by Jean Rabe
Perry caught no sign of movement save for the occasional silhouette that dimmed the limning light around the shutters. The night began to cool off, but Perry didn’t notice. His mountain retreat had prepared him for worse, and he wondered if he had known this day would come. Had he really expected Jacobsen to black out special high-demand blocks of time when so many people would have paid fabulous sums of money to visit them?
I should have known better. I did.
Movement from the house caught his eye. A red-haired man emerged and scurried off. Judas. Perry had always figured that if someone was going to interfere with the passion of Christ, they’d come and stop Judas, but this was where the Kaku Theory about self-correction worked little micromiracles. The religious politics in Jerusalem demanded Jesus be broken and exiled or killed because he was challenging the power structure. It was like the death of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Yes, Lee Harvey Oswald had been the one to kill him that day in Dallas, but if he hadn’t, the Cubans or Russians, the Mafia, Ku Klux Klan, or an assortment of other psychotics would have done the job. It wasn’t a matter of if but a matter of when.
At least for JFK it was fast.
More movement from the house and Perry readied himself. Jesus emerged along with the rest of the apostles. He wore his hair long and unbound, much as was seen in many portraits. His beard, however, had grown in quite full and had not been neatly trimmed. He wasn’t a terribly tall man, but that should have been no surprise. None of them were. Had Perry not stooped his shoulders and lowered his head entering the city, he’d have towered over the Romans and they would have thought him a German barbarian.
As Jesus led the others through the city, Perry followed, initially keeping to the shadows. More people came out to follow Jesus as well. Some, children who just liked a parade, soon dropped off. Many young people like the disciples, men and women both, drifted in their wake. They held back, not sure if they were interfering or if they were welcome. While Jesus made no sign to encourage them, neither he nor the apostles made any attempt to chase them off.
So Perry joined the modest crowd. Their presence gave him reassurance. They allowed him access, to get close, which he wanted to do. It was critical to his plan, of course, and he told himself that was why it was so important.
And yet he couldn’t deny there was another reason.
On his previous trip he had seen Jesus twice. Once from afar, as Jesus entered Jerusalem on a mule, being feted by adoring crowds. Perry had hung back with the lepers, but hadn’t been terribly interested in Jesus per se. What had fascinated him was that the same crowd which welcomed Jesus as a savior would, in a week’s time, call for the release of a thief and rebel instead of this man they claimed to love. It was just one more instance of the savagery he’d seen in countless battles and, in this case, ironic as the Prince of Peace would be led to the slaughter.
Then, later, he watched the procession to Golgatha. Jesus, his back bloodied, the crown of thorns causing rivulets of blood to course down his face, being forced to drag his cross along. The final humiliation that, like being forced to dig your own grave, being reduced from a human to the output of your muscles and bones. Being made into an animal, and less, because of the parts of you that were no longer required were the parts that defined you as human.
It was that idea that had gotten to Perry. It had taken time to sink in, but the truth of Jesus’ sacrifice had eluded believers and scholars alike. They viewed his physical death as the grand sacrifice, but it wasn’t. That was an afterthought. The man’s identity, his essence, his being, had been stripped away. Jesus’ teachings and philosophy, his kindness, forgiveness, and compassion had defined him. And yet with every step from the Garden of Gethsemane to the place of skulls, it had been stripped from him.
And yet his mission was so important he allowed it. His love for others was so great he gave up everything. What had been nailed to the cross was just a piece of meat that roused itself once, that wondered why it was all alone, and then it surrendered. No tears. No self-pity. No regrets. Just surrender.
That had gotten under Perry’s skin as nothing else ever had. He’d seen enough on his other trips, he’d had his own military training before Timeshares, so he’d reassured himself time and again that he could do what he saw others do. Had the Spartan’s needed man 301, he could have done it. He could have slaughtered Romans with the best of the Germans, or fought to the death in the arenas of Rome. The prospect of having to do that didn’t confound or amaze him.
But to die to make a point?
