two years, was rummaging now in the deep-hewn hole where a cross had stood. Like a reasonably sane and well-read man, I might have leaned back on my haunches or got to my feet and thought I’d check this out tomorrow in an up-to-date guide—what were the chances this was the place? (all but certain, I later read). But I stayed huddled, my whole arm reaching.

  And somehow through that frozen groping in that tight place, my literal skin uncovered every sizable cruel act of my life—acts caused by me—and it fed them up the veins of my arm till each act stood, stark clear, between my eyes and the lip of a hole no bigger than the crown of a stovepipe hat. Each came as a face—none bloody or blue, no suicides or actual murders but each a genuine victim of me (though almost none had truly blamed me). The spotted dog I blinded with a slingshot when I was nine. The mother I let die more or less hardup and desperately lonesome. A wife I’d more than half deprived of the care a willing partner earns. Her willing but finally balked successors. Two sons for whom I’d set my bleak example of strength—a single rider, clear-eyed and generally well-intentioned to humankind but aimed away at his private pleasure and his taste for ease. And upwards of a hundred more, the beautiful line of bodies I’d used as personal fuel.

  In under twenty seconds, still kneeling, I’d watched that set of human faces sacrificed by me to myself and now gone far past reach or repair. I stayed sane enough to know I was not the world’s worst vermin nor other ravenous intentional beast; but maybe for the first time in my life, I saw the shape of all my crimes.

  The monk was suddenly on his feet and rustling to fill a plastic bag with what looked like breadcrusts, his toilet paper and the shut tin box. I stayed in place but watched him work his stout old bones in silent pain and hoped he’d somehow look my way with the hope of mercy—I was that bad off. When he’d stuffed the bag and found an old umbrella behind him, his eyes stayed on the altar above me as he leaned to blow the candles out. Once he was done he stood behind me; and I waited to hear the voice again, saying Leave or Stay. But he laid a broad hand on top of my head—no word at all. I heard him shuffling back to his corner, then off to the stairs with his personal goods. When no sound came I looked around.

  He’d stopped on the top step and faced me finally. It was not his Christmas (that would come later, Greek Orthodox Christmas); but he said “Joy - now”—that had to be it, just two clear words. Then he tapped a large black watch on his wrist as if joy lurked at the foot of the stairs and he started down.

  Joy? Glory? Peace on Earth? I was not a church-goer. Most days in the past twenty years, I’ve barely been able to call myself a firm believer in any Cause-for-Visible-Things, any Cause that knows my personal name and maps my path. But when the monk’s hat vanished downward—they had to be closing; hadn’t the young policeman said “Soon”?—I saw no immediate reason, or way, to haul myself upright and follow. The weight of damaged lives inside me—visible faces, most of them live—was big and dark. And I knew I was neither drunk nor on the verge of a crying jag this far from home nor unrealistic. Every ounce of the weight I felt was lead, that dense and poisonous.

  By then, again from childhood books, I’d recalled some sense of where I might be. Wasn’t Calvary Hill long since enclosed in the ancient sprawl of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre?—the Emperor Constantine’s attempt to join the sites of Jesus’ death and his rock-cave tomb. Where though was the tomb? Since that one space had radiated sufficient hope of death confounded to spark Crusades and seas of blood around its door two thousand years, I thought one wasteful middle-aged man might give it a try, if time was left. I hauled my arm out and went downstairs in a quiet hurry.

  The younger policeman was still at the door; and nearer me, with his broad back turned, was what I’d guessed was Shoeshine George in his ragged vestment—a priest or monk. I’d forgot poor George. He’d brought me here for whatever reason; was he done with me now? Would he know me here in this much light? I even thought “If his ulcer has healed, I’m leaving tomorrow”—not that I wished him any harm. I was just that far from giving in to the night itself and its uncanny air.

  I walked toward the men; the policeman saw me; the man in the vestment went on talking, then also looked. It was nearly George but maybe not quite. I’d likewise never seen him well-lit; and since the vestment dragged the floor, it hid any possible wound or peg leg.

