The Gospel According to Lazarus

by Richard Zimler

‘And the owl?’ I ask.

  On receiving Lucius’ eager affirmation, I sense that I have reached a crossroads where all the knowledge I have accumulated over the last three decades has come together. And, once again, it occurs to me that I have prepared all my life for this test, and I am certain now that I was right to come to Lucius. It even seems possible that, without being aware of it, I agreed to work for him months earlier precisely because this trial was in the offing.

  I am exactly where the Lord – and Yeshua – want me to be, I think.

  I ask Yirmi to run home to collect Ayin, for I shall use him put the fear of Zeus into Pontius Pilatus.

  I beheld a shooting star as my companion, and I spoke of you, I shall tell the Prefect. And then I saw that it was no star, but instead …

  Lucius tells me that Pilatus’ official astrologer and haruspex is named Augustus Sallustius and that I must, at all times, exhibit humble obeisance in front of him. ‘He will treat you like an insect,’ he says. ‘If you accept that you have six legs and a proboscis, you’ll get along with him. If you persist in asserting that you have two legs and that Galilean nose of yours, you’re sure to quarrel.’

  Lucius adds that Augustus Sallustius takes on superior airs with everyone but Pilatus because he is shamed by his family origins, which he has long kept a secret. What no one is supposed to know is that he is the youngest son of an illiterate Sardinian custodian at one of the gargantuan Roman apartment houses – an insula – near the Cloaca Maxima. ‘Augustus Sallustius grew up on the eighth floor!’ Lucius says with a hideous scowl, as if that is a fate fit only for a barbarian.

  ‘How did you find that out?’

  ‘We have a friend in common whose lips loosen when he drinks too much. But, make no mistake, Augustus Sallustius is much respected. As a boy, his astrological acumen was discovered by a wealthy patron who sent him for study at the famous school for augurs in Fiesole.’

  Augustus Sallustius is well known to Lucius because he makes regular purchases of the highest-quality garum, which he adds to all he eats to maintain his potency. Rumours have it that he has a nearly insatiable sexual appetite, so Lucius has Abibaal fetch me a silver charm of a stupendously endowed satyr that I am to give to him as a gift at the start of our conversation.

  ‘And, whatever you do, don’t quote Torah to him!’ he pleads. ‘Like many of us, he’s sure to find that tiresome.’ With a sweep of his hand, he says, ‘Tell him what you’ve come to say, then leave. Don’t give him time to question you at length. As a good friend of mine says, “When talking to a Roman official, trust only your mistrust!”’

  Lucius drops down next to me once Abibaal has finished combing my blackened hair and dressing me in an overly large tunic, yellowed by age, with fraying gold embroidery at its collar. The old actor praises his slave on a job well done and takes this opportunity – patting my back in a fatherly way – to assure me that our plan is a good one, for it is well known amongst the Roman colonists that Pilatus makes no personal or professional decisions without first asking his haruspex to take the auspices, as they call divination. ‘The Romans jest that the Prefect neither pees nor shits without first having Augustus Sallustius consult his sacred hens!’

  To further my chances of gaining an audience with Augustus Sallustius, Lucius has forged a letter of recommendation for me from the augur with whom he studied, Demosthenes of Chalcedon. In it, Lucius bestows upon me the Latin name of Lazarus Valerius Lenticulus. We have taken the risk of using my real name as my praenomen, since Lucius is certain I shall become a hive of nerves once I enter the palace, and, if I stumble on so obvious a detail, I am unlikely to ever leave the astrologer’s chambers alive.

  Yirmi returns with Ayin shortly after Lucius seals his letter of recommendation with his grandfather’s signet, imprinting a lion-headed man deep into the pale-yellow wax. He has chosen this particular ring because Augustus Sallustius is rumoured to serve as a priest in a Mithraeum in the cellar of the palace and will, in that case, presume the ferocious beast to be a representation of the Mithras, the god he worships.

  Before I leave for Herod’s Palace, where Pilatus maintains his offices and living quarters, my host and I go over my story one last time, standing at his door, for I am desperate by then to get on my way. He corrects the two minor lapses I make in Greek syntax even though Lazarus Valerius Lenticulus – having lived for years in the Galilee – might also make an occasional error.

