The Gospel According to Lazarus

by Richard Zimler

  ‘Then it’s a matter for the Jews alone.’

  ‘Except that he was arrested by Roman soldiers.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘Because the priests sought their help.’

  He gazes down to consider what I’ve told him. In all probability, he has no grasp of why Jews would dispute amongst themselves.

  ‘Does the Prefect consider your friend a rebel?’ he asks.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Yeshua ben Yosef.’

  ‘I’ve heard of him. He’s a well-known healer.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Wouldn’t he regard me – a Roman patrician – as his enemy?’

  ‘Those who rule with swords are his enemies. You carry no arms.’

  He looks past me, considering his options.

  ‘You’re my last hope,’ I plead. ‘I’ll give you everything I own if you try to save him.’

  ‘Me? But what can I do?’

  ‘You can go to Pilatus and implore him for mercy.’

  He laughs mirthlessly. ‘My younger brother in Rome was disgraced three years ago, and Pilatus forced me to withdraw from public life shortly afterwards. He regards me as an embarrassment.’

  Despair lowers my gaze, but Paullus steps to me and cups my chin in his hand. ‘I ought to refuse you, and I’m not sure what good I can do, but …’ His darkly shining eyes become those of a mischief-maker. ‘I am so very tired of skulking around in the shadows because I’m no longer favoured by Pilatus, and I still have colleagues at the palace, and I’ll go speak to them for you.’

  Paullus summons his litter so that he can make an impressive arrival at Herod’s Palace. Lucius ought to arrive soon, but something must have held him up, and I cannot risk waiting for him.

  45

  I have been counting on thousands of our supporters to have assembled at Golgotha, but, from a distance of a quarter of a mile, I already see that less than a hundred friends and concerned followers are there. Where are the throngs who cheered for Yeshua and called him our king as he entered Yerushalayim?

  A prisoner already hangs on a cross, but I cannot make out his face. His screams reach me as I rush on. God forgive me, it is relief – and not horror – that makes me shiver, for his accent is unmistakably Judaean.

  Although he is still only a tiny letter tau on the horizon, a favourable wind soon brings me the condemned man’s appeals for the Lord’s gevurah and din – divine judgement and justice. Over and over he cries out a verse from the prophet Jeremiah: ‘“Lord Almighty, you who examine the righteous and probe the heart and mind, let me see your vengeance on them, for to you I have committed my cause.”’

  His repetition of this verse becomes chant-like in its fervour, which gives me the idea that he is searching for a gateway out of the prison of his flesh. Yet vultures wheel through the leaden sky above him, waiting for the inviting silence that will come when he can speak no more.

  After another fifty paces, my name is called. I turn to see Mia running towards me, her face flushed and bloated by tears. ‘I was sure you’d been arrested, too!’ she calls ahead.

  I have not forgotten that she betrayed us to Caiaphas, but the little brother inside me apparently knows nothing of that, for he cries out her name as if she alone can change the direction of our destiny.

  Mia stops two paces from me, afraid to come any closer. Does she see in my eyes that I am aware of her treason? ‘I know,’ I tell her, and, when she reaches out with beseeching hands, I add, ‘No, only Yeshua can forgive you now.’

  She raises her hands to her face and begins to wail.

  In my dreams of that day, I often see the two of us backed by the hushed, reddened sky of a battle that has been lost in both the Throne World and Zion.

  ‘Why did you go to Annas?’ I ask.

  ‘To protect our family,’ she says with a moan.

  ‘Protect us? Are you mad? Didn’t you think I’d do everything to protect us? I even spoke to you of leaving for Alexandria!’

  ‘The day you threatened Cousin Hannah … I could see you’d lost control of yourself. You were so … strange. And so angry. All of us could see you’d become someone else.’

  I understand then that it had been fatal mistake to allow myself to express my true feelings – even in front of my own sister.

  ‘Marta went alone to Annas,’ Mia continues, ‘but he insisted that both of us come to see him to plead for mercy or he would hurt you and your children.’

