by Gerald Kersh
‘Eye-witnesses, all of them, who would have put their hands in the fire to swear to the accuracy of the evidence of their senses!’
Afranius said: ‘I didn’t know you were interested.’
‘I’m not; it is a matter of professional curiosity. His own case is closed. But the mopping up is far from over.’
‘If you’re interested,’ said Afranius, ‘I saw him.’
‘You describe him, then,’ I said, ‘for you have a good eye, I think, and a healthy kind of general curiosity.’
‘Thanks. I was in Jerusalem on business and got caught in the crowd at the execution. I don’t enjoy such spectacles, but it was easier to wait a little than to get out of it – my fellows didn’t like the temper of part of the crowd. Three went up that day on the hill – two bandits and Jesus Christ. One of the bandits had Habet tattooed on his –’
‘Jesus, Jesus, what about Jesus?’ I asked.
‘He came last. He was in a pretty bad way. The priests must have paid the executioners to lay the scourge on hard; his back was pulp, and still dripping when they stripped him. They had wrapped a wreath of thorns about his head, and that was dripping too. Also, the crowd had been at him. Somebody had torn out a handful of his beard, which, by the bye, would probably have washed out to a rusty-black sort of colour, and there was a bleeding patch on his jaw where some skin had come with it. He had a black eye. The open one was bright – feverish, of course – but it’d most likely cool down to a clear brown, I should say. They had smashed his nose, but by the way it was broken it was most likely one of those thin, bony noses: the thicker, fleshier ones swell up much more. I don’t imagine he could ever have been very much to look at, in point of stature or physique. He wasn’t looking at his best, needless to say – it was hard to tell where the hair ended and the blood-clots began. He was going bald, but his hair was long at the back and sides – black, streaked with some grey. I remember an old Jew saying to a young one: “You see what comes of breaking the Sabbath, Jacob?” A woman said to another: “So where’s the miracle-maker already? A genuine miracle-maker wouldn’t be in such a position.” A man with them said: “Leave the poor bastard be – he’s got enough.” Then the soldiers nailed him up.
‘One of Jesus Christ’s rich followers – and he had plenty of them, surprising as it may seem – must have slipped the executioners a good bribe, because I noticed they drove the nails in at the heel of the hand with the points slightly back, to cut the big veins in the wrists. The bandits got it through the bones of the palms, and that way one can hang alive for hours. The record, I believe, is two and a half days. But Jesus Christ started to bleed at once. You were asking about his appearance. That is all I can tell you, except that his belly stuck out – but so does everybody’s, as you know, when the cross jolts into position. I think that right up to the end, some of his supporters really expected him to work a miracle and step down. I saw one of them who had been weeping suddenly shake his fist and spit out of sheer disillusionment.
‘His voice I heard only once. He cried out that he had been forsaken, I think. It sounded thin and hoarse – but so would yours or mine in the circumstances, I fancy. The bandits tried to die game, and exchanged dirty badinage, to the delight of the crowd – until the cramps nipped them, and then they howled as they all do in the end. Jesus Christ was past that. He just hung limp and died fast. I was sorry for him. I never saw a man more alone in the world. His mother and some others were waiting at the foot of the cross. I threw her a few coins. She didn’t pick them up. So the Jews dispersed to celebrate their deliverance, and I went about my business. His mother had very fine brown eyes, incidentally: perhaps he resembled her. What do I know?’
‘Unsatisfactory,’ I said. ‘And were the heavens darkened?’
‘Darkened?’ said Afranius. ‘Not particularly. It was heavy weather, but what do you expect in Jerusalem at that time of the year?’
‘Everybody agrees that the heavens were darkened,’ I said.
