Barabbas

by Pär Lagerkvist

  They need not have done so now. They were no longer chained together. They could have made friends with some of the others if they had wanted to, and there was no further need to eat and sleep beside each other. But they still stuck together and always walked close beside each other as if inseparable. It was all the more strange as in point of fact they had grown shy of one another and found talking more difficult now. They acted as inseparable, though they had drifted apart.

  While working they had to go side by side. But not at other times, when they could have mixed with the other slaves. Feeling out of it as they did, however, perhaps it was not really so odd that they held aloof. They had grown so used to keeping together, and used to the chain that was no longer there. When they woke up in the dark at night and felt that they were not shackled together they were almost frightened, until it dawned on them that at least they were lying side by side as before. The knowledge was a relief.

  To think that Barabbas should live to see such a thing! That it could be like that for him! It was most extraordinary. For if anyone was ill-suited to being hobbled together with another person, it was he. Against his will, however, he had been; with an iron chain, what is more. And even though the chain no longer existed he still retained it in one way; couldn’t do without it, apparently. Though of course he tugged at it in an effort to break away.…

  But not Sahak. On the contrary, he felt very hurt that things were not as before between them. Why weren’t they?

  Of their miraculous rescue from the mines, from hell, they never spoke. The first day or two they had done so, but not after that. Sahak had said then that they had been rescued by the son of God, everyone’s Saviour. Yes, they had … Of course they had … Though in actual fact it was Sahak who had been rescued by his Saviour, by the son of God, but Barabbas had been rescued by Sahak. Wasn’t that right? Wasn’t that how it was?

  Hm, it was hard to say.

  Barabbas had in any case thanked Sahak for saving him. But had he thanked God? Yes, surely he had? But it wasn’t certain. One couldn’t be sure.

  It grieved Sahak that he knew so infinitely little about Barabbas, whom he was so fond of. And it hurt him so much that they were unable to pray together, as they had done down in the mine, in hell. How he would have loved to do it! But he didn’t reproach him. He just didn’t understand.

  There was so much about Barabbas that one didn’t understand. But anyway it was he who had seen the Saviour die, and rise again from the dead; and the heavenly light all around him he had seen too. Though they never talked about that any more.…

  Sahak grieved—but not for his own sake. His gaunt, burnt-up face beneath the snow-white hair was scarred by sparks from the smelting-furnaces and the lash had wealed his emaciated body. But for his own part he did not grieve. For his own part he was, on the contrary, a happy man. Especially now, since his Lord had worked this miracle for him, brought him up here into the sun and up to the lilies of the field, which he himself had spoken of so beautifully.

  He had worked the same miracle for Barabbas too. But Barabbas gazed uneasily about him in the world that lay again before his eyes, and none knew what he was thinking.

  Such was their relationship during the first part of their time up there.

  When the spring ploughing was finished they were put to work the water-wheels which must be set going as soon as the heat began, if everything was not to get dried up. This too was heavy work. And later, when the harvest had been got in, they were moved down to the corn-mill, one of the many buildings which surrounded the Roman governor’s residence and made, together with the dirty native village, an entire little town around the shipping-port. In this way they had come right down to the sea.

  It was there, inside the mill, that they met the little one-eyed man.

  He was a thick-set slave with short-cropped head and a grey, wrinkled face with a shrivelled mouth. His one eye had a furtive look, the other had been gouged out because he had once stolen some bushels of flour. For this reason too he had a large wooden frame round his neck. His job was to fill the sacks with flour and carry them into the store-room, and neither this simple task nor his mouse-coloured, insignificant appearance was in the least remarkable. For some reason he was more conspicuous than most of the others all the same, perhaps because one felt so strangely insecure and ill at ease in his presence. One always knew if he was there or not, and even without turning around his one-eyed stare could be distinctly felt. It was seldom one came face to face with him.

  He paid no attention whatever to the two newcomers; he didn’t even appear to see them. It passed quite unnoticed that he observed with a slight sneer that they were assigned to the heaviest millstone. No one could possibly see that he smiled, that his grey, withered-up mouth meant to smile. There were four mills and each was worked by two slaves. It was customary for asses to be used, but they were less plentiful here than humans, of whom there were more than enough and who were also cheaper to keep. But Sahak and Barabbas thought that the food here was almost plentiful compared with what they had been used to, and that by and large they were better off now than before, in spite of the heavy work. The slave-driver did not treat them so badly; he was a stout, rather easygoing man who mostly went about with his whip over his back without using it. The only one to whom he used to give a taste of it was an old blind slave who was practically on his last legs.

  The whole building inside was white with flour which had settled everywhere in the course of the years, on the floor and the walls and on all the cobwebs in the ceiling. The air was thick with flour-dust and filled with the hollow rumble of the millstones as they were revolved in all four mills at once. All the slaves worked naked, except the little one-eyed man, who wore a loin-cloth of sacking and sneaked about inside the flour-mill like a rat. The wooden frame around his neck gave him the appearance of having been trapped but of having broken loose in some way. It was said that he ate flour out of the sacks when he was alone in the store-room, though the wooden frame was supposed to prevent this. And that he did it not from hunger but in defiance, because he knew that if he were caught he would have the other eye put out and would be set to pull the millstone, just like the old blind man—work that he knew was more than he could manage and which filled him with almost as great a horror as the darkness which awaited him if they caught him stealing again. But how much of this was true it was hard to say.

