‘“He reached down from on high and took hold of me,”’ the old man replied.
Yosef and I were alone at that moment, and I asked him why he had never mentioned that to me before.
‘I didn’t want to make what had happened seem any more momentous than it already did,’ he told me. ‘Also, at the time, the verse seemed so unimportant compared to you saving his life. And, in any case,’ he added, gripping my hand, ‘we were all aware by then that my son’s voice could carry over many miles.’
‘Have you come to share our supper?’ Yaaqov asks me now. ‘Andreas has brought us fish from the Jordan, and you and your son are welcome to share our meal.’
‘It’s tempting,’ I reply, ‘but my sisters will worry about us if we don’t go home very soon.’
Yeshua has closed his eyes by then. He breathes slowly, as if searching for slumber. I press my hand against his chest. ‘Dodee, tell me why you sent word for me to come.’
Yeshua shows me a puzzled look. ‘I didn’t send for you.’ He turns to his brother, who also says that he didn’t summon me.
‘Lucius said that a courier told him I was to join you at the tavern your father used to frequent,’ I say. ‘Yirmi and I waited there for you until long after sundown.’
‘Who gave Lucius the message?’ Yeshua asks.
‘I don’t know. I’ll have to ask him. It seems odd. Unless …’ Danger creeps up between Yeshua and me. ‘Maybe someone wanted to separate me from Lucius,’ I say. ‘If Annas has learned that Lucius has been working on your behalf, then he might want to teach him a lesson – and without me and Yirmi as witnesses. I have to return to his villa.’
‘No, it won’t be necessary,’ Yaaqov says. He summons the guard posted by the door and gives him instructions to check on Lucius – and to defend his life if needs be. While they are talking, Andreas climbs up the ladder to the upper floor balancing a platter of grilled fish in his hand.
After the guard departs, Yeshua takes his brother’s wine cup and hands it to me.
He blesses the wine as I drink, then takes a sip for himself while I repeat the same benediction. When he requests that I sit with him in the courtyard, I ask my son to wait for me in the house.
Yaaqov reads the concern in my eyes. ‘I’ll take good care of Yirmi,’ he says. He leans close me and whispers, ‘Be sure to see me before you go.’
Yeshua and I sit on our haunches facing each other. As his lips sculpt prayers, the wood fire crackles and sparks, and I remember being a boy with my father sitting with me in a Galilean meadow at sundown, and how he had told me the names of my ancestors going back seven generations and asked me to memorize them.
Yeshua brings me back to him when he points at my chest and asks what happened to my amber necklace.
‘I realized that my mother wanted Nahara to have it, so I gave it to her. It’s odd how it can take us years to understand the simplest requests that our parents make of us.’
He takes his calliper from around his neck and hands it to me. ‘Take this in its place.’
‘But it’s part of your inheritance from your father.’
‘Which is why I want you to have it.’
Once I have his calliper around my neck, he raises a hand of blessing over me. ‘You came from the light and to the light you shall return.’
His words move me deep inside myself. ‘And yet a bleak and ominous ophel descended upon me last night,’ I tell him.
He spreads his arms far apart, as though gathering in all that the world would offer us as comfort. ‘Trust in all you are,’ he says, ‘and you will see there is no death. There is only life.’
Those will be the words that I shall repeat to myself over and over on the day that my world comes undone, though they will offer me no solace.
