On the Third Day

by Piers Paul Read

  ‘Then why,’ asked Father van der Velde, ‘did the Evangelists not say so? Why, indeed, did they make Pilate out to be a reasonably decent man? Was it not because they themselves were being protected by the Romans and did not want to offend them?

  ‘Look at the martyrdom of James, the brother of the Lord,’ Father van der Velde went on, ‘which is described by Hegesippus and also by Josephus in his Antiquities. He was the leader, you will remember, of the Christian Church in Jerusalem, and was widely respected by both Christians and Jews. Ananus, the chief priest, wanted to get rid of him but he dared not while there was a Roman procurator in Palestine. It was not until the interregnum between Festus and Albinus that he took advantage of the absence of a Roman procurator to condemn James, a misuse of his power for which he lost his position as chief priest. Look, too, at Peter who, soon after Pentecost, was arrested and imprisoned by the chief priests, and was then miraculously released by an angel. Now an angel, as we all know, was the conventional device used by the Evangelists to describe divine intervention in the affairs of men, but is it not possible that it was the Roman authorities who secured his release? Is it not even possible that the sudden change which came over the apostles at Pentecost, when they no longer cowered afraid in an upper room, but came to speak openly of Christ in the market place, came about not just because of the descent of the Holy Spirit but because of assurances by the Roman authorities that Christian preachers would be protected? Is it not even conceivable that the hearing of the apostles by many men of different nationalities – each in his own tongue – came not as a result of a miracle, but because the Romans themselves provided interpreters to spread the message of Our Lord Jesus Christ?’

  ‘But why?’ asked Cardinal Memel. ‘What interest could the Romans have had in promoting the Christian Church?’

  Father van der Velde leaned forward with an animated expression on his learned face. ‘Here, too,’ he said, ‘the riddle seems insoluble. There are no records of the government of Judaea at that time. But, again, as with our biblical exegesis, we are looking too closely for details and not enough at the whole. It is only when we stand back, mentally, from our detailed and specialized studies, and consider the Roman predicament in its widest sense, that it suddenly becomes clear why Pilate should have wished to promote the Christian religion.

  ‘Consider the task assigned to him, and then the problems he faced. Palestine was essential to the Roman empire because it controlled the eastern seaboard of the Mediterranean – “our sea”, as they called it. Should the ports of Sidon, Tyre, Caesarea and Jaffa fall into the hands of the Parthians, the Romans’ unconquered enemies in Mesopotamia, then the Parthians could threaten the sea routes from Egypt to Italy along which were carried the cargoes of grain upon which Rome itself depended.’

  ‘But what had this to do with a new religion?’ asked the Cardinal impatiently.

  ‘It had everything to do with a new religion,’ said the Dutch Dominican, ‘because the stability of Palestine had so much to do with the old one. The Jews considered themselves the chosen people. It irked them to submit to the Romans, to pay taxes to Caesar, to be ruled, in effect, by men they despised because they were pagans. They were by nature a volatile, almost ungovernable people. The Romans, when they could, preferred to delegate their authority to Jewish kings like Herod, or his sons Antipas and Philip; but when those kings proved ineffective, like Archelaus in Judaea, then they had no alternative but to impose direct rule from Rome.

  ‘Yet, however firm that rule, they lived in constant fear of a rising in Israel which would give an opening to the Parthians. And the Jews themselves, at the time of Our Lord, were in a state of incipient revolt, not just as a reaction to the Roman occupation, but in anticipation of the advent of their Messiah – the all-conquering king promised by the prophets, who would lead them, God’s chosen people, to power and glory. All evidence we have – and there is much of it – suggests that the Jews at the time of Pilate were in a fever of Messianic anticipation, and that almost no one thought of this Messiah in terms other than those of military conquest and political power.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Cardinal Memel. ‘So along comes a leader who says that his kingdom is not of this world.’

