by Gerald Kersh
But why, suddenly, had something cold come out of nowhere and walked between my shoulders? I went back to my reading.
Paulus’s purpose in making these strange excursions about Jerusalem in the evening was perfectly clear to me: it was part of a trick he had learned from me. The owl is a sagacious bird – that is to say, he is wiser than mice. Therefore, he knows that if he hoots in the dark, the little creatures, frightened by his voice, stir uneasily where they lie. So he comes down on his silent wings and strikes at the sound of their stirring. But men in hiding are not so foolish as mice or small birds – they think!
When the Accuser comes knocking by night, it is the innocent who start; the guilty keep very still. Hence, if it is man you are hunting, make your alarm and listen for the silences. And all this Paulus explained to Afranius sententiously and at some length – for which reason, no doubt, I made the impatient sounds Dionë imitated. I was asking myself:
‘Diomed, were you mistaken in this boy? What puerile play-acting is this? Is he out of his mind, to strut before Afranius like a lad in his first toga?’
But Afranius wrote on:
‘As one of the participators in this sinister dumb show I find it foolish and embarrassing. But this same fool’s parade seems to fill passers-by with a singular horror. To play it as Paulus does, one must be by vocation something of an actor: which is the same as saying, shameless with calculation.
‘First he stops before a gate: when he stops, I – outwardly a man of snow, but inwardly itching to hide my face – stop too; the guard comes to the halt with a stamp and a clatter while He, She and It, thrown together by their own momentum, form an unholy knot. Overhead our torches flare. Nobody speaks. Paulus then stands quite still for several minutes, stiff as a poorly executed bronze image, scrutinising doors and walls. Then he takes out a set of ivory tablets, looks at it intently, nods, snaps his fingers, and so we all go on, in and out of a myriad wynds and closes, fetid back-doubles and unsavoury blind alleys.
‘As we pass, the underworld of Jerusalem seems to hold its breath. Foul mouths hang agape in mid-obscenity and drunken voices crack into silence; a brazen whore, throwing open her dress in a doorway for some tipsy soldier, stands frozen, thighs apart, while her customer congeals with his penis in his hand. We were defeated only once, and that by a woman with a basket on her head.
‘The passage was narrow, and she would not give way. “Move, woman,” says Paulus, in his most peremptory tones. But she, a sturdy, copper-headed wench, puts her great fists on her hips and stands with her legs wide open – legs stout enough to support the weight of a house – and defies him in strident Galilean to do his worst. “I know you!” she screams. “Why, by God, if my husband caught something like you he’d throw it back for being too small! You’re Saul the Pharisee, ain’t you? Go and kiss Caesar’s arse, you afflicted minnow! Which end of you does your wife use, your head? Get out of it! Me move over for you? Ha-ha! Call your soldiers” – all the time her basket is swaying and swinging, perfectly balanced, although she must have been somewhat drunk – “What are you after, taxes? Or is it Nazarenes? Well, I haven’t got no money, and I haven’t got no Nazarenes – and, if I had, you shouldn’t get any! Yah, Pharisee night bird! God bless Rabbi Jesus!”
‘Paulus says: “Take her away.” At this, she falls back a pace, having lashed herself into one of those blind feminine ecstasies of rage, and shrieks: “What, take me away, you son of an unlucky mother and a filthy father? Take me, you child of the separation, you Onan, you! I’m Debby the Flower-Seller, I am, you chalky Pharisee – and I’ll give you some flowers, God strike me blind, I’ll flower you to make a mess of you for a month, I will! I will!” So saying, she reaches under her clothes and tugs out and brandishes a bloody rag, at the sight of which our lion-hearted Paulus jumps back – for the very touch of the menses is to the devout Jew pollution extraordinary, and must be followed by long and tiresome purifications. Taking advantage of the momentary confusion, this notable woman tosses her basket under the feet of the approaching soldiers and, bounding like a hare, is gone into the shadows.
Paulus said: “Debby, or Deborah, a flower seller in this quarter – let her be arrested tonight!” But nobody could find her; it appeared that, having soaked her head in cold water, she thought it expedient to leave town.
‘I wish her luck, wherever she is. I tried to make capital of this incident by asking Paulus: “Exactly where is your clowning supposed to lead? This is a devil of a method of catching heretics, surely?”
