The Gospel According to Lazarus

by Richard Zimler

  When he grins, I realize I can no longer tell if he is expressing his real opinion or acting. As my only option, I bow to his genius.

  32

  Lucius leads us into his breakfast room and seats us around a circular wooden table. At the centre of its inlay design stands a bearded and fearsome Poseidon brandishing a menorah like a shield and riding towards a many-templed Greek city in a water-chariot drawn by seahorses.

  I’ve seen his figures before, I realize with a jolt, though I have no idea where.

  Yaphiel, does the future send us subtly coded messages that we usually mistake for past experiences?

  A surprise draws my focus from Poseidon: Yeshua’s disciple Yohanon appears in the doorway, barefoot, his face sweaty and soiled, wearing the shabby, threadbare robe of a mendicant. ‘I apologize for arriving late,’ he tells us, and he waves to me as though he were a little boy, a gesture that now seems a clue to the deepest workings of his mind.

  You have always wondered why I am so fascinated by Yeshua’s miracles, his eyes tell me as I cross the room to him. Did you see the clue I just gave you? You see, to children, the world is a tower of wonderment and magic. We usually say that they see this tower because they are ingenuous and inexperienced, but ask yourself this: might they have a vision of the world based on intuition and imagination that is more accurate than our own?

  After Yohanon embraces us all, he takes off his robe and hangs it on one of the pegs by the door. At that moment, my fondness for him is greater than it ever has been, for I believe I have seen what he has previously hidden from me. Indeed, his register of miracles now seems an enquiry into the nature of the universe – and our place in it.

  While I exchange jests with him – trying to turn his grave expression into a smile – Abibaal serves us posca in rock-crystal goblets and honey cakes dusted with pistachio powder. The slave also brings in a basin of perfumed water and washes Yohanon’s fingers.

  We are seated by then. My son is next to me. I take his hand under the table because he is uncomfortable in the presence of men he does not know well.

  It is still hard to believe that I may speak freely with Yohanon and Yaaqov in Lucius’ presence. As Yohanon tells me how Yeshua chased the money-changers, sheep-sellers and other merchants from the Temple, I sneak glances at our host now and again – to make sure, I suppose, that I have not made some fatal error of interpretation. On one occasion, he shows me a bemused but understanding expression, as though to say it is equally strange for me to have taken down my mask.

  In answer to my queries about Yeshua, Yohanon tells me that he has been encouraged by the righteous commotion he caused in the Temple and is currently preaching outside Yerushalayim.

  ‘He is extending his eruv,’ I surmise.

  Yohanon nods, but in the stern set of his lips I see a warning about broaching such matters outside the setting of a prayer room or synagogue. ‘Yeshua wishes to know about your encounter with Annas ben Seth,’ he tells me, and he spreads his hands far apart, which seems his way of assuring me that he will gather in all I have to say and report it to our old friend.

  To keep my son from learning of plans best confided only to adults, Lucius summons Abibaal, who leads Yirmi off for a tour of the villa.

  I then tell Yohanon, Yaaqov and Lucius all that I have written to you about my interrogation, dear Yaphiel. Lucius offers an occasional comment, and I am glad to have his interpretations of the priest’s behaviour and motives, as they often reinforce my own. Yet he is convinced that one of my key findings is wrong – that, as long as I abide by our agreement, the priest will not risk having me hurt again because an angry crowd calling for his head would undoubtedly gather in front of his home if Yeshua were to ask for support.

  ‘Annas would simply turn to the Roman governor for protection,’ Lucius says, ‘and fifty of his legionaries would be enough to chase off all but the fiercest of our supporters.’

  On hearing that, Yohanon leans back and turns his goblet in his hand. ‘Still, he did not kill Eli, and that means that Annas and Caiaphas are constrained by fear.’

  ‘If they regard us as a true threat, then they will fight us all the more fiercely,’ Lucius observes.

  ‘And you know that because … ?’

  Lucius takes a sip of his wine and sighs regretfully. ‘Unfortunately, Yohanon, I’ve had ample experience with minor tyrants over the course of my life, and I’ve learned that they despise any sign of weakness in themselves.’ He leans back confidently in his seat and crosses his arms. ‘Annas will act without mercy to keep his own fear a secret from himself and others.’

