The Thirteenth Apostle

by Michel Benoît

“Until 2 p.m., Your Eminence, when the Frenchman left and went back to San Girolamo, where he closeted himself away in his room. My information is completely reliable.”

  “I don’t want to know who your source is. Sort out a way of finding out what they’re saying to each other in Leeland’s apartment: we must discover what that Frenchman’s up to. Understood?”

  Early next morning, a tourist seemed to be taking a close interest in the sculpted capitals of the Teatro di Marcello, which marks the site of the cattle market in ancient Rome, the Foro Boario. Not far away rise the rigid columns of the Temple of Virile Fortune, topped by a Corinthian acorn; they remind the informed visitor who the Temple was dedicated to. Just next to them, a small round temple is dedicated to the Vestal Virgins, who offered their perpetual chastity to the divinities of the city and maintained the sacred fire. As he walked past these two contiguous buildings, the tourist smiled with pleasure, reflecting: “Virile fortune, and perpetual chastity. A deified Eros next door to divine purity: the Romans had already understood. Our mystics merely developed their insights.”

  His elegant trousers did not quite conceal an eloquent posterior, and the reason he kept his right hand thrust into the pocket of his suede jacket was that he wanted to hide the very fine jasper adorning his ring finger – never, in any circumstances, did he take off that precious jewel.

  He was joined by a man who was ostentatiously holding a thick tourist guide to Rome.

  “Salam aleikom, Monsignor!”

  “We aleikom salam, Mukhtar. These were the arrangements for transporting the Germigny slab. Nice work.”

  From his pocket there emerged an envelope that changed hands. Mukhtar Al-Quraysh quickly fingered the envelope without opening it, and offered his colleague a smile in exchange.

  “I went over to inspect the apartment block on the Via Aurelia: there’s no flat to let. But there’s a studio for sale on the second floor, just beneath the Americano’s.”

  “How much?”

  When he heard the figure, Calfo pulled a face: but, before long, perhaps the Society of St Pius V would no longer need to count its pennies. He opened his jacket and took out of his inner pocket another envelope, bigger and thicker than the first one.

  “Go and have a look at it straight away, settle the purchase immediately and get hold of the key. Leeland will be kept busy at the Congregation this afternoon, you’ll have three hours to do whatever’s necessary.”

  “Monsignor! In just one hour, the microphones will be installed.”

  “Has your favourite enemy gone back to Israel?”

  “Straight after our little trip. He’s preparing for an international tour starting with a series of concerts here in Rome, for Christmas.”

  “Perfect, a wonderful cover – you may yet need to call on his services.”

  Mukhtar looked at him with a ribald glint in his eye.

  “And Sonia – happy with her?”

  Calfo suppressed his irritation. He replied drily:

  “I’m very satisfied, thank you. Let’s not waste any time, mah salam.”

  The two men nodded to each other and left. Mukhtar crossed the Tiber via the Isola Tiberina bridges, while Calfo took a short cut across the Piazza Navona.

  “Christianity couldn’t have come into being anywhere but Rome,” he thought as he gazed in passing at the sculptures of Bernini and Brunelleschi, set opposing each other in a dramatic stand-off. “The desert leads to the inexpressible – but in order to express himself in incarnate form, God needs the quiverings of the flesh.”

  49

  Qumran, 68 AD

  Dark clouds were piling up over the Dead Sea. In this natural basin, clouds never bring rain: they announce a catastrophe.

  Yokhanan motioned his companion to keep going. In silence they approached the enclosure wall. A guttural voice rooted them to the spot:

  “Who goes there!”

  “Bene Israel! Jews.”

  The man who had stopped them stared at them suspiciously.

  “How did you get this far?”

  “Over the mountain – then we slipped through the Ein Feshka plantations. It’s the only way to get here: the legionaries are encircling Qumran.”

  The man spat on the ground.

  “Sons of darkness! And what are you here for? Seeking your deaths?”

  “I’ve come from Jerusalem, we have to see Shimon Ben-Yair. He knows me – take us to him.”