  As he is explaining my errors, a pang of doubt strikes me; perhaps we have created too complex an artifice. Must I play a role so different from the man I am?

  ‘Lucius, maybe I’d be better off asking for an audience as myself – simply appealing to his sense of justice?’ I tell Lucius. I rub my hand back over my now-bristly hair. ‘I’m likely to look ridiculous to him.’

  Lucius rolls his eyes. ‘Eli, have you not yet figured out that imperial officials have no sense of justice? And you look fine.’

  ‘But I could be wrong about everything. Maybe Mattiyahu and Loukas are right – we need to pressure Caiaphas.’

  ‘Roman soldiers arrested Yeshua, which means that he will be judged by Pilatus – or, more likely, by one of his staff – after the Temple priests are through with him. Trust me on this, Eli – I know how the Romans handle such matters.’

  But that’s just it. I can’t trust you, I think. For you may simply be playing a role, and this is my life!

  Just before my son and I get on our way, however, Lucius embraces me with the tears of an affectionate elder in his eyes, and it takes him a moment to find his voice. When he leans close to my ear, he whispers, ‘I’ll tell you a secret, Eli – you’re far more powerful than you believe. You see and hear things that others don’t, so I have no difficulty at all imagining you as a soothsayer. Don’t you see? You won’t fool him with a pretence – you’ll convince him you are right because you are! You’ll convince him that if he is cruel to Yeshua in any way his life will be in danger from forces that even he doesn’t understand.’

  42

  When Yirmi and I reach the street outside Lucius’ villa, we discover that a cavern of sunrise has opened over the eastern horizon, blazing with a searching light. I tell him that we must separate, since his being seen with me might give away my identity.

  ‘You walk ahead of me,’ I say. ‘I’ll keep twenty paces between us. Don’t slow down when you reach the palace. Keep going past the bronze doorways and only turn around to look for me after you’ve counted to fifty in your head.’ I take his hand to fix his attention. ‘Now, listen closely. If I’m admitted to the palace, go home. I’ll meet you there as soon as I can. And this is important – don’t tell your aunts where I am.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Just do as I say,’ I reply. ‘We’ll speak of why when we have more time.’

  In my memories of that moment, I am forever brushing the hair out my boy’s eyes and kissing his brow and praying that this will not be the last time I hold him in my arms.

  Yirmi nods his agreement gravely, as if I am the master of everything that he does not yet understand. At such moments, it seems like the greatest generosity of all – but also a foolishness beyond measure – that children are convinced that their parents perceive so much more about life than they do.

  While trailing him across the Upper Town, I divert my gaze from him only once that I can recall – at the ringing of a bell. I twist around and see a bard removing a lyre from its case. He is a stout man with pox-pitted cheeks, wearing the extravagant, saffron-coloured costume of the poets of Thira.

  At any other time, I would stop and listen.

  Ayin’s eyes are shut tight, since slumber overpowers him in the daylight. Is it lunacy to believe that an owl with two broken wings is part of a grand plan stretching back to my birth? In any case, his soft motionless weight on my shoulder is a reminder that all the creatures of the Ark are with me on this mission. And that we shall not fail.

  Yirmi proves a natural at this secretive work of
ours; he pauses before turning on to each new street to make sure that I do not lose sight of him. At the last corner before to our destination, he stops by a cluttered ceramics stall and feigns a careful examination of a large amphora painted with Perseus slicing off Medusa’s head. As I turn past the same stall, the towers of the Citadel rise up.

  You’re nothing compared to the powerful men who rule over Zion is the message that those three marble giants bring down from the clouds that have blown in from the north.

  The towers rise out of the sea of rooftops around me. If they had souls, would they even take notice of the men like me who live out their days so far below them?

  One often sees vultures wheeling around the towers at this time of year, drawn by the charred odour of sacrificed lambs and the smoke from burning offal. But this morning belongs to swallows and swifts. What does Lazarus Valerius Lenticulus make of their precipitous dives and twittering arcs? If he is anything like me – and if he is a philosopher as well as an augur – then he regards them as proof that the Creator values beauty and freedom far more than obedience.

