by Nick Tosches
“Trust me,” he said.
The soft sunlight and breeze through the laurel branches belied the vanished black tempest.
“How do you feel about the composition? It will be your valediction.”
“It is too mild. It says nothing, really. You have given me words for a politician, not a prophet.”
“Heed me,” I said. “This is neither the time nor the place to spew damnation on the Pharisees. Or to denounce usury. Or to speak of a new temple.
“You will enter Jerusalem as the Messiah and you will leave as my dutiful slave, bound with me for Rome. From here, moving at ease, we shall be in Caesarea in three days. Thence to Rome. Think of this as a farewell feast, nothing more.”
Exasperation and calm reason alternated in my voice as I spoke.
“It ends here,” he said.
There were slight insinuations of reluctance, reflection, and resigned acceptance in this simple statement of fact.
“Yes,” I declared, trampling these insinuations flatly. “The meticulous grooming of your asshole lies ahead.”
He laughed his light silent laugh.
“We are visiting Jerusalem only because you wish to do so. If entering it on a donkey makes you happy, so be it. Were it up to me, we should bypass it and go directly to Caesarea and the sea. Spring is here. A galley for Rome is likely weighing anchor right now, as we sit preparing to mount you on poor Hope so that you can play-act at fulfilling some lie of a nonsensical prophecy. I really do not understand this.” I slowly shook my head. “For a wise man, you at times are like a child.”
“Verily, I say unto you,” he intoned, in light mockery of his accustomed pronouncement voice, “unless you become like little children, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
“I was more than a bit drunk when I wrote that line. I hated it then, in Capernaum, where I wrote it; and I have hated it since.”
At this, his light laughter was no longer silent. He made as if to murmur something. I made as if to murmur something. Then we fell quiet awhile. As the others began to return, I rose slowly and went to our Hope. I stroked his head, ran my fingers through his shaggy coarse mane, and unbuckled his cinch-strap.
I bent and kissed the donkey’s forehead, and I threw the heavy packsaddle toward Jesus.
“Perhaps,” he mused aloud, “the beloved disciple shall offer to anoint the beast’s hooves with oil so that they might shine, and tend to the proper grooming of the beast’s fundament as well.”
The disciples looked to their Lord, then to me, then to one another. None of the self-fancying beloved disciples stepped forth. I cast him an evil eye, which had no evil in it.
“The bread of affliction awaits us,” I said to the donkey, giving him one last pat.
The disciples looked to their Lord, then to me, then to the donkey, then to one another.
Jesus asked the disciples for directions to the nearest pure water, then went off to bathe and to prepare himself. He took with him the wooden comb I had given him a long time ago.
“Do they have good Roman wine in Jerusalem?” I asked Aaron, the former priest, who was of this city.
But the priest said nothing, and it was the rabbi Ephraim who answered.
“Yes” was all he said.
A fair soft rain began to fall. I closed my eyes and raised my face to it. I knew that it would soon end, and I took it as the pink and red petals of the Judas trees and the white petals of the almond trees and the apricot trees took the dew.
We entered Jerusalem late in the day after the last Sabbath preceding the full moon, as the colors of sunset began to come forth, in the sky and through the city. I saw Jesus try to draw deep breath, but his lungs or his ribs denied him. Then the masses were upon him, enclosing him.
30
ON OUR WAY TO THE CITY, WE HAD PASSED A FIG TREE. IT was not the season of figs, which would not come until the westerly breezes wove through the late summer heat. Even the first small green fruit-buds and leaves of fig trees would not appear until spring neared its end. Jesus knew this. Yet, when we came to the bare fig tree along our way to Jerusalem, he cast a curse on it because it bore no fruit. His curse on the tree was vehement. I should have taken this as a warning.
This happened not far from the grotto and gardens of Gethsemane, at the foot of Mount Olive, close to the ridge road that led to nearby Bethany, the house of unripe figs, the house of misery, where Jesus had committed atrocity at the tomb of Lazarus. In these peaceful natural gardens were many fig trees that were, as always at this season, also bare. Jesus cursed them as well, and all else that was unbloomed in this place of beauty. I should have taken this as further warning.
