John

by Niall Williams

  Where the road turns him out of line of the sun, he is shown as himself. Papias knows him at once.

  'It is the boy from the village,' he says, 'the boy who threw the stones.'

  He is sallow-faced, a thin, wide-browed youth with intense eyes. He comes to within ten feet of them and stops. He looks with cool regard, as if they are species beyond catalogue in his experience.

  'For what have you come, boy?' asks Danil.

  The boy turns. Only then does Danil see the stone in his right fist held loosely down by his side. The boy does not answer directly. It may be he is himself trying to answer, For what have I come? What reason underlies the reason?

  'For what have you come?' Danil asks him again.

  The boy studies his questioner closely. He seems so intent on the disciple's face that it is as if he expects understanding to be found there. There is further delay, time fragmented, the boy still and profoundly serious. For what has he come? He holds the stone tightly. They are near about him. Is he the emissary of hate? Does he come to win praise by wounding them, these old men and one youth? Is this his reason?

  Papias steps forward, puts his hand on the boy's shoulder, who turns to face him.

  'You are forgiven,' he says. 'We bear you no ill.'

  'Truly,' says the short, stout figure of Danil.

  The stone slips to the ground. The boy opens his mouth and makes a guttural noise from below his broken tongue. It is expression in no language, a low choke sound the mute boy can make. He stands amongst them, reading their lips, and coming to a first understanding of the question Danil asked.

  'Go, go with our blessing,' Meletios says to him.

  'Go with the blessing of our Lord and Saviour,' Papias urges, and pats the boy's shoulder.

  He turns away from them and walks back a small distance. He stops and sits by the roadside.

  He remains as the evening comes. He is there as the disciples realise they will not sail from Ikaria that day and must make bedding beneath the spring stars. He is there as they pray together before nightfall.

  The Apostle tells them, 'Jesus said, "Verily, verily, I am the door of the sheep. I am the door, by me if any man enter in he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and shall find pasture." '

  He pauses, tracing back through a vast terrain to find the place and time again. Then he says, 'Jesus said, "I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is a hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming and leaveth the sheep and fleeth, and the wolf catcheth them and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth because he is a hireling, and careth not for the sheep. I am the good shepherd and know my sheep, and am known of mine."'

  Again he pauses. The disciples wait, uncertain if he will continue. Darkness is fallen.

  Sorrow rises in John's throat. He touches his lips together where a tremble moves in them. He swallows loss and the suffering of love. It would be easier not to recall. Knowing the outcome, knowing the end of Jesus's days with him, it would be easier if afterwards his mind had been taken, if in his great age he had forgotten all. But he remembers. A light shines inside him. He raises again his voice: ' "And other sheep I have which are not of this fold," Jesus said. "Them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd." '

  The disciples nod. They think of what lies ahead in Ephesus, of the other sheep that are not of this fold. By the words, by the enduring presence of the old apostle, they are consoled. They barely hear the whisper on which he finishes: ' "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.

  He lowers his head. He hears the words as if spoken for the first time. Rising around them is the memory of after and those turning against Jesus, of fierce debate and anger and accusation from the Pharisees.

  John remembers. He remembers Jesus slipping away before they would stone him, and he a youth following, protective, moving to the street and hastening from there by the side of Jesus until they were again beyond Jordan and into the place where John the Baptist had begun. A return to the beginning, he remembers. And the time that they abode there when peace was, and when John wished they might have stayed living in tranquillity with the disciples, out of Judea, in the simplicity of love. The time they were by the river is in memory sunlit and golden. A time out of time. Though he knew then it could not continue, nonetheless he wished it so with all the fervency of his young heart. And they did stay on, and Jesus stayed among them there, until a man came walking with the news from Martha that Lazarus was sick.

  Cold night of glittering stars spreads overhead. The disciples untie blankets. From his place nearby, hunkered, holding his knees, the boy watches. Meletios brings him a bedcloth.

  In the first wafer of dawn light, when Lemuel rings the bell, the boy is discovered to have come nearer in the night.

  When the Apostle gives the day blessing, the boy's head is bowed like the others.

  23

  The fisher captain finds them in the morning. His eyes swim in the night's drinking. His footing on the ground is uneven, as if the earth is not flat. The tide turns, they must hurry.

  They follow him through the village, the mute behind. Papias tells him he must return to his parents, but the boy simply follows a few paces after. Villagers with looks quizzical or mistrustful arrest and stare. A dog yelps, dances in frenzied tailspin barking. At his doorway Cenon scowls, tips a bowl of yellow foulness at their passing.

  'May God curse and strike you down for thieves and beggars!' he cries. He looks to the blue sky. 'O God hear my prayer!' Then he sees the stone thrower. 'Boy. Boy, come here! Throw fresh stones. Boy. Idiot boy, come!'

  But the boy doesn't. They board the fishing boat as before, the captain making ready the ragged sail. Wind awaits. The mute watches them. Then, as they are leaving, he holds out a hand and Danil pulls him aboard.

  Their route takes them north-east. They pass the islands of Thymaina and Fourni to the south, sail the steady waters between Ikaria and Samos. All are silent. Even Lemuel sits and clasps his hands together in thought.