‘He, smiling, replied: “It is no method at all for catching anything or anybody, Afranius. It is a trick Diomed uses to stir up rookeries, I believe. But our quarry doesn’t inhabit a particular quarter, like the criminals. The Nazarenes are not a criminal class in the true sense of the term. They are heretics, fanatics, artisans, and so forth: they can’t bribe their way, and it is not worth any criminal’s while to harbour them. All this foolery of ours is the merest display, or rather a feint. People are fools. They think I am looking for Nazarenes in the streets. Bah! I am merely spreading a little insecurity among the lower orders. The thieves, and such-like, will soon find the presence of a Nazarene disconcerting. So will your ordinary working man with a living to get. Every man is at heart a traitor. In a week the street will be blocked with informers –”
‘I interrupted. “How do you discriminate between the true and the false witnesses?”
‘He was back at me with my own words to throw in my face, saying: “Oh, in this life, that which is true so heavily outweighs that which is not, that if I believe everything I find the odds on my side…. Eh, Afranius?”
‘I said: “And no doubt your God has seen fit to reveal to you this End?” I was irritated by his bantam cockiness. “Less presumption, young man!”
‘He went on: “Really, Afranius, you must not take me for a complete fool. Do you know the proverb: The fish always begins to stink from the head down?”
‘“Well?”
‘“Judaea is the fish, let us say. Jesus is the stink. Now you cannot believe that it is the hewer, or the drawer, or the artisan, who has time or room in his wambling brain for religious or political heresy? Come now, dear Afranius, you know that dangerous dissension is the naughty little pastime of the idle. Tell me, what momentous idea ever came from the people that work all day to get bread? Only the idle poor have time for the luxurious chatter of the idle rich. I do not regard the rabble, which I can handle with a dung-fork – give me the Rich, my dear Afranius, give me the Rich and a pair of tweezers!” There was a fever in the boy, and so I asked him, if he pleased, to expound.
‘I said: “I grasp the gist of what you are driving at, Paulus – but tell me some more.”
‘He did so with an impatient twirl of the fingers. “Oh, the argument of the Nazarene Jesus is, in effect, that man has nothing in the world but his fleshly harness to lose, and all eternity to gain. Do I deny this? No. It is a luxurious philosophy. But tell it, if you please, to the true man of the world. Sell me Jesus’s argument to the man alive who is wealthy enough to chaffer in righteousness – say to him: Money can buy poverty; give and you get it – just you try it and see!”
‘I said: ‘Paulus, you must make yourself clearer.”
‘He said: “Oh well, then, consider Neihshon ben Asher, a rich Jew, a nobleman. Why do you raise your eyebrows, Afranius? There is Jewish blood quite as thick as wolf’s milk. Neihshon ben Asher; an idle man of an idle family this past three generations, living off his rents. The poor hate him, of course; the poor are bound to hate the rich. Bear in mind, now, that Jesus of Nazareth was a poor man’s prophet. Tell me, as a gentleman who has tasted all the pleasures, what can titillate the rich palate as exquisitely as the affectation of a pauper’s philosophy? So Neihshon ben Asher is a Nazarene. And what alienates the poor like this same affectation? Because a poor man pretending to be rich is only a trickster, but a rich man playing poor is a usurper: he mocks hunger, he shames poverty, he makes a cushion of the swollen belly. Endea
vour to understand me – one truly poor Nazarene is an item, one rich Nazarene brings Nazareth in a bankrupt’s lot wholesale to a dead market. Asher’s great-grandfather took the unborn calf and bought the crop before the corn was green. This Asher counts in millions, and yawns, yearning for new savours … for even among us, you know, we have our equivalents of Little Lucius –”
‘I said, with some irony: “Oh no! Don’t tell me so!”
‘“Fact, I assure you. So! Tomorrow, or the day after – let ’em sweat a little, they can’t leave town – I arraign Neihshon ben Asher, and his cousin Ahiezer too, for secret questioning. Not so secret, but silly old Barnabas Hagith will have information of it; and his turn comes the day after that. Well, Afranius, and now will you tell Diomed that I am playing the clown in the open streets?”
‘I said nothing. But if the Sanhedrin, through Paulus, decide to move against the likes of the ben Ashers and the Hagiths – who will be mulcted in stupendous fines, no doubt – why, then we are up against the gathered might of Israel. For Paulus’s politics are balanced to please the Temple and the poor, both at the same time; while the rich, as a class, will find themselves in no way embarrassed.
