James made his way back past the sleeping apostles, doing his best not to disturb them. He cried, but made sure he did it very, very quietly. And when at last he dreamed, the fatted calves were not for him. They danced with Judas Iscariot, and wouldn’t give him a second glance.
The next day Jesus told his disciples it was high time they all had a treat, and that they should go out to their favourite restaurant. That was fine and good, but no one could agree on what their favourite restaurant actually was—but Jesus had the casting vote, and so they were soon all seated around a group table looking at menus. After they’d made a start on the main course, Jesus stood up and told them he had something to say.
James had hardly eaten for nerves. This is it, he thought. This is when he’ll tell them I’m out of the gang. How embarrassing.
“One of you will betray me.” Steady on, thought James, I’m not that bad—and then he realized Jesus wasn’t necessarily talking about him. There was consternation around the table, and James couldn’t relax quite yet, after all, Jesus could throw in his dismissal as a sort of P.S. But as the recriminations and the desserts started, James felt relieved—he was off the hook. Indeed he got some of his appetite back, and as the others argued he felt able to tuck into the mixed meze.
Late that night Judas brought the soldiers to the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus was identified with a kiss, and the Romans arrested him. There was panic and confusion and all the apostles fled, James among them. He spent the next few hours hiding from passers-by who might turn him in to the militia—and eventually found he was hiding in the same place as Judas.
“You rotten shit,” said James, and even as he said it, he realized it didn’t quite have the moral outrage he’d been hoping for. “And after he gave you my mission too!”
Judas looked at James in honest bemusement. Worked out what he meant. Then told him he was an idiot.
“You want a mission?” said Judas. “Here’s a mission. Fetch me some rope.”
“Where am I going to get rope from at this time of night?” But Judas gave him a bag of silver, and told him he’d find a way.
“We’re closed,” said the owner of the hardware store.
“I need rope,” James called up to his bedroom window.
“Rope can wait until morning.”
“I have money,” James said. “Look.” And the starlight picked out the silver coins.
There was a pause. “I’ll be right down, sir,” said the man.
James found Judas waiting in a field. Like Jesus had been the night before, he was doubled over. But Judas was retching far more successfully.
“Here’s your change,” said James, and handed Judas the bag of silver pieces. Judas tossed it aside impatiently. “Help me with the rope,” he said. “Tie this end to the branch, make a noose with the other.”
“I’m not very good at knots,” said James. “Sorry.”
“You’re an idiot,” said Judas, but smiled a little fondly. “You’ll at least witness this for me. You can do that, can’t you?”
So James watched as Judas killed himself. He watched the whole thing, because a part of him thought it was his fault somehow—if he’d only stayed awake everything would have been different. And in the same way James made himself watch Jesus’ crucifixion. As the crowd jeered, James stood rock solid and silent in the midst of them all, refusing to take his eyes off him. He was the only apostle who had dared to come.
And James fancied that as Jesus died he saw him there. And that at last Jesus realized that he was James the Less, just as James now realized he was Jesus. But then again, James thought, he might well have imagined it. After all, Jesus had been rather busy at the time.
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Pontius Pilate was very excited to be meeting Jesus at last. Of course, he had to keep that excitement reined in, that was the point. Cold and detached, that was the way through this. That had been the way through everything. “All right,” he told the guard, “you can bring him in.”
Pilate’s heart leaped when he saw Jesus in front of him, hands manacled behind, bleeding a little. He hadn’t seen him in so long, not for centuries and centuries. He kept his face impassive. He dismissed the guard with as much languor as he could muster. Now they were alone together Pilate felt shy and flustered. “Believe it or not,” he babbled, “I’ve been dying to meet you.”
Jesus said nothing to this. Didn’t even raise an eyebrow.
“They want me to kill you.”
“I know,” said Jesus.
“They want me to sentence you to death, I mean. Have you taken away and crucified.”
“I know,” said Jesus.
“I’m not going to let it happen,” said Pilate.
Jesus said nothing. But at least the eyebrow raised.
“The charges against you,” said Pilate, “I’m dismissing them. They’re not true, they’re all lies. Or they are true, but I pardon you. Whatever you think is best. But you’re free. You’re free to go.”