  John turns his face to the oncoming wind, as though he sees.

  It is coming now. Now we return.

  Ephesus. To Ephesus.

  He knows where he goes. For he has been there before. In a lifetime since, it was to Ephesus he came with Mary after the crucifixion. To a small, low house with a vaulted doorway, where she might be kept safe. It was as he was instructed, but it was not what he had wished. He was young. In the aftermath he wished he might die. In the shadow of the cross he wanted a sword. He wanted to run against all, flailing a blade, to kill as many as he could. He wanted to be crucified. Nothing other could appease the loss. It did not matter to him then that his discipleship would end at once, that there would be no continuance, no preaching or conversions. He had seen the nails being driven and turned away, biting away his lips to keep from crying out. How could he stand idly by? What was to be gained by living? He had stood at the foot of the cross in the wild lamentations. He could not look up at the body with the downfallen head, the glisten of sweat and blood in the thunderous dark. The cries were all about him. Murmurings and jeers, whispers, pointing. He wanted to shout to them all, to say, Look, look what you have done, that here was love itself nailed and dying before them. How could he not cry out?

  Then, knowing his grief, Mary had turned her head towards him. She did not speak. In her was a calm like a white robe folded. From the cross Jesus said, 'Woman, behold thy son.' And to John, 'Behold thy mother.' And the youth he was knew his last instruction was to care for her, and he did not think yet there was another meaning coming after and into his care would be an entire community, a Church.

  It was a lifetime ago. It was the day he most wanted to be dead. To be with the Lord, not to live and care for his mother. But he obeyed and remained.

  They had stolen away from Jerusalem weeks later, after the third time the risen
Jesus had shown himself, leaving the city by night with a single ass and going northwards as if following a star, though in the sky none shone. They moved like lepers under darkness, wore coverings of thick blanket over their heads, spoke to no other, their route at first not direct nor expedient but the staggered meander of a small creature stunned under a blow.

  Ephesus. They had come to Ephesus to seek asylum, to be unknown in the crowded city, where believers were varied and many. When they entered the low stone building at the end of their journey, they sat in the darkness without words. Neither peace nor rest was there, only an exhausted quiescence. In the stillness of after-travel, grief caught up to them and came with its paring knife. They suffered it without complaint, each in the unimaginable torment of having lost the company of Jesus.

  Ephesus. John remembers. He was there before the beginning of his great travels. He knows it is there he must return.

  Bent forwards in the boat, Papias's back stings. The mainland of Asia Minor is before them. The disciples watch the coastline with volatile mix of hope and apprehension. Glory awaits, Papias thinks. We are almost here. The scabs in his back sting, but he does not itch them. Tremors of excitement move in his blood. It will be now. Now the work will be done. The way will be prepared for the Lord once more. And though I am unworthy.

  He stops. He sees the shoal offish in their wake. He takes from it instant meaning, and his spirit is further stretched and in joy flaps like a sheet held at each end. He dips a hand in the swift sea. Then he notices that the mute boy is looking directly at him and has seen the fish following, too. Papias smiles. The smiles keep rising like bubbles off the floor of his belief. He cannot keep them from his lips. He lowers his head when he fears he might burst one in laughter, then smiles at the boat bottom at his feet, the small slop of saltwater in which sit his sandals. Sunlight plays upon their heads, makes liquid dazzle, and their arrival is accordingly imbued. All will be well, Papias thinks. We are in his hands now. Eyes shut, he raises his head to let light flood his face. His smile goes heavenward. Noise of the near shore is within hearing, traders, boys, labouring carts, those in converse whose eyes turn to consider the cargo arriving.

  The fishing boat slows, bumps, sounds a rough drag, and sways back and over twice.

  Though I am unworthy.

  Papias opens his eyes to the great joy that is to begin. He stands as do the others in the tilt and knock of the boat. He holds out to the Apostle his arm and touches it against him so as to ascertain its support.

  'We are arrived.'

  As the old man reaches out his thin hand, Papias takes the briefest look behind him. But in the murk waters the fish are no longer to be seen.

  24

  Be with us.

  Be with us even as we come to meet you.

  They are on the outskirts of the city only, but already in the commotion and press of commerce. Traders, dealers in fish and fruits, merchant's boys, eye all arrivals for bargains. Sun falls on the Christians as they leave the fisher captain and come on to the mainland in a tight cluster. Even in the flux of travellers who frequent that place, coming from the four-cornered world, it is apparent at once that these are other. They wear a frail hesitancy and cannot keep from looking at all that surrounds them. The ordinary is rendered miraculous, all the loud and untidy activity of human engagement. Cries, calls, laughter; there is such noise, Meletios thinks, turning his head this way and that at each voice. It is truly now that the long silence in which they have lived is apparent. The island has transformed them, among its actions the ablution of the memory of this, the rough animation of man. They have forgotten what it is to move in a crowded street. Some push against them, going elsewhere. Others call overhead the price of a catch, are haggled down, cajoled. A crate of fish is carried past; stacked silver and mouth agape, the fish appear in astonished pose no different to Meletios, Danil, Eli, Lemuel, and Papias.