‘I only hope, my dear Diomed, that you may have nothing to beg the gods’ forgiveness for, old bestiarius of men that you are, who has taught a fox the taste of human blood! …’ Meticulous as old Tibullus himself, Afranius went on to describe the pall of terror under which Jerusalem lay, strangely quiet, while Paulus went methodically about his business.
Paulus, all of a sudden, affected an air of Pharisaical detachment; he let the authorities do his shouting while he stood by, squeezed to the eyebrows by pent-up commiseration. He was deeply concerned, he profoundly regretted, he was doing no less than his etcetera, etcetera. It grieved him that … but. Far be it from him … still nevertheless. Notwithstanding so-and-so, such-and-such remained. He knew 2, and he knew 2; but not to add each to each, or multiply each by each … The result might be 3, it might be 5; Paulus knew 2 and 2 … The ben Ashers cracked, letting out first in a beaded perspiration of self-interested inquiry, then a plaintive fart of protest, followed by a piddle of extenuation and at last a strained dollop of pent-up information.
‘Silly old Barnabas Hagith,’ as Paulus called him, opened his silly old mouth in moist surprise and said, of course he was associated with Nazarenes – was intensely interested in Nazarenes – wished he had known Jesus personally – had invited this discredited Rabbi to his house more than once, only Jesus wouldn’t come. Why? But didn’t everyone know that he, Hagith, was working on a book to be entitled The Golden Calf, or The Gullibility of the Multitude? Certainly he was interested in Jesus the Nazarene; but so was he interested in a Nubian thaumaturgist who could make people believe that a rose-bush could sprout and bloom in twenty seconds, and also an Indian with a rope … Paulus then begged leave to cross-examine Hagith. Afranius said that he reported, of course, on hearsay; but if there is any truth in the old saying: ‘The flood goes, but the sand remains’, it was there demonstrated. Grain by grain, tireless old Hagith trickled whispering back to his first position. It must have been worth hearing.
‘Do you believe that Jesus of Nazareth was King of the Jews?’ Paulus asked.
Hagith answered, scaly, deliberate, swaying his head like a tortoise. ‘Here you open an interesting corner of the subject. The Procurator, Pontius Pilate, stated so in writing and posted his statement in public. Am I to say: “Rome lies”? If I say so, I say that which I should not, and may cause trouble. Am I then to say: “Rome does not lie”? Then again I say that which I should not, and may cause confusion. So what do I believe? I believe in peace and quiet. The tunny-fish is a king of the fishes. So among tunny-fish everyone is a king of the fishes. Which is King of the Tunny-Fish? Among men, every Jew is Chosen of God. But which is God’s Chosen Jew? Dare I say that such a one is, or is not? Ahem! … Now Jesus of Nazareth rode into the city on an ass, and a multitude hailed him as King. This brings me back to the subject matter of my little book concerning the gullibility of multitudes. Firstly –’
‘Excuse me. Please answer directly and to the point. Are you or are you not at present in association with any professed Nazarene?’
‘Excuse me, Saul. How do I know? Who professes to be a Nazarene? It is wrong to be a Nazarene, so who dares to say he is a Nazarene? I do not, for example, associate with criminals. But before I exchange friendly words with an acquaintance, am I to ask: “Pardon me, but have you uncovered your mother’s nakedness, committed sodomy, or murdered your neighbour just lately? Kindly show me a testimonial from a reliable rabbi.” Must I ask this?’
‘Do you know any followers of Jesus, then?’
‘First tell me what they look like, what they talk like. Have they marks, characteristics? “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s,” says the Nazarene, quoting Jesus. And: “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s,” says the tax-collector. What do I know?’
‘You have given money to Nazarenes. You have entertained them in your house, Hagith.’
‘So? Is a physician in love with you because he looks into your eyes? Is a surgeon in league with leeches? Am I a lover of desolation because I study Petra? Do I walk cheek-by-jowl with death because I annotate a history of things past? To hint this, even, is blasphemous, young sir!’
‘Pardon me, learned and pious Hagith. Leeches were made for the relief of man, not man for the nourishment of leeches.’
‘I ask to be informed, good Saul – can there be nourishment divorced from relief, or relief separate from nourishment?’
