Children of God

by Lars Petter Sveen

  As we were joined together, so our stories were also joined together. When I told her about our father and how Simon and I lived alone, it was Anna’s tears that came falling. When Anna told me about her sister, Ruth, and about her other men, I was the one who became furious. But Anna didn’t tell whole stories. They were broken off at the ends, they began suddenly, they never ended, they just kept on going, and I couldn’t understand what she was telling me. Sometimes she might mention a name and say that it was number two, or three, or five. One time, she told me about Ruth and how they’d taken care of each other, how she sometimes still thought her elder sister was out there somewhere, living a happy life. Sometimes Anna might be singing, and as soon as the song ended, she told a story about how Ruth had taught her the song, where it had happened, and what the weather had been like then. Everything was told separately, and everything was connected. Or rather, I wished that everything were connected. I wanted to hold Anna tightly, shake away all the bad things, and let her see the brightness of day that always lies waiting behind the darkness.

  Now that I’ve grown older, I’ve realized that every one of us has so many stories. It’s up to us to understand how they come together; it’s impossible to see the pattern. I try to understand, Anna tries to understand. But everything moves, like the desert sand in the wind.

  There were so many of us, I couldn’t keep track of all our stories. I once heard somebody telling the story of Clopas of Sepphoris, who was close to Thomas. It was said that the reason he was missing fingers from his left hand was that his shield made of weak planks had been shattered by a soldier in fighting up in the mountains. His fingers had been cut right off, but Clopas had killed the soldier and got out of it alive. Now he was here with us, minus four fingers and a little wiser for it, as Simon used to say. Simon had little time for people who took up arms. I said he should show respect for those who’d laid down their swords and shields to follow the Master.

  “A little smarter than they were before,” said Simon, “still doesn’t make them very smart.”

  One time when we were camped in the valley below Mount Gilboa, we noticed a group of people approaching us. They were carrying weapons, and some of us feared they were a band of thieves. But when the group reached us, they greeted us and said they came in peace. The small group’s leader introduced himself as their commander.

  “What you see in front of you now are only a few of us, but there are many of us,” he said. “We’re like the shadows: our numbers only grow when the great, strong sun shines more weakly.”

  “And when it’s night, then there are none of you. You disappear into the darkness,” said Simon. “You’re welcome to be here with us,” he continued, “but please put your weapons away.”

  “If that is your wish, we’ll lay down everything,” the commander said. “But that won’t be easy for us to do, as what we’re carrying can’t be separated from our hands like any tool you can put down at the end of the day. Ours are tools of liberation.”

  “Well,” said Simon, “you can liberate yourselves over there, and when you’re finished, you’re welcome to sit with us.”

  Then the commander became annoyed and asked if this was the prophet he’d heard about. Simon told him that he wasn’t a prophet, and that we didn’t want to have weapons where we were.

  “It is the Prince of Peace we have among us,” Simon continued. “If someone were to see us with weapons, that would be another reason for enemies to come after us.”

  The commander nodded, turned to his group, and told them to lay down all their weapons. Simon gave Mary a signal, and they went off together to find the Master. But he was nowhere to be found, and nobody knew where he’d gone. Mary thought he’d gone off alone, like he sometimes did. Simon asked me to take somebody with me to look for him. Just then the Master emerged from the descending evening darkness and walked into the growing light of the bonfires.

  “Lord,” said Simon, “there are rebels here, and they want to talk with you.”

  The Master called for his closest followers, gesturing at me to come too. The rest carried on preparing things for the night. Our evening meal was being made, wood was being gathered, prayer groups were being formed, and the sick were being seen to and cared for. It was decided who would keep watch through the night.

  We sat down together and shared the leftovers we’d kept from the day before. The rebels ate all they were given, but none of them spoke. The Master turned to the commander and asked him why they’d come. What did they want?

  “We’ve heard stories about you,” the commander said. “We’ve heard what you’ve done, what you’ve said. We’re both fighting against the same powers, against the army of darkness. I’ve heard that you’re the Prince of Peace, so I’ve come to you to find out more.”

  “The Prince of Peace?” said the Master, turning toward Simon and the others. “Have you heard that one before? The Prince of Peace, I haven’t been called that before, have I?”

  A few people sniggered, but the Master apologized and said he didn’t mean to make fun of them. Then he told them who we were, and what we were doing. When the commander started asking questions, the Master let Thomas, John, and Mary answer. He sat still, listening. Simon drew in the sand with a twig.

  “You can see for yourselves the way our people are being killed, the way the occupiers and those who collaborate with them are pillaging the country,” the commander said. “They’re beasts, monsters, destroying everything that honors God and our own history. We’ll be like livestock to the slaughter if we don’t resist them. So I say that we must stand together and fight. We must stand together and drive them into the sea.”

  “Lay down your weapons,” the Master said. “Then we can stand together. If you want to join us, we’ll welcome you.”

  The commander fell silent. He took out a small leather canteen, drank from it, and then spat behind him.

