The Art of Standing Still

by Penny Culliford

  To her astonishment, he was weeping too. ‘Where have you laid him?’

  As the stone was lifted away, a shrouded Lazarus stepped blinking into the blinding sunlight. Jemma ran forward and peeled off his grave clothes. Her grief turned to tears of joy.

  A miracle. How could this be? People who died couldn’t come back to life, but Jesus had restored the one thing most precious to her. She hugged her brother, hugged Jesus, and shouted her praise to God.

  The crowd gasped and applauded.

  ‘Here may men find a faithful friend that thus has cured us of our cares,’ she cried out.

  Jemma slipped off her costume again backstage. She couldn’t help smiling. Now she understood the meaning of Jesus’ words to Martha, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.’

  In a blur, Jemma moved to the front of the stage again and helped direct the crowds to ‘Jerusalem’ down by the abbey. People lined the route and cheered as Josh, riding a donkey, passed by. They threw palm branches. Trumpets and voices reached a crescendo. She saw a face in the crowd. Fry. He was looking straight at her, his mouth a grim line and hatred in his eyes. She shivered.

  Then started the conspiracy. All kinds of false accusations against Jesus flew, and Pilate, Annas, and Caiaphas – dressed in medieval priest’s vestments – plotted to destroy him. They had their stooge, a willing ally in the disciple Judas Iscariot.

  Jemma removed her hood, and as Fry described the scene at Simon the Leper’s house, she poured her perfumed oil on Josh’s feet then wiped them with her hair.

  A chill went through her again at Judas’ words of betrayal. ‘Take care, then to catch that coward, the one that I kiss.’

  The scenes flashed before her eyes. A table and thirteen friends eating a traditional memorial meal. The start of a new promise, rumours of betrayal, denial and rash pledges. A man in utter torment and desolation, going to a garden to plead for his life. She watched as Josh knelt, and she waited as he made the most arduous decision of his life. She watched him sweat and weep as he battled with his Father, eventually submitting. As he wept, Jemma wept too.

  The crowd was silent as the knights marched up and encircled the garden. Fry seemed to tower over him.

  ‘I would ask you a kiss master, if you will, for all my love and my favour is upon you.’ He took Josh’s face in his broad hands and kissed him on both cheeks. The ultimate kiss of betrayal. The friends who had promised to be with him to the bitter end ran away, leaving him alone and vulnerable. Leaving him alone to face death.

  Jemma couldn’t bring herself to watch the trial scene. She found a quiet spot to sit and rest, behind the abbey ruins. The thought of unjust prosecution, the wrongful conviction of an innocent man, affronted every ounce of her integrity. The irony of the Cutlers’ Guild play was not lost on her – the authorities, Roman and Jewish, were all too eager to stick the knife in. Time blurred, and she was there in the crowd outside Pilate’s chambers. Bribery, corruption, and crowd-pleasing speeches seemed as prevalent then as they did today.

  ‘Hello, Jemma. Taken a quiet moment to write up the final entry in the column, have you?’ Mohan’s voice made Jemma jump.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘You made it all sound so vivid I thought I’d better come and see it for myself.’

  ‘And what do you think?’

  ‘The acting is competent. The directing could be better, and I could have got you a much better printing deal on the programmes, but on the whole it’s not bad for an amateur pantomime.’

  ‘Pantomime! All this stuff is real. It really happened.’

  ‘It’s a play. A medieval play.’

  ‘No, the events . . . they happened.’

  ‘I never had you down as a religious historian. Anyway, they have never proved Jesus existed. Archaeologists have excavated the area extensively, but they never found a body.’

  Jemma laughed. ‘Of course they didn’t. That’s the whole point!’

  ‘What, that Jesus didn’t die?’

  ‘No, that he did die, but he came back to life again – the resurrection on Easter Sunday.’

  ‘What utter rubbish. No one can come back to life. Hogwash. One chance, that’s all you get.’ He took Jemma by the hand. ‘When I suggested that you get involved in these plays, I didn’t expect to find you’d been brainwashed.’

  ‘But I haven’t.’

