The stranger went quiet and straightened up. He turned his eyes to Cato.
“Cato,” he said, but Cato gestured at the man to stop.
“Stay away from me,” said Cato.
“I see you, Cato,” the stranger continued. “Here you stand before us, handsome and ruthless. The generals in Rome know about you, I’ve seen it for myself, the people in the streets of Rome whisper about you: ‘Cato, Cato, a future general, a man you can depend on to lead his soldiers through the deepest valleys and into the hardest battles, his men always trusting him like their own brother.’ Don’t worry about the people we’ve defeated, those miserable subjects, don’t listen to what they think is right or what they think is wrong. Look at this light,” he said. Suddenly, the stranger was holding a burning stick in his hands. “Look at how the light falls. One moment one of my feet is in shadow, and the next it’s in the light. It keeps changing,” he said, moving the burning stick back and forth in front of him. “What’s in the light, what’s in the shadows, what’s right, what’s wrong. We’ll go on living, we’ll survive, from one day to another, from one ruler to the next.”
“I don’t know who you are,” said Cato, interrupting him, “but you’re talking crap. I don’t believe you.”
The stranger got up. He was tall, much taller than I’d thought. His head almost touched the low ceiling.
“Don’t argue with me, little soldier,” he said. He reached out to Cato, palms open. “You’re carrying this load for us,” he whispered. “You, Cato, and your soldiers. Nobody can rule an inch of the Empire without you and your men.”
“I’ve been cutting up children,” said Cato.
“No,” said the stranger. “You’re fighting a war to rid this world of chaos, to defend everything that’s been built.” Cato’s face was twisted, almost as if he were trying to smile. I wanted to back him up, but there was something inside me, and I couldn’t get the words out. It was as if they were stuck in my mouth. I looked away.
“Get away before I strike you down, old man,” said Cato.
“I’m bigger than you,” said the stranger, still with his hands held out toward Cato.
“I’ve taken on bigger men than you before, and I’d do it again,” said Cato, but his voice was quieter now.
“Little soldier,” said the stranger. “Look at me, listen to me: are you that bad a man that you’d kill me?”
“I don’t want to listen to you. I’m not a bad man,” said Cato, having started to quiver. “I can still save myself and all the others here,” he went on. “I’m waiting for a chance to do some good. I won’t do anything else bad.”
“What’s that?” the stranger said. His voice seemed like thunder, filling the entire room. “Is that some of his light coming in here? What, didn’t you get rid of the poor little creature? Take hold of my hands, little soldier.” Cato stared at the palms of the stranger’s hands. We all stared. The stranger held his hands in front of Cato, and a weak light emanated from them.
“Take hold of my hands,” the stranger said again, and this time Cato lifted his arms.
Cato looked at his own hands. “No, no,” he said. “Stay away from me.”
My eyes met his, and I thought I saw something crawling inside. I’d never seen Cato like that. He started begging, pleading. He wasn’t being a leader; he was being pathetic. His hands rose up and were heading toward the stranger’s long fingers. Cato called out to me, to Tuscus. He called to Celsus. But it was as if we were all in a peaceful sleep. What was Cato fighting against? We were tough, we were made for this life. We were the chosen ones.
The stranger wrapped his fingers around Cato’s hands and nodded. “Cato, Cato, you are mine,” he said. Suddenly Cato twitched and froze where he stood. His head was thrown back, his chest rose up, and his mouth opened, with not a sound coming out. The stranger let go of Cato’s hands, and Cato fell to the floor. I ran forward, grabbed hold of him, and Cato gazed up at me. His eyes were burning, his lips forged into a smile. There were dark hollows around his hairline, and his hair was damp.
“He’s gone,” I said, looking around. Tuscus asked what had happened.
“Nothing,” said Cato suddenly. I let go of him and got up.
“Our mission is complete,” he went on. “You did a good job, we need to sleep.” His voice sounded so clear: “Help me up.”
Tuscus took hold of him.