  “We’ve always borne arms,” he said. “None of our people became kings without bearing arms, and none will become kings without them.”

  “Where are those kings now?” the Master asked. “Where’s their kingdom?”

  “Where are you after such a long time?” the commander replied. “Where are you now, out here in the wilds, with no crown as far as I can see, surrounded by whores and lepers.”

  Several of us started to protest, and I was about to get up, but the Master silenced us. The commander hadn’t finished. He looked at all of us, and then his eyes fixed on the Master again.

  “Who are you?” he said. “You’re just yet another band of people dreaming about wandering through the wilderness. You’re still dreaming of Moses. It’s time to wake up. I don’t want to be there watching when the enemy comes after you.”

  “Where will you be then?” Simon asked, making me jump. Simon had been sitting there quietly the whole time, and this was the first thing he’d said. “Where will you be when they come?” he went on. “Will you be up in the mountains, in caves, will you be sitting there, carving your own rules into stone tablets?”

  “Who are you?” the commander asked. “Who is this?”

  “This is Simon Peter,” the Master said. “He’s one of the people closest to me.”

  “If he’s close to you, then I’ll let this rest, but what kind of a way is that to speak to us? We’ve been fighting, we are still fighting for our people. We’re fighting for God, we don’t want foreign gods or enemy banners. Do you know how many we’ve lost? Do you know how many have fallen in our struggle?”

  “But what for?” Simon cut in. “What did they die for? What happened to them, how can you add something after their deaths?”

  “I can’t add anything,” the commander responded. “That’s up to God, but I can honor them, I can keep the struggle going, like we do every day.”

  “And then you’ll die,” said Simon. “You’re no heroes. There are no heroes, only people. In this world, you can only be a person who carries on, or a person who’s torn away.”
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  At this, the commander got up, and all the men with him got back on their feet.

  “Listen to what our Master’s saying,” said Simon. “Lay down your weapons. The army of darkness is so great that it will consume you all.”

  “Peter,” said the Master.

  Simon got up and looked at the Master. “I’m finished here,” he said. “Lord, I don’t want anything to do with these people, they want war, they’re living off the same deaths as the soldiers and the guards in this land.”

  Then he left us. I got up and followed him. I heard them go on speaking behind us.

  “Simon,” I said, “wait, what’s wrong with you? How can you talk to them like that?”

  Simon stopped and turned toward me. He didn’t say anything and just stood there, looking at me. When I went over to him, he took hold of my shoulder and pulled me close to him.

  “Little brother,” he murmured.

  The rebels gathered together. They were to stay the night with us before we parted in the morning. One of them came toward us. He seemed older than the others and had a stick that he prodded in the ground ahead of him. When he reached us, I could see that his eyes were gray and white, like a fish’s eyes.

  “Greetings, Simon Peter and Andrew,” he said. “I’m blind, and yet I see many things. I wish to talk with you, Peter, if you have time for an old man.”

  Simon greeted him, as did I. The old man passed his hand over Simon’s face, and then mine. Even if he was blind, it looked like he was staring straight at us.

  “I’m what stays in the shadows while the light falls elsewhere,” he said. “You were harsh to them, Simon Peter.”

  I stared at the old man’s hands: they were pale, his skin was blotchy. How old was he, and how was he able to travel around holding weapons? Simon seemed to be wondering the same thing.

  “You’ve lived a long life,” he said. “What are you doing with a group like this? How did the commander and his men talk you into it?”

  The old man didn’t answer, he just smiled faintly, and then said: “You mustn’t be so hard on them, think about all their sacrifices.”

  “It’s not the right way,” Simon told him. “It won’t lead to anything other than more sacrifices and more loss. If armed groups win out, or if the rulers carry on in their way, our land will be destroyed.”

  “How do you know?” the old man asked. “Maybe it’s the only way.”

  Simon began to protest, but the old man waved his stick, and Simon stopped.

  “Listen to me,” said the old man. “Listen to me, Simon Peter. I can’t get close to your master, I won’t even try, this is as close as I can get. You’re here in front of me. I’m going to tell you a story. I’ve tried to be someone who changes the world, I’m still trying. Did you believe yourself when you believed your master? I say that doubting or giving up is natural. I’d like to have a word with you. Could we be alone for a minute? I’m hardly ever sure, I’m doubting even now. Can you believe that? I give you my word.”

  The old man’s voice was like a soft incantation. I tried to open my mouth, but it was caught shut. Even Simon was quiet and didn’t move. I stood there, still in Simon’s arms as the old man spoke to us. What his story was about I can’t remember. It’s almost gone, it was never for my ears. I remember only his voice, it was everywhere, and him talking about Jesus’s death. It felt as if something were climbing inside me, into my mouth, down my throat, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I was about to retch, I was having trouble breathing. How long it lasted, I don’t know, but after a while, the old man fell silent, and Simon moved.

  “Get away,” Simon told him.