  The disciples move up away from the sea unsure of exact destination other than to enter the city proper. Danil leads. Behind him the thin, remarkable figure of the Apostle on Papias's arm, the others behind, the mute at the last. They are a ragged parade in clothing and manner, and all but vanish in the throngs.

  Nonetheless they are seen. The one who sees them is himself unnoticed. He stands in against a white wall in his white garments. He watches some moments to be certain. He counts their number, then hurries away with the news.

  Ephesus, great and ancient, lies at the mouth of the Cayster River. Its coinage as old as any, it has already been a city for twelve hundred years. To here come the merchants from up and down the coast of Asia, from Miletus, Pergamum, Smyrna, and beyond. Here was born Heraclitus, who said from water the soul wins life, then proclaimed that fire was the central element of all the world. Here, too, were born the philosopher Hermodorus, the poet Hipponax, the painter Parrhasius, and these among a full galaxy of artists and artisans, geographers, astrologers, goldsmiths. The city has a history of the gifted, but the arts alone do not account for its greatness. Almost two hundred years ago it was in Ephesus that Mithradates signed the decree ordering all the Romans in Asia to be put to death. One hundred thousand are said to have perished. But in four years Sulla again took control and slaughtered in Ephesus the leaders of the rebellion, returning it to Roman rule. It is territory soaked in blood, but traversed by pilgrims, too. It is here, on the marshy banks of the River Selinus, that Chersiphron built the wonder of the world that is the Temple of Artemis, that which was burnt down and then rebuilt for a hundred and twenty years to the plans of the architect Dinocrates. The route to it is packed hard with the feet of petitioners. It is to the glory of the female, and brings to the goddess bountiful offerings from all parts. It is a city so, suited to the supernatural, its citizens acknowledging the higher world. To many it is considered almost a portal, a place where the gods might hear more easily the myriad of entreaties and respond with favour. Here, too, now decades since, a first Christian community had been established under Apollo, a disciple of John the Baptist, and Paul had come there and for a time worked to establish a new church in Ephesus. He had taught in the schola of the rhetorician Tyrannus before being forced to leave because a goldsmith, Demetrius, preached against him and rose a public outcry. 'Great is Artemis of Ephesus!' the goldsmith cried, because he feared Paul weakened his business in the selling of golden statues and tokens of the goddess. Paul's disciple, Timothy, had remained, and been in time martyred.

  John has not been there in fifty years. When he left Ephesus, it was to go to the first council in Jerusalem in the time before his travels. When he left, it was in the belief that the Word was about to be spread in the world entire, that churches would be formed everywhere, that they, the apostles of the Lord, would form them. When he left, he could see.

  Now, returned, such history is in his mind. The world is not as he thought it would be. Time and again he must accept the mystery of what is. He must press on, though time seems soft sand beneath his feet. Papias leans to tell him where they are.

  'There is a terrace of streets with high frescoes, three stories high,' he says.

  'Yes.' John nods.

  'A mosaic of Hercules and Acheloos.'

  Two small boys run up to them; in chasing each other bump against the old man, who staggers in surprise, turned about in his blindness.

  Papias calls out to them. 'Get off, go!'

  But John's hand stills him. 'Leave be, Papias,' he says. Then, as if it has come to him only now that he has lived so long in their absence, he says, 'They are children.'

  There is in his manner some import, and Papias looks at the blind face. The old apostle's head is half turned to where the boys have run in the street, as if his thought follows them.

  'Children,' he says again, as if the word is a key he discovers in his hand.

  They continue past the temple to the emperor, where a statue four times his size in life gazes down. Below it is inscribed 'Ruler and God.' The Christians go in the crowds following the nat
ural progression of streets toward the State Agora, a vast public square that opens into the sunlight. Lemuel stops at the edge of it in the busy thoroughfare. Before them are all manner of stalls, tenting, barrels, tables, coloured awnings beneath which sellers ply for trade. Dogs sniff. Cats curious idle and rub against the ankles. There in a line are goldsmiths with coins of various size that bear the image of Artemis. She is everywhere. She can be found on copper, too, for those less able to afford or for minor offerings. There are draperies of spun cloth, wool traders, weavers, a loom being worked and orange and purple threads crossing the air to become a handsome waistband. There are fruit sellers, fortune-tellers, traders in all that might be imagined. No need is unmet.

  And to the disciples it is both wonderful and terrifying. For Ephesus seems a place of great significance, it is fit theatre for the new beginning, its excitements, its life, pulsing all about them, and yet in it they realise they are as nothing. None pays them attention. If they stand out in the square and call out for followers of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will pause to listen?

  How, here, are they to begin?

  Standing in the middle of the narrow passageway with stalls on either side, they are jostled, knocked, passed brief quizzical looks. A trader in skins calls out.

  'Come, come closer. Good prices, good bargains! Come! Feel the skins, soft.'

  His call alerts his neighbour, a fat seller of figs, who extends a palm. 'Here, travellers, good figs. Figs sweet as honey!'