‘No more than they would have been otherwise. What do you expect of people? A man will say, portentously: “The night when I was born, believe it or not, Vesuvius smoked!”’ Afranius said: ‘But there was an unpleasant atmosphere in the city. The Nazarenes didn’t dare to mourn their leader openly, especially while all the Orthodoxy was holding high festival. There was therefore a tension in the air. The Nazarenes are also Jews, remember – they would have pulled knives first and argued after. So Diomed would have put out double and triple patrols …
‘And there is all I can tell you about the individual who influenced history to this extent – that now, hundreds of miles away, an orthodox Jew spits in the beard of an unorthodox one for kindling fire to cook his porridge on the Jewish sabbath; whereupon, in the name of Peace the dissenter throws boiling porridge into the orthodox one’s face; and Diomed, coming with soldiers to keep the Peace of Rome is hit in the eye with a rotten fig hurled by a child still raw from his circumcision. And somebody sends a report to Rome, (a) Diomed is keeping the peace, (b) Diomed is persecuting the Jews. Isn’t that the way it goes, Diomed?’
‘Something like that,’ I said; and I suppose I managed to keep a certain irritation out of my tone, because Afranius’s chatter was received with a laugh.
Melanion grumbled: ‘Bah! Gods! … Once upon a time a traveller, passing through the Land of the Cat-worshippers, stopped to watch the people flaying alive a miserable wretch in the market-place. He asked a bystander: “What has this man done?” “Why, he is guilty of the most unpardonable blasphemy, sir!” the bystander replied. The traveller asked: “What? Does he worship dogs, then?” “Nothing so trivial,” the bystander told him, “we worship Egyptian cats – this misbegotten son of a filthy mother worships Persian cats.” Gods! Bah!’
‘Nevertheless,’ said Afranius, ‘I have had conversation with one or two perfectly reasonable people who took kindly to the Nazarene school of thought.’
‘Oh, as for that,’ said Melanion, ‘granting certain premises, anything you fancy is reasonable … granting certain premises. One of the most reasonable men I ever met died of apoplexy because he had himself wrapped in three layers of lambs’ wool to travel across Arabia in the summer. He was convinced that he was made of blown glass, and might get broken if dropped. And he never ate very hot food on a cold day, for fear he might crack. What could be more reasonable – granting certain premises? Only he was not made of glass, and his pure reason was pure madness.’
‘Enough, Melanion, enough!’ I said. ‘This is as bad as the blind beggar-woman of the Black River.’
‘Who is she?’ asked Tibullus.
I said: ‘Oh, another seer, or prophet, or whatever you like to call her; only she has caused no riots. I saw her once in Damascus. Her eyes are white and her hair hangs to the ground. She has an interminable song, which her disciples say has been sung since the beginning of the world. It has to be sung without pausing, so when she stops to eat or drink, one of her disciples takes up the refrain, and the moment she dies someone else will continue, all in the same unearthly monotone:
‘“… The womb is a lonely room where you wait sleeping until you must pass through a dark passage into a light that is blindness because it is too strong to see by; dazzled you must wander weeping yourself to sleep until you must pass through a dark passage into a lonely room where you must wait sleeping until you must pass …”
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– and so on, and so on, to drive you mad. It is believed that when the song works itself out to its logical conclusion, the world will end in a glorious light and everything will be purified.’
‘I shouldn’t be surprised,’ said Melanion. ‘And soon I must go and look at my Soxias, and then sleep an hour or two.’
Afranius said: ‘I fancy, today, Soxias will be rather angry with himself for letting young Paulus win his Eurynome. Eh, Diomed?’
I said: ‘It is a very beautiful piece of work.’
‘Soxias is not much of a one for vain regrets,’ said
Melanion. ‘He’d better not be. The only one who will tear his hair when the story gets out – it’ll be all over Tarsus by tonight – will be Paulus’s father. The worth of Barbatus’s collection gone just like that!’
I had thought of this earlier; in considering the actions of a man like Soxias, every motive must be taken into account, but I feigned surprise. ‘It was Paulus’s cup, to dispose of as he pleased,’ I said, thinking: ‘Who are we to suppose that Paulus loves his father as much as, in obedience to the Law of Moses, he is required to honour him? Perhaps Paulus, in his heart, also wanted to bedevil his father? Anyway, Paulus has the gold and emerald goblet, and that’s worth a pretty penny.’