  ‘You’ll be telling me next that you’ve become one of these “born again” Christians.’

  ‘What other kinds of Christians are there?’ Jemma was genuinely puzzled.

  ‘I dunno, proper Christians. The ones who are kind to animals and watch Songs of Praise on Sunday evenings. The sort who don’t take it too far.’

  ‘Mohan, I’ve got absolutely no idea what you’re talking about, but I know these plays have changed the way I see things.’

  He shrugged. ‘Each to their own.’

  ‘Look, Mohan, I’m glad you’re here. Is Saffy with you?’

  ‘Of course. With a whole roll of 35 mm film in her funny little one-legged camera.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Why? I’m intrigued now.’

  ‘Something big is going to happen this evening.’

  Mohan laughed. Jemma clutched his jacket. ‘No, I’m serious. Deadly serious. You have to stay to the end. I can’t say anything yet, but it’s going to cover the Gazette’s front pages for months to come.’

  Mohan raised an eyebrow.

  ‘I have to go,’ said Jemma. ‘I’m needed for the crucifixion.’

  Mohan rejoined the crowd, and the impact of Jemma’s words hit her. She was an integral part of the crucifixion. She walked to the front of the stage area and gasped with revulsion. Josh was standing motionless, bowed and bloodied, between two Roman soldiers who were dressed as medieval knights. Each breath rasped and he stood naked except for a cloth around his waist.

  ‘Stop!’ she cried, but her voice was lost among the crowd baying for his blood. A handful of teenage boys were making the most noise, swearing and shouting the vilest insults. She ran up to them.

  ‘Get out,’ she shouted. ‘You can’t say those things.’

  ‘Of course, we can, you stupid cow. We can say what we like.’

  ‘Yeah, and we’re getting paid for the privilege.’

  They laughed in her face. She wanted to run away from the horror of it all. She just wanted to get some water and wash away the stage blood, to take Josh home and make him tea and wipe away the tears. She stood frozen until she realised the ushers were moving the crowd on again.

  They passed a little wooded area where deep among the trees Ruth’s little departure into ‘Madame Tussauds’ territory hung from a tree branch, swinging gently in the breeze.

  ‘Come and see where Judas hanged himself.’

  Spectators gawked at the grisly sight, parents shielding their children’s eyes, hurrying them past. They reached the lower field. She spotted a tense-looking Bram Griffin standing by the open gate.

  ‘Come on. Get the best seats for the crucifixion,’ a knight called. ‘It will all be over by sunset.’

  A peasant waved the crowd to the front of the arena. ‘Sit at the front for the best view.’

  ‘Souvenir loaves and fishes.’ A woman with a basket handed out scraps of bread.

  An old hag shouted, ‘Come and watch the criminals die – agony guaranteed.’

  And the crowd picked up its chairs and blankets and picnic baskets and jostled laughing and chatting, for the best view.

  Jemma felt sick. She ran towards the stage where a knight had laid a scarlet robe on Josh’s back, and she saw them push a crown of thorns on Josh’s head. The blood ran down his face. The knights jostled him laughing and spitting at him. Josh just stood there, letting them. She ran forward. ‘No! Stop, you can’t do this, you’re hurting him!’ She reached out to snatch the crown from his head, but sharp thorns punctur
ed her hand.

  ‘Hey, those are real thorns!’ Two knights dragged her away. She struggled to get loose, but they held her arms. She collapsed, sobbing on the woman playing Mary, Christ’s mother.

  ‘What is happening?’ Jemma cried. The woman held her and stroked her hair. Josh, stripped of his red robe, but still wearing that vile crown, was struggling along the rough track carrying a heavy wooden cross. Every few steps, his knees buckled, but no one came to help him.

  The crowd shouted and jeered.

  ‘Supposed to be a king. He can hardly walk!’

  ‘He’s healed all those people, looks like he needs a doctor himself.’

  ‘Come on, Messiah, save us from this Roman filth.’

  Again Jemma covered her ears. The two women clung to each other as they followed as closely behind the cross as the knights would allow. Josh stumbled. Exhausted, he could clearly go no farther, so the knights dragged an actor out of the crowd and put the heavy cross on his shoulders. They pulled Josh roughly to his feet and marched him to the front of the three huge arches of Monksford Abbey.