From the garden we could see the Holy Temple high above us. We crossed the Kidron Valley, and ascended the path to Jerusalem.
Entering Jerusalem, I saw that Jesus had spoken rightly when he said that these people were fools. Word moved very fast among them that the man astride the donkey was Jesus, the Messiah, of whom they long had heard, and whose arrival they long had expected here, in the city of the Holy Temple.
They came on us in a frenzy, like hyenas converging on a gazelle. Some pulled their cloaks from their shoulders and threw them to the ground, that the donkey that Jesus rode might make his path on them. Others strewed the path of garments with branches of sweet-scented rose and myrtle. In making this path, they also blocked it, so that movement forward on it was torturously slow. From the oppressive swarm came a yell:
“Hosanna to the son of David! Hosanna in the highest!” These people were wild with this cry of salvation, and it came from all round, resoundingly, repeatedly: “Hosanna!”
Another yelled:
“He comes as Zechariah prophesied: astride an ass! It is as the prophet said it would be.”
Those who had cast their garments to the ground struggled to retrieve them after the donkey had trodden them, but thieves made off with many of them. The owner of one of the robes, finding a big stinking lump of donkey shit sticking thick and fast to it, interpreted this as a sign that he was blest.
The mob forced our direction and path, allowing us no way other than that which their confining, narrow parting permitted. We found ourselves beneath the towering Holy Temple, on the broad stone steps of the Temple mount that led to the first of the northwestern gates, the gate of entry for the line of Davidic kings. The mob pushed us onward, until we ascended the uppermost step to the courtyard terrace of this, the fifth of the Temple’s thirteen gates. The crowd then spread out from Jesus on the paved expanse of the terrace, giving him air and freedom at the gate’s colonnade. The mob overflowed onto the steps of the mount and into the streets below.
The people fell quiet. From where I stood, in the front row of those who surrounded him, I looked at their faces and wondered what they expected from him.
Jesus dismounted the donkey. He raised his shepherd’s crook.
“Oh, Jerusalem!” he proclaimed. “Oh, you who have been made holy by this city! Oh, you who have made this city holy!”
The people hosannaed and roared anew. They reminded me of the crude, plebeian crowds at gladiatorial games, drunk with wine and blood-lust. Veins and eyes bulged in ugly, pock-marked faces. The smell of sweating, unwashed flesh was acrid.
“Hear me!”
Again they became quiet, tense, expectant.
He spoke to them in strange, skewed parabolic allegories. A tale of two sons, one of whom tended his father’s vineyard and one who did not. A tale of evil tenant farmers who attacked and killed the servants and son of their landlord. A tale of an uninvited guest at the wedding feast of a king’s son. A tale of a bridegroom and ten virgins, five of them wise, five of them foolish.
He tied these tales to the kingdom of God, and to the fallen, faithless ways of Israel.
These odd-cobbled little tales were simple and unclear at the same time. The people showed great enthusiasm for them, especially after Jesus told them what they were supposed to illuminate. I thought again of the plebeians a
t the games, roused by any action whatsoever, be it fatal or fumbling.
Hope had wandered off after Jesus had dismounted him, and I searched for him. Peter was tending the other two donkeys near the wall where we had entered the city. I wanted to find and bring Hope to him as well.
Suddenly I heard a great commotion. I turned round. Jesus was making for the open gate of the Holy Temple.
I rushed to him through the noisy crowd that followed him. He disappeared through the gate. Except for a daring few, the crowd did not proceed after him, but halted all at once, slowing the progress of my hurried steps. Finally, I was past the gate, in the inner courtyard, where money-lenders and sellers of sacrificial doves were busy with customers. Jesus was wandering in the midst of this commerce. He looked like one who was lost and confused. I was very close to him, almost close enough to reach out and place my hand to his shoulder, when, oblivious to me, he bellowed with such force as to frighten all around him, and me along with them.
