Lamb

by Christopher Moore

  “You’ll see. I have a feeling.” And off he went.

  The new guy prairie-dogged up out of his pit. He was tall, the new guy, and the morning sun caught on his bald scalp as he looked around. He noticed some flowers growing where Joshua had just relieved himself. Lush blossoms of a half-dozen vibrant colors stood surrounded by the deadest landscape on the planet. “Hey, were those there yesterday?”

  “That always happens,” I said. “We don’t talk about it.”

  “Wow,” said the new guy. “Can I tag along with you guys?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  And thus did we become four.

  At the river, John preached to a small gathering as he lowered Joshua into the water. As soon as Joshua went under the water a rift opened across the desert sky, which was still pink with the dawn, and out of the rift came a bird that looked to be fashioned from pure light. And everyone on the riverbank said “ooh” and “ahh,” and a big voice boomed out of the heavens, saying, “This is my son, with whom I am well pleased.” And as quickly as it had come, the spirit was gone. But the gatherers at the riverbank stood with their mouths open in amazement, staring yet into the sky.

  And John came to his senses then, and remembered what he was doing, and lifted Joshua out of the water. And Joshua wiped the water out of his eyes, looked at the crowd who stood stunned with mouths hanging open, and he said unto them: “What?”

  “No, really, Josh, that’s what the voice said, ‘This is my son, with whom I am well pleased.’”

  Joshua shook his head and chewed a breakfast locust. “I can’t believe he couldn’t wait until I came up. You’re sure it was my father?”

  “Sounded like him.” The new guy looked at me and I shrugged. Actually it sounded like James Earl Jones, but I didn’t know that back then.

  “That’s it,” said Joshua. “I’m going into the desert like Moses did, forty days and forty nights.” Joshua got up and started walking into the desert. “From here on out, I’m fasting until I hear something from my father. That was my last locust.”

  “I wish I could say that,” said the new guy.

  As soon as Joshua was out of sight I ran to my pit and packed my satchel. I was a half day getting to Bethany, and another hour asking around before someone could direct me to the house of Jakan, prominent Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrin. The house was made of the golden-tinged limestone that marked all of Jerusalem, and there was a high wall around the courtyard. Jakan had done very well for himself, the prick. You could house a dozen families from Nazareth in a house this size. I paid two blind guys a shekel each to stand by the wall so I could climb on their shoulders.

  “How much did he say this was?”

  “He said it was a shekel.”

  “Doesn’t feel like a shekel.”

  “Would you guys quit feeling your shekels and stand still, I’m going to fall.”

  I peeped over the top of the wall and there, sitting under the shade of an awning, working at a small loom, was Maggie. If she had changed, it was only that she’d become more radiant, more sensuous, more of a woman and less of a girl. I was stunned. I guess I expected some sort of disappointment, thinking that my time and my love might have shaped a memory that the woman could never live up to. Then I thought, perhaps the disappointment was yet to come. She was married to a rich man, a man who, when I knew him, had been a bully and a dolt. And what had always really made Maggie’s memory in my mind was her spirit, her courage, and her wit. I wondered if those things could have survived all these years with Jakan. I started to shake, bad balance or fear, I don’t know, but I put my hand on top of the wall to steady myself and cut myself on some broken pottery that had been set in mortar along the top.

  “Ouch, dammit.”

  “Biff?” Maggie said, as she looked me in the eye right before I tumbled off the shoulders of the blind guys.

  I had just climbed to my feet when Maggie came around the corner and hit me, full-frontal womanhood, full speed, leading with lips. She kissed me so hard that I could taste blood from my cut lips and it was glorious. She smelled the same—cinnamon and lemon and girl sweat—and felt better than memory could ever allow. When she finally relaxed her embrace and held me at arm’s length, there were tears in her eyes. And mine.

  “He dead?” said one of the blind men.

  “Don’t think so, I can hear him breathing.”

  “Sure smells better than he did.”

