The Gospel According to Lazarus

by Richard Zimler

His voice is heavily accented – as it was on the day we first met. He sits up and grips a leg of Marta’s loom with his right hand, while his left presses against his wound.

  His sword lies by his side, covered in blood.

  ‘I’ve called you Goliath,’ I tell him.

  ‘Not so original,’ he says, but he smiles to soften his criticism.

  ‘What’s your real name?’

  ‘I see what you think, but I not kill your sister,’ he says.

  I do not believe him. Any hope I might have in finding peace resides in my next question. ‘What about my children? Where are they?’

  ‘Children safe. When Yirmi come racing into street, I go to him. He tell me that Mia shout at him to run. She say that two strangers are in courtyard … that they have swords. I tell him to take sister Nahara and run away – go find friend.’

  ‘He took Nahara away?’

  ‘Yes, she play with hens on street. Yirmi take her arm and they run.’

  ‘How do you know my children’s names?’

  ‘I study you. It helps.’

  ‘Helps what?’

  ‘It helps to know a man – to know his habits – if we want to defend him.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  As he holds my gaze, tears squeeze past his lashes. ‘I fail to protect you. I sorry – very sorry. If you wish to take my life, I not fight. In any case, I die soon.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  He wipes his face with his sleeve. ‘We have friend together.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Yeshua.’ While holding my gaze, he nods for me to accept his affirmation, but I cannot.

  ‘Friend is wrong word,’ he continues. ‘I do not know him so well. I envy you. You and he so close. His brother come speak to me on day when you return to life. They ask me make certain you not killed or injured.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They know people want you to heal them and bless them. They know you important now – you sure to make enemies.’ He breathes in deeply, fighting to control the pain. ‘I call you Eliezer or Lazarus?’ he asks.

  ‘Either.’

  ‘Which Yeshua call you?’

  ‘He preferred Lazar.’

  ‘Then I also call you Lazar. You not mind?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I am bodyguard for many years, Lazar. For rich Romans. My strength give me advantage. I train much with sword. I good. But this time …’ He points a finger to his eye and nods. ‘You see me following. I tell Yaaqov I make mistake. He asks other man to guard you – a smaller man. Yaaqov tell me to protect your children and sisters.’ Goliath coughs and struggles to breathe. Tears slide down his cheeks. ‘Lazar, I not expect men from Annas to enter your door. That my mistake. I am sorry.’

  ‘How did you know Yeshua?’ I ask.

  ‘He help my sister two years gone. He take demon from her.’ He splays out the fingers in his left hand. ‘Five years the demon stay in her – from birth of first child. I pledge my service to him then.’

  ‘And who are these men behind you?’

  ‘Annas send them. Or maybe Caiaphas. They kill sister.’

  ‘And also my grandfather,’ I tell him.

  He grimaces. ‘I am sorry. I not know. When I enter house, they searching for Nahara.’

  ‘And the wet nurse … what about Rachel?’ I ask. ‘Have you seen her?’

  ‘No, you ask Yirmi when find him.’

  Could he still be trying to fool me? ‘You haven’t told me your name,’ I say.

  ‘In Aramaic, my name is Ehud.’

  ‘We can speak Greek if you prefer,’ I tell him.

  He laughs. ‘Greek more difficult than Aramaic!’

  ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Near Masis.’ He designs a curve with his hand. ‘Near mountain you call Ararat.’

  ‘Why didn’t the men come for me instead of my sister? I don’t –’

  ‘They no come for sister, they come for you!’ he cuts in, raising an emphatic fist. ‘They enter through your door. I not expect that. That is why I not save Mia.’ He cups his hand by his ear. ‘She yell – I hear. But I come too late.’

  ‘And the man who was supposed to guard me – where is he?’

  He shakes his head. ‘I not know. Maybe he go away. I not ask Yaaqov – he not well. So I watch your sisters and children. I make vow to Yeshua that I guard sisters and children. I keep that vow.’

  ‘What did Yeshua tell you about me?’ I ask, hoping his reply will prove that his story is true.

  ‘He say I guard you with life, since you beloved friend. And he tell me you save him in River Jordan.’

