HIM, page 25
The Son sat at the well again, and wept. He told another follower that the man would have to give up all his wealth. He told him that he would be blessed if he left his family. The Son’s eyes went wide and staring and he started to sing in a tuneless high wavering.
The song prowled around a strange text that announced The Son would soon be revealed, as if he hadn’t been revealed.
The dirge warned that on that day no one who is on the rooftop should go down into the house for his possessions. Remember Lot’s wife. “Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it,” he sang. “On that night two people in one bed. One will be taken and the other left behind.”
Maryam put down her quill. There was no point. It was nonsense. Had he been deranged by visions of the destruction of the Shomeronai temple?
They all knew that when the Son wept it might be not be from sadness or weakness but rage. Seeing tears, the Thunder Brothers tried to keep back the crowd; told a group of children to go back.
“Bring the children! Bring the children!” The Son stood up, fists bunched. “Don’t you understand?” The Migdali swiftly gathered the children and urged them to go back. The children had come with flowers for him. He looked at the limp bunches of tiny flowers, and pulled the children to himself and wept, hugging them. He said something that Maryam could not quite hear.
A cheer grew from those around him. Whatever he had said spread; this they understood: the love of children. This they believed. The roar grew, it became a chant. THE FIRST SHALL BE LAST. THE FIRST SHALL BE LAST.
The Son pulled back, looked in a little girl’s face and stroked it. His singing voice rose up, cutting through the sound, and the crowd ssshed itself. His hands over his head in the heart-shape, the Son sang, “Look at the face of a child. Be like a child to enter the Kingdom.”
The crowd began to sing with him. BE LIKE A CHILD.
Maryam thought: That light I see in the eyes of babes.
At the border they were joined by groups of young Yehudai men, with merry eyes and swords. “Fine army this will make,” they groaned.
“Kana’im,” warned the Migdali. “Rebels.”
And so it went.
At Salim, they broke bread with a wizard, who converted and declared that God had come to Earth. He broke his staff.
The eklesia all knew that something extraordinary was happening. At times the joy was contagious, the sense that nothing was worth missing this march for. Even life itself. If anything, that sense of the extraordinary made them all go quiet. A kind of hush fell on them all, as if they were blanketed by fog.
From there it was a short walk to Aenon on the River Yarden. The river was narrow, deep, swift, and tree-lined. The sky flowed on its surface, rippling in reflection as if the flow showed the progress of God in heaven. The Son settled on the bank and would not move.
A whole day passed.
The sky was cloudless, mauve in twilight; and the trees became shadows; and the Son was still folded in on himself. It was as though he was getting weaker, wilder with every step. Maryam ventured to sit next to him and take his hand. He seized it so hard, with a stonecutter’s grasp, that she could feel the rods inside the back of her hand bend inwards.
So she sat there and bore the pain, and stared at his face, willing him to speak. The Rock rubbed the Son’s shoulders. Gradually the twelve students gathered in a semi-circle, mostly silent, mostly unmoving. The bulbul sang.
Finally the Son sighed, rubbed his face and stood, saying, “We should eat.”
The Migdali hugged her. “Thank you, Mother. I was terrified what would happen when we came here.”
Rut had come to be cuddled. The march had been good for her, made her stronger and more sociable, sent her scurrying about to play with other children, but now she was tired and wanting hugging. Maryam was distracted enough to say. “I don’t know what’s special about this place.”
Migdali did the eklesia’s trick of talking without moving her lips. Her voice was thin and buzzing as a tiny insect’s. “This is where he was baptized. By his cousin Yehonnan.”
Elisheba’s son, whom Maryam had never met. Herod Antipas had killed him.
The bulbul sang but Maryam would not have been surprised to see, in the dusk, that the sweet voice had come from a dove catching the last of the light.
The next day they waded across the Yarden.
Thousands of them washing off the dust and singing that mountain song of daily bread and forgiveness.