‘Let the old extortioner tear his hair!’ said Afranius. ‘Let him tear it out by the roots.’
I said: ‘The old gentleman keeps the peace, pays his taxes, doesn’t bend the law beyond breaking-point as far as I know, gives alms to the poor and is highly co-operative with the authorities. I have nothing against him.’
‘If I hadn’t known you all my life, Diomed,’ said Afranius, ‘I’d call you a damned hypocrite. Yes, I’d say: “Diomed publicly defends Paulus’s father, and is guide, philosopher and friend to that man’s son, because it is worth his while.” I’d say –’
I stopped Afranius. ‘But you don’t say, and you have known me all your life. Therefore, go home!’
Afranius said: ‘Oh well, old fellow! I don’t call you a damned hypocrite; but, if I did, it would be because I’d know that you would know I never meant it – which would be a terrible presumption upon the good-will that goes with friendship; in other words, discourtesy and loose manners, which is a crime against humanity. You are not a hypocrite any more than a swordsman is, who makes a double pass … But I tell you this: if Jesus Christ weren’t so disgustingly pitiable, I’d salute his memory, if only for the reason that he spoke against the Pharisees!’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘Now go home.’
Melanion, who could leap sideways and make new tracks quicker than a hare for the sake of an argument, was saying to Tibullus: ‘That which is, is right. Confess this, or deny the propriety of the law!’
‘Here we come to the definition of terms,’ said Tibullus, ‘to the application of Truth. Every right-thinking man knows what is right and what is wrong. It is the law’s business to synthesise the difference. Law should be Truth made practicable.’
‘Now let us assume that the Truth happens to be illegal,’ said Melanion. ‘That Truth is wrong –’
‘No, you don’t,’ said I, interrupting. ‘Away with you, my friends; until the next time!’
Tibullus yawned, and surreptitiously made a sign against the evil eye in front of his open mouth.
Melanion caught the gesture and said: ‘Well done, Tibullus. The beginning of all the evil in the world was, when the first man yawned and said to the second man: “And now, what?” … Come!’
So they went, and I sat alone in the cool, savouring a light, untroubled fatigue and enjoying my own company; for I have the old soldier’s knack of unbuckling my spirit and laying aside my troubles with my armour. My father taught me this, without difficulty, for it always came naturally to me.
He would make me pace up and down with pebbles in my sandals while I committed to memory a hundred lines of Homer, or walk a mile over uneven ground carrying a bowl filled to the brim with water, not one drop of which must be spilt. This was to concentrate the mind. He was of the hard school, the school that bred the great men who made Rome. An indomitable soldier and a fine gentleman, he would have risen to great rank under Augustus if it had not been for his harsh tongue and his unyielding spirit, which would not let him reconcile his republican ideals to the world as it had to be.
From him I learned how the greatest glory of man is in proud servitude and reasoned discipline; while from my much-beloved mother I inherited a trace of that warmth of soul and quickness of understanding which, tempering a will of steel, made her a woman who could command the adoration even of my father. I do not compare myself with these people, whose equals, as it seems to me, the world may never see again – I mention myself in the same breath only because I am their son.
The relaxed wakefulness of a man with a calm mind is better than the deep sleep of a man in trouble. I picked up a rare copy of Xiphophilus And His Conquest of Nowhere, a tale by the Cynic, Diogenes, which Melanion had lent me. It is said that Diogenes wrote it as a satire against Alexander the Great, who is supposed to have suppressed it. It was not like Alexander to suppress a book; but it was not like Alexander to destroy Persepolis; it was not like Alexander to get raving drunk. What was ‘like Alexander’?
In Diogenes’s little book the hero, Xiphophilus, having conquered all the world, sets out to invade Nowhere: that is, the land beyond Thule, where they say the world ends in ice. The cold of ice being the universal preservative, says Diogenes, there is no death or corruption beyond Thule, where all people are icily transparent. Xiphophilus brings death and decay to this clean place; and the rottenness brings forth our kind of life, which brings forth vice, and so on. One can see the glum, cantankerous face of Diogenes glowering out of every other line. In satirising the conqueror of the world, the philosopher damned mankind.