Silence.
“All I ask is that you go somewhere else. Somewhere far away. From the threat of the cross, at least. Go somewhere where they’ll execute you in a completely different way, if you want!” And he almost giggled.
“No,” said Jesus.
“What’s that?”
“No.”
“Right,” said Pilate. “Right. I see. Look,” he went on, “I wasn’t going to say this. It’s hard to explain. But you see, I know. I know everything that happens. To you. To us. Because I am you. Do you see? I am you.”
Jesus just looked at him.
“I’m not saying you’re me or anything,” went on Pilate, “that’d just be crazy. No, this is strictly one way round. Look, I can prove it. Look, I know what you’re thinking right this second. Hang on, I have to work it out, yes, you’re thinking I’m insane. You’re thinking I’m possessed by evil spirits, ha ha, yes. See?”
“If,” said Jesus, “you really are me, then you know that the crucifixion has to happen. You know that everything I have done on earth. The healing, the miracles, all my ministry, even—all of it’s nothing to this one act of sacrifice and what it represents.”
“Right from birth,” said Pilate, “I knew this day would come. I knew I had to get this right. I invented myself as someone cruel and brutal. Someone who would be put in a position to execute you—just so, when the time came, I could save you. All those people I’ve convicted already, I had them killed just so I could get to you. Do you see? They died so you might live.”
“You cannot save me,” said Jesus. “That isn’t what you’re for.”
“And maybe I don’t like the role I’ve been given in this stupid story!” said Pilate, losing his temper at last. And straight away he began to beg. “Look, please,” he said. “Please. What do I have to do to convince you to carry on living? What can I give you? Wealth? Women? Anything!”
“Get thee behind me,” said Jesus softly.
And Pontius Pilate picked up the dagger, took Jesus by the hair, held the blade hard against his throat.
“And if I kill you now,” he said, breathing heavily, and he knew he was panicking, this wasn’t what he’d planned. “What then? I deny you your little stunt with the cross.”
“You won’t kill me, Pilate,” said Jesus.
“You have no idea what I have been through. What we have been through. I’ll do anything to stop it.”
“You won’t kill me because you’re a coward.”
And Pilate knew it was true. He had two sons, both of them scared him. The eldest boy was very nearly a man now, and Pilate didn’t trust him at all. He ate too much and his mother spoiled him and Pilate suspected he tortured animals. The youngest would, at dinner, just look at Pilate without saying a word. Staring. Pilate would try to laugh it off, but he wanted to scream at him, what? What are you accusing me of? And he thought desperately, are you in there, Jesus, is that what this is? Is my son some future Jesus, some future m
e, come here to stare me down? Pilate’s own wife would lie in bed, utterly passive as he rode her, she’d never make a sound as if deliberately withholding any sign of pleasure, and afterwards she’d just turn away from him and say, “I don’t know what it is, but something’s missing.” She was probably a Jesus too, he was sure of it. And he hated her, he hated them all, but still he played the happy husband, the happy father, because he was scared of what they might tell him if he stopped.
Pilate let go of Jesus’ hair. He’d been born into a coward’s body.
“I’ll stop you some time,” he said. “Not this lifetime then. All right. But sooner or later I’ll stop you.”
Jesus said nothing to that. And then smiled. Pilate stepped back, as if he’d been slapped. He ordered the guard back in. “Take this man away,” he said. “Let the Jews do what they want with him. I wash my hands of the whole thing.”
It was a Thursday, so that night his wife lay waiting for him, naked, bored. Ready to be entered with all the passion of a revolving door. “Not tonight,” said Pilate. “I have a headache.” It was the first time he’d surprised her in years.
The 1946th Jesus didn’t live long. He was one of the first born that Herod had put to death at the nativity in his attempt to kill the Messiah. The irony wasn’t lost on the child, but he didn’t really mind. “Thank Christ, at least this one didn’t take long,” thought the baby, as the sword was driven through his little body.
