Book of Judas--A Novel

by Linda Stasi

  Jesus said he’d give a piece of bread to the betrayer and then famously gave it to Judas. I was raised in an agnostic, irreverent family, and so never bought whole hog into the liturgy of the Catholic mass because I always felt that something was wrong—not real—about what they were telling us.

  Whose prophecy had been fulfilled?

  I turned on my iPad (free Wi-Fi in the expensive seats, not that I knew what the hell I was doing there anyway), and found in the Old Testament attributed to King David: “Prophesied: Even a man, my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate of my bread, has lifted up his heel against me” (Ps. 41:9). Bingo.

  But King David wasn’t talking about Jesus, he was talking about himself and a rebellion by his son and his best friend. It was almost the same narrative as the Last Supper!

  Was the whole Jesus/Judas accepted Christian narrative just made up to fit in neatly with King David’s prophecy?

  When you thought about it logically, it all seemed too well coordinated. In fact, the whole Judas scenario couldn’t have happened the way the Bible says it happened, I realized. Jesus was the most famous man in Jerusalem at that time, so Judas would not have needed to betray Jesus by selling His whereabouts to the authorities. Jesus was never in hiding, nor was He unrecognizable. He made His whereabouts known at every moment, as was recorded—and by the way, it would have been like the cops not knowing Elvis was in town. Jesus was the main attraction—and had made Himself very visible on that trip.

  Why haven’t Christians ever questioned that? I wondered. Wasn’t it a huge glitch in the most famous betrayal story in history? Jesus was praying with his men in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus. (No pun intended.) That wasn’t just a glitch, it was an anomaly of the first order of the first century that had been bought whole for two millennia!

  This was getting more intriguing by the minute. I Googled Jesus’ activities in the last weeks of His life. Jesus was a total publicity machine whose activities couldn’t have been better organized and orchestrated if Madonna (the second one, not the original) had dreamed it up.

  And it was all in the New Testament for everyone to see: On His way to Jerusalem, Jesus stopped for dinner at the home of Simon the Leper, where He dined with Lazarus—the very man He’d raised from the dead after he’d been in a tomb for four days! Talk about a media event. And talk about the resurrection formula. Was He trying it out to make sure it worked for Him when His own day came?

  At dinner, He met Mary of Bethany, who was either Lazarus’ sister or a “sinner,” aka whore (depending on which sexist apostle you believe). Mary proceeded to massage Jesus’ feet with a full pound—yes, a pound!—of immensely expensive perfumed ointment. Then she cleaned the ointment off with her hair!

  Not only would dining with a previously dead man be a major event anytime, anywhere, but back then? Any famous stranger coming to town would be big news, but the most famous rabbi who’d brought the dead man back to life would have been a mammoth event. Furthermore, there was what would be today, the reality-TV aspect of it. The town’s alleged bad girl gave the resurrection rabbi a foot massage with a king’s ransom’s worth of perfumed ointment. Seriously?

  Imagine, say, the pope getting his feet massaged with precious oil by one of the Kardashians, who then cleans his feet off with her hair. No wonder Kanye calls himself Yeezus!

  To make it even more of a public spectacle, it was only Judas who complained about the whole tawdry spectacle. In fact I found in John 12:2-9 that Judas complained out loud because it was such a waste of money: “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denari and the money given to the poor?”

  Man! This had to have been the best show in the known world. It still would be!

  It got better: On Sunday, Jesus left the town of Bethany, and rode into Jerusalem in a triumphant procession astride not just one, but perhaps two donkeys! I mean, who rides two donkeys at once besides, say, a rodeo trick rider or someone who wants to attract a huge crowd? That’s not exactly the way to stay incognito. Was it to fulfill Zechariah 9 and the prediction of the coming of the lowly messianic king, which reads, “… your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” Many interpreted that to mean two donkeys.

  If that wasn’t a public enough scene, the following day, Monday, Jesus made sure everybody saw Him when He went to the temple and caused a scene by rebuking the money changers and arguing with the chief priests.

