Testament

by Nino Ricci

  I went to Yeshua then.

  Surely Urijah’s death was a judgement against him, I said, not able to put the thing directly.

  But to my surprise Yeshua said, If a tragedy is a mark of sin, who are we to accuse others when we ourselves must be the most sinful.

  Still I wouldn’t desist.

  If he was guilty of a crime, it must be made known, to show our own innocence.

  Where is our innocence, Yeshua said, when two people are dead and we were unable to save them. Don’t think there’s any happiness in heaven at Urijah’s death. If there’s any judgement now, it’s against us, that we didn’t help him when we could.

  So he would say nothing against Urijah, not even to clear his own name, when all along he had been amongst our bitterest enemies and a man of such evil, as it now seemed, that his crimes could hardly be named. It was difficult for me to fathom Yeshua’s silence, when even the alms he gave to Ribqah’s family now so that they might not starve to death were seen as payments for his own guilt; nor could I share the matter with the twelve or the other women, since they didn’t know the circumstances of the thing and I couldn’t bring myself to reveal them. What occurred to me again and again was my own failure, that I hadn’t seen Ribqah’s distress or done anything to relieve it, but had thought only of the disgrace she would bring to us. Yet it was perhaps in this that I seemed to have an inkling of Yeshua’s meaning, for I realized that if I had not thought of accusation then, I would have seen what was more important. It took a great stretching of the mind, yet it was possible to conceive that we had erred in this regard even with respect to Urijah, for it was true that not one of us had ever gone to him to understand him or to try to change his ways. How differently things might have unfolded then, if we had somehow tried to win him to us even though he was despicable.

  For many days after Ribqah’s death Yeshua conducted himself like a penitent, refusing to eat and hardly emerging from his quarters. The twelve, on the excuse of respecting his mourning but perhaps also because they had grown afraid of his behaviour, seldom went in to him in this period or had any word with him. But I went to him almost daily, afraid he would imagine we had deserted him. The truth was that he seemed almost to wish this, that we would cease to believe in him, so that he might be freed for a time of the burden of leading us.

  Once he said to me, Why do you come to me, when surely my enemies will find the way to turn even this against us. But I hardly listened to him, knowing the state of his mind then. It was a sort of test to me, as I saw it, for him to say such a thing when surely he knew by then what little store I set by the opinions of the world. Perhaps he feared that my devotion to him was so abject and blind that at the first sign of reproof from him I should feel compelled to flee; but that was not the case. So I continued to go to him every day and urge what food on him he would eat, though many days he would take no sustenance except water, and he had begun to waste away to the point where we feared he must die.

  Then one evening when we were gathered together he finally came out to us, breaking a loaf of bread with us and putting some morsels of it in his mouth, though more, it seemed, to appease us than his hunger.

  I have to leave you for a time, he said, since I’m no use to you.

  This was the thing we had most feared. Simon the Canaanite instantly fell prostrate before him and said he would not leave his side, for he was his master now.

  Then you’ve learned nothing, Yeshua said, and are a fool, or you would know that only the Lord is your master.

  Afterwards, some of the men felt he had meant to say that he didn’t want any of them to accompany him when he left. But it was Yihuda who brought them to their senses.

  How can we abandon him when he needs us most, he said.

  He convinced us that we must insist some of us go with him wherever he went and put himself forward to be one of the group, since of the men he was the only one without any occupation. There was some discomfort among the others at letting him take the lead like that, yet no one could argue with his logic. The truth was we had in large part accepted Yihuda by then, as our greater troubles had made him appear a smaller one; and so he was elected, along with Simon the Canaanite and Yohanan, who had offered themselves wholeheartedly while many of the others either could not leave at that time of year or were reluctant to set off for they knew not where. I saw that Yaqob, who for reasons of work had not volunteered himself, reddened when Yohanan did so; yet it seemed that much as he couldn’t bear to see him with Yihuda again, neither could he be happy if neither he nor his brother accompanied Yeshua.

  Listening to the men make their arrangements, I felt trapped once more in my woman’s skin, like a cage I lived in. It occurred to me that if I had been married, it might have been of no consequence if I travelled amongst a group of men; and so for the first time it seemed to me there might be some freedom in marriage. In any event, I would gladly have taken the first man who had offered himself to me, should I have thus been permitted to go along with Yeshua and the others. Yeshua had said he would travel north, into the Syrian highlands—the mountains my mother was from, wild, pagan places that I recalled from my own journey there as a child. I remembered a lake we had travelled near, savage and rank; a bird that I saw there, of purest black and as large as a man, so astonished me that for many years I believed it was a god I had seen, such as we knew nothing of in Galilee.

  Nearly a year had passed since Yeshua had left us for Tyre. Then, I had felt broken with the fear that he wouldn’t return to us. But this time there was a part of me that almost wished for his release, that he might find some new following there among the pagans and grow old with them, bringing them to our god. For I felt that we had not proved worthy of him, that we had descended to pettiness though he had tried to raise us up, and had let the ways of the world infect us. I thought of what we had been in our first days and longed to return to the innocence we’d had then and the strength of purpose, to the way our minds had seemed opened like doors to the sun.