The candlelight of the house slowly fades while we watch each other. Yeshua comes to me and brushes his hand over my eyes so that I will close them, then places his palm to my brow, as he does when he wishes to take me with him to places I could not otherwise go. He leads me in chant, and I listen to our voices, and, after a short while, they seem to be coming from out of the ground itself, and his hand grows hot, and I sense myself rising out of the top of my head, and I am tingling as though made of sparks, and somewhere below me is the man of physical shape and form I have left behind. An aura of blue-white light is emanating from his head and chest. When Yeshua smiles at me, I remember that we have both been here before, many times, and often in the dreams that follow our days of fasting, and where we are is not a place on any map, yet it is far more real, because it is not dependent on any invocation or charm or on any mood or desire, which is another way of saying that it can never be destroyed. After he gets to his feet, he takes my hand and lifts me ever higher, and he and I are climbing up a ladder towards a dazzling orb of light above us, and it glows brighter as it moves across the sky, and silver wings emerge from it, and I see that it is the divine eagle I dreamed of when I was a boy. It alights on my shoulder, and I speak the secret name of the Lord of Flight in greeting, and He blinks twice to greet me, and I am crying because He has come to me, but I soon grow frightened, for I have begun to feel the world tugging me back to earth and am certain I shall fall, so Yeshua holds something reflective out to me in his right hand, and I cannot see what it is because of my tears, but I take it from him because he will never fail me, and it is round and warm, and he calls my name as though I have been too long away from him, and I turn to him …
‘Lazar!’
Yeshua stands before me, and I am back behind my eyes, and I am so secure and warm that I cannot imagine moving from this spot ever again, since I am at the very centre of all I have ever been.
In my right hand is his alabaster wine cup, and it is filled with wine.
‘Take a sip,’ he says, ‘and repeat these words in your head: “No death, only life.”’
I do as he says, and afterwards I return the cup to him, and he watches me as he drinks to be certain that I know he is closing a circle around us.
I am reminded of all the times he has shown me what I could not see myself, and I know I shall always be grateful.
‘When you are sieged by doubt, hold that certainty in your mind as you would the hand of Yirmi or Nahara,’ he tells me. ‘And if you need me, I’ll alight on your shoulder, just as I did a moment ago. I shall spread my wings over you and fly you to safety.’
‘When I need you, will you always come to me no matter where you are?’ I ask.
I know I am requesting too much of him and speaking like a small and desperate boy, but all of me is remembering the thousands of days we have spent together and longing for thousands more yet to come, and it seems reasonable for me to ask what I’ve never asked before.
‘The one who seeks is also the one who reveals,’ he says.
‘I don’t understand.’
‘You’ve seen the truth. Walk inside yourself and follow the signs I’ve given you, and you’ll find the ladder up to the Kingdom, where I’ll always be waiting for you.’ He raises his hands over me. ‘Blessed is he who has helped teach me what I needed most to know.’
‘What could I have ever taught you?’ I ask.
‘You taught me to ask for nothing in return.’
I would hold back my tears if I could, but I cannot.
With his hand on my shoulder, he closes his eyes, and he is gone for a time, breathing in and out fast at first, then slowing his rhythm and finally not breathing at all.
Would you ever leave us behind so that you could remain with the Lord for ever?
It is a question that I did not ask him when he opened his eyes, though I have wished for decades that I had.
Upstairs, I find Yeshua’s disciples seated in a circle around a frayed old rug. Platters of fish, vegetables, nuts and dried fruit are spread before them. The tall Greek lanterns in the corners give a harsh yellow glow to all the contours of the room.
If I close my eyes, I can hear the jumble of congenial greetings and l
aughter that greeted me as I stepped in the room. In years since, many of those who never had the chance to meet Yeshua will ask me if I sensed any misgivings or apprehension amongst his companions that evening. No, I shall tell them, though, in truth, I might have failed to notice the worries of others because I had just returned from a journey with Yeshua that had created in me a giddiness of spirit.
To my shame, I had entirely forgotten my fears for Lucius’ safety.
Only once do I hear apprehension in a friend’s voice, after Maryam of Magdala insists that I take a few moments to sit with her. I notice that she has had her left palm painted in the knotted style that is common in the Galilee. After I confess that seeing it makes me homesick, she allows me to study its pattern, but she also whispers imploringly, ‘Please, Eli, don’t try to tell me my fortune, no matter what you see.’
I ask what is troubling her, and she speaks behind her upraised hand. ‘If anything were to happen to Yeshua, then the demon would come for me again. I have lately seen him waiting for me.’