  Now that I’ve ceased making excuses for Marta, I see the strategy she employed. ‘Did Annas really say that, or is that just what Marta told you?’

  ‘You think she lied to me? But if she did …’ Mia turns away in horror, considering this revelation.

  ‘Don’t you see – Marta wanted you to betray me,’ I exclaim. ‘It was her way of destroying us. She must have known that Yeshua had spies watching the priest’s house. She knew I’d find out that you’d gone to Annas.’ I laugh bitterly. ‘She’s brilliant, and she’s fooled the two of us yet again – and this time Yeshua is paying the price.’

  A secret terror snakes through me as Mia acknowledges that I may have uncovered the truth: Might Marta have been working with Yehudah of Kerioth for many weeks?

  I turn to leave because the crucified man is still screaming his prayer for vengeance, and his words tell me I have wasted too much time conversing with a woman who did not trust me enough to come to me with her misgivings.

  ‘Annas promised me that he would not hurt you or your children or Yeshua!’ my sister calls out as I start away. ‘He swore it to me!’

  If she comes after me, there is still a chance for us, I think. And if not …

  ‘I know that what I did was unforgiveable,’ she says with a groan. ‘I’m sorry, Eli.’

  She entreats me in a raw and desolate voice to stop, but I do not, and each step away from her is easier than the one before, and her voice is fading, and it will soon be gone. Something beyond the rage in me – something inseparable from our childhood – then turns me around. ‘You should have spoken to me before seeing him!’ I cry.

  Mia runs to me. ‘Eli, ever since your resurrection you’ve seemed a stranger to me.’

  Do I take her back into my life? Even now, after decades of living with the memory, I do not know why I made the choice I did.

  ‘Mia, there’s no time for this,’ I tell her, taking her hand and gripping it tightly. ‘We can speak of the two of us later, but Yeshua is all that matters to me now.’

  I already know, however, that I am lying: I shall never again talk of her betrayal of Yeshua. For if he lives there will be no need, and if he dies I shall never speak of this day to her or anyone else.

  The pains shooting up in my hip force me to climb up the slope to Golgotha bent over, as though I were sowing this barren, miserable landscape with my panting breaths. Gusts of wind blow dust into my eyes and mouth, and, while I clear my throat, a small, frightful woman asks if I am the man whom Yeshua raised from the dead.

  ‘I cannot help you – there’s no time!’ I say, pushing her way.

  As I climb, my sister offers to help, but I must go these last steps alone, since the Lord may need proof that my own well-being and safety no longer mean anything to me. She reaches the top before I do. I see her pick a wild red poppy that’s managed to poke its way out of the inhospitable soil. I expect her to hand it to me as a symbol of hope, but instead she crushes it between her thumb and forefinger.

  It’s not fair for there to be such beauty in his accursed place, her embittered expression tells me.

  A small assemblage of men and women has gathered around the crucified man. Two additional uprights have been planted in the dry ground but have yet to receive their crossbeams, which means that three prisoners are to meet the Angel of Death today.

  I call upon Hananiah, Mischael and Azariah to intercede on their behalf, for those three righteous young men were condemned to death by Nebuchadne
zzar but were saved by an angel of the Lord.

  I call on them three times in my mind and once more aloud.

  Twenty Roman soldiers guard this benighted place. Four are on horseback. If any of our old friends tried to stall them, they obviously failed.

  I see now that the man already hanging from his cross is small and muscular, with stiff black hair and a thick shadow of beard on his cheeks. A wooden sign has been posted at the top of his cross: Lestes. Rebel.

  Fight Rome and you will die in agony! That is what the sign means in the language of tyranny.

  The crucified man struggles at the ropes that bind his wrists to his crossbeam, cursing the Romans. The tendons on his neck stand out, and his grimace – defiant, savage, murderous – tells me that he is a man of uncommon strength, which is a misfortune under the circumstances, since it will take him a very long time to render his soul to God.