  In the end Yeshua had never spoken to us of Ribqah’s resurrection, nor had we dared to ask him. For the truth was that even among the twelve we had not fully understood his teaching on the matter, if she would rise in body or in spirit, if now or at the end of days, if she would go to the heavens or return to earth. For my own part, I didn’t see how the body could rise, so quickly was it corrupted, nor how the earth could be peopled with those who had risen, since surely then from the beginning of time the number of those who had risen must be greater than all those who lived, whereas we saw no evidence of them among us. But I thought that in this as in other things, Yeshua’s word could not be understood in any simple way. For as he said, we needn’t die to be born again, by which I took him to mean that even in this life the world could be made new for us, if we had the eyes to see it. So I had imagined that death, then, was only a small thing, a place we could cross to as over a river, that we could see waiting for us on the other shore. Yet I could not see that place now, nor Ribqah in it; I could not see whatever life it was she had entered into. And it seemed to me that neither could Yeshua or he would not have been so broken by Ribqah’s death, and so at a loss that he must leave us.

  The time of Yeshua’s absence was a difficult one for those of us who had stayed behind. There was confusion among the twelve as to whether he would ever return, and a few of them, led by Thomas, said we were discredited and should disband. In the end it was Shimon who held us together, saying that if what he had taught us was true it was true, also in his absence, and making us look to those of his followers who had stuck by him and to the poor and sick who came seeking help.

  The fact was that after the slanders that had struck us, Yeshua’s following was much reduced. We continued to go around to our meeting houses in the various towns along the lake, but often only a dozen or so would come out to us and occasionally even the meeting houses were closed against us. It sometimes felt then that all of Yeshua’s work had come to nothing or that wh
at he had feared had shown itself true, that people had come to him only for his wonders and cures or because of the force of his person and not because of his teachings. But Shimon would not desist, and he and I would often travel together to Bet Ma’on or Arbela or Ammathus and meet with our people in their homes; and we saw that despite all that had happened, there were still those whose faith was unwavering and who greeted us with love. We drew courage from these, since it seemed that if even a handful remained who were loyal, these too must be tended to, just as Yeshua had tended to the handful we were when he had first come to us. Shimon found it difficult at first to lead us in instruction, since he was a man of few words; but because he spoke plainly people listened to him, and I saw how much he had understood of what Yeshua had taught us. So it wasn’t true that Yeshua’s work had come to nothing, when we had only to look to ourselves who were so changed. I thought of the girl I had been when Yeshua had first come, so coddled then and innocent, when now I had travelled half the roads of Galilee, and had respect, and saw things differently.

  Then some time after Yeshua’s departure we heard that Chizkijah, who had not been seen for many weeks, had appeared again in his hometown of Bersaba, wearing finery and boasting of how he had been rewarded by the king for ridding the Galilee of a false prophet. We didn’t believe this could be so, that he could be so brazen. But Yaqob and Shimon set off at once for the town to confront him. Sure enough, they found him drunk in a tavern, telling stories of how he had tricked Yeshua’s followers and spread his slanders. Seeing Shimon and Yaqob, he didn’t balk as he might have but called them to him openly, as if to take them into his confidence.

  I’ve done you a service, he said, to free you of a charlatan.

  Yaqob was ready to strike the man but Shimon restrained him.

  If he was a charlatan, you wouldn’t have needed lies to accuse him, Shimon said.

  But I only told what was true, Chizkijah said. I only praised his good works. And he seemed pleased beyond measure at his own trickery.

  We began to see now what his intentions had been—he had merely sought to return to his town in glory, decked out in fine clothes and with silver in his purse, so that he might lord it over those who had had contempt for him. In his pride he was quick to boast of what he had done, not seeing how he thus vindicated us; but in Bersaba and in many of the towns in those parts it was indeed regarded as a tremendous good work that he had brought Yeshua down, since he was seen as a menace.

  In the end, however, it was Chizkijah’s pride that undid him, for one morning some of our own disciples found him lying near the road outside Bersaba, mortally wounded. Their first thought was to leave him there and say nothing, since they believed God had justly punished him for his evil. But then they saw that he still clung to life and that he pleaded with them for their mercy, and so they took pity on him and carried him to the town. Because they were known as Yeshua’s followers, they were promptly accused as the ones who had brought him to his state. But it was Chizkijah himself who absolved them, declaring before witnesses that it wasn’t any of Yeshua’s people who had injured him but his own associates from the court, who had waylaid him on the road the previous night and beaten him with clubs before leaving him for dead in the woods. He said Herod had sent the men to teach him a lesson because with his boasting he had begun to send people’s sympathies back to Yeshua, and so risked undoing all the work he had been paid for.

  Would to God I had been honest when I claimed to be won to him, Chizkijah said, since he is truly a great man and I am a worthless one.