  Thinking of my boyhood with Yeshua reminds me of my children, and panic seizes my spirit. I kneel by Ehud and thank him. The touch of my hand to his cheek sets him crying again ‘I’m sorry to leave you, but I must find my children now,’ I tell him. ‘They must be terrified.’

  ‘Wait just a moment,’ he pleads. ‘I need to tell you more. Your sister Mia … she go to see Annas today. She must say something that scares him.’ He clears his throat. ‘Annas not rest until you are dead. He send other killers.’

  To my next questions, Ehud replies that he followed Mia that morning and that my sister may have terrified Annas by telling him what happened to Maryam of Magdala. When I say that I have not heard anything about Maryam of late, he tells me that she found Yeshua’s tomb empty on the morning after his death.

  ‘His body had vanished?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes.’

  Did I see Yeshua in the flesh, after all? I wonder.

  ‘Might Yosef of Arimathea have had his body taken away?’ I ask Ehud. ‘Or perhaps Annas had it removed to keep Yeshua’s followers from gathering at his tomb.’

  ‘Maryam hear Yeshua speaking in body of caretaker who watches execution place.’

  ‘One of the caretakers on Golgotha?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘His soul passed into another man?’

  ‘That what we think.’

  ‘Where can I find this caretaker?’

  ‘I not know. But soul of Yeshua no longer in him. Maryam say that after Yeshua speak to her, caretaker … he fall down, and when he awake he not remember.’ Ehud shakes his head. ‘You not hear this?’

  ‘No, I’ve hardly left my house since the crucifixion.’

  ‘Mia maybe hear of it and go to Annas to tell him. To tell priest Yeshua not dead.’

  In that case, she withheld the news from me, I think. She must have known I’d try to find the caretaker and question him, which would have put me at risk again.

  ‘What about my sister Marta?’ I ask. ‘Have you seen her?’

  ‘She leave house at first light and not return. I not know where she go.’

  A disquieting possibility makes me start.

  ‘What is it?’ Ehud asks.

  ‘Maybe Marta knew that Annas would send killers after us. She didn’t want to see all our blood. That’s why she has only spent a few hours here since Yeshua was crucified.’

  In that case, I think, she must have been the person who sent a note for me to meet Yeshua at a tavern. She needed to make sure I would not go home and catch her meeting with her conspirators – or at some other evil work. Or maybe she hid outside the tavern to observe me and my son from afar, anxious to watch us one last time.

  Ehud has a fit of coughing. Afterwards, his face pales and his eyes go dull. Unless I act fast, his soul will depart from his body for ever.

  I help him ease back down and lie flat on his back. ‘Why your hair black?’ he asks.

  ‘I dyed it for a role I was playing. Wait here. I’ll be back in a moment.’

  ‘No, go find your children!’ he says.

  ‘I must do one more thing first.’

  I return to my room, check on Ilana and take an old robe from my chest. Back with Ehud, I tear it into strips. Though he tells me he is beyond my help, I bandage his wound tightly. As I help him drink some water, he takes hold of my wrist. �
��You leave Zion,’ he says as if it is the Lord’s command. ‘You take children and go.’

  ‘I’ll get help for you first.’

  ‘No, too late. But I ask one favour.’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘I selfish man,’ he says with an apologetic smile. ‘I want know something about Yeshua that only you know.’

  And so I tell him that my old friend came to me in a vision and told me to find Ilana. When I hold the girl up to him, he caresses a bloody fingertip across her chin and up her cheek with such good-natured tenderness that I understand immediately why Yaaqov chose him to guard me. ‘I’m certain that Yeshua sent her to me for a reason,’ I say, ‘but I’ve yet to find out what it is.’

  ‘You think he still with us?’ Ehud asks.

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps he staged his death, as he told me in my vision. Or maybe his higher soul has remained amongst us and will now move through the world in different guises. There are things he could do … I’m not sure we can even imagine what is possible for a prophet.’