To die in the hope that people would take his message seriously enough to change their culture, that made no sense. That was betting everything on the longest odds ever. Countless had been the cults that had made a similar bet and had vanished into history.
But Jesus had done it because he believed.
And Perry had never before believed in anything that much in his life.
But he found himself believing, so he did his best to destroy that belief. But all the studies couldn’t kill it. He couldn’t intellectualize and compartmentalize that which he had seen in dying Jesus’ eyes. It changed him, destroyed him. The power of it drove him out of the life he knew and into one of peace.
Or one that should have been peaceful.
Hiking along toward the back of the pack, Perry wanted, badly, to get close to Jesus. Not to say anything, but just to look in his eyes again and let him know that he would succeed. Maybe, just maybe, that might ease the pain. It might give him just a bit more strength.
It might change history yet again.
Perry followed as they made their way to the Mount of Olives and into the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus took his leave with Peter, James, and John. He wanted to go after them, in part to learn which of the gospels had the truth of the incident. Did an angel appear to strengthen him, as in Luke, or was he already resolute and needed no supernatural reinforcement? Did his disciples fall asleep, again as in Luke, or did they remain vigilant?
His hands closed into fists again as a cool breeze rustled tree branches. Men like Senator Smelton would stand up and proclaim the Bible to be the literal word of God, yet little contradictions in the texts were things they swept away without a concern. Those contradictions were little “tests of faith,” just like fossils and evolution. But would Jesus put those tests of faith in the Bible? That didn’t seem to be in keeping with his nature or philosophy.
Perry smiled to himself. It’s a passage in Mark that has me here, but I didn’t make it into Luke or Matthew. That concerned him slightly, but since Mark had been a source for the other two accounts, not terribly much. That he wasn’t in John either bothered him not at all. It had been written for a Roman audience, so his part would have been considered irrelevant.
A murmuring arose among the disciples and followers as they heard voices of men approaching. Jesus, looking haggard, his hair stringy and robe soaked with sweat, appeared with the other three. Judas, torch in hand, led the group who had come for Jesus. As the followers shrank back, Judas approached and gave Jesus a welcoming kiss.
Jesus pushed him aside, not roughly, but as if parting a curtain. He looked at the priests and temple attendants. “Who is it you seek?”
One slender hatchet-faced man with acne scars high on his cheeks, drew himself up. “Jesus of Nazareth.”
“I am he.” Jesus took a step forward. “You should not trouble these others.”
A servant darted forward to grab Jesus by the wrist and tug him roughly toward them. Peter drew a sharp little fish-gutting knife and slashed at the man’s face. He took off half his ear. The man retreated screaming and tension spiked.
Jesus gave Peter a reproving stare, then bent and picked up the portion of ear. He reached out and pressed it to the man’s head and held it there for several heartbeats. Jesus’ hand came away bloody, but the ear remained whole.
Perry’s jaw hung open. Perry couldn’t see any swelling or redness or any other sign that it had ever been cut. He had agr
eed with scholars who dismissed the miracle stories as storytelling techniques needed to fix Jesus in the pantheon of heroes of that age. Virgin births were commonly ascribed to great men. Multiple accounts existed of magicians repeating Jesus’ miracles, Simon Magus the best known among them. The miracles were the equivalent of Parson Weems’ fantasy of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree. They were meant to illustrate a point, not to be taken literally.
And yet he’d just seen Jesus reattach a severed ear. It wasn’t possible, and Perry wasn’t alone in believing that. Those who had come to arrest Jesus nervously fingered their swords and staves. The disciples and followers dropped to their knees, not in submission to the captors, but in reverence for what the other side considered blasphemous sorcery.
Jesus opened his arms. “When I was in the temple, you did not come against me. Now you are here. This is your part to play. You are part of the darkness. Do what you must.”
The priest nodded and two of his men started forward. Peter likewise headed for them, so Perry played the part ordained for him in the Gospel of Mark. He stood up and screamed as if terrified. He ran toward the priest and his men. Two of them grabbed him. Perry twisted from their grasp, shrieking as loudly as he could. The men tore away his linen cloth, and Perry dashed into the shadows.