  The sun cast long shadows, and the heat of the day was draining away.

  The procession arrived at Golgotha. Two crosses already stood in place, with their criminal residents. Four knights manhandled Josh to the ground. Then, one by one, in curt, sharp comments, they grumbled and mumbled about the task in hand. They complained that the nail holes were in the wrong place and fumbled the ropes to tie him on the cross. The knights complained at the ‘snail’s pace’ at which they were working as the audience, drawn in to their banter, laughed and shouted ‘helpful’ suggestions. All the while, Josh was silent.

  Finally, they secured Josh to the cross and with a knight at his head, one at his foot and one to either side, they lifted the cross and placed the foot into an indentation in the ground. Walking forward, they raised it to an upright position. Rocking it, they complained bitterly at the weight, until with a thud, the foot located deep into the hole.

  Josh cried out as his shoulders were jolted by the impact. He hung there, still and silent. Why didn’t he perform another miracle? Why didn’t he call upon God and all his angels to rescue him? Why did he let these wicked men have their own way? Why did he just hang there like some stupid, dumb animal . . . like a sheep at the abattoir? Like the guilty sheep in that Bible story. It died so the person could be forgiven.

  The crowd that had been laughing and jeering fell silent, shocked that they had become part of the baying pack. Shocked at their guilt.

  Jemma let out a sob. She put her hand to her mouth and clung more tightly to Mary. Oblivious of Josh’s pain, the knights gambled for his clothes. The thief on the cross to the left jeered at him, while the other protested his innocence.

  There was a loud cry, ‘Heloy, heloy! My God, my God, Lama zabatanye, Why did you forsake me?’ Then he spoke directly to his mother, commending her to the care of his friend, John.

  Finally he cried out again, ‘My father, hear my plea, for now this thing is done. My spirit I send to you now into your safe hands.’ Then he hung his head.

  Jemma felt weak and spent with grief. She sat on the floor, unable to cry any more, and watched. The knights broke the other prisoners’ legs. Then she watched with horror as one of them picked up a spear to jab into his side. In rehearsals, she had held her breath every time, as the knight thrust it at him and the trick blade slid harmlessly into the shaft.

  Something was amiss. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up and her scalp began to prickle. Was it the way he lifted it, or some instinct, a voice inside her? She ran forward, ducked through the cordon of ushers and wrenched the spear out of the knight’s hand.

  ‘Wait! There’s something wrong.’

  The other knights hurried to pull her away.

  ‘Look,’ she hissed. ‘The blade, it doesn’t look right. If you stick that into him, you really will kill him.’

  The knight examined it carefully, testing it by jabbing it into his palm. Then he looked at her.

  She held her breath as blood dripped from the puncture in his hand onto the grass.

  Someone had tampered with the stage prop. A small sliver of wood locked the retractable steel blade into place, and the tip had been sharpened.

  ‘What on earth . . . How did this happen,’ the knight muttered.

  ‘I have a good idea,’ Jemma said. ‘Carry on before anyone notices.’

  He took another spear and made feeble jabbing movements towards Josh’s side, delivering his lines in a slightly shaky voice.

  Someone had tried to kill Josh.

  She looked over her shoulder. They were taking him down from the cross, and Mary, his mother, was weeping over the body. Jemma knew she didn’t have long. Her next scene was the resurrection.

  She stumbled to the green room, hunting for Fry. That bully, that cheat, that . . . Judas. His clothes were in a pile. She felt in the pocket and took his car keys. ‘He won’t get far,’ she whispered.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Harlan! You made me jump.’

  ‘Stealing from people’s wallets.’

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  ‘I’m calling the police.’ Harlan reached into her handbag and pulled out her phone.

  ‘Good idea. Go ahead.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Call them. We’ll need them soon.’ Harlan stood with her phone in her hand and her mouth open.

  Jemma held her scrawny shoulders. ‘Harlan, listen to me. This is really important. I need to find Alistair Fry and stop him getting away.’