  I receive that observation with a mixture of trepidation and gratitude, since it reminds me that I must not waiver in my decision to send my children away. Yaaqov shows his youth, however, and proves unwilling to accept the logic of our host’s reasoning or his expertise. ‘Who exactly are these tyrants you’ve known?’ he asks condescendingly.

  ‘My stepfather for one.’ He turns to me and says, ‘He endeavoured to hide his cowardice under the blood of his victims – just like Creon.’

  ‘Who is this Creon?’ Yaaqov asks.

  I rush to reply, so that Lucius will know that I value his judgement. ‘A king in Antigone, a tragedy written by Euripides.’

  ‘Lucius, do you really believe the theatre can give us an accurate picture of what we’re up against?’ Yaaqov asks in a sceptical voice.

  ‘I had the great good fortune to play Creon’s son Haemon for an entire spring,’ Lucius replies with admirable restraint. ‘I became familiar with how he thinks. And this may surprise you, Yaaqov … My knowledge of Creon’s ruthless strategies saved my life. Were it not for my having played Haemon, it would never have occurred to me that my stepfather was having me slowly poisoned while I was on holiday in his home. I would not have believed that such unqualified cruelty was possible.’ Lucius smiles affectionately. ‘I know you doubt me, but it would be unwise for you to doubt Annas’ resolve. If he feels threatened by Eli again, he will not hesitate to have him murdered.’

  I reach out to Lucius arm and thank him, because he has risked ridicule in order to protect me.

  Yaaqov is aware of his effort as well. He bows his head and smiles gratefully at our host. ‘I apologize, Lucius – I can be foolish sometimes, especially when I’m the youngest man in the room and trying to prove myself. I vow to you that I’ll tell Yeshua exactly what you’ve said.’ He turns to me. ‘Anything else we ought to know, Lazar?’

  I have saved my most important observation about Annas for last, since I do not know how to express it. ‘Despite what I first believed,’ I begin, ‘Annas is quite … intuitive, though that isn’t the precise word I want.’

  ‘Intuitive in what way?’ Yohanon asks.

  If he and Yaaqov were fluent in Greek, I would tell them that Annas was gnostikos, and they would understand me perfectly. Instead, I say, ‘He provoked me in clever ways and outmanoeuvred me at least once. He’s sharp-witted and relentless – like a skilful senet player. He recognized the gates I’d hidden in my mosaic almost immediately.’

  Blessed be the angel Jahoel, who gave us the Hebrew language in its earthly form; as I watch Yaaqov down his posca, the perfect description of Annas’ intelligence pierces the darkness in my mind. ‘Sekel!’ I exclaim, meaning higher awareness or insight – or, in a negative sense, cunning. ‘You have to understand that Annas is a man of sekel!’ The word itself helps me now gather my thoughts and give them order. ‘I believe that he has seen the world to come,’ I say. ‘He has understood that we’ll no longer need priests guarding the Throne of Glory from us. In fact, he’s aware of a good deal about Yeshua that is far from obvious – about the hymns he sings in silence. That was a shock to me.’

  The hymns he sings in silence is a code I have long used for all that we dare not say about Yeshua’s higher nature.

  Yaaqov turns to look out of the window into the garden, searching, I believe, for the consequences of what I’ve just told him. In prof
ile, his resemblance to his elder brother vanishes, since their kinship is in the singular depth of their eyes. That diminished physical affinity permits me to see him clearly, and I recognize his nervous exhaustion in the bend of his back and throbbing jaw. And this is what I hear him tell me when he turns to me: I’ve known since I was five years old that I was the brother of an extraordinary being. It has been my test, and I’ll never escape it. And my worst moments? When I fear that I’ll make the wrong decision and that Yeshua will pay the price for my error.

  ‘I see now that we’ll have to formulate a solid back-up plan,’ Yaaqov tells Yohanon.

  ‘Where will you strike?’ Lucius asks.

  ‘We’ve … we’ve yet to work that out,’ Yaaqov stutters.

  ‘So you still don’t trust me yet?’ our host asks resentfully.