  Goliath tells me again to leave Zion. He speaks of a friend of his who lives near Yeriho and who will hide me until I can make my way safely out of Judaea. ‘Change name,’ he tells me, holding up a hand of warning. ‘Speak only Greek in public. Go to place where you never are – where no one expect you go. Never mention Yeshua. Make believe you are not from Bethany.’

  I am impressed by his logic. And his struggle to make himself understood in Aramaic creates an ache of fondness for him in my chest. I know immediately that I shall follow all his instructions. ‘If only you’d told me that you were sent to protect my family,’ I tell him. ‘I might have been able to save you.’

  ‘I not important. Yeshua needs you to survive.’ He wipes away his tears roughly. ‘Please, Lazar, you must not fail him!’

  ‘But why was I so important to him?’ I ask.

  He shakes his head. ‘Only he can tell us.’ He laughs and points to the baby. ‘Maybe she is the reason. And maybe she tell you why when she grow up.’

  Before I leave, I rend my collar and chant a quick lamentation over Mia and my grandfather: Daughters of Israel, weep over Shimon and Mia, who …

  After extolling their virtues, I thank them for all they have done for me, and I apologize to them for being unable to see their defiled bodies safely into the ground.

  I have spent nearly my entire adulthood in this house and yet there is almost nothing I wish to take with me. In addition to a small secret stash of silver, I grab only my scroll of In the Beginning, a drinking gourd and my stones from Alexandria.

  Ayin is standing at the window of Grandfather Shimon’s eyrie. After I tuck him gently into my pouch, I go up to the roof and call out to Gephen, but he does not appear. Come to me now or I shall have to leave you behind, I warn him in my mind.

  When I climb back down, I find that the flow of blood from Ehud’s wound has nearly stopped. The colour in his face is better as well. ‘I’ll get you a physician,’ I tell him.

  ‘I too … too afraid to hope,’ he confesses.

  ‘You tell the Angel of Death to bother someone else or you’ll cut him to pieces!’

  With a grin, he assures me that he will do what he can to live.

  ‘I have four children,’ he tells me, and he kisses my hands, and I know it is to thank me from helping to save them from orphanhood. It is a moment I shall never forget because it proves to me that there is still a chance for me to make a small difference to the world.

  ‘Ehud, there is one more important thing you can do for me,’ I say. ‘Tell all those you meet over the coming days that I’ve fled south. Tell them that I intend to go to Egypt.’

  ‘South to Egypt,’ he confirms with a nod.

  ‘And if you see Marta or any of my nieces or nephews or cousins, tell them in a conspiratorial tone … as if you’re confiding in them … that I’m on my way with my children to Alexandria but that they mustn’t reveal that information to anyone.’

  ‘Lazar, do you not hear me?’ he growls. ‘You known in Alexandria. You go to other place, where –’

  ‘Ssshhh, dear Ehud,’ I cut in, and I kneel beside him. ‘I’ll do exactly as you say, my friend. I won’t go anywhere near Alexandria. I intend to head north into Phoenicia. But I shall be much safer if you tell my sister and everyone else who asks that I am on my way south.’

  53

  After prevailing upon Weathervane and two other neighbours to help the wounded man that they will find in my house – and to summon a physician – I gather up Ilana in my arms and search for Yirmi and Nahara. At the edge of Bethany, I find Alexandros on his millstone. When he sees me, he starts humming and twitching. I grip his shoulders hard and ask him if he has seen my children.

  With a grunt, he thrusts out his arms and pushes me away – towards the east. Might he be helping me the only way he can?

  I call out to Yirmi and Nahara as I go. After half a mile, by a house in ruins, I spot them running to me through a grove of date palms. After I make sure they are unhurt, I ask them if they have seen the wet nurse.

  ‘She went home after you left with Ilana,’ my son tells me.

  The knowledge that I shall never return to Judaea – that this phase of my life has ended – is what I see in my son’s grieving eyes when I take him aside and tell him of the murder of his aunt and great-grandfather.

  Once we reach Ehud’s friend in Yeriho, I cut Nahara’s hair short and dress her as a boy; no emissaries of Rome or the Temple will be searching for a man with two sons and an infant girl.

