John

by Niall Williams

  The wind beats at him. His eyes are shut to the dull grey hood of cloud, the obscured face of the heavens, but at any instant he expects to feel the blaze of illumination. His youth demands it, a visitation fierce and rapturous and violent.

  Salt air swirls. Sandflies find the gash at his ankle and embed in blood. Gulls downed and raucous make urgent angry business with their wings. But Papias pays them no heed. The girls in his arms, his praying is absolute and aloud now. The Greek ascends into the air like a white ladder pressed up into the invisible, all about it the soft, exhausted collapse of the sea in the stones.

  'Now, O Lord, come and make these, your children, live!' Papias cries. He tilts his head to allow the imminent radiance to blind him. That, he would gladly accept. Gladly he would be as the old apostle, his master. He has heard of so many healings, so many accounts of miracle, of leprosy cleansed, lameness righted, and even, yes, the dead rising, that he does not doubt the power; what he doubts is only his own worthiness to be its conductor.

  The children lie along his arms, his hands cupping their heads. Across the sand floor unseen scuttles a crab. It delays on ochre seaweed, makes small pinchings of sideways motion; it is the size of a man's hand. What food it finds in the slime of the weed is insufficient, and it comes forward, pincers purposeful and elegant, across the shifting undulations of the sand. Minute twigs, like fingertips, the crab squeezes for small life. The blown bits of dwellings and boats from the sea, briny insect-loaded sea wrack, soft crumble harvests of rot alive with maggots, pieces of cloth run away in the wind, sheltering hard-skinned sea slugs, all that the storm undressed and shore-scattered like a bounteous god the crab considers on its route. In low observance it finds a plenitude and yet progresses onwards, as if a little of each is allowed only, or its lot is to be unrestful always on land. The crab crosses shingle and grit, finds brief meaningful pause in the under-place of a rock, scuttles on.

  The crab arrives at Papias's foot before it knows it. The force of the youth's stance has embedded him, and sand thinly covers his sandals. The level is blown next to his ankle, where in the wound sandflies cling and suck and buzz, emboldened by the man's stillness to believe him dead or dying. Some, giddy and sated, fly up and hover briefly about the lifeless girls, land inquisitive, explorative, then flee the wind, back down to find the warm blood of the ankle they have forgotten. Black-shelled, sea-creased in an exquisite pattern of five arcs, ignorant of the world above, the crab lies motionless; it pinches a full careless fly, an ooze of white pulp, then senses the something in the sand below it.

  Papias knows nothing of this. His voice is hoarse from praying against the wind and he has stopped now to wait. He imagines more prayers will only annoy; he has asked and his entreaty must travel whatever vast distances, through what realms lie ranked and assembled the saints and all the orders of angels up and on to the throne itself. He must attend. The girls grow weightier in his outheld arms. An ache pulls at the top of his shoulder. But Papias will not yield to it. He fears the slightest movement may disturb the ladder, may off-centre the miracle. Suffering is the currency for salvation, and he intends his arms to fall away before he surrenders the girls to death.

  In the thin sand covering Papias's right foot a featureless ant is paused. Sweat, salted and savoured with longing, has fallen. The ant moves upon it and the crab pinches and catches sand and skin both. A flake of toe flesh is peeled. The sand shifts, exposing a small wound, and the crab sidles closer, till it lies along the line of the foot facing the five toes.

  Papias feels the claw and the sharp announcement of intent, but he does not move and he does not open his eyes. His arms are agony. His head is bowed forward.

  The sky darkens. Gulls and petrels dance upon the breaking waves. Effort and strain make the youth hot.

  Papias cries out. For an instant, no more, he tries to endure the pain, tries to hold the girls in his arms and see if, now, at this moment of agony, at last the light is to descend. He looks up into the merciless grey, then cries and drops to his knees, laying both infants on the sand. Then he crouches forward, his two hands pressed into the damp grit and his forehead lowered to it, and he lets from him a long loud cry of no words, a wailing plaint that goes on and on, issuing freely from the place where his faith has been pierced.

  Dark is fallen. Papias stares out into the sea. He has missed returning for the evening bell and prayer. A wounded part-moon is uncovered in the sky.

  The bodies of the girls are before him.

  It was for me to do this, he thinks. It was for me and not another to come today.

  Wearily he rises and goes by the dwelling and finds a heavy stick there. With this he breaks the shale and opens a hole. In time he kneels and claws the dirt free, then is himself inside the pit, scrabbling at the dark below when he had imagined such light from above. He finishes and climbs out and goes inside the fisher's hut. It is dark. The shape of the woman Marina is where Papias had last left her.

  'We must bury the children,' he says. 'I have prayed for them. They are with our Lord in heaven.'

  She rocks back and forth slightly in her sitting. She says nothing.

  Papias goes outside and lifts the infant girls one at a time and lays them into the pit. The wind is gone. Night is tranquil and ink. He stands bowed and prays again and does not look up into the sky. He scoops the dirt with both hands and lets it fall.

  He returns to the hut.

  'A mouthful of your water, please,' he asks. But Marina does not move, and he pats the dark blindly till he finds the water pouch and drinks.