Sergius came in, and I asked him: ‘What’s new?’
He said: ‘As per instructions, sir, black dwarf returned to Soxias in a sack. No message, sir. Barbatus sent for the jeweller Abbas, sir.’
‘Oh, did he?’
‘Yes, sir. Barbatus’s porter says he happened to hear that one of the slaves overheard some sort of transaction, sir. It seems Barbatus is selling some of his jewels for six hundred thousand, sir.’ All Tarsus knew that Barbatus owed nearly two hundred thousand to Rabat the Money-Changer, and almost twice as much to Joseph the Tent-maker.
Sergius continued: ‘Barbatus has also sent for Joseph the Tent-maker, and Rabat, sir.’
‘It is none of our business, Pugnax.’
‘No, sir.’
‘Leave Barbatus alone. How did you hear what his porter happened to hear that the slave overheard?’
‘From Nicoteles, sir.’
‘Which Nicoteles?’
‘Matthias the Perfumer’s book-keeper, sir.’
‘Pugnax, you are making a report, not evading an inquiry. You are the hard-mouthed son of an unwilling bitch.’
‘Yes, sir. Barbatus’s porter came to Matthias to request presentation of an old account for immediate payment this morning, and to order a quantity of the highest quality sandalwood oil, and some myrrh and frankincense, sir.’
‘Well, then,’ I said, ‘Barbatus is preparing a considerable sacrifice to the gods, no doubt.’
‘Returning thanks for his luck, sir, perhaps.’
‘What luck?’
‘Barbatus won a very valuable cup from Soxias, sir.’
‘And who told you that?’
‘The black dwarf in the sack, sir. They say Barbatus was crying like a child when he returned to his house, sir.’
‘Who is “they”?’
‘A beggar called Bolo, sir, who pretends to be blind. He was drunk as a lord, and jingling money. I asked him where he got it, and he said Barbatus gave it to him – a handful of silver, sir. He saw Barbatus crying, sir, he said.’
‘Grit in the eye. If Barbatus had to weep, do you think he’d do so in a public place?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Well, tell them I’ll be shaved and take my bath now. Tomorrow you and I will wrestle a few falls. Or are you getting too stiff?’
‘A little, sir. I have to use both hands to throw you now.’
‘The gods willing,’ I said, laughing; for I had been wrestling with Sergius for the past twenty years and more, and seldom won more than one fall out of three, although I was the younger man by ten years. Stolid and methodical as he seemed, he was a hundred-handed Briaraeus in action.
My father’s freed-man, he had watched over me when I was a child, tutored me in the rougher arts, and fol
lowed me as a soldier. Afranius sometimes called me ‘Pugnax’s Little Eagle’ – partly with allusion to my profile, but mainly on account of Sergius’s almost religious devotion to me. He had covered me with his body, once, when we were both wounded, in a ring of spears in the western forests; and once I had taken in the hip a sword-stab aimed at his belly. We were held together by a strong bond.
He seemed to become warm and animate only when I spoke to him, and for my part, I was never completely comfortable unless I was in some way aware of his proximity. There were between us memories of certain evil occasions when hope was running thin and cold and the light was dying, when Sergius and I had been secret custodians of each other’s courage. Each owed the other a little of his pride.
‘Go now,’ I said. ‘And tell Dionë I want her to rub my back. Make it sound as if I said to you in confidence that nobody can rub my back like Dionë.’
‘Yes, sir.’ He saluted, and left.
Now, although I am not given to sudden changes of mood, premonitory depressions, or causeless womanish anxieties, I found myself in a state of nervous gloom. There was a nameless sinking of the heart; and then came that unpleasant condition of mind in which, touching your own flesh, you feel it as something alien; you become uncomfortably aware of your teeth, which seem to protest that the muscles in your jaws which are pressing them together do not belong to you – they were left behind by a strong, angry visitor after a stormy interview.