  “Biff, your face cleared up,” Maggie said.

  “You recognized me, with the beard and everything.”

  “I wasn’t sure at first,” she said, “so I was taking a risk jumping you like that, but in the midst of it all I recognized that.” She pointed to where my tunic had tented out in the front. And then she grabbed that betraying rascal, shirtfront and all, and led me down the wall toward the gate by it.

  “Come on in. You can’t stay long, but we can catch up. Are you okay?” she said, looking over her shoulder, giving me a squeeze.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m just trying to think of a metaphor.”

  “He got a woman from up there,” I heard one of the old blind guys say.

  “Yeah, I heard her drop. Boost me up, I’ll feel around.”

  In the courtyard, with Maggie, over wine, I said, “So you really didn’t recognize me?”

  “Of course I recognized you. I’ve never done that before. I just hope no one saw me, they still stone women for that.”

  “I know. Oh, Maggie, I have so much to tell you.”

  She took my hand. “I know.” She looked into my eyes, past my eyes, her blue eyes looking for something beyond me.

  “He’s fine,” I said, finally. “He’s gone into the desert to fast and wait for a message from the Lord.”

  She smiled. There was a little of my blood in the corners of her mouth, or maybe that was wine. “He’s come home to take his place as the Messiah then?”

  “Yes. But I don’t think the way people think.”

  “People think that John might be the Messiah.”

  “John is…He’s…”

  “He’s really pissing Herod off,” Maggie offered.

  “I know.”

  “Are you and Josh going to stay with John?”

  “I hope not. I want Joshua to leave. I just have to get him away from John long enough to see what’s going on. Maybe this fast…”

  The iron lock on the gate to the courtyard rattled, then the whole gate shook. Maggie had locked it behind us after we’d entered. A man cursed. Evidently Jakan was having trouble with his key.

  Maggie stood and pulled me to my feet. “Look, I’m going to a wedding in Cana next month with my sister Martha, the week after Tabernacles. Jakan can’t go, he’s got some meeting of the Sanhedrin or something. Come to Cana. Bring Joshua.”

  “I’ll try.”

  She ran to the closest wall and held her hand in a stirrup. “Over.”

  “But, Maggie…”

  “Don’t be a wuss. Step, hands—step, shoulders—and over. Be careful of the pottery on top.”

  And I ran—did exactly as she’d said: one foot in the stirrup, one on her shoulder, and over the wall before Jakan could get in the gate.

  “Got one!” said one of the old blind guys as I tumbled down on top of them.

  “Hold her still while I stick it in.”

  I was sitting on a boulder, waiting for Joshua when he came out of the desert. I held out my arms to hug him and he fell forward, letting me catch him. I lowered him to the rock where I had been sitting. He had been smart enough to coat all the exposed parts of his skin with mud, probably mixed from his own urine, to protect it from burning, but in a few spots on his forehead and hands the mud had crumbled away and the skin was gone, burned to raw flesh. His arms were as thin as a small girl’s, they swam in the wide sleeves of his tunic.

  “You okay?”

  He nodded. I handed him a water skin I had been keeping cool in the shade. He drank in little sips, pacing himself.

/>   “Locust?” I said, holding up one of the crispy torments between my thumb and forefinger.

  At the sight of it I thought Joshua would vomit the water he had just drunk. “Just kidding,” I said. I whipped open the mouth of my satchel, revealing dates, fresh figs, olives, cheese, a half-dozen flat loaves of bread, and a full wineskin. I’d sent the new guy into Jericho the day before to bring back the food.

  Josh looked at the food spilling out of the satchel and grinned, then covered his mouth with his hand. “Ow. Ouch. Ow.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Lips…chapped.”

  “Myrrh,” I said, pulling a small jar of the ointment from the satchel and handing it to him.

  An hour later the Son of God was refreshed and rejuvenated, and we sat sharing the last of the wine, the first that Joshua had had since we’d come home from India over a year ago.