‘This is a matter to be discussed in another place and at another time,’ said Paulus easily. ‘Now tell us, have you not a secretary name Eli, nicknamed Kamzan?’
‘Because the poor fellow has a withered left hand like a pair of tongs. Eli? Yes. How many hands does a man need, to write?’
‘As many tongues as a man needs to talk,’ said Paulus.
‘Yes, yes,’ said Hagith, with a shake of his poor old head, ‘and that one is sometimes one too many for, as the saying goes: “The tongue has no bones, but it is strong enough to break a man’s neck.”’
‘Apt,’ said Paulus quietly. ‘Too true. Eli-Kamzan has a loose tongue, and it dribbles. But it breaks you, Hagith. With this tongue he has condemned you. You are a Nazarene!’
Moved to something like indignation, Hagith said: ‘Oh, even if I were, Eli would not say so. It is improper to mention this, and I do so only in protest, but I took Eli into my house when he was a lame and crippled child. Young sir, I taught him. I said to him: “Don’t believe them when they tell you that you have one shoulder lower than the other: the fact of the matter is, you have one shoulder higher than the other. Have courage,” I said. “If you had no hands at all, and God willed you to write, you would write with your toes.” What, Eli? Eli spy? Upon me? It is written that there is reason in everything. But in this there is no reason.’
Paulus handed the old man a packet of documents, saying: ‘You wrote these. I have here, also, Eli’s diary, together with a number of letters he wrote at your dictation, Hagith.’
Turning the parchments over stupidly in his knotty hands, Hagith said: ‘But he was a crippled child, and I took him in’ – over and over again, with something like incredulity.
Paulus said: ‘Naturally. Why else should he betray you?’
‘Silly boy! I suppose Eli takes half of any fine or confiscation the judges may see fit to impose upon me?’ said Hagith; and, when Paulus nodded – ‘Oh, unlucky lad! I had not told him that, being childless, I had made him my heir! Poor Eli.’
‘In short, Hagith, you confess?’
‘I confess? Confess what?’
‘Nazarene affiliations, to begin with.’
‘Young sir, I am a good Jew, as all the world knows, and a dutiful subject of Caesar, and I don’t know what you mean by “Nazarene”. You must define the charge. Come, now, if I love veal, do I therefore worship Isis? If I delight in fri
ed fish, am I therefore devoted to Dagon? Does contemplation of the dawn make me Mithraic, or admiration for the rising moon an adorer of Ashtaroth? Does –?’
‘If you please!’
‘Does the fact that I do not eat pig indicate that I hold swine sacred, as the Indians regard the cow, whose flesh is forbidden to them as pork is to us? Does –?’
… The examination of Hagith ended more or less as it had begun, incriminating letters and diaries notwithstanding; for this was Jew-meet-Jew, and the man at the bar was no wind-dried son of a hairy carpenter, but a rich old scholar of noble family and hitherto unquestioned piety. The affair was ‘adjourned for further inquiry’. If Paulus was in any way disconcerted by this, he concealed the fact; put on, indeed, a knowing air and twisted a minor reverse into the appearance of an important victory.
He said to Afranius: ‘Of course, I could have told you so at the start’ – taking the wind out of his sails by anticipating his very words – ‘You see, my dear Afranius, if Hagith were a Nazarene ten times over, he would have to go scot free, for now. For now. In the first place he is too rich. Secondly, his wealth doesn’t come out of some conflicting business interest. Thirdly, he is very highly connected, by family. And fourthly, the rabble in general likes Hagith for his so-called “benevolence”, for he gives a fortune in alms. If we punish Hagith, we scarify rich and poor alike, don’t you see. And the common pack growls: “If kind-hearted Hagith is a Nazarene, all we can say is, there ought to be a few more like him.”’
Afranius asked: ‘What have you achieved, then, by pestering this silly old fellow, as you were calling him only a couple of days ago?’
‘Who, Hagith? Hagith silly? Did I say that? I must have failed to make my meaning clear. He is an old fox, and he knows we know, now, where his hole is. Achieved? Why, I have the names and whereabouts of his correspondents, and I have Eli-Kamzan’s diaries. Remember,’ said Paulus darkly, ‘that Hagith is old and retired. Benevolent as he may be considered, there will be other benefactors, Afranius – to stir the spirit while they fill the belly, too.’