When Maryam puts her small cool hand in mine as though to show that she has grown to trust me, I remember that after Yeshua finally defeated the night-demon that invaded her and forced her to mutilate herself, she told us, ‘For twelve years I wished to cry out for help, but, every time I tried, he took away my voice.’
How many of us never find a way to say the one thing we must?
‘If you should ever wish to end your life again, come to me,’ I tell her now. ‘I’ll always be ready to help you any way I can.’
She kisses my hand and then, with girlish laughter, puts some of the charoset she has made on a piece of matzoh and feeds it to me. My tongue curls around a sharp but sweet flavour that is new to me. Maryam says that it’s produced by a powder made from the bark of a tree that grows in India. She calls it kinnamomon. ‘I buy it at the spice market, though I can afford only a tiny amount,’ she says, and she tells me which stall to go to in order to purchase it – and to use her name – since the owner keeps his rarities hidden.
Our relaxed and easy conversation makes it clearer than ever that we were born under the same sign, which pleases me. Even so, the room is too crowded – and our circle of friends too boisterous – for my solitary nature. I soon give my signal of departure to Yirmi, who has been talking with Yaaqov. As I stand, however, Yehudah of Kerioth approaches me with welcoming arms.
‘Eli, will you be with us at the start of the Sabbath?’ he asks. ‘Our Seder promises to be very special this year.’
His smile is the generous one I have always known, which makes it more difficult to lie to him.
‘Grandfather Shimon is not well,’ I tell him. ‘I need to stay with him.’
‘I’m sorry. But Yeshua will want you with him. Maybe you can come late.’
It is evidently Yehudah’s aim to bring us together, but for what purpose?
I decide that he is probably eager to have as grand a gathering as possible since he is unlikely ever to be invited again to eat Passover supper with us. It seems inconceivable today, but it does not occur to me at the time that he might be hoping for me to join the others so that I, too, can be trapped in his plot against Yeshua.
Blessed be the son who learns to recognize discomfort in his father. Yirmi takes my arm and reminds me that we must get on our way.
After I apologize to Yehudah, my son and I ease our way towards the ladder. Yeshua remains seated, in between Yohanon and Thoma. As I pass behind him, I kiss the top of his head. He twists around, and we wish each other a joyous Exodus in case we do not see each other before the start of Passover, which begins – like the Sabbath – tomorrow at sundown.
On reaching the ladder Maryam calls my name and makes a descending arc with her right hand. Go slow! she is telling me in the unspoken language of the Galilee. How easily I understand it still, especially when it is spoken by a friend.
Yaaqov comes to me and says that he will see me and my son to the door. Yirmi heads down the ladder first.
I turn back to look at Yeshua once my foot is safely on the first rung. A calyx decorated with dancing figures has been set before him, and he is about to wash his hands, so that he may recite the blessings before the meal. As Loukas places one of the tall lanterns in front of him, butterflies of light and dark flutter around the room. I picture one of them landing on my head, waiting, unsure of what to do next.
Yeshua senses my concerns and turns to me. So gaunt and frail he seems in the lantern light.
If we lived in a time of justice, you and I would leave this place, I hear him tell me. We would travel far from the Land of the Gazelle and see all the wonders of the world and find the Indian tree that provides Maryam with her special spice and listen to the stories of all those we meet along the way.
I lift two fingers to assure him I am well, which prompts him to wave to me.
How many rungs were on the ladder? And what did I say to my son as I joined him below? I cannot say. And not knowing even those small details seems unforgivable; surely we owe it to ourselves and our dead to know everything about the mistaken paths we take.
37
If I had been granted a moment of foresight and had learned that it was the last time that I would ever be able to speak to Yeshua, I would have returned to him and made him flee Yerushalayim with me. He would have told me that he could not turn away from his mission, but I’d have shaken him and shouted, You owe it to me!
He would have understood me without my having to say, Because I saved your life when we were boys. We would have walked east, crossing the Jordan River and the Syrian desert into Parthia and Persia.