They climbed up into the hills of Perea, to the fastness of Pella, its mean streets full of mud, the air chill, with no plains for them to sleep on. But the mountains and the river crossing had eliminated most of the Kana’im. They had followed the Son only to spread revolt against Rome. Mountain frosts saw them off. The Perisayya and Sadducai had not climbed the hills either.
In Perea, people listened quietly. There the Son was not wild, did not bloviate, but told simple stories of how righteousness would be rewarded.
Then south towards the Dead Sea.
At Rammah, rebuilt by Ptolemy and then called Philadelphia, Brotherly Love, the Son of Adam preached that divorce didn’t work. God had joined you and that bond could not be broken. He preached again that the Kingdom of God was at hand – and had always been here. And again nobody had any clear idea what the Kingdom of God was. People hoped that it meant God would come to the world and rule it, relieving people of any responsibility.
Then back west across Yarden, to Yeriko. More healings, more celebrations. As soon as the road turned towards Yerusalam, the eklesia began to grow again.
In Yeriko town, in its narrow streets, a man kept jumping up over the heads of the crowd shouting “Rabuli! Rabuli!”
He was very short, but seemed to be able to jump half his own height, bounding up over the heads of everyone else. “Master,” he kept shouting.
Then he was seemingly swallowed by the press of people. Ahead of them a fig tree was boxed in the middle of the cobbled street. This man began to scramble up it like a village boy, only he was dressed in finely woven linen that was dyed blue and red. Light glinted on the tooling cut into his leather sandals. The Son stopped by the fig tree and the man shouted down.
“Great One. I am Zaccheaus and I am a believer in you. I have been to hear you speak before. I came home and gave away half of my wealth.”
Someone perhaps primed and rehearsed, perhaps not, yelled. “It’s true Rabuli. He gave everything. Well. Half.”
The little man swung down from the branches and landed. “I heard you say the rich could not be saved. I gave away my shoes, my clothes, my grain.”
“His gold,” someone growled. “He’s a tax collector.”
There was a spreading of laughter. The man seized hold of the Son’s hand and pulled. “Please come rest in my house. Come stay with me, Rabuli. Please. Please.”
“Yes,” said the Son. “I will. With my brother and mother.”
“Yes, yes Rabuli of course, of course.” The man beamed, looked around him, delighted, sweaty, in need of a shave. He had a boy with him, and told him, “Run to your mistress. Tell her we have guests. Break out the last of the good wine. Leave nothing!”
The man looked at the Son with what could only be called love. “I will lead you, Rabuli.”
Someone else growled, “You will sleep with a tax collector?”
The Son laughed. “One who gives you all back what he collects? Sure, yes.” The eklesia laughed and most of the Yerikoai too.
As they walked, the Son leaned in to Maryam and said. “I’ve never slept in a fine bed. Or ate fine food. I’d like to before I die. That’s human too, isn’t it?”
Human.
The tax collector’s house was walled, courtyarded, with flat roofs on multiple levels and lightwells full of olive trees and tamarisk.
The house had its own well but channels from springs meant it had its own miq’va. Across the doorways in the late breeze, tapestries gently breathed.
The tax collector moved ahead of them showing them the house and giving orders. “Bring water! Bring wine. Fill the miq’va with living water.”
Then back, “Rabuli, Rabuli, please don’t be offended. I’m not sure what we have. I don’t know what will offend more. Our poor show, or the great wealth we have left.” He jumped up and down in place.
The Son hugged him into stillness. “Any, all, it will be fine.” The Son was short, but Zaccheaus only reached his armpits.
“Will it, Rabuli?”
“God rejoices over you,” said the Son.
Zaccheaus seized his hand. “This my wife Zofia. Zofia, show our guests to their room.”
Zofia was as tiny as he was, round as a berry, her face covered. “This way, this way,” she said, and ran ahead of them on slivers of feet. Both of their hosts seemed to buzz like bees. Zofia showed them a chamber on the first storey with windows and hangings and lamps and carpets and two huge beds of strung horsehair with pillows stuffed with shredded rags. The low tables held porcelain basins, and pitchers full of fresh water and one plaster wall had a fresco representing Moses with the tablets.