  'I have demons. I have death,' the woman says.

  Papias lowers the water.

  'My husband first, then my children. Who I touch dies. Now you,' she says.

  6

  Afraid that he is forgetting, John remembers. Afraid that age invents memories, he goes into the vastness of his mind to find the true.

  Six stone water jars. Or eight?

  Six. Our talk at the table. Nathaniel and Philip joking, something about under the fig tree.

  Dusty from the long walk to Galilee. Andrew leaning to me: 'We will see the sky opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. He has said so.'

  Yes.

  Drinking the wine freely all of us, excited. Chosen.

  At the wedding they were not expecting us. They did not know you had disciples, Lord.

  Your mother: 'They have no wine.'

  'My hour has not yet come.'

  That look. As if you did not wish it to begin.

  We fell silent. A bird flapping high in the awning.

  'They have no wine.'

  Because she knew it would be now. Now would be the first sign. There in Cana.

  But you did not speak; you looked to your mother's eyes.

  I thought to say we would leave and get wine. I was the fastest; I could run and bring wine from a cousin of Nathaniel not far.

  But the look in your mother's eyes. As if she pushed you with her eyes: Go, now, begin.

  The bird flapping high above. Not escaping.

  The six stone water jars, empty.

  I did not need a sign, Lord. Already I believed.

  Your mother turning to the Architriklinos: 'Do what he tells you.'

  The moments after, I remember. Your mother touching your sleeve. Walking from you. My puzzlement sitting next to you. Across from me, Nathaniel and Philip and James. Andrew pushing to see. None of us knowing what to do.

  Your face. The light in it. The knowledge.

  'Fill those jars with water.'

  The buckets being brought from the well, the water clear falling into them.

  'It is only water,' Andrew whispered.

  More buckets brought. More water.

  Your face unperturbed and considering each of us. Your sad smile of knowledge.

  'Now draw some out.'

  The heads of us turned to see.

  Not I. I knew. I heard the Architriklinos cry, 'It is wine!' But alre
ady you had stood.

  'Come.'

  Philip could not stand; Nathaniel took his arm. Your mother was watching us leave. The music was playing.

  You looked at the awning; the bird flew free.

  The angel descending has golden wings. From the fore rank of seraphim, seated blissful in divine light, it has come, its form majestic, its purpose sanctified. Rising resplendent upon its summons, and laying broad the full glory of its wings, it had paused momentarily before flight, in manner as one elect and upon the rim of high heaven prepared. With single beat it met the hallowed air, fanned to the seraphim ambrosial farewell and flew beyond the gathered company of the prophets and the saints and the martyrs of the Almighty, beyond Isaiah and Elijah and Moses and all the faithful departed. To the furthest frontier of the celestial it arrived effortless, was as a flaming comet passing, lustrous, sublime. From its prominence at heaven's gate it considered amassed the stars below, myriad assembly of creations, carpet of illumination, then plunged headlong. Wings enfolded rearward, feet as one, it fell like God's arrow. Past the illumined belt that girdles paradise, and the supernal glow that radiates beyond, past the black and the blue, the lesser worlds of empty space, fathoms numberless of uncreated nothing wherein the cries of the undeserving perish and reach no further, past all the angels flew.

  It made descent beyond purgatory and paused not to pity or preach, not to tell of those elsewhere bound in chains by the burning black waters of the Styx, the Acheron, the Lethe, whose agony was promised everlasting. It passed as lightning, swift, strict, missioned; came to that outer region where the sun burned white brilliance of fire, made melt any. But here the angel was scorched not and came itself as silvered light, in form formless, in speed absolute. And so appeared in hovered pause above the placid shelf of planet Earth, within its sight all lands and seas that were, all from Asia to Judea and to the north as far as Gaul and Brittania. Its wings it extended then; feathers slight fell, drifted below as marvels; then, in brief quiescence considered the beauty and perfection of creation, what rivers and mountains, what seas.

  From all, the angel chose the island, and lifted and lowered its wings mightily and swooped invisible down.

  Now, here, at the entrance of the cave, it comes. Appears from within a great illumination, a thousand lamps large, dazzling to human sight. In accompaniment is a sound, sweet, melodic, music without playing. He folds to him his golden wings. He comes from the light and is clear and beautiful to behold, face becalmed, demeanour serene, as though journey from the ranks of seraphim in heaven to the place beneath is not arduous or lengthy.

  'Prochorus,' the angel says.

  The man bows low to the ground, then drops to his knees.

  'Prochorus,' the angel says again.

  The scribe cannot believe the angel knows his name. Then he believes it and believes his reward is at hand, believes when he rises that he will assume eternal form and begin his own ascent. His being is filled with gratitude and surrender. Upon his face is a look of transport.

  Then he feels himself shaken. A hand touches his cheek.

  'Prochorus!'

  And he opens his eyes and sees Papias standing there.

  'Wake, Prochorus, wake. Where is the Master?'

  The angel is gone. There is only the looming face of the youth.

  'Prochorus, the Master is not here.'