His performance had the expected effect. Giving in to their own panic, Jesus’ followers scattered. The priest’s men gave chase until called back, then they bound Jesus and led him off to the palace of the high priest.
Perry had run, but not far. He’d headed back toward Jerusalem, but crouched down beside the road, half hidden in the ditch beside it. He waited and watched, then as the priest and his entourage came down the road, he crawled from the ditch, crying and begging for mercy.
One of the men grabbed him by his hair and hauled him up, then slapped him. “You said the meek would be blessed. What of the craven?”
Jesus glanced back. “More courage lurks in quiet than ever lived in boastfulness. He is not your concern.”
The priest held up a hand. “Are you one of his followers?”
Perry nodded.
“Bring him. A witness who is not paid would be useful.”
Perry’s captor spun him to the earth at the rear of the procession, and then kicked him so he’d march along. Perry scrambled to his feet and sidled along, ever watchful. He expected nothing on the way to the palace, but after Jesus’ questioning, and before he was taken to Pi-late, Kevin Smelton had to strike. It was the only real opportunity not already proscribed by the gospel accounts of Jesus’ last night.
As they returned, the denial of Jesus had begun in earnest. The same faces that had smiled as Jesus walked toward the garden now turned away from him. Dogs shrank back into alleys to growl. Wicked children ran up and smacked his legs with sticks. Mothers called their children to come away as if Jesus was a leper; and in any real political sense, that was exactly what he had become.
The high priest’s palace would have seemed humble measured against other buildings that bore that description, but in Jerusalem it was a grand building, a strong one, hinting at authority without challenging it. Caiaphas, as much a politician as he was a religious leader, had the sense not to invite the Romans to imagine he was a rebel. The palace’s appointments remained modest, as did the high priest’s robe.
Perry crouched at the back of the main hall, hidden in the shadows of a pillar, as the high priest and his counselors questioned Jesus. He couldn’t hear what was being said, but hardly needed to. Caiaphas became increasingly angry. The crowd around Jesus gesticulated wildly, stamped their feet, and screamed at him. And yet, in the midst of that storm, Jesus remained serene, his answers delivered in a voice so quiet, the violence around him had to ebb so he could be heard. Then it kicked up again, growing in intensity until Caiaphas tore his own robe from throat to navel and backhanded Jesus.
The others joined in, more primates than men, yelling, hitting, spitting and cuffing. Jesus made no pretense at protecting himself, though some of the blows spun him around. He careened about within the circle, until one heavy clout dropped him to his knees and blood dripped from a split lip.
The sight of blood dripping seemed to shock Caiaphas. With a hand he summoned those who had brought Jesus from the garden. They led him off, and Perry with him, down a narrow stairway to the building’s subterranean chambers. A wooden door swung open on squeaky hinges, then rough hands propelled Perry into a dark pit strewn with sour straw. Moonlight poured in through a narrow window high in the outside wall, transfiguring Jesus’ face as he lay there dazed.
Perry rose and moved to check him, but a shadow rose in the cell’s far corner. A filthy, naked youth launched himself at the fallen man, a rock clutched in a raised hand. Kevin Smelton, his eyes wide, his teeth bared, roared inhumanly. “Jesus!”
Without thinking, Perry tackled Kevin, smashing him into the cell’s uneven stone wall. Kevin hit hard and wetly. The boy gurgled, the stone hitting the ground only seconds before he did. His body shuddered and his breath came in ragged, rasping gulps.
Perry rolled him onto his back. “Damn it!” The young man had a dent in his head over his temple. One pupil looked normal, the other was dilated so almost no color was left. Depressed skull fracture. “No, this isn’t what was supposed to happen.”
“It often is, alas, when fragile bone strikes rock.” Jesus came up on a knee and pressed a hand to Kevin’s wound. The boy convulsed, and then his breath came evenly and quietly.
Smiling, Jesus sat down, crossing his legs. “He’ll be good as new, unless . . . was there something wrong with him before?”