  On our journey, I speak only Greek with Yirmi and keep my conversations in Aramaic with Nahara to a minimum. When I am obliged to speak with her in public, I pretend an Ionian accent. To those who seem too curious about our mixture of languages, I explain that Nahara, whose name has now become Nahor, is more comfortable with Aramaic because he is the son of my youngest sister who died giving birth to the infant who is also in my care. My sister’s husband is also recently deceased, so my adolescent son and I are taking the orphaned children to Halikarnassos, where my parents make their home.

  I have always preferred to be clean-shaven, but I have no choice but to let my beard grow, and Nahor makes a game of finding the grey hairs amongst the brown. I introduce myself to those we meet along the way as Erebos of Miletus, and I ask them to call me Eri, which is close enough to Eli for me to always respond when summoned.

  Yirmi becomes Irenaeus, which I find the most beautiful of Greek names.

  Why Halikarnassos? It is Yirmi’s choice; his beloved Herodotus was raised there.

  So you see, Yaphiel, you were born in the Roman province of Asia thanks to your uncle’s devotion to the greatest of Greek travellers!

  We consider heading to Persia instead, but I do not speak any of the local languages and know almost nothing of the customs of the various peoples living there. It would seem prudent to remain under the dominion of an enemy we know, at least for the time being.

  I carry the ponderous weight of two ever-present worries on our journey out of Judaea. The first are the spies that Annas may have sent after us and who may learn somehow of our true identities. The second is Ilana, for every morning and evening I must find her nourishment. Though I cannot begrudge the wet nurses I approach their insistence on a modest payment, the expense soon leaves us with little silver. It becomes only too clear that I ought to have taken with me the jewellery belonging to my sisters, so that I might sell it in the villages and towns we visit.

  Often, lying with my children at night, I picture Gephen on our rooftop, scenting our sudden departure and wondering where we have gone. They say that cats can track their families over hundreds of miles, but I am not of the opinion that we shall ever see him again. Who now will care for his wounds when he fights his rivals?

  I pray each morning for Ehud. I hope that my neighbours were able to find him a capable physician and that he has returned to his four children.

  Ayin proves a pleasant travelling compan
ion, though fearful of our unfamiliar lodgings. We spend as much time with him outside as possible and stand him on the branches of trees, since he always feels at home when he is looking down from a perch.

  Yeshua … Whenever I see something of beauty – an ivory-coloured egret feeding in a brook or an apple tree in blossom – I think, He ought to be with us; it would cheer him to see the wonders of the earth at springtime.

  When tears overwhelm me, I go off by myself. At my worst moments I am certain I shall never be able to make a new life and that my children would be better off with someone else. And yet, each morning I lead us closer to Halikarnassos. This is how I discover that I am the kind of man who continues walking even when he does not know if he has chosen a worthy destination.

  I breathe the warm air of safety again only when we cross the border into Samaria, where Annas is unlikely to have any spies.

  The threat from bandits and brigands forces us to travel only during the day, and we are always careful to sleep within the walls of a town or perimeter of a village. All the same, thieves ambush us on the coastal road leading to Tripolis a little over a fortnight after our flight from Bethany. The swaggering leader of the ragged band takes Nahara’s amber necklace and puppet of a flower-seller and forces me – his dagger pressing into my cheek – to surrender Yeshua’s calliper. I fall to my knees and explain that I cannot give it up, since it was a gift from my dearest friend, who was recently murdered, but he laughs and recommends that I find myself a new best friend.

  He permits me to keep my scroll of In the Beginning, however, since I tell him that I am a scribe and that it is holy writing.

  I try to sell it in Tripolis, but the booksellers there scent my poverty and offer me but a fraction of the manuscript’s true value, so I keep it. That proves a mistake; two days later, as we are trudging through waist-high weeds towards a small pond where we can bathe, six marauders ambush us and carry off the scroll and all that is left of our provisions.

  In consequence, for more than a fortnight, we survive on guile and what I can beg. Never – not even during our years of hardship after my father’s death – have I been so aware of the generosity hiding in each crust of bread and the sweet and precious solidity of each bean that we are able to scrounge.