  ‘Your household is large.’

  ‘You suspect a spy amongst my servants and slaves?’

  ‘Annas and Caiaphas are having us watched. The Romans, too, in all likelihood. And we’ve come to learn that even our most trusted friends can be turned against us. There is no guarantee that …’

  I hear no more of Yaaqov’s explanation because a rising panic deafens me. She cursed Yeshua when he entered my tomb! I exclaim in my mind. She told him she’d never forgive him.

  When I jump up, Yaaqov asks me what is wrong.

  ‘I thought she was furious at him because he’d come too late – but it was for saving me,’ I tell him.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Marta – my sister. She cursed Yeshua because she knew he had the power to revive me. Maybe she’d even foreseen what he would do. She was glad that I’d died! She has wanted that since my birth!’

  She told me that she’d never help my children if I were to die, I think, but what if her true feelings are the opposite? What if she is desperate for the chance to raise them – to substitute for me in their lives?

  ‘Eli, what are you saying?’ Yohanon asks, coming to me and taking my arm.

  ‘Although I’ve no proof that Marta betrayed Yeshua and me, I see now that she has been my enemy for years,’ I tell him. I turn to Yaaqov. ‘You were only a boy, but maybe you remember that she was once in love with your brother.’

  ‘I do remember.’

  ‘I believe that her love must have changed into something else, and a long time ago – without my realizing it.’

  ‘She’s turned into Medea,’ Lucius comments with a knowing nod.

  ‘We’ll have her followed,’ Yohanon assures me.

  ‘Good, but … but don’t have her hurt if you discover she’s a traitor. Send me word of what you’ve learned, and I’ll deal with her.’

  ‘Deal with her how?’ Lucius asks.

  Behind his words, I hear him ask me in a sceptical voice: Do you really think you’ll be able to kill your own sister if you find out she’s betrayed you?

  ‘No, not if she has betrayed only me, but if she has put Yeshua’s life at risk, I’ll give her two choices – exile or death,’ I reply, though my merciless voice seems to belong to someone else – a man I would prefer never to have met.

  33

  Just after Yirmi and I end work that afternoon, Lucius brings us a small sack of honey biscuits tied with a purple ribbon, since I have told him that today is my grandfather’s seventieth birthday. At his garden gate, he apologizes for what he calls his ‘shameful gabbling about the theatre’, but I assure him that his observations helped me understand my motives and fears more fully. This earns me a solemn embrace, since, like all those educated in the Greek manner, he holds self-knowledge to be our most important goal. After I thank him for all his help, I confess in a comic voice that I used to perform in shadow-plays for my nieces and nephews when they were tiny, but that Mia and Marta would only give me minor roles, since they regarded me as the world’s poorest actor.

  ‘Is your father really so incompetent a performer?’ Lucius asks Yirmi.

  My son gives his laughing confirmation.

  Lucius assures us that he has been forced to speak dialogue with actors no more expressive than Egyptian mummies, including – he notes with a horrified grimace – the incomparable Anaximander of Apollonia.

  Did I fail to see that Lucius, too, is in need of an amusing conversation? Likely he has also envisaged Yeshua put in chains and Judaea turned to rubble by the Romans.

  ‘Was Anaximander very bad?’ I ask.

  ‘Very bad? Is a python coiled around your neck very bad? Was the earthquake that reduced Ephesus to rubble very bad? My dear Eli, the little hairy weasel was forbidden by imperial decree from ever appearing in a Roman theatre!’

  ‘What earned him a ban?’

  ‘He always forgot his most important lines and invented the silliest improvisations – a summary of the day’s weather, for example. But in truth, that wasn’t the main reason. It was because he reeked worse than week-old squid. None of the other actors could sit or stand downwind of him for fear of passing out from the fumes! I once lay dying on the ground by his feet, but I couldn’t play out my final demise because I was choking on his odour! I had to crawl to safety. The audience was in hysterics.’

  Lucius paws at the air to show us how he saved himself.

  Through my laughter I tell him he ought never to have given up the stage.

  ‘Alas, at a low point in my fortunes, I discovered that my brother-in-law’s garum was the goose that laid the golden egg.’