The Zarathustrians would have welcomed Yeshua with roses, as they welcome all holy men, and we would have settled in the ancient and grand city of Persepolis.
And if all that had happened … If I had forced Yeshua to leave with me, nothing in the world would have come to pass as it has and I would not be writing this letter to you.
Sometimes in the early morning, before dawn, I am jolted awake in the night as though by his kiss, and I am certain I am back in Bethany, and that Passover will soon be upon us, and I jump up and rush to my door because there is still time to save him.
Perhaps one day the ink will dry on the sacred vellum where Raziel has recorded every one of Yeshua’s words and actions that week, and not even the ophanim and seraphim will be able to change what came to pass, and I shall see that all hope is gone, and I shall no longer try to save him in my dreams. But I am an old man by now, and I no longer expect that to happen – or want it to.
Here is what I know and accept: every night of my life I shall crawl into my bed and find the man that Yeshua would have become waiting for me. I shall close my eyes so that I can see everything he now is and face him without shame, and when we embrace his breath will come warm on my cheek, and our hands will fit together as they always have, and he will smell of the fertile earth of our homeland, and we shall exchange greetings with quotes from the Torah, and I shall promise him that he will never again face the future alone, and I shall think, Perhaps he will remain with me until morning this time if I desire it enough.
38
As I reach the bottom of the ladder, I see that the guard has returned from Lucius’ villa, and it is only then that I recall – shamed by my own forgetfulness – that Annas may have wished to separate me from him. The guard is conversing in hushed tones with Yaaqov and Yirmi.
‘Lucius is safe!’ my son tells me with a smile as I step to him.
‘Did Annas pay him a visit?’ I ask.
‘No,’ Yaaqov replies, and with a determined look he adds, ‘which still leaves us with the mystery of why you were summoned away.’
I face the guard. ‘Could Lucius have lied to you? Maybe Annas visited him, but he didn’t want to tell us what transpired between them.’
‘All I can say is that he hasn’t been hurt in any way,’ he replies.
‘For the time being,’ Yaaqov concludes, ‘we’ll have to live
with this mystery.’
‘In any case, I have to tell Annas immediately that I’ve been with Yeshua,’ I say. ‘What do you want me to tell him about our conversation?’
Yaaqov leads me out into the courtyard so that we can speak alone. ‘Say that you came here because Yeshua wished to let you know that we shall strike again at the Temple three days from now.’
‘Is that what you’ve told Yehudah of Kerioth? I whisper.
‘Yes.’
‘But you plan to strike sooner than that?’ I whisper.
‘I’m sorry, Lazar, but my brother told me that we mustn’t risk your life.’ He takes a steadying breath. ‘Now I must talk to you about something disagreeable.’
‘What is it?’
‘It’s about your sister.’
‘What’s Marta done now?’
‘Not Marta, Mia.’
I sense my life turning around this moment. Perhaps Annas drew me away from her so that he could end her life. ‘Has she been killed?’ I ask.
‘No, she’s fine – but she went to see Annas this morning.’
‘That’s … that’s impossible,’ I stutter. ‘Your spy mistook her for Marta. They look alike, and it’s –’
‘No, it was Mia,’ Yaaqov cuts in. ‘Our spy is a woman who knows both your sisters. And she learned that it was not the first time that Mia has gone to visit him.’
My legs start to tremble, so I drop down to the packed earth of the courtyard.
‘Nothing Mia could have revealed to Annas would make any difference now,’ Yaaqov says encouragingly, and he sits with me. ‘Everything has been decided.’
I hold my head in my hands. Why would Mia’s deep fondness for me have turned to hate?
‘Maybe she thought she could help you by going to him,’ Yaaqov says.
‘If my sister spoke to Annas about Yeshua,’ I snarl, ‘she was not protecting me! How many times has she visited the priest?’
‘Twice that we know of. The first time was while you were on your way to see my brother in the countryside.’
The Gospel According to Lazarus Page 27