  His thick, powerful wrists have been bound so cruelly that his hands have become limp and white. I can no longer sense my fingers, he must have already admitted to himself, and he has undoubtedly come to suspect by now that a crucified man vanishes from the outside in. Soon my legs and arms will go numb as well, and then …

  His feet are so dark with filth that they look like roots just pulled from the soil.

  Why do I notice all these trifles about him when here on the same hill must be the man with whom I have lived on an island in my mind since I was eight years old?

  The spirit of a man who senses ruin and madness will sometimes flee into extraneous details. It is the only explanation.

  Maryam of Magdala has kneeled by the upright furthest from us, her hands clamped over her mouth. She is surrounded by onlookers I do not recognize.

  Two additional vultures now circle through the grey sky above us, making nine in total. Does this loathsome place rise up in all its foul-smelling, desolate glory at the centre of all their most nourishing dreams?

  As we rush to the back upright where Yeshua must be, my sister and I pass by the central cross. The prisoner there is lying on his back with blood smeared across his face. He is elderly and bald. His lips are sealed tight. His eyes are open but not gazing at anything in our world.

  I shall not beg, his expression tells me. And I shall not give them any information they may want. Since the age of eleven, when my parents were both killed, I have made my own decisions, and I am fifty-seven years old now, and I chose the life of a rebel willingly, and I rejoiced each time I covered myself with the blood of a Roman, and I pray that I may meet death like a man.

  His executioner tightens the bindings on his wrists. The man has quick, decisive, skilful hands; he has probably made a good life for himself tying thick knots around the hands of Jews.

  My son appears from out of nowhere and hugs his arms around me. His chin is soiled, but it is the bruising in his eyes that worries me. No one who is thirteen years old is ready for what he has seen.

  ‘Are you hurt?’ Mia asks him while I search desperately over his face and chest and arms for wounds.

  ‘I’m all right,’ he tells us.

  ‘Paullus has agreed to help us,’ I tell him, hoping to renew his strength. ‘He’s on his way now to Herod’s Palace.’

  ‘Then there’s still a chance?’ Yirmi says.

  ‘Yes. What about you?’ I ask him. ‘Did you find any of our old friends?’

  ‘I found Maryam of Magdala and Yeshua’s mother. They’re over there,’ he says, pointing to the last upright. ‘I spoke to them, and I told them to do anything they could to stall the Romans, and they tried, but –’

  ‘And Yeshua?’ I cut in.

  Yirmi’s eyes gush with tears, and that is when I start to run.

  46

  Yeshua lies on his back, bound to his crossbeam. His eyes are closed. His chest rises and falls in fitful bursts. To escape this time and place, is he dreaming of our childhood?

  Runnels of sweat run down his hollow cheeks. His cape, discarded by the Romans, is now clutched in the arms of an old woman who sits on her heels beside him. She holds it over her nose, breathing in on the scent of him.

  This woman is his grandmother, Channah, but I had not seen her in many years and did not yet recognize her.

  The flies of Golgotha feed at Yeshua’s eyes and lips and swarm greedily inside the flayed flesh on his side and back. A youthful executioner with surprisingly delicate hands tightens the bindings on Yeshua’s wrists.

  If you rip away enough flesh from a man or woman, the ribs become visible – white snakes in a moist sea of red. I had not known that.

  Yeshua’s crown of laurel still engenders baleful laughter amongst the soldiers, who seem to me a debauched caste – anxious to prove their manhood by showing their contempt for the tortured.

  May those who are evil be destroyed before me – here and now! I whisper to myself, and I pray for Paullus to come quickly.

  Yeshua’s mother kneels on the bare earth two paces from the man who was once – not so long ago, it must seem – her newborn child, the swollen rims of her eyes so red that they might be bleeding. Her wan, forlorn face leads me so far down into grief that I must turn away to keep from shrieking.

  A menacing pulse enters my ears and my legs tense, as though I am making ready to run.

  Maryam of Magdala kneels behind Yeshua’s mother, her eyes closed, her lips tracing prayers. Beside her stands Nikodemos, desperate hands framing his stricken face.

