by Gerald Kersh
‘No,’ I said, ‘I think you are wrong. Like many of Joseph’s stripe, he held the likes of Jesus Christ in awe, and felt that he could somehow be helpful to him. I can imagine him begging Jesus: “Have a background! Get in the right line! Put out roots, make headquarters, know the right people! I don’t ask you to be anything but yourself, your very own self – I believe in you just as you are – but you’ve got to make the right friends!” Jesus laughs him away. Joseph is hurt, and says: “All right, laugh at me. So I’ve pulled one or two funny deals – I’m not in your class, and I know it – I’m an uneducated man. I can’t read books – only men. But I admire education all the more in others, Rabbi, and I believe in you, strike me blind I do! I know people inside out and I can find capital. Don’t forget I’m on the Council. God forbid anything should happen to you…. But if it does, mark my words old Josef Mygdal could turn out to be a friend in need, believe me, Rabbi!”’
I had dropped into a nasal, drawling, comic-stage Jewish dialect. Paulus said: ‘Yes, I dare say he does speak something like that. But –’
‘Wait. Joseph the Almond was a day’s ride out of Jeusalem when he heard the news of Jesus’s sentence. He dropped whatever business he was engaged in, and came hot-foot into the city, having neither eaten nor drunk, followed by a few confidential strong men, and personally armed with a purseful of hard cash, good scrip and credentials. He was too late. Jesus was due to die. It was the eve of the Passover festival, and the Temple was not to be gainsaid. If money could have saved Jesus then, Jesus would have been saved. But Joseph knew when he was beaten. Like the skilled guerilla that he was, he shifted his tactics in mid-stride, and went after the lesser officials. He worked smoothly. You must know that he could not have got the body of a crucified felon for honourable burial without Pilate’s permission – which involved some swift politics and costly bribery. Afranius, who saw the execution, says the nails probably went into the arteries for a quick death. I make bold to think otherwise. The calendar was in Joseph’s favour. No corpses could hang to pollute the air of the Passover, so the condemned men were taken down after they had been hanging only a few hours. Most men can survive a few hours of what I will call a light crucifixion, with the nails only in the flesh – let alone a wiry, dried-out young desert rat accustomed to hunger and thirst and hardened by twenty years on the roads.
‘At sunset, the two bandits were still alive and howling. So, when they were taken down, their legs were broken with the back of a hatchet and they were buried alive. You see, there are several cases on record of men crucified and buried in shallow graves in that dry ground who have kicked and gnawed their way to the surface. Jesus’s legs were not broken. A group of people gathered, shouting: “He’s dead, he’s dead!” So he was taken down gently and hurried to Joseph’s sepulchre where there were people waiting with ointments, bandages, and, I suppose, hot soup.
‘The mouth of this sepulchre was covered with a stone, and an armed guard was mounted outside. Inside, the women and a physician went to work. They must have cleaned and dressed the wounds, and given him something to make him sweat and sleep, feeding him constantly with strong broth, just a little at a time, squeezed into his mouth out of a sponge. It is an old wives’ remedy, and as good as any for whatever ails you. And there was nothing much the matter with Jesus. What are a few flesh wounds in the extremities? I have seen a man crawl three miles with his bowels in his hands – we sewed him up with twine, and he still lives to boast about it.
‘Now. Three days later, or thereabouts, the mourners go to fetch the body. There is some cock-and-bull story of a band of muscular angels all dressed in white, who frightened the guards and then, putting beefy shoulders to the stone, rolled it away from the mouth of the sepulchre. But we will disregard the superstitious balderdash, if you please, and confine ourselves to the innocent, earthy touches which make for evidence in the mind of an unbiased observer. The only one who went into the sepulchre was the ex-prostitute, Mary of Magdala. She went in weeping and saw that Jesus was not there. There were only two “angels”, one of whom said to her, in very earthly accents: “What’s the matter, lady?” At this, the meek and penitent follower of the pacific Nazarene was jostled aside by the tousled, hennaed Magdalene harlot, spitting fury and with her nails out, shrieking: “Where’s Jesus? Tell me what you’ve done with my Jesus, or I’ll tear your eyes out!”