  Eight scarlet-caped Roman guards are standing before the colossal doors of Herod’s Palace. I would like to stride towards them unburdened of my Galilean meekness, yet my bad leg refuses to cooperate.

  The guards must regard the bedraggled Jew limping towards them – sweating like a swine and scratching his itchy scalp – as a figure of comedy, part of a near-endless flow of local labourers who seem to have been born just to keep them amused. Yet one of them, a young man with the stark blue eyes of a Gaul, watches me with a curiosity that seems to be an acknowledgment of kinship – perhaps even empathy.

  I do not want to be here, his eyes tell me. I was forced to join the army by my father. I wanted to remain at home and work on our farm in a country where the sun does not burn your skin, but he said that he could no longer feed me. I’ve been away from home for seven years, and I fear I shall die before ever seeing my mother or homeland again.

  Are the thoughts I ascribe to him close to the truth? No, it seems I am unable to read foreign faces, for he glares at me and growls in Latin when I tell him that I have come on business with Augustus Sallustius. I swallow hard on all I was about to tell him and ask if there is a Greek-speaker amongst his colleagues. With a wave, he summons a small, beardless youth – a courier, it would seem – who stands to the side of the palace doors. He comes to us with a light, prancing gait, lifting up the fringe of his toga. After the guard addresses him in a clipped voice, the boy turns to me. ‘You may speak to me in Greek,’ he says.

  His pronunciation of certain vowels piques my curiosity. Is he a Galilean as well, or is that my deepest wish at this moment?

  I repeat my request and mention my home as Natzeret, but, to my disappointment, he does not show any sign of complicity. When I offer him my scroll, he takes it in his marble-white, delicate fingers. ‘Wait here,’ he says.

  After he enters the palace, I turn to look for my son. He stands at the end of the square, under the canvas awning of an elegant bread shop favoured by the Judaean elite, biting his nails. Somewhere amidst the odours of yeast and olive oil in the air must be the rich barley scent my boy has had since he was a baby, but I am not sensitive enough to detect it. Does he see my apprehension? He raises two fingers of his right hand to tell me he is well.

  A tall man in a white toga soon strides out of the palace and tells me to follow him, which means that I am about to step on to the first of a number of bridges I must cross if I am to successfully ransom Yeshua from Pharaoh. Such is the frenetic state of my mind that all I know for certain about his face – all these many years later – is that he had the popping eyes of a fish.

  ‘You cannot come inside with the owl,’ he tells me as we reach the bronze doors.

  ‘I have to. He’s the reason I’m here to see Augustus Sallustius.’

  He shakes his head. ‘It’s bad fortune for a bird to enter any dwelling.’

  ‘This owl has been sent to me by the goddess Minerva. She has entrusted me with an important message for Pontius Pilatus and his augur. If you like, I’ll tell Augustus Sallustius that you advised against admitting him to the palace but that I insisted.’

  ‘No, I’ll tell him myself,’ he replies in a resentful tone.

  I keep a list of things I do not like, he seems to be telling me with his glare, and at the moment you are at the very top.

  We enter a long hallway lit by towering, intricately carved, alabaster candelabra and painted with a series of frescos depicting a bearded and robust Hercules subduing the Lernaean Hydra and other monsters. Impassive guards securing spears in their right hands stand at intervals of twenty paces. Two Romans in elegant dress approach us from down the corridor, each footstep producing a thudding echo. They converse with animated gestures, but I am unable to catch the sense of their quick-shuttling Latin. My escort says nothing to them as they pass, and I am careful to look away, since our conquerors tend to regard it as an affront when a Jew meets their gaze.

  A slender pale-skinned youth – pimples on his forehead – comes dashing down the stone staircase at the end of the hallway. Does he seek the two men we passed? He calls out the name Manius on reaching the bottom step and runs past us. My attendant leads me up the staircase.