After she had gone, the family were frozen for a moment, stunned.
Yakob chortled, “If this is what it’s like with half his wealth gone!”
Maryam couldn’t stop herself talking over him. “What was it like before?”
The Son looked wistful. “Everyone who has, gets more. More will be given. Those who have nothing.” He chortled. “The little they have will be taken away.” In his eyes, Nazareth was reflected.
Maryam swung her writing bag down on the floor, found her scroll, unrolled it to where the clip stopped it, fumbled the ink jug, tested the quill in her mouth and wrote as best she could.
“Is this what you just said?” she asked. She held up the scroll. “Is it?” It seemed to her that it was different. Tidier perhaps.
The Son smiled, shook his head. Then he sang it. “Those who have, get more; those who lack will lose.”
That’s what the Bible says and it still is news.
CHAPTER 24
GOD BLESS THE CHILD
On the road from Yeriko, three sisters arrived at their camp outside the town and asked for the Raba to say a prayer for their dead brother.
Three mouths, one grief. The girls said the same things that Maryam had said over Yosef, what people say when loved ones die.
For once, Maryam could not feel that she was special or blessed; simply that she and the millions all repeated patterns as grains of sand repeat patterns of wear.
Our brother is mourned. He left us too soon, he was so young, he led a good life, he deserved better. How can it be that he was laughing in the morning, and cold clay by evening? Who will support us now?
The Son said to them mildly. “Where is your home?”
The House of Tahani, towards Yerusalam. The Son threw on the cloth that was his bed and coat and blanket, and without a further word, began to walk.
“Rabuli? Where are you going?”
“To see your brother.”
“Rabuli, he has been buried three days. He is in our family tomb.”
“Say a blessing for him here, Rabuli, and that will be enough.”
Two sisters knelt but the third was on her feet ready to go with him. The Son flicked his hand for the other two to stand. His face looked heavy – his eyes were half closed, everything around his chin seemed to sag, and almost imperceptibly, his head slowly shook. Then he turned again and walked.
Shemenolo, the Thunder Brothers, Andreas, T’oma all glanced at each other. The Migdali boggled her eyes at Maryam: What’s he about now? There was a coughing and shuffling of sandals on dirt as the core team realized that the Son was walking to Beth Tahani with or without them.
It was only four hours’ walk, on a calm night with a light chill breeze, in starlight with a nearly full moon. The small body of followers began to sing as they walked, HAPPY ARE and OUR FATHER, but the Son did not join in. He walked as if alone. Maryam asked him if he were well. He did not even answer her.
Beth Tahani was a beautiful town near Yerusalam ringed with orchards of figs and olives and vines.
The air still smelled of dark water in ditches and the air thrilled with mosquitoes.
The Son was the first one at the inscribed rock face, white limestone. “This is the place, yes.” Not really a question.
The bewildered sisters nodded yes but said, “As you see, Rabuli, he is behind the stone. Thank you Rabuli. Bless his memory, Rabuli. It will help us grieve.”
The Son stood absolutely still, eyes closed, and waited. The sisters fell silent. The crickets and even the gathering eklesia paused.
The world was flung forward. Maryam felt a shiver vibrate through her, towards, she thought, the rock face. This disruption was sharper and more focussed than others. It was if a spear had been thrown through her and into the tomb.
The Son sounded impatient. “The stone?” He stood calmly, but his eyes were full of blood, and blood spilled out of them down his cheeks, red tears.
Nobody moved. The Son’s tongue clicked. Shemenolo jumped forward then stopped. The Son said, peevishly, as if it were obvious, “Move the stone away.”
Some of the villagers approached with lamps. A woman thrust her way through them. “What is going on? Sarah? Sheba?”
“It’s the Raba, Mama.”
“Ssshoosh! Him.” The mother evidently did not share her son’s faith. “What is he doing? What have you asked him to do?”
“Just sing praises, Ami.”