  ‘Precisely. Jesus of Nazareth, with his meekness, his humility, his injunction to love one’s enemy, to return evil with good, to turn the other cheek, and, above all, to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s – here was the ideal man, from the Romans’ point of view, to divert all this Jewish rebelliousness into a harmless religion. If the Jews could be persuaded that their Messiah was leading them to paradise in another world, and that it really did not matter who ruled them in this one, then Pilate’s task would be made much easier. Moreover, since Jesus had made cryptic references to rising again from the dead, and would do nothing to save himself from crucifixion, Pilate must have felt that he could kill several birds with one stone. He appeased the Sadducee establishment, as represented by the chief priests, by taking their bribe and crucifying their troublemaker. Then he spirits away the body, under cover of the Sabbath, and protects Christ’s disciples when they step out into the street proclaiming that Jesus has risen from the dead.’

  He stopped – his eyes bright with enthusiasm, his Gauloises forgotten.

  ‘But did this theory of yours,’ asked Cardinal Memel, ‘predate or postdate the discovery of the Vilnius Codex?’

  ‘Please,’ said Father van der Velde, ‘this is not my theory, but the conclusion reached by several theologians and exegetes, and it was evolved some time before the discovery of the Vilnius Codex. A certain caution had to be maintained, as I am sure you will understand, in expressing the theory in public. Many of us held posts in Catholic universities and would have undoubtedly lost our jobs if we had promulgated theories of this kind.’

  ‘I cannot imagine them going down well with Cardinal Ratzinger,’ said Cardinal Memel with a laugh.

  ‘Particularly as they are not susceptible to any kind of proof. Even with the discovery of the Vilnius Codex, which seemed to confirm much of our theory, we could not prove that the theory was correct. Even now, with Professor Dagan’s find beneath the Temple, nothing can be proved, but evidence is accumulating which suggests that Christ did not rise from the dead in the literal sense that has hitherto been supposed.’

  The Cardinal sat back in the practised manner of a chairman who wishes to conclude a meeting. ‘Father van der Velde, fellow monks of St Simon Doria, I want to thank you for what you have done today. We should each now go and ponder on these things in our hearts, but maintain the strictest secrecy as before. I myself shall make my report to the Holy Father, and it will be for him to decide how to handle Professor Dagan’s find. I can tell you now, however, that my advice to him will be that it must be taken seriously, and that far from representing a threat to our faith, it may be a vitally important sign of the times – the culmination of the new spirit in the Church which came with Vatican II, and the portent of a new maturity in our relationship with our Creator. Remember the Apostle Paul. “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man I put away childish things.” It may be that now the Deity who is the source of all life and all good and all understanding considers us ready to discard the props of the miraculous which have hitherto sustained our faith, and to walk freely towards a full and rational understanding of the bond between God and man.’

  Fifteen

  After the departure of the three Simonites from the Staedtler Institute, Anna followed her father and brother up into her father’s office, but sensed at once that they wished her to leave. Indeed, Professor Dagan said to her: ‘I think it would make your mother happy if you went home for lunch.’

  She left them and caught a bus to Rehavya. Her mood, for all the comforting smiles that she had directed towards Andrew, was as black as it had ever been. Her father’s find, which should have excited her – not just as his daughter, but as
an archaeologist in her own right – had done nothing to relegate the private preoccupations which tormented her whenever she returned to the bosom of her family in Israel. She had come, certainly, to witness her father’s triumph; but, as she had looked down at the skeleton marked by a spear and a crown of thorns, she had been overwhelmed not by excitement or exaltation but by acute irritation with her brother Jake.

  There was something about his manner as he escorted them underground which exasperated her – an aloofness, a reticence, a conceit, and that same sneer which he had so often directed towards her when, as a child, he had been told secrets which had been kept from her. To be sent home to have lunch with her mother inevitably exacerbated her irritation, and Anna became exasperated with herself for being caught up in this way by the emotional reflexes of her childish self. She had told herself in the aeroplane, the day before, that she was now an adult with adult feelings, yet no sooner did she set foot in Israel than she was drawn back into the passions provoked by her immediate family.