‘And just then somebody touches her on the shoulder: “Mary, Mary!” She turns and sees a man, shabbily dressed, whom she believes to be the gardener. She starts to cry again in the hysterical way these girls have and begs him: “Please tell me where they’ve hidden my Jesus. I want to take him away.” Now the man talks to her in her own rough Aramaic, and she recognises him and falls to her knees. But he picks her up and tells her to find where his disciples are hiding. He is coming to visit them, he says, before going on his way elsewhere.
‘And Jesus found out his disciples. He showed them his wounds, and, as I gather, he stayed with them, gathering his strength for about two weeks. He even refreshed himself by going out fishing by night on the sea of Tiberias – it is these homely touches that tell with me, and to hell with the angels! – and it would seem that they had many a comfortable breakfast of bread and broiled fish at dawn on the beach. I am informed that the disciples were anxious to get their hands on poor Judas. He told them that Judas was none of their business. Then, saying that he was going to his Father, Jesus wrapped himself in his gardener’s cloak and limped away down the dusty road and so vanished. If poor Joseph of Arimathea had had his way, I dare say Jesus would not have awakened until he was out to sea on a ship bound for Africa or Spain. But this was not to be. Jesus went away into the wilderness from which he had so suddenly appeared “to be with his Father”. But his Father was God, and God is anywhere and everywhere. This is something we Stoics are bound to accept, whether we like it or not. So this Jesus may be with his Father, brooding among goats on a hill – or in a hut in Endor, or a cellar in a blind alley in Damascus, or in a garden in Joppa. Who knows?
‘But I will wager a horse to a hen that he is still alive in the flesh. Therefore, Paulus, it is possible that in your wanderings you may find him. If so, bring him back alive.’
Paulus said, slowly: ‘Of course, if he is alive as you say, then according to the Law he is an escaped felon. He was sentenced to death on the cross. In that case, we would crucify him again?’
I said: ‘Oh no, no! I would have him pardoned and exhibited as a curiosity. In death, having died at the right time, he lives as the spirit of a creed. Alive, he is dead indeed. … Joseph of Arimathea put his foot in it that time!’
‘If it could be proved, of course,’ said Paulus, ‘Joseph is guilty of a conspiracy –’
‘Oh, that is nothing. He could wriggle off that hook without the slightest difficulty. What I mean is, that with all the good intentions in the world, Joseph broke Jesus’s heart – he didn’t let him die at the appointed time. And so, if Jesus believed Elijah, as there is no reason to doubt that he did, the Prophecy was yet to be fulfilled; the Kingdom of God wasn’t at hand after all. Perhaps he tried to believe, for a moment, that between the time his senses left him on the cross, and the moment when he awoke in the sepulchre, he really had been dead? But then the pain must have convinced him that he was still alive and in the flesh, and his spiritual anguish must have been terrible indeed.’
‘A pitiful charlatan!’ said Paulus.
I said: ‘No. An honest man and a brave one. A charlatan would have slunk away under a veil of mystery, waited a few years, and then returned in glory. Jesus went straight to his men as soon as he could hobble, and said: “Here are my scarred hands, here are my scarred feet – feel me – I am wounded, but alive.” And after that he went away alone. No charlatanry there. He went to look for his death elsewhere. That is all. It is my guess that the unhappy man is still on his strange journey, seeking this death. Perhaps Judas went with him – he never went home to Karioth – but this is the
sheerest conjecture. Rumour has it that Judas hanged himself. I don’t believe that; he was too strict a Jew to commit suicide; he’s about somewhere. You will hunt where the tracks lead you.’
‘I will do whatever you tell me to do,’ said Paulus, looking me in the eyes. ‘I think I read you, Diomed. A prophecy should never be fulfilled in the prophet’s lifetime: a Jesus returned is a Jesus with the virtue gone out of him. He can never be as great as the shadow he cast with the light behind him. A dream come true is no dream at all – it is beautiful only in its own world. Am I right?’
‘You are. That was well put.’
He asked, abruptly: ‘Is it true that Tiberius is dying?’
‘I don’t know. He is very old.’
‘Who will succeed?’
‘Lap of the gods! Tiberius himself was an accident.’