  They climbed over the enclosure wall and halted in amazement. What had once been a peaceful place of prayer and study was now nothing much than a huge caravanserai. Men were polishing derisory weapons, children were hurtling around yelling, and the wounded were lying on the ground. Yokhanan had already been here, some time ago, accompanying his adoptive father, who liked to meet up with his old Essene friends. In the gathering gloom, he stopped, unsure what to do, in front of a group of aged men sitting against the scriptorium wall where he had so often spent hour after hour watching the scribes tracing Hebrew characters on their parchments.

  The lookout came over and whispered a few words into the ears of one of the old men.

  “Yokhanan! Don’t you recognize me? True enough: I’ve aged a century in the last month. Who’s that with you? My eyes are infected, I’m half-blind.”

  “Of course I recognize you, Shimon! It’s Adon, the son of Eliezer Ben-Akkai.”

  “Adon! Give me a hug!… But where’s Osias?”

  Yokhanan’s companion lowered his head.

  “My brother died in the plain of Ashkelon, killed by a Roman arrow. It was a miracle that I managed to get away from the V Legion: its legionaries are invincible.”

  “They will be conquered, Adon; they are the sons of darkness. But we will die before they do – Qumran is ripe for plucking. Vespasian has taken over the X Fretensis Legion that’s got us encircled, he wants to attack Jerusalem from the south. All day long we’ve been able to observe their preparations. We have no archers, and they can manoeuvre right in front of our eyes. It’s going to happen tonight.”

  Yokhanan gazed in silence at the poignant spectacle of these men, in the grip of a History from which they could not escape. Then he continued:

  “Shimon, have you seen my abbu? I’ve spent over three months crossing the country. No news of him, nor of his disciples: I found Pella completely abandoned.”

  Through his purulent eyes, Shimon contemplated the sky: the setting sun was lighting up the clouds from below. “The most beautiful sight in the world, just as on the morning of creation! But this evening our world is going to end.”

  “His flight brought him this way. With him there were at least five hundred Nazoreans – men, women and children. He wanted to send them into Arabia, to the shore of the Inner Sea. He was right: if they escape from the Romans, they’ll be persecuted by the Christians, who hate them. Our men have accompanied them as far as the edge of the desert of Edom.”

  “Did my father go with them?”

  “No, he left them at Beersheba and let them carry on towards the south. We have a small community of Essenes in the desert of Idumaea: that’s where he’s waiting for you. But will you be able to get there? You’ve just got tangled in a net whose mesh is closing in on the sons of light. Will you live the Day with us, and enter its brightness – this very night?”

  Yokhanan stepped to one side and exchanged a few words with Adon:

  “Shimon, I have to join my father: we’re going to try and get out. But before that, I’ve got something I need to put somewhere safe. Please help me.”

  He went over to the old man and murmured a few words in his ear. Shimon listened attentively, and then nodded.

  “All of our sacred scrolls have been placed in caves that are inaccessible to anyone who doesn’t know the mountain. One of our men will take you there, but he won’t be able to go up with you – listen…”

  From the Roman camp the blare of trumpets could be heard. “They’re sounding the attack!”

  Shimon gave a brief ord
er to the sentinel. Without a word, the man motioned Yokhanan and Adon to follow him, as a first shower of arrows came plummeting down on the Essenes, to shrieks of terror from the women and children. They made their way against the stream of haggard men rushing to the eastern wall, and went through the gate facing the mountain.

  It was the beginning of the end of Qumran.

  Mechanically, Yokhanan slipped his hand under his belt: the hollow bamboo, the one his father had given him in Pella, was still there.

  Khirbet Qumran is built into the slopes of a high cliff, and the buildings were constructed on a plateau overlooking the Dead Sea. A complicated system of small canals open to the sky brought water to the central pool, where the Essenes practised their baptismal rites.

  Yokhanan and Adon, preceded by their guide, initially followed the line of the channels. Bent double, they ran from tree to tree, in short, swift spurts. The tumult of a fierce battle reached them from not very far behind.