  The contrived way in which her father had embraced her at the airport, and a similar reserve in her mother’s kiss when she had arrived at the flat in Rehavya, had made Anna feel angry; and the polite questions over supper about her life in London had only reminded Anna of how little either of her parents seemed to care about what she was doing. That night – the night of her arrival – she had cried under her sheets, muffling her sobs in the pillow. She could have coped with the coldness of her parents if she had had Henry waiting for her in London. She could have managed her jilting by Henry if she had found affection at home; but this double rejection – one explicit, one implicit – was more than she could bear.

  She had been distracted from her misery the next morning by the visit to the excavations beneath the Temple Mount; but now that she had returned home, she felt once again all the wretchedness and resentment of the night before and prepared to face her mother in an angry frame of mind.

  Rachel Dagan seemed surprised to see Anna. She was watering the plants on the balcony, and looked down at the watering-can as if wondering whether she could go on with what she was doing or should abandon it to talk to her daughter.

  ‘Can I get a drink?’ asked Anna.

  ‘Help yourself,’ her mother replied. ‘There’s lemonade in the icebox.’

  Anna went to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of homemade lemonade. She took it onto the balcony, which was just wide enough for two battered canvas chairs and an old chaise-longue. Anna sat down on the chaise-longue and pulled back the hem of her divided skirt to let the sun shine onto her knees and shins. She sipped her lemonade and watched her mother.

  Rachel Dagan was small, like her daughter, but while Anna had her father’s sharp but delicate features, Rachel’s were more rounded and bland. Her spirit was also quite different from Anna’s, so that while Anna’s face was lean from the many changes of expression which reflected her changing moods, Rachel’s was plump and smooth, not just because she had grown heavier over the years but because her character was consistently placid, her mood always calm.

  As if to match this psychological trait, her voice was soft and her movements gentle. Anna had never known her to be angry; at worst, if crossed or frustrated, her grey-green eyes would widen and her reticence give way to silence. In general, however, she remained patient and even-tempered – the calming, soothing influence in a highly strung, idiosyncratic family.

  It was because Anna was temperamentally so different that she had found it impossible when growing up to model herself upon her mother. The primary influence had always been her father who, though shy and introspective to the outside world, played the part of a pasha in his own home, sometimes sulking, sometimes raging, if his wishes were thwarted.

  Anna had often discussed her parents with her Aunt Miriam in London, and it was partly because she sensed that Miriam had feelings for her brother Michal similar to those felt by Anna for Jake, that the niece got on so well with her aunt. ‘You must always remember,’ Miriam had said, ‘that your father had no parents after the age of fourteen. He was always looking for a mother, and he found her in Rachel.’

  ‘So she was too busy mothering him to mother us?’ Anna had asked.

  ‘Perhaps. Who knows? It sometimes happens that way.’

  Now, on the balcony of the flat in Rehavya, as Anna watched her mother, she felt aggrieved towards the woman whose gentleness and calm seemed like a varnish to protect her from any involvement in the lives of her own children. The silence, clearly, was to save her from comment; the patience was to save her from action. Her obligations – or so it seemed to Anna – only extended to the delicate handling of her husband’s fragile ego.

  Rachel Dagan, as if sensing some of these angry thoughts in her daughter on the chaise-longue, prolonged the watering of her plants for as long as she could, but when it was clear that the cactuses and geraniums were already sodden, and that any more water would merely spill from the pots onto the tiled floor, she put down her watering-can, looked at her watch and said to her daughter: ‘Are you hungry yet? Would you like some lunch?’

  ‘Why don’t you sit down? We could talk.’

  ‘Yes. If you like.’ She sat down, upright on one of the canvas chairs. ‘What would you like to talk about?’

  ‘Don’t you want to know about the visit to the dig?’