  As he saw me the man came close to smiling but never spoke.

  At least I could see that his robe was worse in several ways than George’s smock—it had once been a heavy vermilion velvet but was mangy now, worn to the threads; and the gold braid had tarnished to bronze.

  I asked the policeman “Is the Sepulchre here?” If time was up he’d just say no.

  But he pointed in at the heart of the place, past the high wall with the sooty paintings, and again said “Soon.”

  The tomb stands free beneath the wide dome and is long since hid in a garish box that shields its live rock from the gouging hands of pilgrims (one mad Caliph all but hacked down the natural cave in 1009). By the one low door are twisted columns and, overhead, a crowd of oil lamps—mostly dark as I came near. But again I bent to look inside; and there beyond an anteroom maybe six feet long was an even older monk upright against the far wall—a whiter beard, gigantic eyes. I stood on the threshold, hoping he’d wave me in like George but he held still. I turned to see if I was alone. In a way I never stopped to question, it seemed very urgent—despite my nearly gone beliefs—that I be alone through whatever came next. I stood convicted of rightful blame for all my harm. The shadowy choir and the screened altar were empty and silent, close behind me.

  So I ducked and entered the anteroom, not pausing to think who’d stood here before me—Mary Magdalene, Peter and John, Constantine, St. Francis and the gap-toothed Wife of Bath, Mark Twain, Herman Melville and T. E. Lawrence to start a list (is there any other place in which more world-famed figures have stood?). At once an unknown odor met me—not harsh but strong as a sweet narcotic, like amber warmed in oil of cloves. There was no smoke of incense, no visible source; the odor poured from the low walls around me, the trapped air of a distant planet or as if I were under a whole new kind of ocean water that let me breathe.

  I took a deep breath, looked toward the old monk—still no signal—and entered the tomb. It’s a small room maybe eight feet long by five feet wide with an eight foot ceiling. The walls and floor and the low shelf where Jesus lay are shielded by marble slabs again; and over the shelf is a big icon of the subsequent rising, with stunned onlookers—jesus airborne over this space—and another forest of silver lamps. The same thick odor was all the air there was to breathe; and suddenly I thought I’d fall, hard on my face—if I didn’t rush out.

  But before I took the first step back, the old monk held out another candle. When my hand took it, he said “This is surely your Christmas, sir.” A mild voice with again an echo of British officers decades past—enormous patience, self-serene. When I kept my silence, he said “You are an American gentleman?”

  I felt as gentle as a jackhamm
er pounding its way through granite in summer sun; but I nodded toward his imperturbable brow and eyes, then reached for my wallet.

  His arm and hand were thin as a bird’s leg, but he stopped me with a serious frown. “Your Christmas, sir—I know—is tonight.” He pointed toward a few last candles burning by the shelf.

  Somehow I needed to know his name. I said “Brother, my name is Bridge.”

  It pleased him and he thought it through; then he said “My brother, I am Anastos, which means ‘Resurrection.’”

  I saw the ludicrous irony of my whole life embodied here. In the warm promise of Christmas night, where had I come to mark the time?—the ultimate grave and me alone as any corpse. So sure, I’d take Anastos’ offer. I’d have my Christmas at the core of death. I lit my thin free candle and set it in the circular stand at what had been the bloody head or feet of Jesus. And since I’d knelt upstairs on Calvary, I thought I’d balance off the visit and also kneel beside this shelf. It couldn’t hurt me worse than the smooth cross-socket I’d rummaged in a few yards back upstairs on the hill.

  Before I could move, Brother Anastos crossed himself, kissed his hand and reached to an icon on the tomb’s back wall—the Virgin in grief.

  I thought he was pointing it out to me, and I said some complimentary word. It was maybe twenty inches by twelve, deep under nineteenth-century varnish.

  But Anastos tugged at its lower right corner; and the icon folded back, a small gate. Behind it, like some banker’s home-safe, was a rough dark space—deep brown, nearly black. Then he took my wrist and guided it to touch the space.