“Come on, Capito, help me up too,” said Cato. I put his arm around my shoulder and pulled him up. He staggered as he balanced on his feet. “I want to sleep,” he said. I nodded and said yes, looking over at the door. There was nobody there. Tuscus, who was standing with me, followed my gaze.
“I can’t remember,” said Tuscus. “All I can remember is a voice. What happened?”
“Nothing,” I said. We put Cato down and rolled a blanket around him. His eyes were closed and he was breathing normally. He had a handsome face. So young, but battle worn. With those big hands and those broad shoulders. The way the blanket had been wrapped around him, it was as if a future emperor were lying there.
I was woken by a cock crowing. Everything was wrapped in a blanket of darkness. “Go back to bed,” I muttered, but the bird was right, as the next time I opened my eyes, it was light. The world emerged. The small opening in the wall, the crack beneath the door, the bodies of the others in the room. Celsus was stirring next to me.
“How many were there last night?” he asked. I didn’t answer; I was trying to remember.
“Sixteen,” Tuscus said from the other side of the room. “We’ll have to sharpen our swords now.”
“Sixteen? Wasn’t it fourteen?” said Celsus. “You don’t need to sharpen anything, those creatures were like soft little animals.”
“I always sharpen my sword,” said Cato, clearing his throat and spitting. “It can never be too sharp. We’ve always got to keep our weapons in good order. They’re the tools of our trade.”
“But they were little children,” said Celsus. “They don’t count as much as a fully grown Jew.”
“Divide it by two,” barked Cato. “That makes eight, or seven.”
“Eight,” said Tuscus.
“Seven,” said Celsus.
“It was more than that,” I said. “At least ten.”
“You mean divided by two or not?” asked Celsus.
Tuscus started sniggering, and Celsus followed him. Then Cato started laughing too, and I immediately joined in. We were filled with such power that it was as if nothing could stand in our way. We laughed, we got up, we found our way to each other. Cato put his arm around me, I put my arm around Tuscus, and Tuscus put his arm around Celsus. We were one, and the sound of our power must have reached out right across Bethlehem.
2 THE FIRSTBORN
I
Jacob’s coming up on forty now, and it looks like it’ll be an auspicious age for him. I see him less and less, but if you see your grown-up children too much, it means they’ve still got a long way to go. I think Jacob is searching for everything that was hidden from him, and is finding it. It could’ve been the opposite; he could’ve tried to hide everything that had found its way to him.
The last time he was here, I noticed that his hair had lost its grip on top of his head. He didn’t try to conceal it, and I tried not to stare. My own hair is long, with locks falling down from my head and over my shoulders. Sarah, Jacob’s mother, had such hair that I couldn’t get to sleep at night. I stayed awake, my fingers entwined in a weave I never thought would let me go. But she died, and I smoothed oil into her hair, packed it in cloth, and lowered Sarah’s whole body down into the ground. When I saw Jacob’s bald scalp that last time, I felt it was a sign: now Sarah’s body has rotted away. The very weave that was to cling to me forever is no more.
“Father?” says Jacob.
“Yes?” I reply. I’ve always listened to my firstborn. His difficulties with words and how they stuck in his throat; I know of other parents who beat or mock their children for less. I
heard tell of a father in Samaria who killed his two daughters and his son because they didn’t speak clearly or properly. But I noticed that Jacob’s words came more freely when I stopped and turned toward him. Jacob always needed me to stay quiet and listen. Now he expects nothing else of me, even though he no longer finds himself tongue-tied.
“We’re lucky, Father,” says Jacob. He tells me about high taxes, about what some farmers he met on his last trade journey told him, and about some problems with a merchant from Jaffa. I ask him short, quick questions. Jacob passes his hand over his head and says that far too many people have to give up too much. He doesn’t like traveling around without stopping to care about other things than just his trading. I raise my voice to say that, even if it is our duty to help others in need, this land is full of needy people.
“My father, your grandfather, came from poverty too,” I tell him. “We’ve worked our way up to where we are now. What you’re doing for your family now, all the traveling, all the bargaining, will be the foundation for you and your brothers’ children to build a living.”