“Defilers! My house will be called a house of prayer, but you make it a den of robbers.”
With a loud storm of outward breath, he overturned the table of the money-lender nearest him, sending it crashing down. Coins flew, scattered, rang, and spun in every direction.
The money-lender drew back, as did other money-lenders at other tables. Some of the bird-sellers raised their cages to them so quickly and nervously that doves escaped, fluttering wildly, low and high and all around.
But several of the money-lenders converged on Jesus, took him down, beat him with fists, and kicked him. I could not risk using my dagger in this place, but I struck out at the men, and did gouge the eye of one and deliver good blows to another before I too was overtaken. Jesus had the worse of it, but he bled only a little, from his nose, and none of his bones were broken, so that together we were able to wrest ourselves free and take flight.
No one ran after us, and when we were out of the courtyard, we were safe. But still we hurried, breathing hard; and it was in our rush down the steps that we both fell and suffered greater injury than had been inflicted on us by the fists and sandals of the money-lenders. It was dark by this time, and we made our way to Peter without much notice. I had hurt my hip either in the scuffle or on the steps, and I was limping as we approached Peter. I heard Jesus laugh out loud. Thinking that he found my limp to be an entertainment, I felt anger rise within me. It was anger that emanated not only from the pain in my hip, but more from the events of this day, from the cursing of the fig trees to the outburst in the Temple. Or did it emanate from the day before? Or a year ago? Or when I first laid eyes on him? Now, in the very moment that I was about to turn my anger on him, I heard him say:
“I always wanted to do that.”
His tone was one of serene and tranquil satisfaction.
It was then that I laughed too. I believed it meant that all was now done and over with: that we could piss on the walls of this city, get rid of these tiresome disciples, go to Caesarea, drink and feast, and sail finally for Rome.
But this ending was not to be.
Under moonlight, with Peter, we returned slowly to the gardens of Gethsemane. We had expected the other disciples to be waiting with Peter. He had expected them to be with us. None of us really cared where they were. Peter asked us about our time in Jerusalem. We told him about the money-lenders in the temple. He enjoyed hearing of it, and said that he wished he had been with us.
A few moments later, rubbing his shoulder, Jesus spoke in a different tone:
“I think one of those money-lending sons of bitches used a cudgel on me.”
Nearing Gethsemane, he spoke again, in a third, yet again different tone:
“Now we will see how the fig trees have died and withered, never to bear fruit again.”
Both Peter and I looked to him, then to each other. We could not tell if he was serious or not.
It turned out that he was. In the dim light of the moon, he pointed to one perfectly healthy fig tree, then another.
“There,” he said. “Do you see? They are gray-gnarled and wasted with death.”
Slow-witted Peter was about to comment to him that all fig trees were gray-barked, and that the trees he indicated were vigorous and strong. But he thought better of it, and said nothing.
Sore and tired as I was, and as much as I drowsed, it was difficult for me to sleep that night. It was not the discomfort in my hip alone that kept me awake.
As I lay beneath the stars, I felt that it was time to depart from him, to abandon him to his own designs, whatever they might be.
For, unless they both be fools and mad, friends cease to be friends when one of them endangers the other through obstinate folly and madness.
But I did not leave him. I stayed. I was still young, and I still had in me a sense of adventure. Maybe that is why. Or maybe it was something else. I have asked myself about this many times, and I have received from myself many answers.
31
THE STREETS OF JERUSALEM GREW MORE DENSELY CROWDED every day, as the pilgrims arrived in increasing droves from all over Judea to visit the holy city at Pesach.
Overnight, the incidents of the previous day became much exaggerated and embroidered. Jesus no longer had overturned a money-lender’s table. He had overturned all the tables of all the money-lenders in the Temple courtyard. He had physically assaulted the money-lenders. He had denounced not only them and the dove-peddlers, but the Holy Temple as well, cursing it and prophesying its destruction and downfall.