  The scribe is curled on the floor. Chastened by the vanity of the dream, for some moments he cannot stir. It is as though, returned to earth, he is made of weightier stuff and will not be able to stand. But the look of Papias is wild and urgent, and Prochorus presses against the burden of disappointment and rises.

  'How long have you been asleep?'

  Prochorus does not answer. He crosses the cave with the lamp to where the Apostle had last been sitting. He looks into the empty space in puzzlement. Papias comes to his shoulder. Neither of them say what crosses in their minds. Neither say that perhaps the Apostle has been taken from them.

  'Go, wake the others. Call his name. Quickly, quickly,' Pro­chorus says.

  The dawn is near to breaking. There is a chill wind. Papias hurries away across the rocks, while Prochorus stands and cups his hands and calls after the Apostle. His voice travels nowhere. The sea sighs back at him and he feels unwell. He calls again, and again. He goes some way along the upper ledge of the scarp and stumbles and falls forwards, and fears then the blind apostle has plunged off the edge to death in the rocks below. The thought is as a sickness and he lets out a cry.

  Across the darkness the other disciples come. Shades against the blued blackness of the predawn, they announce themselves like seabirds by calling. Their master's name is cried over and over. They assemble and disperse, assemble again. None admonishes Prochorus for sleeping when he was to be watching. The business of finding the Apostle is too urgent. Even the elder, Ioseph, is with them now, and with him the wheezing, anxious figure of Simon.

  'Where might he be gone? This is not good. This is not good.' Simon wrings his hands.

  Ioseph is swift and decisive. 'Two along the upper rocks,' he says, 'two to the eastern ledge. Linus and Prochorus go above to the meeting place, either side of the pathway. He may be fallen. Simon stay here. Papias and I to the foreshore.'

  'I am more nimble, I will go with him.' It is Matthias, who appears out of the dark.

  'Very well. Simon, remain here by the cave lest he come.'

  'But why is he gone?' Papias asks.

  'Go,' Ioseph says. 'Hurry.'

  A dull daylight greys the island. The figures of the disciples clamber away, calling. They are like ones abandoned in the dark. Across the air no seabirds fly, and the bleak sky above the island seems lidded closed. Matthias moves quickly, his thin figure light. He stops calling. From the foreshore he considers the ledge above them, the fall that would be fatal. Papias is behind.

  'Do you think he is perished?'

  'Papias, are you unwell? Your face is pale.'

  'I am . . . I may have taken ill in the night. Do you think he is perished?'

  Matthias looks at him in the thin light. He does not answer. He thinks: What will it mean for them if the Apostle is gone? Without him what will be the hope for their faith enduring there in banishment on the island? What if he is simply wandered out in the dark and fallen to death? What if he has simply succumbed to the fate of the aged or infirm? A mere human ending. It will mean nothing; his power will fade away. There will have been no sign, no miracle. They will feel cheated; they will hunger for a new master.

  'I will go the southern shore,' Matthias says. He points in the opposite direction. 'Can you walk that way?'

  Papias nods.

  'If you find him and he . . .'

  They look at each other, then away. They do not say. Matthias's impatience is clear; the old man cannot be left alone; that is what their living has become, minding him on an island. He shakes his head at the thought of it, then he is gone up on to the large rocks, where a man falling from above would be broken like a shell.

  Papias prays as he walks. He scans the upper shore, the grey sand where gulls stand curious over spews of seaweed, the smoothed salted stones. The morning is bleak and cold. His eyes are rheumy, blurring the middle distance so a blackened mound of algae, or rockweed might easily be the figure of a fallen man. Papias fists an eye, the other blinks into the bare wind. Is that him? His sandals quicken on the sand, sinking some and making jagged twists of his prints. His heart races, his prayers are stopped. He runs lamely, wound in ankle smarting, pushing back with his hands parcels of the air, wavering his head to and fro and blinking for vision. The black mound, is it the Apostle's white garment sea-spoiled? Did he fall blindly into the sea? Papias clambers on to the first of the rocks, his ankles angled over and slipping, his body pitched forward so he feels for balance with his hands. He progresses, and then stands, fists his eyes again, and sees that the mound is not a man but a large, dark fish haloed with flies.

  Momentarily, Papias sits, sig
hs relief. A needle of pain presses in above his left eye. The fish is of great size and without wound. It lies on one side with mouth pursed and flat incurious eye, its scales lustreless beneath the leaden sky. How it arrived so far up the rocks, what ailed it, age or disease, are not apparent to Papias. It seems to him a strange portent, and for a moment he delays on lunatic logic: the fisher gone, a fish in his place.

  He looks at it, waves away flies: is it living still? Is it beached and in need only of return to water? It may be, and is briefly puzzling for reasons he cannot shape, but Papias cannot delay. He steps back, the flies return. He scratches at his face and moves back down the rocks again, hurries limping once more along the grey sand.

  My soul longs for you.

  Each day, each night.

  I have loved you with my life, Lord.

  As the vine for water, my soul thirsts for you.

  Come, Lord.

  I have remained.

  Come for me now and take me to you.