  No, he was not specially interested in the two newcomers. He watched them on the sly, as he watched all the others, and waited to see what would happen. He had nothing special against them. Nothing special. They were prisoners from the mine, he had heard. He had never come across any before. But he had nothing special against mine-prisoners. He had nothing special against anybody.

  Seeing that they had been in the copper mines, they must be dangerous criminals, though one of them hardly looked like it. By comparison the other did, and was evidently anxious to conceal it. He was a contemptible type and the other was a simpleton, but how had they got out of the mine? Up out of hell? Who had helped them? That was the point. But it was nothing to do with him.

  If one waits long enough something always turns up. An explanation is always forthcoming in one way or another. Everything explains itself, so to speak. One has to keep an eye open, of course. And this he did.

  So it was that he saw the tall lean one with the big cow-eyes kneel down at night in the darkness and pray. Why did he do that? He was praying to a god of course, but which? What sort of god did one pray to in that way?

  The little one-eyed man knew of many gods, though it would never have occurred to him to pray to them. And had the idea by any chance struck him, he would naturally have done as everyone else did, prayed before their image in the temple to which they belonged. But this curious slave prayed to a god who, he obviously thought, was there in the darkness in front of him. And he spoke to him just as he would to a living being, who, he imagined, took notice of him. It was most peculiar. He could be heard wh
ispering and praying earnestly there in the dark, but anybody could see that there was no god there. It was all imagination.

  One can’t very well be interested in what doesn’t exist, but after making this discovery the one-eyed man began talking to Sahak now and then to find out more about this extraordinary god. And Sahak explained it all to him as well as he could. He said that his god was everywhere, even in the dark. One could call on him anywhere at all and feel his presence. Why, one could even feel him inside one’s own breast, and that was the most blissful of all. The one-eyed man answered that it was really a remarkable lord he had.

  —Yes, it is indeed, said Sahak.

  The one-eyed man seemed to ponder a while over what he had heard, over Sahak’s invisible but obviously very powerful god, and then he asked if it was he who had helped them to get out of the mine?

  —Yes, Sahak said. It was.

  And he added that he was the god of all the oppressed and was going to free all slaves from their chains and redeem them. For Sahak wanted to proclaim his faith and felt that the other was longing to hear this.

  —Oh? said the one-eyed man.

  Sahak realized more and more that the little slave, whom no one could be bothered with and whose eye had been put out, wanted to hear about his and everyone’s salvation, and that it was the Lord’s will that he should speak to him about it. He therefore did so as often as possible, though Barabbas looked askance at them and seemed to disapprove. And at last, one evening when they were sitting by themselves on one of the millstones after the day’s work, he showed him his secret, the inscription on the back of his slave’s disk. It all really came about through the one-eyed man’s asking the unknown god’s name—provided this might be uttered—and then Sahak had told it to him, and to prove his Lord’s power and greatness had let him see the actual secret signs that stood for the holy name. The one-eyed man regarded the inscription with great interest and listened to Sahak’s story of the Greek slave who had engraved it and had understood the meaning of every stroke. It was incredible how anyone in his way could know the sign of God.

  Sahak looked once more at the inscription and then turned it inwards again. And as he held it to his breast he said joyously that he was God’s own slave, that he belonged to him.

  —Oh, said the one-eyed man.

  And after a while he asked if the other one from the mines also had this inscription on his slave’s disk.

  —Why, yes, said Sahak.

  And the little man nodded and said yes, of course, though actually he had not been at all sure that they had quite the same faith and the same god, for this criminal with the gash under his eye never prayed. They went on talking of this strange god, and did so several more times after this conversation, which Sahak felt had brought them very close to one another. He had done right in confiding his great secret to the other and it was surely the Lord himself who had inspired him to do so.

  Great was the amazement in the mill when the slave-driver one morning announced that Sahak and Barabbas were summoned to appear before the governor himself at a certain time during the day. It was the first time such a thing had happened, at any rate in this slave-driver’s day, and he was just as amazed as any of the others and was quite at a loss to know what lay behind it all. Two wretched slaves in the actual presence of the Roman governor! He was to conduct them there and seemed a little anxious himself, as he had never before set foot inside the mighty one’s residence. However, it was hardly likely that he could have anything to do with the matter; he was only responsible for their getting there. At the appointed time they set off, and everyone in the mill stood gazing after them, even the little slave who resembled a rat and who couldn’t smile because he had a shrivelled-up mouth—he too stood gazing after them with his one eye.

  Sahak and Barabbas would not have been able to find their own way through the narrow streets, which were completely strange to them. They followed immediately behind their slave-driver and kept close together, just as before. It was as if they had been chained together again.