Some of the rabble sought to instigate Jesus to fiercer words and deeds. None of them was ignored. One called out loudly, asking him about his well-known teaching that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Had he himself followed his own teaching when he attacked the money-lenders?
“I did unto others as I should have them do unto me,” he answered. “If I lived in darkness and was filth in the eyes and temple of God, I should wish that I be brought to light and cleansed by my brother, and I should be most grateful to him who did so.”
Another called to him, asking if he still believed that it was right and lawful under God that they should pay taxes imposed on them by Rome.
He disliked and thwarted this baited question by using the words I had given him long ago.
“Why put me to the test, you hypocrites?”
He demanded that someone in the crowd bring him a coin. Someone did. He held it high between his thumb and his forefinger.
“Whose likeness and inscription are on this coin?”
The man who had brought it to him, and many men all round, said: “Caesar’s.”
“Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
No more did he allow them to lead him to the Holy Temple. Instead he led them to it.
At the outer altar, lines of pilgrims stood with the caged doves they had purchased, waiting to make burnt offering. Others stood in line to give money offerings to the treasury agent of the Temple. To one side of him, on a plinth, was a wide crater wrought of gold; on a plinth to his other side was a crater of silver. As he took the money offerings, he separated the silver coins from the gold and put them in one bowl or the other. Coins of lesser metal were tossed by him into big woven baskets on the ground.
Jesus went to an elderly woman in rags who moved slowly toward the taker of the money offerings. She had but two small copper coins, which together were worth almost nothing.
“Truly, I say to you,” he proclaimed, “this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For they all contribute out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty puts in everything she has, her whole living.”
Later I took him aside and told him that he was acting like a self-righteous old fuss-pot, a common ardelio, as we say in Rome: a pest of a meddler.
“No, you are acting even worse than that,” I went on. “You are acting like the arch-hypocrite that you are.”
He too
k offense.
“And how do you know that she is a ‘poor widow’? For all you know, she could be a miserly rich aristocrat, a crazy old hag with ten thousand coins of gold buried in her floor.”
But he was right to take offense. I thought of the fraudulent cripple I had seized upon in the settlement of the Jezreel Valley. I thought of the widow’s poisoned son I had pronounced dead at Nain. I thought of all the self-afflicted and pretenders I had chosen to suit our purposes. Yes, he was right to take offense. Choosing to make his point through this old woman with her two copper coins was nothing compared to my own past machinations. And this was to say nothing of all the lyrical lies and plain pastoral deceptions I had contrived. Who was I to criticize him? Who was I to call him hypocrite?
I was, in my way, as out-of-hand, as out-of-control, as he in his way. I was tired. I had been through enough of this. I was sick of it all, impatient to be done with it; impatient for him to be done with it.
His ranting at the Temple colonnade grew wilder, much to the malicious pleasure of the rabble.
For every believer, every follower, every seeker of the Word and the Way, there must have been five who thirsted for perverse entertainment alone, delighting in every farther thrust of his incendiary words.
“These are sheep gone rabid,” I warned him. “Your shepherd’s staff will do you no good here. And you will do yourself no good.”
But he would hear nothing.
I thought of all the mad messiahs howling in the shadows of dusk in the windy, winding streets of Caesarea.
Except for slow, stalwart Peter, the disciples were not much seen, and most of those who were seen did appear as fleeting apparitions, obscure and scurrying, glimpsed from the corner of an eye. Our despised young rodent, Andreas, who had been so ardent in his craving to gain his Lord’s favor, was still about, but he now could be found at the far edge of the crowd. Our Essene seemed to have vanished.
When Jesus was confronted by a group of Sadducees, we were not so very surprised to see Aaron the priest and Ephraim the rabbi in the back of their group, with Aaron once again in his priestly garb. Jesus smiled and waved to them, greeting them by name. They reacted in a most ridiculous manner, turning their heads as if to see whom he might be hailing.