  Rock again, rough-hewn but worn like all these spaces by a billion hands. It was warmer than me and seemed to be the source of the air I’d breathed for two minutes.

  Anastos said “The tomb itself.”

  His hand still held me; I still stroked the rock.

  Then he met my eyes with a smile as joyful as any I’d known since my young mother’s fifty years back. “Actual stone of Jesus’ tomb.” His palm pressed mine against the rock to print me indelibly with memory at least; then he let me go.

  I took a step back and rubbed my fingers on tight dry lips. Actual stone, as though this were all the stone on Earth. That instant I felt it might have been—the breeding motherlode of rock. I didn’t kneel but I bowed as deep as my spine would go, and I touched my lips to the old man’s wrist.

  When I rose he blessed my face with a slow cross dug in the air with just his fingers. He said “Your life commences now.”

  As real as the thrust of a hidden thorn, I felt a jolt in my right thigh—not pain so much as a muffled spasm, a doubling—up deep in the bone, the certain knowledge that something had broke and would never mend. I told myself it was tiredness, nerves; and when I’d turned and left the tomb, I made a quick way back through the church past both policemen (no sign of George) and somehow straight up the shadowy path toward Jaffa Gate. No soul in sight, no sound but the standard hum of bodies—thousands of bodies dreaming of rescue.

  When I climbed out into the relative light of Jaffa Square, I checked my watch—ten forty-five. The square seemed empty like all the streets; and with what I’d undergone since my last sleep, I suddenly thought I’d never manage to spend the rest of this night alone. I knew I wasn’t looking for skin. I’d gladly settle for one like creature breathing near me, not running in fright. Maybe Jabril’s friendly kin were back from church? I looked toward the cafe—shut and dark. But I couldn’t give up. I walked to the steps and faced the door. Behind the glass I thought I could see a white shape move, face-high in the blackness; and then I heard dry scratching at the wood like cold rat’s teeth. I stood my ground and the door came open.

  “Christmas, sir. Good Christmas to you.” The voice was light, almost a child’s.

  Maybe I’d been right—it was Jabril, already back and still heavily bundled.

  But then he came to the forward sill. It was the waiter, young Samir alone and wrapped in a black parka that looked sufficient for Arctic hikes. He limped down the steps with easy speed and the same creased brow he’d worn through dinner. Then he shook my hand, searched my face and said “Sorry, sir.”

  “Sorry” again; he’d remembered his “sorry.” What could he think I blamed him for? I said “Not sorry. You did a fine job. Are you finished now?”

  “Finished?” The word seemed foreign to him. But before I could find a synonym, he gave his first smile. “Very finished, sir.”

  I was about to tell him “Good night” when something in his plucky face made me ask where he lived.

  He pointed south. “In Tuqua, sir. Near Bethlehem.”

  I couldn’t believe he owned a car, and surely buses had stopped by now. “How will you go?”

  His smile hung on and he waved with a flourish down to his feet. “I am walking to Bethlehem very fast. Then I think my brother will drive me on. He has a taxi and I hope he is waiting.”

  I recalled Sam limping hours ago to serve our dinner, his steady frown. “How far is it to Bethlehem?”

  “Sir, nine kilometers.”

  “And what if your brother isn’t there?”

  “I walk six kilometers more to Tuqua.” No sign he dreaded the long prospect.

  The night was dry but chilly by now, not quite freezing; and this man risked walking nearly ten miles? I asked him if he’d work tomorrow.

  “Oh yes, I come at ten in the morning.”

  Well, here was a Christmas deed I could do—a first small payment on the debts laid out before my eyes on Calvary. I said “My car is in the New City not far from here. Please let me drive you.”

  “Oh no. You just arrived here, sir. You go to rest.”

  I guessed some member of Jabril’s family had told him I was new in town, and again I heard the monk in the tomb say how my life began tonight. How though and for what? Whatever, for now I was bent on driving this lame exhausted man to his home before daybreak. I said “You will do me an honor, my friend.” And for the first time, I heard my voice assume the formal music of Arab courtesy.