  “So, what did you see in the desert?”

  “The Devil.”

  “The Devil?”

  “Yep. He tempted me. Power, wealth, sex, that sort of thing. I turned him down.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “He was tall.”

  “Tall? The prince of darkness, the serpent of temptation, the source of all corruption and evil, and all you can say about him is he was tall?”

  “Pretty tall.”

  “Oh, good, I’ll be on the lookout then.”

  Joshua said, pointing at the new guy. “He’s tall, too.” I realized then that the Messiah might be a little tipsy.

  “Not the Devil, Josh.”

  “Well, who is he then?”

  “I’m Philip,” said the new guy. “I’m going with you to Cana tomorrow.”

  Joshua wheeled around to me and almost fell off his rock. “We’re going to Cana tomorrow?”

  “Yes, Maggie’s there, Josh. She’s dying.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  You can travel the whole world, but there are always new things to learn. For instance, on the way to Capernaum I learned that if you hang a drunk guy over a camel and slosh him around for about four hours, then pretty much all the poisons will come out one end of him or the other.

  “Someone’s going to have to wash that camel before we go into town,” said Andrew.

  We were traveling along the shore of the Sea of Galilee (which wasn’t a sea at all). The moon was almost full and it reflected in the lake like a pool of quicksilver. It fell to Nathaniel to clean the camel because he was the official new guy. (Joshua hadn’t really met Andrew, and Andrew hadn’t really agreed to join us, so we couldn’t count him as the official new guy yet.) Since Nathaniel did such a fine job on the camel, we let him clean up Joshua as well. Once he had the Messiah in the water Joshua came out of his stupor long enough to slur something like: “The foxes have their holes and birds have their nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head.”

  “That’s so sad,” said Nathaniel.

  “Yes, it is,” I said. “Dunk him again. He still has barf on his beard.”

  And so, cleansed and slung over a camel damply, Joshua did by moonlight come into Capernaum, where he would be welcomed as if it were his home.

  “Out!” screeched the old woman. “Out of the house, out of town, out of Galilee for all I care, you aren’t staying here.”

  It was a beautiful dawn over the lake, the sky painted with yellow and orange, gentle waves lapped against the keels of Capernaum’s fishing boats. The village was only a stone’s throw away from the water, and golden sunlight reflected off the waves onto the black stone walls of the houses, making the light appear to dance to the calls of the gulls and songbirds. The houses were built together in two big clusters, sharing common walls, with entries from every which way, and none more than one story tall. There was a small main road through the village between the two clusters of homes. Along the way were a few merchant booths, a blacksmith’s shop, and, on its own little square, a synagogue that looked as if it could contain far more worshipers than the three hundred residents of the village. But villages were thick along the shores of the lake, one running right into the next, and we guessed that perhaps the synagogue served a number of villages. There was no central square around the well as there was in most inland villages, because the people pulled their water from the lake or a spring nearby that bubbled clean chilly water into the air as high as two men.

  Andrew had deposited us at his brother Peter’s house, and we had fallen asleep in the great room among the children only a few hours before Peter’s mother-in-law awoke to chase us out of the house. Joshua was holding his head with both hands as if to keep it from falling off his neck.

  “I won’t have freeloaders and scalawags in my house,” the old woman shouted as she threw my satchel out after us.

  “Ouch,” said Joshua, flinching from the noise.

  “We’re in Capernaum, Josh,” I said. “A man named Andrew brought us here because his nephews stole our camels.”

  “You said Maggie was dying,” Joshua said.

  “Would you have left John if I’d told you that Maggie wanted to see you?”

  “No.” He smiled dreamily. “It was good to see Maggie.” Then the smile turned to a scowl. “Alive.”

  “John wouldn’t listen, Joshua. You were in the desert all last month, you didn’t see all of the soldiers, even scribes hiding in the crowd, writing down what John was saying. This was bound to happen.”

  “Then you should have warned John!”