  “You know how it’ll end,” the old man said, lifting up his hands and holding them out to Simon. “Take my hands,” he said.

  “You can’t,” said Simon.

  But the old man was so close, he took Simon’s hands, held them in his, and Simon immediately began to shake. I had to hold him up as he was starting to collapse, and I struck out at the old man, making him lose his grip on Simon.

  “Little brother,” said the old man, turning to me.

  “Stay away,” Simon whispered, and the old man stared at him with his pale eyes. He tilted his head and said, “It’s happening again, what is this? Where is it coming from?”

  Then he began to leave us, not walking back in the direction he’d come from, but out into the night, talking away to himself. I was about to shout, as my voice wasn’t caught any longer, but Simon stopped me. “No,” he said. “Let him go.” And then he collapsed on the ground. I couldn’t hold him up.

  “Simon?” I said. “Simon, are you there?”

  I knelt down and put his head between my legs.

  “What happened?” said Simon.

  “He touched you,” I said.

  “Andrew,” he whispered, “don’t tell them about him. Will you promise me? None of the others should hear about this. We won’t spread what he’s trying to make us think. Don’t tell anybody what you heard about Jesus here this evening. Promise me.”

  I couldn’t put into words what had happened. The blind old man had gone, and I was already struggling to remember what had been said. Now, several years later, it’s only a vague memory. Sometimes I think it must have been a bad dream. But I did as Simon told me. I’ve never told anybody about it.

  “It’s coming,” Simon told me softly. “It will happen, as the old man said, all of it. But we’ll make it into something great, something beautiful.”

  “Simon?” I said, but he hushed me, holding a finger up to his lips. Then he pointed up into the sky. I looked up there and felt something tap on my face.

  “Rain,” I said.

  “Andrew,” Simon whispered, “my little brother. You’re grown now. You’ve found Anna. I’m telling you this so you’ll remember it. Are you listening?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Everything they’ve been saying this evening, everything they’re trying to make us believe. That’s how they got Father to join them, that’s how they left him to die.”

  Later that evening, when I was with Anna again, I asked her to be quiet. I asked her to listen to the rain and the way it spread out everywhere. I sat down next to her and put my face against her hair.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Do you remember what I said that evening about the rain?”

  “You will be the rain,” she said.

  “I will be the rain,” I said, “that nobody fears.”

  As I lay awake that night, I saw for the first time Simon get up in the dark and walk off, away from us. I followed him. The sound of him ahead of me, stumbling, stopping, and then the way he started speaking. At first I thought he’d met somebody, that they were talking to each other, but I gradually realized that he was alone. He was talking to himself. His voice came murmuring through the night, telling stories about our father, about what happened to him. I went back and lay down. I couldn’t sleep. I tried to look up into the night, trying to draw a pattern between the stars. I only shut my eyes when I heard Simon coming back.

  Those rebels left us alone after that. We were welcomed by people who didn’t practice violence, the ones who worked and lived under the Lord’s countenance. We kept meeting new people who wanted to follow the Master. They were good times; I remember them fondly.

  But things changed. Something or other came over us all. It’s difficult to put it in words. I might see something moving out there where the ground meets the sky. When I blinked, it was gone. Other times I might hear sounds from up in the clouds, but there was nothing there. We didn’t sing as much in the evenings anymore. Several of us were whispering that they were waiting for us, that soldiers would come in the night.

  When we were going through Samaria and were approaching Judea, we were met one day by some men working in a field. They were thin, and they looked sick. We hadn’t seen so much of it in Galilee, but people here were worn out, frightened. They complained of the taxes levied by the o
ccupying powers, they complained about bands of thieves. They told stories of soldiers yelling at their doors in the morning and taking all the men who were home, young and old.

  Simon appeared sad at that time. He would be awake at night, and I would get up in the dark and find him among the trees. He sat there talking to himself. His hands started to tremble: he tried to hide it, but I’m his brother, I noticed it. I spoke to Anna about it, and she said we were all frightened.

  “That’s what it must have been like for our father,” I said.

  “Don’t say things like that,” said Anna. “Don’t let that story come back to us now.”

  But she didn’t say any more. We put our arms around each other. That was the only way I could get to sleep. I dreamed about the water, about our hands being so cold. Then I woke up and tried to spot Simon, but there was nothing other than the night and the embers of our small bonfire. We didn’t know then that Simon would be the one to lead us onward, that Simon’s trembling hands would fill us with warmth.

  II

  Every morning, after our prayers, Mother tells me that I’m not a little boy anymore.

  “You’re the eldest here now, Simon,” she says.

  Every evening, Andrew asks me to tell him a story. Our father has been gone for several days now. He’s up in the mountains, I know because some of the other children told me everything. So many of them went, and none of them have come back yet. But I saw soldiers today, on their way back where they came from. I haven’t told anybody, not even Andrew, but I think that means it’s over. Father can come home. I’m going to go and tell him, as we’ve hardly got anything left to eat.