  We emerge under a colonnade bordered by stone columns painted with blue-and-red geometric patterns. In front of us is a monumental courtyard some two hundred paces of a man in length and fifty in width. At its centre is a circular pool made of polished travertine. Inside its rim stand six rose-coloured flamingos, two of which are poised – miraculously – on a single needle-like leg.

  I trail my host down the colonnade. My heart is racing so wildly that I fear I may pass out. We stop by double doors in sculpted bronze. To calm the chaos of emotions in me, I take a deep breath and ask if we have arrived at our destination.

  ‘You’re the augur. You tell me!’ my attendant snaps back, a response that strikes me as both impertinent and admirably clever.

  He has me sit on a carved wooden bench to the side of the doorway. To escape his expression of disdain, I go over in my mind the story I shall tell Augustus Sallustius.

  After perhaps an hour, the doors open, and a fair-haired, foreign-looking gentleman in a purple cloak emerges. I expect now to be shown inside, but a guard closes the doors behind him. Before striding off down the colonnade, the aristocrat studies me from head to toe, plainly thinking that I am a question that he would rather not have answered.

  A short while later, when the doors again open, my attendant orders me to follow him, and we enter a low-ceilinged, cluttered room with an open window giving out on to a patio with a feathery palm in the centre. A short, flat-faced man – perhaps forty years old – stands leaning on the sill, gazing out longingly.

  He holds my scrolled letter of recommendation in his left hand. The seal has been broken. Ought I to bow before him? I would ask the servitor who led me here, but he is standing at attention behind me.

  I presume that my host is Augustus Sallustius and address him as such, but he informs me that he is Appius Claudius Pomponius, secretary to the imperial astrologer. I take a calculated risk and offer my bow, but he shows no sign of caring. As he takes the seat behind his desk, he gazes again out of his window and asks – without facing me – why I would ever presume that Augustus Sallustius – ‘A master of all that remains hidden to you and I’ – would permit me an audience.

  I tell him my story, using the standard formulae of self-abasement that Lucius has recommended, but I only manage to turn his head towards me when I speak of Ayin plummeting out of the sky and breaking his wings.

  After he orders me to stand the owl on his desk, Appius grabs Ayin’s head in a firm, sure grip, but he neglects the bird’s talons, and my little friend strikes out so violently with them that Appius lets out a shriek and releases him. Ayin tumbles off the desk with a piercing call. Thankfully, he is more startled than hurt.

  ‘Silence the
wretched beast or I’ll choke the life from him!’ Appius shouts at me.

  I soothe the owl with whispers and take him in my hands. He has gone limp with fear, and the drumming inside his chest is even more frantic than mine. When I am finally able to calm him down, Appius has me spread out his broken wings. Lucius and I took care to prick my finger and paint the old fractures with blood, and the dried brown stains fascinate my host. After sniffing at them, he rushes out of the room.

  Unsure of what to do, I sit on the floor and offer soothing words to Ayin. When Appius finally returns, he barks an order in Latin at my attendant, who leads me out to the colonnade, his expression that of a pouting child. We walk back the way we came until we reach a set of wooden doors ornamented with colourful depictions of the Roman zodiac. He points to a gold-painted bench set to the side. ‘Sit there and keep quiet!’

  My desperation to save Yeshua does not permit me to remain seated very long. I pace back and forth, my hands curled into fists, and I pray to the Lord of Hosts for the patience to see my plan through to its end.

  After close to an hour, the doors finally open. Inside, I find Augustus Sallustius sitting by a large window. He has shoulder-length grey hair that has been polished silver by the slanting sunlight.

  The skeleton of a cat or small dog lies before him on his onyx desk, and its intricate architecture seems to express a great and hidden truth that most of us would prefer not to know. My host appears to have been weighing a leg bone on an iron balance, the pillar of which is an ivory figure of Thoth. Augustus’ toga is white with scarlet stripes and a purple hem. I suspect that those colours indicate his office, for I have never seen them on another man.

  The room is circular and some ten paces in diameter. The domed ceiling is painted with the Roman constellations. The floor is a mosaic senet-board pattern in black and white.

  Hundreds of scrolls are lined up neatly on the wooden shelves that circle the room. He has so many treasures that I shall never be able to read! I think with envy.