John

by Niall Williams

  'Children of God,' Matthias cries, 'we are made for his glory. Come and follow. Heed not those who preach to you of men, of the Baptist, of Lazarus, of Jesus; these are but lesser teachers, prophets, yea even holy men, whose message was misunderstood and is now proclaimed for advantage by the unscrupulous. follow not them. They are dealers in mistruth. Darkness apt awaits them.'

  'You lie!'

  The voice of dissent is heard in Matthias's pause for breath.

  Papias has left the others and come closer without meaning to. He has been drawn by a potent conflux of anger, fascination, and shame. He knows he should walk away. He knows the Apostle will not wish him to speak out, but the words are from him before he can stop them. Heads in the crowd turn his way.

  'Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, is the Son of God,' he shouts. 'You are Matthias, one of us, who lived among us on the island of Patmos, who believed in our Lord Jesus Christ.'

  Matthias's eye finds him, the familiar head between the shoulders of the others.

  'Behold one whom I brought back from death!' he cries out. 'Was it not so?' He turns to the circle, wherein now Papias sees Auster, Linus, Baltsaros, Phineas.

  Cadmus steps forward. 'I was witness to this miracle,' he says.

  'And I,' calls Auster.

  'I, too!'

  The voices chorus, and the crowd murmurs their approval. 'From death,' one says. 'Verily, a miracle,' another calls.

  'You are Papias the Ingrate,' Matthias says, 'who lives in darkness. Who comes to block the way to light. A follower of Jesus, a man who you call God. No man is God. Am I God? No. Are any of you? Who here is man and God? Raise your hand, step forth.'

  The crowd cowers, shakes its head.

  'Jesus was come from God,' Papias shouts, 'was the Son of God! He came down from heaven.'

  'Indeed? Came down how? In a golden chariot? With phalanx of angels? Where came down? In Ephesus? In Rome? In what great city? And God had one son only? Why one only? Why not many? Surely if God could have one son, he could have many, being almighty? Only one son, truly? And God's son, what, was a lowly carpenter? Was not even a good carpenter! Have you God's chairs and tables?'

  There is soft laughter. There is mild concord. How outlandish this young objector, Papias the Ingrate, seems. The mind of the crowd like a tide is turned against him.

  'No, you twist the words,' Papias shouts.

  'It is blasphemy to call Jesus the only Son of God!' Matthias roars out. 'It is outrage against the true Divine! You will be damned to perpetual darkness for it!'

  'No, no, you are the . . .'

  The hand of Danil grasps Papias back. Further words die in the young disciple's throat. He looks into the face of the other, anguished. But Danil says nothing, only beckons backwards his head. When Papias doesn't move, Danil reaches and draws him by the hand. They move back through the crowd while Matthias speaks on, his voice swollen with triumph. 'Light will come to light, and darkness be expelled,' he calls. 'All who are of light, who would be children of the Divine, come to us. We will show you the way.'

  He is speaking still when Papias is returned to the Apostle, who sits on the steps yet. His face betrays no anger, no hurt, but only an impossible calm. He raises his hand for Papias, who gives his arm.

  Without discourse from any, they leave, moving into the fly-swarmed shade of a side street, unnoticed, and are as a remnant of a dispersed defeated army, outrageously wounded, retreating.

  29

  Why did the Apostle not come forth? Why did he not speak out?

  Papias turns restlessly on his bed mat. They have moved to a dwelling house belonging to one Levi, a Jew who is drawn to them but will not say so publicly and risk expulsion from the synagogue. There are others of like mind who believe in Jesus but still think themselves Jewish. Proclaiming this, they have been expelled from the temple. Though Levi told Danil they could live in the house for free, he pretends a rent. So they are come there in the night and have each made a quarter of privacy for rush mat and prayer. From years on Patmos they are most comfortable with insularity.

  Papias does not sleep. He turns about on the thorns of disappointment in the one he loves. He must reason to himself why the Apostle's actions were right. He must come to an understanding that is still far distant.