“Father,” says Jacob, “you’re getting worked up.”
“I’m not getting worked up,” I reply. Jacob smiles, and when he does, I can see Sarah in his eyes.
“Father,” he says, “listen to this.” He tells me a story he heard when he was last in Judea, in Jerusalem. It’s a funny story and it makes me laugh. We laugh together. I put my hand on his knee, and Jacob puts his hand on my shoulder. Then he suggests we should pray together. We kneel down next to each other. He starts with God, the Father, our Lord, but ends with Jesus. The Son of God is in our hearts. I am glad neither of us bore witness to how they killed him. Jacob doesn’t tell me much about what the two of them saw in each other, or what they talked about, but he still gives thanks, every day. I try to remember too, but there are days when I forget, and there are days when I don’t dare. Even when I hear Jacob speak, the words trundling out of his mouth like little ripe berries.
My son, what was it that Jesus did? How did he get you to speak without stuttering or stammering or clenching your hands? What was it of God’s love that he put in you to rid you of that trace of evil?
If only I knew.
What I do know is that there is evil in all of us, and there is evil in the Roman power ruling over us. Jacob speaks of the powers of darkness. I’ve seen what they can do, and I’ve given up trying to understand what God can do. After Herod’s death and the fighting that followed, I saw with my own eyes how Publius Quinctilius Varus came to Jerusalem with three legions and crucified two thousand of our people outside the city walls. My family and I were spared, but was that because we’d kept evil at bay, or because evil had stayed close to us? Are we possessed by those dark forces? Are we the ones shattering our people’s hope?
There was a time when I thought that my own child was possessed. Sarah was taken away. She gave me a child and was taken away. Our child was named Jacob, and I passed Jacob on to other women. I raised him up in their hands. I lifted him out of my life.
As he grew older and gained brothers and sisters from other mothers, I began to hear how his voice struggled. I could see his whole body struggle: his little face writhing, his fingers twisted, even his toes crooked. Sometimes he would close his eyes, squeezing them until they became two wrinkled slits. Other times his eyes were wide open, as if the evil were pressing on them from behind, as if the words stuck there were about to tear his whole body to pieces. At first I thought he was consumed by the memories of his birth, when Sarah’s screams for mercy filled the whole world up to the vault of heaven. Then I thought evil had left its mark on Jacob, branded him when he came out of his mother. I thought this evil was waiting for him to rot and end up in the soil so it could consume him.
Jacob bears no external signs of all those years of evil. He can talk about anything at all and with whomever he wants, even with the people he holds responsible for the occupation and all the killing. I’ve seen him talk with high council priests, and he seemed so at ease. I’ve seen him talking with Roman officers, Thracian and Gaulish soldiers red with rage, but Jacob made them laugh. What they were laughing about I never asked.
I’ve seen him standing together with a poor farmer, holding each other’s hands, crowning each other with wreaths of flowing, barely audible words.
But I’ve also seen my grown son walking alone in the pale morning light, muttering, gray and ashen-faced. I’ve seen how he can close up, even in good company, like a flower blooming in reverse.
Jacob is not just one person. But there are no others like him. He’s my son, my firstborn.
He’s my son, and God knows how alone he was during his first few years. I was never there. Sarah had gone. Judith was there, Leah was there, Mary, Deborah, Elizabeth. I remember all the women’s names, but I can’t remember who they were anymore. All those hands holding Jacob, all those kisses he was given, all the times he cried, wanting to be picked up.
I didn’t know my own child. I didn’t want to touch him. If I went over to where he lay, or watched him crawl, I saw the shadows approaching me. And out of those shadows reached Sarah, her body decayed, with hands like claws, and gray, sullen eyes. She didn’t come to me in my sleep; she came in my waking hours, every time I laid eyes on Jacob.
He grew up, little by little. He grew on me too. And Sarah had gone. Slowly, like twilit clouds, she was no longer to be seen, vanishing a second time. It slowly dawned on me that Jacob was mine. I was his.