  On Tuesday—like Joe Namath predicting that impossible Super Bowl win, which Namath also did three days before the big event—Jesus announced the date of His execution three days before it happened. To further make His presence known, He got into it with temple leaders, predicting doom and gloom and the destruction of Jerusalem itself if they didn’t start believing in Him.

  That’s one way to make sure no one recognizes you. What a showman!

  On Wednesday, more arguing when Jesus called all religious leaders hypocrites and snakes. Then from the Mount of Olives, He mourned Jerusalem’s pending destruction. Now if that didn’t catch the eye of the authorities, what would? That could be perceived—or would be today—as a terrorist threat.

  Still not enough? On Thursday, the ancient publicity machine was at full crank, and Jesus actually announced where He and his disciples were going to celebrate the Passover meal. Afterward they went to pray (well the disciples fell asleep), publicly in the Garden of Gethsemane at the bottom of the Mount of Olives. It’s not like they were hiding in a cave somewhere.

  Not only were the Romans and the Pharisees watching Jesus’ every step at that point, and would have already known where He was, He would have been as familiar to them as any superstar is to us nowadays. Judas would never have had to kiss Jesus to identify Him. It would be like having to plant a kiss on the pope in order for the authorities to pick him out from the cardinals. Dear God (no pun intended again!), the story, accepted for two thousand years, actually made zero sense if you gave it much-needed, if discouraged, thought.

  More troubling still—when I thought about it—was the question of why Judas would have had to be a traitor when every Gospel proclaims that it was Jesus’ destiny to die for our sins in the first place.

  If you indeed were a true believer, then logically you would have to believe that Judas helped Jesus fulfill that destiny. Too bad humanity didn’t actually get redeemed by His crucifixion. The world is as much of a cesspool now as it was back then—except on a much bigger scale.

  But what about the whole Judas money issue? If Judas got into it with Jesus for allowing Mary of Bethany to waste the precious ointment on Him when the money should have been distributed to the poor, why would he have sold Jesus out for thirty pieces of silver for his own personal gain (which turns out to be exactly the price of a slave in those days—just in case you didn’t find the betrayal unseemly enough already)? And since Judas supposedly threw the money back, according to Matthew, before hanging himself, what was the point in the whole exercise that has fascinated Christians for two millennia? The fascination lay in the resurrection. Life from death! Life after death.

  The disciples whose words made it into the mainstream Gospels couldn’t have it both ways. That stands to reason. But unreasonably they did have it both ways and then some. Judas was a traitor but he was the one who fulfilled Jesus’ destiny. Judas wanted to give money to the poor, but was so greedy that he sold Jesus out for money. And the believers in the apostle stories have bought the scenario for all this time. This despite the fact that they even shut out Jesus’ family from their narratives, and apparently from the early Church, as well.

  Questions aside, I had to get back to the history of the Gospel of Judas itself. I had to know its background if I was to make this deal. From what I could tell, any pages stolen had seemingly been recovered. A man named Bruce Ferrini, who had somehow come into possession of the pages after they’d been found in the vault, had turned them over—even the pages he’d been w
ithholding (or so it was reported)—so what in hell were the alleged pages flying under my seat in the cargo hold?

  I read and reread the few existing pages over and over, looking for what was missing so I’d have some idea of what I was dealing with when I had boots on the ground in Israel. Good luck with that.

  Just then, the flight attendant came by with a choice of meals. I looked at the menu. It was like flying Air Jean-Georges, well, kosher Jean-Georges. No sense getting on the wrong side of the resident God of this airline when you’re thirty-six thousand feet in the air. I ate a little of the lox appetizer and the next thing I knew, that same flight attendant was gently waking me for breakfast. What the hell?

  Mr. Mossad beside me seemed like he’d just had a shave, shower, steam, and haircut, and was fully recharged for a day ahead. Gisele Bündchen, on the other hand, had changed from the nine-million-dollar beige slacks outfit into a nine-million-dollar white slacks outfit that looked exactly the same.