  Yosef of Arimathea, another close ally of Yeshua’s and member of the Sanhedrin, kneels in front of a centurion, beseeching him in his halting Latin. I recognize the word for mercy, misericordia, and perhaps the one for commandment as well – praeceptum.

  Nikodemos, standing behind him, is the first to spot me. He nods at me mournfully, as if to say, It is our destiny to witness his death in silence.

  But is it? I see a pulsing in Yeshua’s jaw, which means to me that he is gathering his strength for one final effort.

  Tear down this Philistine Temple! I beseech him. Send it crashing down!

  As though to tell me that what I wish is impossible, Yeshua moans then turns his head to the side and coughs up blood. His mother calls for mercy from the Almighty, and underneath her words I hear her desire for Him to grant her son a quick death.

  I find myself weeping. And a very strange thing happens … As I turn again to Yeshua, all movement comes to a halt and darkness falls, and I sense that Golgotha has fallen under the shadow of the outstretched wings of the Lord.

  Yeshua and I are alone on the island we make from our words and flesh.

  I answered you in the hiding place of thunder, I tell him in my mind.

  As he licks his cracked lips, he answers me: Shalom Aleikem, Lazar.

  I’ve come to help you, I tell him. Just as I did when you were taken by the River Jordan.

  It’s very good to have you with me, he says.

  My heart is exploding with hope, because his voice is confident and sure, which means that he still possesses the strength to tell me what to do.

  We have always been together, even when we did not know it, I say. Even when we were miles apart. Even before we met.

  But … but I was lost, and I did not see you, and I grew worried. He speaks with the timid voice he had as a young boy, when he feared that his destiny would be a solitary one.

  I went to see a Roman friend. He’s on his way here. He’s coming with help. You must fight to remain with us. You cannot leave us.

  I cannot remain with you. This body is finished. Soon I’ll have to discard it.

  But there is still so much for you to accomplish here.

  I shall do what I can in the time I have left to me. But I fear it won’t be nearly enough.

  Then there is no hope for your flesh?

  No, none.

  It takes me some time to make space for that sadness inside me – and to understand what it means. Then you must grant me a favour, I finally tell him.

  What?

  It will be your fin
al gift to me, and it is what I have always most wanted from you.

  Tell me, dodee.

  His calling me dodee again sets me weeping.

  Is this conversation truly happening or has my despair tricked my mind? I tell you this, Yaphiel, I heard his voice exceptionally clearly, speaking from inside me. And it made me certain that he could hear what I told him, no matter how weak he was.

  I grip the gift of his that I wear around my neck and close my eyes and finish the sentence I was unable to end when I tried to make this request of him before. Do not wait. Take me now. Use whatever force you have to put your soul in my body. I bequeath it to you freely and with no regrets. Once you are clothed in my flesh, you will have years to accomplish all that the Lord has asked of you.

  He replies with silence. Has he fallen back into dreams forced upon him by a body that can take no more pain?

  I sit by him, and I touch his ankle to wake him, and the skin is frigid, and I tell him to take me quickly, but he does not wake, and a gruff voice speaking Latin draws my attention, and a legionary places the tip of his sword to my chest while four of his colleagues – two to a side – lift Yeshua’s crossbeam.

  They heave it on to the upright so quickly that all I can do is gasp.

  And then a shattering scream rises inside me. But I do not let it out, for I know it will never end if I release it, and the Romans would drag me away from him.

  He coughs up more blood on to his chest.

  His eyes do not open.

  Put your soul in me now! I order him. I shall not mind suffering in yours if I know you will live.

  The executioner climbs a ladder to the top of his upright and nails a crude sign – written in three languages – above his head. On the way back down, he straightens the crown on Yeshua’s head and says something in Latin to the soldiers that makes them burst into laughter.

  Iesous Nazoraios Basileus Ioudaios, I read in Greek.

  ‘He’s not our king!’ I yell at the executioner – for who else will tell these Romans the truth if I do not.

  ‘Shut your face, Jew!’ a young legionary shouts back at me.