  When I express my regrets for having fallen out of the habit of attending the theatre, his eyes brighten as though he has seen angels descending on Yaaqov’s Ladder. ‘Then you shall be my guest!’ he declares. ‘You and Yirmi both!’

  ‘I wish we could,’ I tell him.

  ‘But why can’t you, Eli?’ he asks and then remembers what we both know – that he would be ostracized by his friends for inviting his mosaic-maker to join him at a public event.

  ‘What an unjust world this is!’ he says. He gazes at me as though failing in spirit. ‘“Return, O Holy One, to our city,”’ he declaims. ‘“Abide not far from us, you who quench our wrath. Strife and bitterness shall depart if you are with us. Madness and the sword’s sharp edge shall flee from our doors.”’

  His words fix me in place, because I am certain he is speaking of Yeshua. I had not previously considered the depth of Lucius’ devotion to him.

  ‘You have awaited him for many years,’ I say.

  ‘I have awaited the better world he shall help us make,’ he says. ‘And there’s something else – something I’ve just realized about us all … The despots of our world fear men who insist on telling their own stories. They want to control the words we speak and write. But we must not let them, Eli. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, I do. And we shall all of us help Yeshua tell his own story.’

  After Lucius reaches out for the handle of his gate, his mood becomes playful. ‘Any guesses?’ he asks, squinting at me like a tutor who has posed a trick question.

  ‘Guesses about what?’

  ‘The lines I spoke about the return of the Holy One – whose they are.’

  ‘Euripides,’ I try, since Lucius is plainly a devotee of the great dramatist.

  ‘Yes, but which character speaks them?’

  ‘I don’t know … Andromeda?’

  ‘It’s Merope, from Kresphontes,’ he says. ‘It’s her prayer for peace, and it has long been mine as well.’

  At our birthday celebration for Grandfather Shimon, the shaggy old ram wears a crown of jasmine blossoms and leads us in the blessings over the meal, his sword by his side, as is only fitting for a rebel who has never given up his hopes for a Zion freed of the Roman yoke.

  ‘May the Merciful One be as kind to you as He has been to me,’ he tells us after we take our first sip of wine.

  Generous words from a man who is known as Shimon the Leper to many in Bethany, and who – except to attend funerals – has not left our house during the daytime for the last seventeen years.
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br />   Mia sits next to him and cuts his onion-and-leek patina into tiny pieces, gazing at him with amused adoration, as if he were the oldest and brightest star in the sky.

  During our meal, Marta is uncommonly gracious and tender with everyone. She grins at me now and again as if we share a wondrous secret, but what it is I dare not guess or ask. So that I might feel what it would be like to live without the ponderous weight of her inside my chest, I permit myself to believe that – despite all my suspicions – she has finally closed the doors of vengeance and retribution behind her.

  Shimon empties our flagon of palm wine long before I have a chance to serve the honey-cakes that Lucius gave me. He grows misty-eyed and maudlin and clumsy of body. As I reach past him to remove the empty platters inside our circle, he grabs my wrist and tugs me so hard that I nearly fall. ‘Eli, where’s that selfish and silly wife of mine?’ he asks with a moan.

  ‘I only wish I knew!’ I reply in a jesting tone, since I am aware that an honest reply will only give him an excuse to crawl deeper into drunken melancholy, but he shakes his head at me and frowns as if I am no help at all.

  He asks my sisters the same question, and then poor Nahara, who huddles behind me and asks why Pappas is scaring her.

  ‘Pappas misses his wife,’ I explain to her.

  ‘Where did she go?’

  How ought a father to explain to his daughter where the dead go, especially when he has lost his faith? Thankfully, I am not given any time to answer because Shimon stands up and throws his bulky arm over my shoulder, drawing me into a fermented embrace. ‘Why has that mean and odious woman abandoned me, son?’

  ‘I know that these past eleven years have been difficult,’ I tell him. ‘I’m sorry.’

  He heaves a sigh and tells me that he cannot keep saying yes to each new sunrise much longer, which seems so apt and poetic an expression that I place it in the special room in my house of memory that I reserve for Shimon’s poetry.