  Instead of dwelling on it, I made my way to the bathroom in my airline pajamas and changed into my jeans, T-shirt, and sturdy sandals.

  Mossad and Gisele seemed to be deliberately not looking at me as I made my way back to my seat and the flight attendant announced preparations for landing.

  You truly are reaching new depths of paranoia. They’re only trying to avoid looking at you because you look like a typical American slob, while they’re probably on the international best-dressed list.

  I was excited to land and get through customs—for the obvious reason—but also so I could call the Judsons and “talk” to Terry.

  I looked out the window as we were descending and could see the Holy Land below, sacred site to three of the world’s major religions, the sea, the vast desert. It was big and my making a deal for a huge amount of money seemed as filled with mystery as that desert.

  What in hell are you doing, Russo? Have you lost your mind? Yes, probably. Oh well, downward and upward.

  18

  We landed around twelve thirty. By the time I got to the hotel, I knew a good part of the day would be eaten up, so I started sweating bullets. The tickets had me returning in two days. My God. How could I accomplish anything in that time?

  What if Father Paulo didn’t show? What if the tube wasn’t in my luggage? What if…?

  I made it through immigration without a fuss—thank God I wasn’t stopped or my luggage searched—and turned on my phone and quickly scrolled through. Nothing from the Judsons or my parents. Nothing from Paulo. Nothing from Mad Dog. So far, so bad. I was desperate to open the suitcase but I couldn’t do it in the middle of the terminal, so I tried as casually as possible to walk into the women’s bathroom.

  I went into a stall, my heart beating, and opened my bag. Oh God. The box was there. But was the tube? I unwrapped the fifty-four-thousand feet of bubble wrap and there it was, still in its virginal and untapped state. Whew. I put it back inside my luggage and rushed out.

  Before I got outside though, I tried my apartment where the Judsons were staying but only got my voice mail recording, so I left a message: “Hi. It’s Alessandra. Please call me on my cell from my house phone as soon as you get this message. Just checking in and want to say hi to my sweet baby boy. Love you both, too, and as always, thank you, thank you.”

  I tried calling Dane’s flip phone but it just kept ringing. He probably never put a message on it. But it’s nearing six thirty A.M. so they should be up and about now, what with Terry waking up with the sun.

  I exchanged five hundred dollars at the Citibank ATM inside the terminal. The best rate of exchange is always at the airport ATMs and not at the currency exchange booths, aka the money changers. Funny that I’d just read about Jesus railing against those guys in this same country, and here I was doing the same thing two thousand years later—just not outside the temple.

  The Harmony Hotel is located in Jerusalem, while Ben Gurion Airport is in Tel Aviv. The choice was to grab a sherut (shared taxi), which were readily available at about fourteen dollars, or a regular cab for which there was a long line, at seventy-five.

  The ride, I was told, was about forty-five minutes, and that was long enough, so I took my shot at a personal cab, hoping the time on the line would make up for the time spent dropping other passengers off along the route with a sherut.

  I handed the driver a piece of paper with Harmony Hotel, Yoel Moshe Salomon 6, written on it, not that I had to. The drivers here speak English and unlike NYC cabbies aren’t newcomers who don’t know their way around. The driver immediately told me he was Muslim, as though I would have some kind of prejudice against him.

  I asked the driver if the Harmony Hotel was located inside the Old City, but he said that it wasn’t and was about a twenty-minute walk. My phone dinged five minutes into the ride and I jumped for joy. Home! But it was just a message from AT&T telling me: “Message rates will apply.” Shit. Angrily, I slammed the phone back into my purse.

  A second later it was followed by another text alert.

  “Goddammit!” I spat out, causing the driver to look up. “Goddammit” probably wasn’t a great phrase in a land of religious people. “Gosh-darned AT&T. I know message rates apply,” I said aloud.

  But this time it was a text from “unknown” so I assumed it was Paulo until I read it.