Perry blinked. “You’re speaking English.”
“I should hope so. I majored in dead languages at university. I may be a bit rusty, however. Been speaking Aramaic for the past three years.” Jesus lifted one of Kevin’s eyelids, and then brushed a hand over his damp forehead. He rubbed his thumb over his forefingers, smearing blood mixed with sweat. “Let’s see, residual traces of antipsychotic drugs. Schizophrenia?”
Perry nodded. “That’s what I was told.”
“Excellent. Have that fixed up in a jiffy.” Jesus placed both hands on Kevin’s head, bowed his own, and then smiled. “He’ll be right as rain. A little DNA splicing, some code rewritten, and he’ll be just fine. All this will be a bad dream.”
“You majored in dead languages? At university?”
“That’s right.” Jesus frowned for a moment. “How do you like working for Timeshares?”
“What?”
“Oh, dear boy, you are confused, aren’t you?” Jesus hugged his knees to his chest. “I work for Meantime. We acquired Timeshares in a hostile takeover about, well, doesn’t really matter how long after you worked for them. The stories that came down through the files were very impressive. We still follow some of the procedures, like not allowing tourists at some of these critical junctures in time.”
Perry sat back, his head hitting the wall. He didn’t mind the pain, save that it told him he wasn’t dreaming. “But you’re Jesus and you’re from the future? You can’t be. I saw you die.”
Jesus scratched at the back of his neck. “If you saw me die, then I know who you are. I read your report. So here’s the thing of it. Up the line our equipment is a bit more sophisticated than the duct tape and zip ties you were using to hold things together. Certain perturbations started hitting us. We figured out that we had a bit of a crisis as concerned Christianity. We’d relied on your report about what happened, but back-timed someone in your wake, and what we found was that, basically, there was no historical Jesus. We had to lock it down, so here I am.”
“But . . .” Words caught in Perry’s throat. If there actually had been a historical Jesus, there’d be no need for the man sitting before him to be here. “But how could you come in after what I’d seen . . .”
“Look, even in your time you know that time is elastic. Your little friend here, what did he do? Kill me?”
Per
ry nodded.
“Well then, that created a new outcome, but you were able to cut back in here and prevent it. That same sort of elasticity of time allowed us to predate you. Time can be pretty forgiving—you’re here, now, with me, and a younger you is out there somewhere angling for a good seat to see me scourged tomorrow.”
“But you’re telling me that the first time around, there was no historical Jesus.”
“There didn’t need to be a historical Jesus. This whole gospel of peace, it was a coming thing. The Buddhists already had it figured out. And the Essenes, there are thousands of them within fifty kilometers of us right now. They’ve got their own millennialist gospel of peace. We are pretty sure that the first time around this is what Peter and the others based their teachings on. Someone did a book of sayings—like the Gospel of Thomas and that type of book from the era. They tagged it with a name so the Romans could hunt for their ‘leader’ all they wanted, but since he didn’t exist, he couldn’t be found. The teachings got popular, so did the teacher. Miracle stories got grafted onto things. Since the Romans respected antiquity, folks also inserted stories that fulfilled Jewish prophecies. That makes the new religion legitimate in the eyes of the Romans. Then Paul got a hold of it and, well, perfect product met perfect salesman.
“It was a brilliant piece of social programming that actually did succeed in changing the world.” Jesus smiled. “The message didn’t need the man.”
“But you’re saying it’s all a lie.”
“No. What I’m saying is that a beautiful picture doesn’t need a frame. And it is a very beautiful picture.” Jesus brought his hands together. “You’ve seen, down through history, how the Christian philosophy has moved people toward peace and love. Critics will point out that plenty of men have gone to war in the name of God, but the peace movements all flow from that same spring, and they’re more powerful. A bit after your time, after you clean up that global warming mess, you get the next great awakening—like the Renaissance, only better. The nanobots I used to take care of your friend and reattach that ear, they come from that time. Rather old-school now, but they still work splendidly.”