  Arrived at the great house, they were admitted through the carved cedar-wood doors by a magnificent black slave who was fettered to the door-post. He merely showed them into the vestibule and handed them over to an officer on duty, who led them across a sunny courtyard to a medium-sized room that opened on to it. There they suddenly found themselves face to face with the Roman.

  All three flung themselves down on their faces and touched the floor with their foreheads, as the slave-driver had dinned into them, though both Sahak and Barabbas considered it shameless to humble oneself like that in front of one who, after all, was only a human being. Not until they were told did they dare get up. The Roman, who was leaning back in a chair on the far side of the room, beckoned them to approach, which they did hesitantly, venturing by degrees to look up at him. He was a powerfully built man of about sixty with a plump but not flabby face, broad chin and a mouth that they quickly saw was wont to command. The eyes were sharply observant but not actually unfriendly. Oddly enough, there was nothing really frightening about him.

  He enquired of the slave-driver first how the two slaves had conducted themselves, if he was satisfied with them. The man stammered out that he was, adding for safety’s sake that he always treated his slaves very severely. It was impossible to know whether his noble lord appreciated this; he threw a quick glance at the man’s fat body and dismissed him with a light wave of the hand—he could go. The man was far from having anything against this and instantly took his leave; in fact in his hurry he was so lacking in respect that he nearly turned his back on his lord.

  The latter then turned to Sahak and Barabbas and began asking them where they came from, what they had been punished for and how they had come up out of the mine, who had arranged it. The whole time he spoke quite kindly. Then getting up, he walked across the floor, and they were surprised to find that he was so tall. Going up to Sahak, he took hold of his slave’s disk, looked at the stamp on it and asked if he knew what it meant. Sahak replied that it was the stamp of the Roman State. The governor said with a nod that that was quite right, and that it therefore showed that Sahak belonged to the State. Then turning the metal disk over, he looked with evident interest, but with no sign of surprise, at the secret inscription on the back. “Christos Iesus” … he read, and both Sahak and Barabbas were filled with wonder that he could read the signs, decipher God’s holy name.

  —Who is that? he asked.

  —It is my god, Sahak answered with a slight tremor in his voice.

  —Aha. It is a name I cannot remember having heard before. But then there are so many gods, one can’t keep track of them all. Is it the god of your native province?

  —No, Sahak answered. It is everybody’s god.

  —Everybody’s? You don’t say so? That’s not at all bad. And I have never even heard of him. He keeps his renown somewhat secret, if I may say so.

  —Yes, said Sahak.

  —Everybody’s god. In that case he must have more than a little power. What does he base it on?

  —On love.

  —Love?… Well, why not. Anyway, it’s no concern of mine, you may believe as you like about it. But tell me, why do you bear his name on your slave’s disk?

  —Because I belong to him, Sahak said, again with a slight tremor.

  —Indeed? Belong to him? How can you do that? Do you not belong to the State, just as this stamp signifies? Are you not a State slave?

  Sahak made no reply. He merely stood looking down at the floor.

  At last the Roman said, but not at all unkindly:

  —You must answer this. We must be quite clear on this point, don’t you see? Do you belong to the State? Tell me now.

  —I belong to the Lord my God, said Sahak, without looking up.

  The governor stood regarding him. Then he lifted Sahak’s head and looked into his burnt-up face, the face that had been at the smelting-furnaces. He said nothing, and after a time, when he had seen what he
wanted, he let go the other man’s chin.

  Then he went and stood in front of Barabbas, and as he turned over his slave’s disk in the same way he asked:

  —And you? Do you also believe in this loving god?

  Barabbas made no reply.

  —Tell me. Do you?

  Barabbas shook his head.

  —You don’t? Why do you bear his name on your disk then?

  Barabbas was silent as before.

  —Is he not your god? Isn’t that what the inscription means?

  —I have no god, Barabbas answered at last, so softly that it could hardly be heard. But Sahak and the Roman both heard it. And Sahak gave him a look so full of despair, pain and amazement at his incredible words that Barabbas felt it pass right through him, right into his inmost being, even though he did not meet the other’s eyes.

  The Roman too seemed surprised.

  —But I don’t understand, he said. Why then do you bear this “Christos Iesus” carved on your disk?

  —Because I want to believe, Barabbas said, without looking up at either of them.

  The Roman looked at him, at his ravaged face and the gash under the eye; at the hard, coarse mouth, which still retained much of its strength. There was no expression in the face and he was not sure that he would find any there even if he lifted up the head as he had done with the other. Besides, it would never have occurred to him to do so with this man. Why? He didn’t know.

  He turned again to Sahak.

  —Do you grasp fully the implication of what you have said? That it means you are setting yourself up against Caesar? Do you not know that he too is a god and that it is to him you belong, his stamp you bear on your disk? And you say that you belong to another, unknown god, whose name you have carved on your disk to show that you are not Caesar’s but his. Is that not so?