  Sam paused to convert my words to sense. Then he said “Sir, thank you” and bowed. When I turned to lead us out of the gate, he fell in beside me with a burst of what was almost dancing, a graceful hop and spin on his damaged leg.

  But my mind suddenly showed me one more face it feared I would harm tonight. Before we’d walked ahead ten yards, I felt the dread that someway now young Sam would pay for my reckless offer. I’d drive him deep into West Bank country; we’d be stopped and searched by soldiers. Out this late with a unknown American, Sam stood the chance of being shamed in public at least. I tried not to let myself see the worst I’d heard was possible for him; but then I saw my own cold body in a rocky trench, my throat cut through in a straight line—bled dry by smiling Sam and his kin.

  No, we easily left the lights of New Jerusalem and were in the dark of open country in four or five minutes. At the first road-fork, the car lights struck a “Merry Christmas” banner strung above the way to Bethlehem—the words in English with minimal glitter. Just that first glimpse of normal Western holiday trappings eased me a little, and I thought of the lean Franciscan’s claim that Bethlehem was closed to cars till midnight anyhow. I glanced at Sam. “Shall we try to drive on into town or leave you outside? Where will you meet your brother?”

  Sam rolled his window down a few inches and smelled the air before he faced me—no smile, dead-level. “My uncle is certainly gone so late.”

  Not fifteen minutes ago he’d said his brother was almost surely waiting. Had I heard wrong? Was this the next rung down on the ladder to my unmanned confusion and ruin, a down I’d maybe triggered by telling a reflex lie about my faith and then refusing the ticket it won me? Commencement indeed. Or was I being steadily lured, on the stony skin of this dry land, to serve Samir in ways that CBS World News would know about by dawn tomorrow as I was sped toward a Beirut hostage cellar by the openhearted terrorist kin of Tiny Tim? Whatever, the next words came in hard throu
gh the crown of my head like inspiration; and while I understood they were wild, I said them fast. “If you’ll just guide me, I’ll drive you home.”

  Sam was looking ahead, intent on the two-lane white road before us. “Yes sir, now I am guiding you.”

  Right. “Will the soldiers be checking so late?”

  “I know the soldiers. I will talk to them.”

  Right.

  When we’d gone another half mile, Sam said “Perhaps no soldiers will find us.”

  I heard myself say “That would be fine.”

  Sam said “Very fine for me at least.”

  “They wouldn’t harm you?”

  He faced me squarely, drew out a worn Jordanian passport, opened the cover and held it to me. By the panel lights I could see what I guessed was Sam’s name in Arabic and an out-of-date picture. With a finger he tapped at a circular ink-stamp under his name. The circle was black, the size of a dime, with a triangle in it. He tapped it again. “This sign here, sir, means ‘Dangerous man.’ The soldiers do not trust Samir.”

  Right. Danger. Of what and when? Yet I saw I was someway thoroughly right to be here now. I was on this spot, as I’d been elsewhere so many right times long years ago, for a keen clear purpose that would show itself if I watched and lasted—I knew that much. I’d wait to see the threat uncover its shape and smell and name its price. We drove on up the hilly road in deeper night past what seemed occasional fields and gullies but never a sign of human life, no lamp or upright moving shadow—man or sheep or heavenly host. I told myself I should feel at least the singular charm of nearing Bethlehem itself near midnight on Christmas Eve, led by nothing but weak starshine and a local boy in practical need. I only thought “No soldiers please. Nobody to slow us, wherever we go.” But I said no more.

  And Sam stayed entirely still beside me, breathing deeply at intervals that seemed inhuman—long silent waits like a creature with adequate private fuel.

  Another few minutes and on my right far up the road, by a single light bulb high on a pole, I saw a squat building with a small white dome. At once from childhood memory, I knew it had to be Rachel’s Tomb—Rachel, the favorite wife of Jacob, mother to Joseph and Benjamin.