“They’re opening the tomb! Our family tomb. Stop them!”
Shemenolo, Yakob and the other Yakob, barTalemi and Andreas were trying to push the stone, which was cut like a wheel to allow new burials. It rolled, but then wobbled and toppled and fell and broke. The doorway to the tomb was broken. The villagers, even some of the eklesia groaned.
The Son had not moved, as though he were a stake driven into the ground. He said, almost inaudibly. “Elazar. Could you come out, please?”
The sisters turned, clutched themselves, and clutched their mother, whose face in red torchlight was pale with fury.
“Elazar?” A note of impatience. “Please. Your sisters want to see you. They are here. They have called you back.”
Even Shemenolo swallowed, looked askance – a face Maryam had never seen from the Rock, twisted sideways: Is this a trick? Was Elazar now waiting alive in the tomb?
Someone stumbled into the mouth of the rock-cut cave. He was shrugging, punching, caught up in a shroud. The sisters shrieked; one of them dropped to the ground.
The shrouded man howled, “Why?” He was trapped in a winding cloth as if in a cocoon. A clumsy forearm pulled back on the wrappings. He stepped into moonlight, torchlight, his face unveiled and blank. He looked like an ordinary young man, heavy-cheeked and beginning to go bald. He stared wildly, but his eyes had gone milk-white and slightly shrivelled. He blinked and the eyes cleared, were whole again, and he looked at his hand in horror. “Back! Here!”
Elazar kicked his way out of the shroud and stumbled naked towards the village. As if wasps were swarming, he beat his hands about his head. “I was in light!”
The Son asked. “Do I call you Elazar? Or are you something else?”
“That’s my name. I was part of the light!”
A sister came to him, picked up the shroud and covered him. The mother kept her distance, hands clasped in front of her. Her mouth moved, forming sounds which Maryam could not hear: Abomination.
The dead man kept looking about him in confusion. The sister had to turn her head, nose wrinkling. The other sister put a headscarf over her face. Elazar stank of mortification and the grave.
The mother finally moved towards him and then stopped. “Go back,” she said. “Go back where you belong.”
The Son said. “He will, Mother. In time. Elazar. Look at my finger. See my finger? Follow my finger with your eyes. Good. Elazar? Breathe. In and out like this. Do you remember how?”
Elazar said no with his head, and then yes with his head.
“That’s it. Keep breathing. Someone, get water and wash him. Someone find his favourite clothes and dress him again. Are your loins warm, Elazar? Can you have children?”
Elazar quivered in panic and looked back and forth. “I don’t know.”
“Are you hungry?”
“No.” A thin little voice like a child’s.
“Sing a song,” the Son said.
Elazar looked askance.
“Any song. Any song that you remember. One from one childhood.”
And so Elazar sang a song of how the fig tree loves the fig, and how the fig must fall. And how the nightingale loves her egg, though it must break. In a high, straining, drunken voice, Elazar sang, still moving in jerks, looking sideways.
The Son nodded, as if something were confirmed. He turned, tossed his shawl over his shoulder and began to walk back towards Yeriko.
Over his shoulder he shouted, “Drain the ditches or more of you will die.”
There was no singing as they walked back. Maryam tripped forward trying to keep up with the Son’s furious pace. “What was that?”
He didn’t answer.
“Why did you do that? It was horrible. What was the point?”
“I needed to see what would happen.”
“Well are you pleased?” Abomination, Elazar’s mother had said.
The Migdali joined them. Maryam’s eyes raked hers: Well what do you think?
“It’s done,” the Son said, not looking at them. His smile looked relieved, but pained. His dark eyes made the face look like a mask.
“Tell her about Nein,” said the Migdali, her voice rough but calm.
“Nein? I raised the dead there too. A young girl. She came back empty of soul or memory. I overturned the world a second time for her so that she could speak. She still didn’t know her name. She had to relearn how to walk, to wash, to eat.”
The followers crowded in all wanting to hear, all wanting to be central, all wanting to understand. Maryam wished them all away.