  I was humiliated. We were disparaged, all, jeered. Why did he let Jesus be jeered? I would have rushed forth and wrestled Matthias to the dust. Are we not to defend our Lord? Would not the Holy Spirit have burned within us if even we few fought against so many? Would he not have seen us to victory?

  This meekness he showed. The world is too harsh for it. We win no favours for meekness.

  And why why why did the Apostle not speak out? Are we to let the world laugh at us? To be made the fools of such as Matthias?

  Matthias did not bring me from death. I was not dead. I was not.

  He has no power.

  We should have done something. There were a hundred, two hundred, more, gathered. It was time to act.

  But what is our action?

  What are we to do, being so few? Who will follow Jesus when there are so many others? What are we, a small number of the meek?

  Unless the Apostle speak out. He is our testament. He is the living miracle, the beloved disciple, who lives on undiminished by time, who remains until our Lord come again. He endures. No sickness takes him. He is proof himself of God's love. No harm will come to him. His faith is a shield. But must it not also be a spear? Must we not go forth and defeat the enemies of Christ?

  Why? Why did he not come forth? Why did he let them jeer?

  Papias turns about in ropes of moonlight. The more he turns, the more tightly bound.

  There is no sleep. He lies on thorns he thinks, and grows hot to fever. His ear stump burns, as if elsewhere Matthias speaks ill of him. Across the bright night sky a flit of bats. All the commotion stilled, all the voices of the city of Ephesus quieted now. What traffic might be is of spirits and thieves only.

  Papias reaches over shoulder to scratch at his back. He has done so before he has thought not to. The rash sings. Swiftly his back entire is aflame. He thinks it even worse than previous and in the moonglow opens his garment to see if he can look behind him.

  He does not need to. For in the fall of light it is revealed that the angry rash has travelled further and from his left side now crosses in blisters toward his heart.

  The Christians find a practice of sorts. In the dwelling house of Levi, Lemuel rings the bell at sunrise. They rise and pray as before, their island now this house, the city about them the sea, in which they go like fishermen. The Apostle leads them in prayer, then after instructs who should travel to which house. Within a short time they have discovered there are, thereabouts in Ephesus, various that are inclined towards Christianity but are not yet believers in all the disciples teach. Some there are who yet attend the synagogue, others who themselves have been expelled from it. There are some of great age who remember a chance encounter years previous with a travelling Apostle, a figure standing in the square, a voice worn rough from preaching and the still eyes of the saintly or mad. They listened a time and walked away. But did not forget. Unknown, embedded, was a splinter of doubt that is the beginning of faith. Though the skin grew over it, it remained yet, and now near the age of death, it rises. In such grey-bearded elders, one foot stepped inside the cool of the tomb, the question of the Christians troubles still. What is the truth of it? What if truly it happened so? If the one that time was lit by God? If my crossing the square that day into his path was not chance? What if tomorrow I die and learn what he spoke was true? Will I see his martyred face again, too late?

  On the threshold of death, such elders send word to the house of Levi that they can be visited in the evening time. John agrees. Eli, Danil, Lemuel go by turns to call on various of these.

  But not Papias. He the Apostle keeps close to him. In the quiet of the house he sits sometimes and teaches to the young disciple. The summer heat blazes outsi
de, but the stone house is cool. John can begin anywhere. He can, without apparent prompt, commence by saying, 'It was six days before the Passover and Jesus came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, who had been dead.' Or later that same day, 'Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee and a great multitude followed him.' Or at another time, 'There was a marriage in Cana of Galilee.' And in listening, Papias begins to realise that in the mind of the Apostle there is no exact chronology. The events of his life with Jesus are as epiphanies, each so illumined as to dim all around them. So Papias comes to understand that he cannot ask the question What happened thereafter? Nor can he ask the many others that rise in his mind. After Lazarus lived again, did he speak to Jesus? And what did he tell of what he had seen in the hereafter? And when did Lazarus die at last? Was he martyred? Did he rise up? Was he chosen? Is each one of us chosen? How did Lazarus seem after his resurrection? What had changed for him? Was the earth itself differently understood?