  Yokhanan, panting, motioned to them that he needed a rest. He was no longer young… He looked up. In front of them, the cliff seemed at first to be nothing but a bare wall, plunging down in a fearful precipice. But when he looked more closely, he saw that it was comprised of huge rocky concretions that formed a complicated interweaving pattern of footpaths and ravines hanging over the void.

  Here and there you could make out black patches: the caves, to which the Essenes had moved their entire library. How had they managed it? It seemed completely inaccessible!

  On the summit of the cliff he could make out the mobile arms of the Roman catapults that were starting to toss their murderous freight towards the camp. A line of archers, spread out along a hundred yards or so, were unleashing their arrows at a terrifying rate. He felt a pang in his heart, and didn’t look back.

  Their guide showed them the path they could take to get to one of the caves.

  “Our main scrolls are there. I myself put our community’s Manual of Discipline there. Along the left wall, third jar from the entrance. It’s a big one: you can slip your parchment in with it. May God preserve you! My place is down there. Shalom!”

  Still bent double, he set off running in the opposite direction. He wanted to live the Day with his brothers.

  They resumed their ascent. For another eight hundred yards or so, they were in the open: continuing along the line of trees that bordered the canals, they darted from one to the other. Their travelling bags, slung down their haunches, hampered their movements.

  Suddenly a hail of arrows fell all around them.

  “Adon, up there, they’ve seen us. Let’s run to the foot of the cliff!”

  But these two shadows, unarmed and heading away from the battle, soon ceased to interest the Roman archers. Out of breath, they finally managed to reach the relative safety of the precipice. Now they needed to climb.

  Between the rocky outcrops they managed to find goats’ trails. When they reached the cave, night was falling.

  “Quick, Adon – we’ve only got a few minutes’ light left!”

  The cave entrance was so narrow that they were obliged to wriggle into it feet first. Curiously, the interior seemed brighter than outside. Without a word, the two men felt their way along the ground on the left: several conical shapes emerged from the sand. Terracotta jars, half-buried, sealed by a kind of bowl-shaped lid.

  With the help of Adon, Yokhanan carefully opened the third jar from the cave mouth. Inside, a scroll surrounded by scraps of cloth soaked in tar filled half the space. With great respect, he opened the hollow reed that he had pulled from his belt, and drew from it a simple sheet of parchment, bound by a linen cord. He slipped it into the jar so that it would not get stuck to the tar on the scroll. Then he put the lid back on, and piled the sand up to the jar’s neck.

  “There. Abbu, we can die: your epistle is safe here, safer than it would be anywhere else. If the Christians manage to destroy all the copies I’ve had made of it, the original is here.”

  From the mouth of the cave they could see Qumran, where the blazing buildings hinted at scenes of horror. The square formations of the legionaries were advancing methodically towards the enclosure wall, climbing over it and combing the whole space inside – leaving nothing behind them but the bodies of slaughtered men, women and children. The Essenes were no longer defending themselves. Around the central pool, they could make out an indistinct mass of people on their knees. In the middle, a man in a white robe was raising his arms to the sky. “It’s Shimon! He’s asking the Eternal to welcome the sons of light, this very moment!”

  He turned to Adon.

  “Your brother and you carried Jesus’s body to the place where it rests. Osias is dead: now you are the only one to know where the tomb is, you and my abbu. His epistle is safe here: if God requires our lives, we’ve done what we had to do.”

  Darkness was filling the basin of the Dead Sea. The whole area around Qumran was guarded. The only possible way out was the oasis right next to Ein Feshka, the same way they had come. As they approached it, they spotted a group armed with torches coming towards them. Someone shouted to them, in bad Hebrew:

  “Halt! Who are you?”

  They started to run, and a hail of arrows came flying after them. Seeking the cover of the first olive trees, Yokhanan sprinted along as fast as his legs would carry him, his travel bag bumping against his hip, when he heard a muffled cry just behind him.

  “Adon! Are you wounded?”