‘But there will be changes in the world?’
‘The world is constantly changing. If you mean perceptible alterations in the existing order of things – why, there always are when Caesar dies. But by “the world”, I take it that you mean Asia Minor.’
‘Well?’
‘Well, there must be re-shuffles, readjustments, new appointments and a period of indeterminate flux.’
‘Riot? Revolt?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘In your mind, Diomed, is it conceivable that the rabble might clamour for a King Jesus while the Temple demand a Herod?’
‘In my mind, anything is conceivable.’
‘Then, just imagining this to be the case…?’
‘Then we should have to offer a third alternative of course, to keep order. In fact we might be compelled to impose such an alternative. Some popular man, preferably of a highly-placed family, in favour with the priests, in accord with the merchants, attractive to the mob, and in sympathy with Rome.’
After a short silence he asked: ‘In such a turmoil would my Diomed be lost?’
I laughed, and said: ‘Oh no. I grow deep rather than high. I tend outwards rather than upwards. I am not tall enough to fell, and I might make too big a hole in the landscape if I were uprooted.’
‘I will do whatever you advise,’ said Paulus, and paused for a moment to listen. Dionë was singing again. ‘A pretty song,’ he said.
I told him: ‘It is an Armenian children’s dance. They do it with gestures. The words go:
‘May the worms of blow-flies
Fill the holes that held your eyes,
May the rats devour your tongue,
And your mouth be stuffed with dung …’
It is addressed to someone who has broken a girl’s water-pot. They are a sensitive and a poetic people. You ought to hear the one they sing about Caesar.’
‘Caesar is very old,’ said Paulus, sighing, ‘and who can tell –’
But then my secretary came in. ‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘it is Ariaios.’
‘At this time of night?’
‘He said that he was obeying Barbatus’s orders. Barbatus said that he was to come precisely at this hour.’
‘Which Ariaios is this?’ I asked. ‘Ariaios the Greek?’
‘No, the lawyer, the Persian – the one they call Alexander Ariaios.’
‘Well,’ I said, with a foolish sensation as of a weight lifted off my chest, ‘that’s my third Alexander today, and I can rest in peace. Let him come in.’
‘Tarsus is full of Alexanders,’ Paulus remarked.
‘I told you that sometimes I am an old woman,’ I said; and still my neck tingled when I looked away from the north. ‘I never knew this Ariaios to bring good news yet.’
The face of Ariaios might, indeed, have been designed by some clever mask-maker to be worn by a harbinger of misfortune in a tragedy; it was of a dull, greenish pallor, with a sunken leaden mouth set in a deathly rictus that showed yellow teeth and grey gums. His voice had a certain hollow, hopeless sound, such as might come to the ears of a man dying of thirst when he drops a stone into a well and hears, after a breathless silence, the echo of a dry thud. He took a mouthful of wine with resignation, like hemlock, and swallowed it as if it had been a mouthful of gravel. He was nervous; he would have talked rapidly, if he could, and he, too, kept glancing over the terrace to the north as he handed me a packet of documents, while with his free hand he made a pantomime of squeezing the juice out of something.
‘From the noble Barbatus,’ he said. ‘Certain documents relative to the disposal of certain of his properties. Conveyanced and engrossed by me, and signed and sealed by the noble Barbatus in the presence of –’
‘Never mind the names and conditions of the witnesses,’ I said.
‘Also, this letter addressed to the noble Diomed,’ said the lawyer. ‘If the noble Diomed will read the letter now? The substance of the content of the rest I can tell the noble Diomed in a word; the detail may be read at your leisure, sir. The noble Barbatus has freed all his slaves, bestowing upon each a certain sum of money. And he has given to his three free servants each a sum of money which, in the event of his will being disputed, has been paid before the noble Barbatus’s death; that is to say, this evening –’
‘What the devil!’ I cried, and broke open the letter, and read:
Having given the matter due consideration, with a clear and contented mind and a grateful heart, I intend to leave this world tonight, taking with me that in which all my desires and dreams are now most sublimely and marvellously embodied. I refer, of course, to the divine Eurynome. Her I take in my breast. By the time you read this, dear Diomed, I shall be asleep on my pyre, with Charon’s piece under my tongue. With Eurynome in my arms, how can Hades, who left even hell for love of Persephone, deny us courtesy? Then rejoice for me, Diomed, for now I am one with Perfection. I cling to so elusive a thing in this my old age, and if I let myself live on in this place I should be forced to submit to the ignominy of the vulgar fear of death. And what impious hands might, after mine, caress Eurynome? My blessing upon the inspired Paulus, for whose everlasting happiness I will not fail to solicit the gods with all the eloquence of which my gratitude must make me capable.