  There are a thousand questions unasked.

  Sometimes John speaks of Judas Iscariot. 'He cared not for the poor, but was a thief. He had the bag and bore for himself what was put therein.' And says this as though Papias has asked of him, or carries an opinion that needs correcting.

  The young disciple merely listens. In his own mind he tries to order the events. He fits the pieces into a fractured whole. In the telling he notices smallest changes in the timbre of the Apostle's voice, and from these interprets grief and loss and regret and what comes to seem to him the living history of love. For love is measured in hurt here. Love is what has remained, a grieved longing that has outlasted time, that keeps the image of love untarnished, unchanged, as yet in the same youth and beauty, with the same imperishable mystery. When the Apostle speaks the name of Jesus, his face does not change. He retains ever the serene composure that makes the world about him seem an elsewhere. He cannot be known as others. He cannot be Papias's friend or father, but can love him nonetheless. This is the very strangeness the young disciple comes to realise in the days and nights he sits attendant on the Apostle. He moves from thinkingJohn loved jesus to he loves him. It is not passed.

  Then he comes to the realisation: the telling is a way to keep it present.

  For four weeks of summer, there is nothing else. The disciples go into the city, Papias stays with John. He lives in the constant teaching. He hears things he has heard before, but now the Apostle is at greater pains to be certain that he has understood the import. For his pupil he tries to clarify, time and again, as if he draws a line in the sand, then smudges it away with his sandal and tries again, as if there is one absolute and true, and endlessly he fails to delineate it exactly.

  'He who says he is in the light and hates his brother is in darkness even until now.

  'He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no occasion of stumbling in him.

  'But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, Papias, and knows not whither he goes. You understand?'

  'Yes.'

  'He knows not whither he goes,' he says, 'because that darkness has blinded his eyes.'

  Papias looks at him. The blind face is unchanged. Never once has Papias known him to speak against the loss of his sight. Nor does he seem to here. It is strangely the opposite, as though he is the one who sees.

  There are small victories. Danil reports a family of a wealthy trader who has come to believe Jesus is the Christ. Josiah on his deathbed has asked for the unction of the Holy Spirit and Eli has administered to him. With the gentle gladness of his character, Meletios tells that one Tobias wishes to take the Eucharist.

  'We will go to him,' John says.

  'His house is beyond the city, Master. A far distance.'

  'We will leave in the morning.'

  The disciples exchange looks of concern. They have come to know more closely the hostility of the city. They wish the day when Matthias appeared had not happened, and that Papias had not drawn attention to them by speaking out. They want no public. It is safer and easier if they go unnoticed, as if they are bearers of a secret faith. They are happier that the Apostle remains in the house, unseen.

  'Master, the city is dangerous for you,' Danil says.

  'I have no fear, Danil. We will visit good Tobias and share Eucharist with him.'

  'Perhaps Meletios and I should go only.'

  'Yes, two of us - or three even, say Eli - is sufficient surely?' adds Danil.

  The Apostle raises his face to him. It is a face pale and calm, the skin soft with an appearance of thinness almost to translucence. The eyebrows are faint wisps of white, the eyes still and impossibly distant.

  'Why do you fear? Why do you fear the world?' he asks.

  'We do not fear it for ourselves, but for you, Master. The city is full of noise and commerce and pagan creeds. There are thieves, rough figures that think nothing to slit a throat and look after for the purse. We fear for you, Master,' Danil says, his thin face furrowed in earnestness.

  'Why fear for me,' says John, 'when I have none for myself? I am not come to be killed in Ephesus. My brothers, look not to the world and fear. I know the world. You need not think to hide it from me. I know the time that is and what people are in it. I know all these things, and I say to you, fear not. We will go and visit Tobias and share Eucharist with him.'