  We tried to call you, but we couldn’t connect overseas somehow. The doorman, Anthony, is sending you this text message from us—Raylene & Dane. Everything is fine. That window in Terry’s room wouldn’t close again, so we’re at our apt. until the super fixes it. Terry asleep/our bed. All good. R & D.

  Whew. At least I could rest knowing that one man, the little man in my life—was in good hands.

  I texted back:

  Thank you, Anthony, for being the messenger. Please tell Mr. & Mrs. Judson that I’ll phone first thing in the morning. Also my parents will be arriving. I left the keys for them with security. Thank you, Ali Russo.

  Unknown:

  You got it, Mrs. Russo.

  Mrs.? Anthony never called me Mrs. We were very informal in my building and I had insisted early on that he just call me Ali, and besides, I wasn’t anybody’s missus.

  It was a long, forty-five-minute ride from Ben Gurion Airport to the Harmony Hotel; mostly a stop-and-go highway route, and then a crawl-and-stop through the beautiful streets of Jerusalem. At any other time I would have reveled in the ride, but now my brain was racing faster than the slow-moving traffic. Time was wasting and damned Paulo had not tried to reach me. Was he going to internationally stand me up? Nah.

  The cabbie broke into my thoughts. “Sorry, miss, but there is a situation ahead.”

  I saw a dozen police cars, lights blazing, and a cordoned-off street. My immediate thought was a Palestinian-Israeli street conflict.

  “We have to go around the block,” he said. “The police closed the street.”

  “How far are we from the hotel?”

  “Just one block, right there,” he said, pointing to the street. “The Harmony Hotel is right there.”

  “Well, I may as well walk. I don’t have a heavy suitcase or anything,” I said, paying for the ride with a credit card.

  “Be careful, miss. It looks like trouble!”

  Not that trouble ever bothered me, although it has always had a way of finding me. I got out, and curiosity led me to where the police situation was unfolding. I stood with the crowd and could see that a body bag was being loaded into an emergency vehicle. There was blood all over the street and on the building.

  “What happened?” I asked a person standing next to me.

  “Murder!” she exclaimed. “A Christian priest was killed!”

  The man next to her immediately took up the argument. “No, I’m sure it was a Jew. Murdered by a Palestinian!”

  “Did you see the body?” I asked the man.

  “No, but you don’t have to see a body to know what goes on in this city.”

  “Oh. How was the person killed?” I asked, the fea
r bubbling up. No, it couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be.

  “I don’t know,” the woman answered, annoyed that the man had discounted her belief that the victim had been a priest. “I was right near here! There was no gunfire. Maybe he was stabbed,” she said, pointing to the incredible amount of blood splatter.

  As the vehicles began pulling away and the CSI teams moved in, the police broke up the crowd up and forced us to move.

  Shaken, I walked around the corner to the ancient stone building that housed the Harmony Hotel.

  I was amazed at how ultramodern it was inside in stark contrast to the outside and the whole surrounding area—all slick white leather and chrome.

  The front desk clerk pulled my reservation right up. “Welcome, madam, here is your room key card. Have a pleasant stay—”

  Before she could give me the whole spiel about the mini fridge and breakfast room, I cut in. “Sorry, but did you hear that a murder took place around the block?”

  The clerk shook her head and went back to smiling as if I’d just wished her a pleasant day as well. Hospitality 101—always keep the guests happy and—what?—in the dark?

  “OK then, can you tell me, has a priest come by or called for me?”

  “Well, a Christian priest did come by about an hour ago, but he didn’t ask for you. Had some breakfast in the restaurant.”

  “Would you say the priest was in his eighties?”

  “Why, yes. But this city is filled with clerics of the three main faiths. Nothing unusual about a priest…” That was it. Nothing more was forthcoming from her about him.

  I did, however, appreciate that there wasn’t any of the usual chatter that keeps you from getting to your room in a speedy manner. It was a little off, but it was also a relief. I just needed to get started. Doing what? Waiting for Paulo.