  He ran back, and leant over his companion: a Roman arrow was fixed in his back between his shoulder blades. He just had enough strength to murmur:

  “Leave now, brother! Leave, and may Jesus be with you!”

  Hunkered down in a grove of olive trees, Yokhanan saw from afar the legionaries drawing their swords to finish off the second son of Eliezer Ben-Akkai.

  Now only one man knew the location of Jesus’s tomb.

  50

  Nil walked with a spring in his step; radiant sunlight was shining through the high walls on either side of the Via Salaria. He had spent all of the previous day shut away in his room, and shared the monks’ meals without attending their infrequent services. He had been obliged to suffer the never-ending chatter of Father Jean only when they took coffee, sitting in the cloister.

  “All of us here lived through the golden age of San Girolamo, when it was hoped we could offer the world a new version of the Bible in Latin. Since modernity has condemned us, we’re working in a vacuum, and the library has been abandoned.”

  “It’s not just modernity that’s condemning you,” thought Nil as he swallowed a liquid that was an insult to Rome, the city where you can enjoy the best coffee in the world. “Perhaps the truth condemns you too.”

  But this morning he felt as light as air, and could almost forget the oppressive ambience in which he had been forced to live since his arrival – the way everybody mistrusted everybody else, and Leeland’s private remark: “My life’s over, they’ve destroyed my life”. What had become of that tall student, both serious and childish, who rested his unchanging gaze on every thing and every person, filled with an optimism as indestructible as his faith in America?

  He’d struggled with the inscription on the slab, looking at it from every possible angle. Just when he was about to give up, he had had the idea of comparing the mysterious text with the Coptic manuscript: that had been a real inspiration. One of the two phrases had enabled him, as night fell, to reach his goal.

  Andrei had seen the problem clearly: you had to put everything in perspective. Bring together the scattered elements, each of them written at a different period – first century for the Gospel, third century for the manuscript, eighth century for Germigny. He was starting to see a thread that linked them all.

  And he mustn’t lose this thread. “The truth, Nil: it was to find the truth that you entered the monastery.” The truth would avenge Andrei.

  * * *

  When he came into the studio on the Via Aurelia, Leeland had switched all his lights
on and was playing a Chopin étude; he greeted him with a smile. Nil suddenly wondered whether the same man had, only two days previously, given him a glimpse into an abyss of despair.

  “During the years I was in Jerusalem, I spent a lot of time with Arthur Rubinstein, who had gone there to live out his last days. There were a dozen of us students, Israelis and foreigners, who used to meet at his place. I had the privilege of seeing him playing this étude over and over. Anyway, have you managed to understand the rebus?”

  Nil motioned Leeland to come and sit next to him.

  “Everything became clear when I had the idea of numbering the lines of the inscription one by one. This is the result:

  1 αcredo in deum patrem om

  2 nipotentem creatorem cel

  3 i et terrae et in iesum c

  4 ristum filium ejus unicu

  5 m dominum nostrum qui co

  6 nceptus est de spiritu s

  7 ancto natus ex maria vir

  8 gine passus sub pontio p

  9 ilato crucifixus mortuus

  10 et sepultus descendit a

  11 d inferos tertio die res

  12 urrexit a mortuis ascend

  13 it in coelos sedet ad dex

  14 teram dei patris omnipot

  15 entis inde venturus est

  16 iudicare vivos et mortuo

  17 s credo in spiritum sanc

  18 tum sanctam ecclesiam ca

  19 tholicam sanctorum commu

  20 nionem remissionem pecca

  21 torum carnis resurrectio

  22 nem vitam eternam amen.ω

  “Twenty-two lines,” murmured Leeland.

  “Exactly twenty-two. So I asked myself the first question I’d already raised: why were an alpha and an omega added to the beginning and end of the text?”

  “You’ve already told me: to engrave into the marble a new world order, one that would be immutable, for all eternity.”

  “Yes, but I’ve managed to take it much further than that. Each individual line is devoid of meaning, but when I counted the number of characters – in other words, letters and spaces