B.
And even to this, Barbatus must add an antiquarian postscript:
I have chosen for Charon a coin of great beauty. It is a silver piece of Akragas, still unhandled as mere money, engraved on the obverse by Myron with the chariot of Helios, and on the reverse, by that master Polykrates, with a charming composition of eagles stooping to seize a hare: Infinitely more graceful than the blatant Athenian. Even that surly ferryman should be pleased. I think ten drachmæ not too little, and not too much, and the coin does not distend the mouth.
B.
‘I wish Soxias had kept his damned cup for a spittoon,’ I said, showing the letter to Paulus.
He read, and shrugged. ‘Barbatus was out of his wits.’
‘Ah, so I feared,’ said Ariaios, ‘but –’
‘Oh, you did, did you?’ I said. ‘You feared so, but! So you feared Barbatus was insane, but you followed his instructions, but you took his fee, and his business is here duly conveyed. Enough!’
‘But,’ said Ariaios, inexorably, ‘the noble Barbatus was perfectly composed, not at all demented, and it was not for me to question a gentleman’s right to dispose of his life or part of his personal property.’
‘The whole of his personal property,’ I corrected him.
‘In law, yes. Morally, perhaps. But in effect, noble Diomed, in effect?’
‘Legally, morally, and in effect,’ I said firmly, although I knew better.
Ariaios said: ‘Sir, sir – Barbatus’s pyre is in his walled park, and if the breeze changes, surely the house must catch, and a prince’s ransom will go to the flames with him! Oh sir, I have done my duty as a man of law – let me now do my duty as a citizen in warning you! There will be time to save the house.’
I had already called for my armour, and I contented myself with a contemptuous flap of the hand towards Ariaios by way of reply. I was well aware that a gentleman is as fr
ee to leave this world as he is free to come into it. In the matter of coming and going, the world keeps open house. But nobody worth regarding comes here out of the night, makes free for a lifetime, and then drifts off into the night again without leaving a little something, if only in courtesy. Even if he is carried away unexpectedly, his family, in common decency and respect, must assume that he has not forgotten Caesar – who may choose to exercise a paternal trusteeship on Grounds of Intention. Anyone who by negligence, let us say, allows a rich man’s valuables to be lost, stolen, or destroyed is – as may be, and will be, argued – responsible as an accessory to that loss or theft.
In a word: Barbatus’s family would have a great deal to say in Rome in the way of excuse; and good heads had rolled for less than the worth of the least of Barbatus’s gems.
‘Look!’ said Paulus, pointing to the north.
There was a redness in the sky. ‘Here we go,’ I said, cheerfully; the prospect of action generally invigorates me. ‘Ahoy, Pugnax! My guard!’
‘May I come with you?’ Paulus asked.
‘No. Go directly home.’
I left, buckling my sword, but Ariaios followed on my heels. In sheer fear he had broken out in a dew, like a rancid cheese, and he smelled like one.
‘I must be there, I must be there,’ he chattered. ‘I have a legal right, I have a legal right!’
‘Oh, come and get a split head, and be damned!’ I told him over my shoulder.
And he came. There were rewards to be got from Barbatus’s heirs. Love will make a doe rabbit fight a wildcat, despair will send a rat at the throat of a hound; and I have seen a nesting crow, wild with love for his mate, tear the eyes out of a hungry eagle. But save me from the frantic, dogged courage of shameless avarice!
The streets were already full of people, running. Barbatus’s pyre was burning white-and-gold, now, and I could smell the scent of the sweet oils, the sandalwood and the cedarwood and the essences in the drifting smoke.