  They dispute no further. The daybreak following they leave. They bear with them little, but in sacking cloth an antique chalice the Apostle has since before Patmos. Their route follows the archaic processional road leading to the Temple of Artemis through the Magnesian Gate. There are groves on either side. Their footsteps are on the trodden dust of ages where in legion petitioners and worshippers have come. There are some such about them on the road. The sun is rising. Their fellow travellers consider them, this curious collection of quiet men who have not dressed in fine robes to go to beseech the goddess. What chance their prayers? Some, wealthy, borne on litters and flanked by servants, bring golden artefacts for offering, likeness of themselves, coins with brief messages stamped, busts of Artemis herself. They pass the slow-walking Christians with mild scorn, losers in the day race to the Divine. Others there are, figures in poor and ragged finery, who walk the route clutching a single coin or token, their heads low, weighted with desperation. By and large none converse with other pilgrims. All work at a private reckoning, an inner calculus whereby as they approach the portal of the gods each is already measuring how much better their world will be hereafter.

  Wordless, the Christians pass on. They pass where others turn for the way to the temple. On the road, one, lame and old, hobbles towards them from the opposite direction. Shortly they come to him. When they are alongside he turns a scowl their way, then blinks quickly some sun-blindness and licks at blistered lips. He calls out.

  'Strangers, stop.'

  They do.

  'Why do you not visit the temple? You walk past.'

  'We go elsewhere,' says Danil, and turns to move on.

  'The ancient one, I know him,' says the old man. 'Who are you, Ancient?'

  'He is our friend,' replies Danil quickly. But John stands.

  'I am John, son of Zebedee,' says the Apostle. 'How does thou know me?'

  'I know thee. Though I know not how.'

  'Why do you go to the temple?'

  'Why, to pay homage. To give thanks, to ask for favour.'

  'What favour?'

  'My leg fails me.'

  'How does thou know me?'

  'I know thee.'

  'Where have you been?'

  'In the world. I am old.' The man palms the wrinkles of his brow, sweated dust. He studies the Apostle. 'In Symrna long since, you . . .'

  'Tell.'

  The man searches in imperfect memory.

  'No, I cannot. But I know that I know you.'

  'We are believers in our Lord Jesus Christ,'John says. 'The Son of God, who sits at the right hand of the Father. Who will come again soon. Go not into the temple. Go home to thy wife and children.'

/>   'Christians.'

  'Yes.'

  'As many I saw crucified on these very roads. There, there, even beyond there to the rise.' He points about him.

  The Apostle does not turn.

  'Even so,' he says, and it seems to the others gathered there that in his blindness he looks not at, but within the other.

  The man blinks in puzzlement. 'How do you know of my wife and children?'

  'Go in peace,' says John, 'go in the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who loves thee.'

  'Who loves me? How loves me?'

  'Verily he does. And thy wife and thy children, too.'

  The man's mouth is fallen open, his brows lowered in bewilderment. He scratches his head for memories. Where was it he saw this one before? Vague clouds of mind he sifts through, tries to find the image. Was it this man he dreamt not three nights since coming to meet him?

  The Apostle offers his hand. The man takes it.

  Then the Christians pass on, leaving him standing so in the mystery of things, not yet aware that when they are in the distance and merest specks on the road, he will discover the strength returned to his leg, his lameness gone.

  30

  In the night they return, their spirits lifted. The moon shows through cloud. Tobias has given them good welcome and has professed his faith in Christ. They have shared in the Eucharist and feel each one a cleansed serenity, as if a white linen cloth has been unfolded in their spirits. They come back the starry way into the city.

  Is it to be so? Papias wonders. Will it be one by one they win disciples to them? How long is left in the world? How long is there for sinners to repent? For the lost to find the way? The walking makes his rash burn. He lets his elbow chafe against his right side as he goes, but the relief is brief. He walks face-upward a time, looking into the stars for revelation. When the itching worsens, he fights it with prayer, amasses a legion of them, then loses to the sudden darting of a night creature crossing their road.