Jacob’s seven brothers and sisters have not always been good siblings. There were times, as I remember it, that they were horrible to him. The other boys made rhythmic noises and laughed at him. They repeated everything he said or tried to say. One time, they were so awful to him that Jacob went silent. He would no longer open his mouth or say anything. I had to beat him to get him to talk again. I beat the words back into him. I subdued the stain of evil that had been left on him.
Now his brothers and sisters are all grown up. I see them all the time. His brothers’ wives, and their children. They are occupied with their own thoughts and families. They make offerings to the Temple and to the priests. They’re what I used to be. Now, when Jacob comes, his brothers drop whatever they’re doing. They no longer remember how Jacob used to be, and Jacob lets them forget, even though I know he remembers.
One night, last autumn, it was cold and we both wore dark, heavy clothes wrapped around our bodies. Jacob had been home for several days and had let his brothers take part in an important deal, but there had been problems and arguments. His brothers thought they hadn’t gotten a big enough share of the transaction; they thought that Jacob was pocketing more than he deserved. They came to me and said they feared Jacob was planning to cut them all out of their inheritance when I passed away one day. I said that was nonsense and told them to put things straight between themselves. Jacob took care of it, but afterward he stared out into the night and asked me if I remembered the child killings in Bethlehem. I told him I couldn’t remember anything of that sort from those days, but that I’d heard stories about it.
“Have you heard how he was saved?” Jacob asked.
I nodded, but I no longer knew which stories were true and which were just intended to make Jesus, the Son of God, seem like Moses.
“It was a spider,” said Jacob. “A spider spun its web in front of the cave where Jesus and his parents were hiding. Because of that web, the soldiers didn’t think there was anybody inside. I once asked Jesus,” Jacob continued, “like the fool that I was, if it was true, if there really was a spider in the cave.”
Jacob fell silent and bowed his head. “Jesus seemed so, I don’t know what else to call it, but he seemed tired,” he said. “His shining eyes, they were surrounded by shadows, and his hands were shaking. I could see it, even if he tried to hide them.”
“What did he say?” I asked.
“He said he was scared of spiders,” said Jacob. I remember that conversation; I even remember the nigh
t and those dark clothes we were wearing. The wind was silent like waves can be out on the water. The stars were faint, almost flickering, and there was Jacob’s raspy voice. “He was scared of spiders.” That’s how he said it.
“A savior afraid of the smallest creatures: it’s laughable. But I’ve thought about it,” he continued, “and I think that Jesus was showing me how small and simple we humans can be, how we can all be afraid of the smallest things. We’re small and simple when we let ourselves be driven by what we fear instead of what we love. Today, my brothers have shown me how small and simple they are.”
Jacob is my firstborn. I am his. He has no children; I don’t know why, and I don’t want to ask. I have no right to demand any such thing or to grieve about it. I gave him so little when he was small, and as my first, he is entitled to more from me. I will admit there are nights, dark and cold and empty nights, when I think about how I’ve never seen him with a woman. He’s my eldest, and Sarah, together with the man I once was, young and different, will both die with him.
Jacob will be with the Lord, while I will wander in the darkness, looking for Sarah.
Thoughts like these weighed heavily on me for several years, but now they’re small and light, and eventually they’ll fade away and vanish. I see a child, I see a grown person, I see people who have destroyed themselves, and I think of how Jacob will take everything I’ve built up on into the future. If it were to stop with him, what can I do? I’ve done my part. I had Jacob, I was his father. I led him to Jesus.
I was broken. Jacob was struggling with his words, they were tearing him apart. He bore his mark of evil. He was trying to say “I’m going for a walk, Father,” but what came out of his mouth was: “I’m g-g-g-going for a wa-wa-wa forawa-wa-walk.” He started to tear out his nails, his fingertips became all red, and I had to check them every morning and evening to see if there was any swelling or inflammation. I made sure that he always had someone with him, or that he was near me.
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