  Rachel Dagan looked away. ‘I think three archaeologists are enough for one family.’

  ‘But you must feel something about Dad’s find.’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘Pleased?’

  ‘For him, yes, but I also feel … afraid.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it will make people angry.’

  ‘Revolutionary discoveries always do.’

  ‘I know. And your father, of course, was prepared for anger and controversy, but not for the death of Father Lambert. That upset him. He wanted to bury the skeleton and pretend that it had never been found.’

  ‘So why didn’t he?’

  ‘Jake would not allow it.’

  ‘What the hell had it got to do with Jake?’

  ‘He was working with him. He persuaded him to go into the cistern.’

  ‘I don’t understand why he left the IDF,’ said Anna.

  ‘He is still in the IDF,’ said Rachel. ‘They gave him leave to help your father.’

  ‘If Dad had needed help, he could have called on me.’

  ‘You would have had to serve in the army.’

  ‘He could have fixed that.’

  ‘He thought you were better off in London.’

  ‘Out of the way.’

  Rachel looked at her daughter with a nervous expression in her eyes. ‘We only want what is best for you,’ she said.

  ‘You know,’ said Anna, sitting up on the chaise-longue and shaking her hair over her eyes to hide the tears, ‘you always say that, but now, aged twenty-two, looking back over my life, I feel that you’ve always wanted to get rid of me.’

  Her mother did not immediately deny it. ‘It was very difficult,’ she said, ‘because you were in school when we were in America, and when we came back, we thought it best to leave you there.’

  ‘But not Jake?’

  ‘Jake was always an Israeli.’

  ‘Like Dad and you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But not me?’

  ‘You never learned Hebrew.’

  ‘It seems to me now,’ said Anna, her voice wobbling with a mixture of misery and anger, ‘that you never really wanted me to become an Israeli.’

  ‘That isn’t true.’

  ‘Or that you didn’t care whether I did or didn’t, whereas Jake …’

  ‘Your father always wanted a son.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I wanted to make your father happy.’

  ‘But not a daughter.’

  ‘God gave you to us …’

  ‘I was an accident?’

  ‘Nothing from God can be called a
n accident.’

  ‘But I was unexpected?’

  ‘I was already forty …’

  ‘Then why the fuck didn’t you abort me?’

  ‘Anna, dear,’ her mother said gently.

  ‘Can’t you understand what it was like for me, growing up with this sense that I was less loved and less wanted than he was?’

  ‘We did want you, Anna. We did love you. But you must realize that we were … inhibited.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘By our own inheritance. Our own childhood.’

  ‘Why should that mean that you loved me less than Jake?’

  Rachel sighed – a horrible sigh for Anna, because it signified that her mother could not deny that they had indeed loved Jake more than they had loved her. ‘You must try and understand,’ she said in her calm, almost monotonous voice, ‘what your father suffered as a child.’

  ‘I know,’ said Anna impatiently. ‘I know all that. I’ve heard it a thousand times.’

  ‘It was not just that he and Miriam lost their parents in the camps. That was bad, but it happened to others. Worse, however, were the years before. You see, his father was a rich and successful man, one of the best lawyers in Hamburg. Nor did he think of himself as a Jew, but simply as a cultivated, urbane, liberal-minded member of the German middle class. They did not go to the synagogue. Your father and your aunt did not even go to a Jewish school.

  ‘Then came Hitler and the first Nuremberg laws, which said that Aryans could not be employed by Jews. First, the servants had to go from their house – even the old cook who had worked for them for twenty years. Then the secretary from his practice, and then one by one his German clients left him, so that his practice contracted. He could only act for Jews. They had to sell their large house outside the city and move into a flat in the centre of town. Then the insults started. Once, he was taking your father for a walk in the park when a group of stormtroopers stopped him, spat at him, shouted “Juden ’raus”, and kicked him out of the park – kicked him, literally, the father in front of his son.’