  ‘Why, what has he done?’

  Where do I start? ‘Look, Harlan, I need to get back on stage. If you see him, don’t say anything just ring the police.’

  She crossed the field to the abbey, half running, half stumbling. Still no sign of him. She searched outside, behind the trees, but there wasn’t time to reach the farmyard.

  She arrived as they were carrying Josh to the cave-tomb and joined the other women. It could have been Josh who died. She found herself weeping with the other women.

  ‘Oh, if only I could die too, No one, surely no one could ever be as sorrowful to have seen the things that I have seen . . . to have loved and lost so much . . .’ She paused. These were not the words she had learnt. These were the thoughts of her heart, gushing from her lips in a torrent. She returned to her script. ‘That Christ my Master most of might, is dead and gone from me.’

  The angel appeared and sent the women to tell the disciples the literally earth-shattering news of the resurrection. Jemma wept alone by the tomb.

  She heard footsteps approaching and looked up. There was a man dressed in a hard-hat, jeans, and wearing a yellow vest with a Monksford council crest. He carried a rake and a broom.

  ‘Sir, I have looked both far and near to find my Lord – I cannot find him,’ she said.

  ‘Woman, weep not, but mend your cheer, I know full well where he was brought,’ he said.

  ‘Sweet sir, if you have taken him away. Tell me so and lead me there.’

  ‘Mary, do not grieve; see my wounds; it is I. For mankind’s sins I shed my blood, and all this bitter pain did bear.’

  He lifted off the hat and showed his face, washed clean of the blood. But his hands still bore red marks, the imprint of the nails. She reached out to embrace him.

  Touch me not, my love, let be,

  Mary, my daughter sweet.

  To my Father in Trinity

  For I ascend not yet.

  A sense of hope filled her, the restoration of what was lost and the longing for what is yet to come. Josh’s eyes were so full of love and pain that she longed to cling to him, but she obeyed and watched as he walked away across the field.

  Tired, yet elated, she found Ruth and Eliza. The mystery plays were over for her, and she could concentrate on her next role – that of a journalist exposing an evil, corrupt, and murderous man.

  ‘Have you seen Alistair?’ she asked.

  They sho
ok their heads. ‘Not since the garden of Gethsemane.’

  She had his keys; he couldn’t get far. She scanned the crowd. He was bound to turn up for the curtain call. She sat with them as she watched the final judgement. Josh, the blood washed from his face, stood majestic in a white robe, on the stage to the right of the throne. God commanded the angels to summon the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ souls.

  It had been Ronnie’s idea to plant these representatives of the entire human race in the crowd. The actors, dressed in plain contemporary clothing, mingled with the audience until summoned for judgement. Then they were assigned either to paradise or the fiery pit. Ruth had turned down Ronnie’s suggestion for a working hell-mouth, belching smoke and real flame, due to the fire hazard.

  ‘That’s what they had in the middle ages,’ he said.

  Despite the lack of real fire and brimstone, the effect was electrifying. People looked shocked; some laughed and some looked close to tears as the bad souls were sent away to destruction and the good souls welcomed to Christ’s presence. The impact was even greater because those being judged were people like them, not actors in medieval costume. They were judged on what they did for the hungry, the sick, the naked, and the imprisoned. ‘When any that had need, night or day, asked your help and had it soon.’

  Jemma felt her heart flip. At last she understood. She saw what Josh meant, she knew why Ruth needed to tell this story, and she knew what had kept Eliza Feldman alive against all the odds. She wanted to sing, to shout, to tell everyone of the life-changing, soul-changing message of how one man’s death could liberate everyone. She could feel Ruth nudging her. It was time to take a bow, a curtain call – if there had been a curtain.

  She took her place between the disciples Peter and John and gave a curtsey. She looked up the line at Josh. He was smiling, relief all over his face. It was finished.

  But it wasn’t finished for Fry. She looked to the place where he should be, but she couldn’t see him. Panic started to rise. What if he had gone? What if he had run away and escaped from the police? He could be anywhere. She broke away from the line as the applause died away and ran to the ruins to search for him.