  “I warned John! Every day I warned John. He didn’t listen to reason any more than you would have.”

  “We have to go back to Judea. John’s followers—”

  “Will become your followers. No more preparation, Josh.”

  Joshua nodded, looking at the ground in front of him. “It’s time. Where are the others?”

  “I’ve sent Philip and Nathaniel to Sepphoris to sell the camels. Bartholomew is sleeping in the reeds with the dogs.”

  “We’re going to need more disciples,” Joshua said.

  “We’re broke, Josh. We’re going to need disciples with jobs.”

  An hour later we stood on the shore near where Andrew and his brother were casting nets. Peter was taller and leaner than his brother, and he had a head of gray hair wilder than even John the Baptist’s, while Andrew pushed his dark hair back and tied it with a cord so it stayed out of his face when he was in the water. They were both naked, which is how men fished the lake when they were close to the shore.

  I had mixed a headache remedy for Joshua out of tree bark, and I could tell it was working, but perhaps not quite enough. I pushed Joshua toward the shore.

  “I’m not ready for this. I feel terrible.”

  “Ask them.”

  “Andrew,” Joshua called. “Thank you for bringing us home with you. And you too, Peter.”

  “Did my mother-in-law toss you out?” asked Peter. He cast his net and waited for it to settle, then dove into the lake and gathered the net in his arms. There was one tiny fish inside. He reached in and pulled it out, then tossed it back into the lake. “Grow,” he said.

  “You know who I am?” said Joshua.

  “I’ve heard,” said Peter. “Andrew says you turned water into wine. And you cured the blind and the lame. He thinks that you are going to bring the kingdom.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think my little brother is smarter than I am, so I believe what he says.”

  “Come with us. We’re going to tell people of the kingdom. We need help.”

  “What can we do?” said Andrew. “We’re only fishermen.”

  “Come with me and I’ll make you fishers of men.”

  Andrew looked at his brother who was still standing in the water. Peter shrugged and shook his head. Andrew looked at me, shrugged, and shook his head.

  “They don’t get it,” I said to Joshua.

  Thus, after Joshua had some food and a nap and explained what in the hell he meant by “fishers of men,” we became seve
n.

  “These guys are our partners,” Peter said, hurrying us along the shore. “They own the ships that Andrew and I work on. We can’t go spread the good news unless they are in on it too.”

  We came to another small village and Peter pointed out two brothers who were fitting a new oarlock into the gunwale of a fishing boat. One was lean and angular, with jet-black hair and a beard trimmed into wicked points: James. The other was older, bigger, softer, with big shoulders and chest, but small hands and thin wrists, a fringe of brown hair shot with gray around a sunburned bald pate: John.

  “Just a suggestion,” Peter said to Joshua. “Don’t say the fisher-of-men thing. It’s going to be dark soon; you won’t have time for the explanation if we want to make it home in time for supper.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “just tell them about the miracles, the kingdom, a little about your Holy Ghost thing, but stay easy on that until they agree to join up.”

  “I still don’t get the Holy Ghost thing,” said Peter.

  “It’s okay, we’ll go over it tomorrow,” I said.

  As we moved down the shore toward the brothers, there was a rustling in some nearby bushes and three piles of rags moved into our path.

  “Have mercy on us, Rabbi,” said one of the piles.

  Lepers.

  (I need to say something right here: Joshua taught me about the power of love and all of that stuff, and I know that the Divine Spark in them is the same one that is in me, so I should have not let the presence of lepers bother me. I know that announcing them unclean under the Law was as unjust as the Brahmans shunning the Untouchables. I know that even now, having watched enough television, you probably wouldn’t even refer to them as lepers so as to spare their feelings. You probably call them “parts-dropping-off challenged,” or something. I know all that. But that said, no matter how many healings I saw, lepers always gave me what we Hebrews call the willies. I never got over it.)

  “What is it you want?” Joshua asked them.

  “Help ease our suffering,” said a female-sounding pile.