  With that he died, though everyone who had heard him was very moved by his words.

  It didn’t take long for the news of Chizkijah’s recantation to spread. Those who had turned against Yeshua on his account now saw their mistake, and were reminded again of Yeshua’s eminence, that even someone like Chizkijah had truly been won to him in the end. To the twelve, however, Shimon said, Don’t go around boasting like Chizkijah did, but follow Yeshua’s example and hold your tongue. So we didn’t vaunt that we’d been vindicated, but rather let people come to us of their own accord to admit their mistake; and this worked to our credit, as Shimon had foreseen, since we didn’t come accusing or laying blame, but ready to accept all those who presented themselves. Several women who had been among those who had looked askance at me came to my home now to beg forgiveness, bringing gifts of oil and such. Remembering my own guilt with regard to Ribqah, I didn’t feel any bitterness towards them as I might have, but rather felt moved that they had come to me so open-handedly, when I myself wasn’t certain that I could have so swallowed my pride.

  Thus Yeshua’s followers gradually returned to the fold, and every calumny that had been spoken against him was withdrawn. Yet our victory felt hollow because Yeshua himself was still gone, nor had we had any word of his return. A few of the twelve travelled north to Kefar Dan, where there were many Jews, to see if he had passed through there or if anyone had any news of him. But to their surprise no one had even so much as heard of him there, though the town was little more than a day’s journey from Kefar Nahum.

  Then one day a prince of Sidon passed through Migdal, on his way, he said, to worship the god of the Jews at Jerusalem. He bore a large retinue of servants, and a gilded litter that carried his young daughter; and, as we learned, he owed a profound debt to our Lord since his daughter had been brought back from the clutches of death by a holy man of the Jews. We didn’t need to ask more than a word from him to know that it was Yeshua he spoke of, for as he said the cure had seemed a miracle, seeing that all his own healers and priests, whether by potions or burnt offerings, had been able to do nothing for her. The girl herself was a thing of amazing beauty, with the palest skin and garments of purple and gold. When she discovered that my father and I were followers of Yeshua, she came to us and kissed our hands, which was a deep abasement of herself, and said that truly our god was a glorious one if he worked through such men as our master.

  We learned from the prince that Yeshua had taken himself to Mount Hermon, which surprised us, since the Jews considered it profane. But we were overjoyed to have some word of him, and that he still lived and followed his mission. It was in our minds to send a delegation to him at once to call him back to Galilee, now that Chizkijah had recanted. But even before we had the time to make our plans we had better news of him, for the word arrived that he had been seen on the road on his way to Kefar Nahum.

  This time when my father arranged for a general feast at the gates of the town, I didn’t try to dissuade him, but rather built up the cooking fires with the other women and helped to give out bread and fish to all who requested them. As it happened, however, Yeshua didn’t come to the town that night but rather stopped some miles beyond it, held up by all those who had come out to greet him. Shimon and a few of the others went out to him, but it was dark by then so we women stayed behind. I was happy enough to wait until the light of day to lay eyes on him again, remembering the awkwardness of his return from Tyre and how much a stranger he had seemed then.

  In the morning I left Migdal before dawn in order to be in Kefar Nahum when he arrived. Then, not long after sunrise, he appeared in the street outside Shimon’s house with those of the twelve who had slept with him in the open and a band of others following behind. With his retinue he looked like some beggar king, his clothes nearly rags and his hair and beard grown matted and thick. There was hardly more flesh to him than there had been when he had first come to us out of the desert; yet he was not the same man that he’d been then, but changed in a hundred ways I knew but could not quite have named. It seemed he trailed a shadow now that he hadn’t then, which was the shape of all we’d been through, something dark and looming so that he seemed larger and more estimable and more hidden.

  At Shimon’s house he merely asked for food and said he would go at once to the hill above the town to be with his followers there. There were several of us who were there to greet him, including the other women and some of t
he twelve; and so I didn’t put myself forward. But he saw me there among the others.

  How is your family, he said, and I answered for them. Then he took my hand and he kissed it, only that, and I had to hold my breath against my tears.

  He spent the rest of the day on the hill with his followers, preaching at first, and then when the wind off the lake made it impossible for him to be heard, simply moving among the crowd to exchange a word with those he knew and give his greetings. All day people continued to come in twos and threes to pay their respects, even Ventidius from the Roman camp; and so it seemed that the slanders we had suffered under Chizkijah were all but forgotten. It was not until evening that Yeshua was able to sit alone with the twelve, on the hillside there, sharing some supper with us that we cooked in the open.

  We were afraid you wouldn’t return, Shimon said, and could not bring himself to look at Yeshua for emotion.

  It was only now once we were all gathered together that we noticed Yihuda wasn’t among us. We sent a boy in search of him but he returned without news.

  He’s only gone to catch us some fish, Yeshua said, to make a joke of the thing, since we had understood by then it was fear of the water that had always kept Yihuda from joining the men while they fished. Yet a note of heaviness hung among us because of his absence, as if it foreboded ill.