He got close to the crucifixion many times. For a while he was Matthew, and as he watched his Jesus self he decided to chronicle the whole thing. As if only to make some sense of it. When, four hundred or so lives later, he was born as Mark, he decided to write the whole thing again, but this time from a different angle. By the time he was John he thought it might be rather fun to put another spin on it all, and deliberately changed the order the disciples were picked, and shuffled the events of the story around a bit. And as Luke he could barely conceal his yawns as he scribbled out yet another gospel. Watching the feeding of the five thousand yet again, having to hear the same old same old about camels passing through eyes of needles. “Sorry, Luke,” said Jesus sarcastically, “are we keeping you up? These miracles of mine not interesting enough?” “No, no,” Luke would say, “they’re absolutely riveting, really,” and he’d draft out the latest triumph, and roll his eyes when he was sure Jesus wasn’t looking.
But he didn’t feel it was until he was born as Judas that he could really make a difference.
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“I have a mission for you,” said Jesus. “It is highly secret, and none of the other apostles must know of it. Everything rests upon its success. Do you understand me, Judas? Everything.”
“I understand,” said Judas.
“Don’t be afraid.”
“No,” said Judas, “I’m not afraid.”
“I need you to betray me,” said Jesus. “I am going to be crucified, and I need someone to deliver me into the hands of the executioners. Without that sacrifice, man’s sins cannot be purged. And through the spilling of my blood they may be given eternal life. Don’t be afraid.”
“No, really,” said Judas, “I’m not.”
“You should know what this will mean to you,” said Jesus. “You will be the most hated of men. In this life, of course, but worse than that. Throughout all time. Poets will depict you suffering in the deepest circle of Hell, artists will paint you as the ultimate representation of evil. And your very name, Judas, will be forever more a byword for treason and apostasy. In a way, your sacrifice will be worse than mine. But it is necessary. Please, please don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not,” said Judas patiently, “afraid.”
“And worse still,” went on Jesus, and Judas sighed, “because you have to know, don’t you? You have to know. Your treachery will damn the Jews as well. You’ll symbolize our entire race, and it will be persecuted forever more. Because of you there will be the pogroms, because of you the concentration camps. Are you afraid yet?”
“I think I might be afraid,” said Judas, “if I knew what a concentration camp was. But, no, I’m not afraid.”
“Good.”
“But principally because I’m not going to do it.”
“What?” said Jesus. He looked genuinely flabbergasted. In all his many incarnations, Judas didn’t think Jesus had ever looked so flabbergasted before.
“I’m not a coward,” said Judas. “Do you hear me? You called me a coward once. But not this time.”
“I’ve never called you a coward.”
“Not as me. As Pontius Pilate.”
“I’ve never even met Pontius Pilate.”
Judas sighed. “Well, you will, when you’re betrayed to him.”
Jesus frowned in thought. “I knew I should have waited for James the Less,” he said finally. “Things would be going much more smoothly. You can’t stop me, Judas,” he went on as he saw his old friend produce the knife. “You could kill me, of course, right here and now. It’ll change very little. I’ll still have been the Messiah, and I’ll still have been betrayed, and I’ll still die saving the world. You’ll go down in history as a traitor anyway, the sort of traitor who murders by stealth, in dark alleyways at night.”
Judas glared at him.
“You see,” Jesus said, “at the end of the day. I am not afraid either.”
Judas hesitated. Then muttered, “The hell with you then.” And he walked out of Jesus’ life.
And so the story goes. Jesus then called his apostle James out of the shadows. The other James, the one we call James the Treacherous, James who was Satan’s Own. And after Jesus was crucified, the very word James became forever more a byword for treason and apostasy.
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And then, at long last. After so many lives had been lived and wasted and forgotten, he was born as her. The one he couldn’t forget. The woman he had loved so clumsily on the floor of his carpentry shop.
It took Jesus a long time to realize he really was her. He expected so little from the bodies he inhabited now, he lived them as far as he could with his eyes closed. She wasn’t, after all, an especially remarkable woman, she had no notable talents, no great beauty. And she was twenty-two and already married before Jesus looked in the mirror one day and saw that it was her, unarguably her. It may have been the way she’d started flicking that thick black hair of hers.
Straight away she set off to find her carpenter. She couldn’t quite remember where he’d be. There were a lot of carpentry shops out there, and she hadn’t visited his in a long time—several hundred thousand years or so. But she was patient. She scoured the whole town, poking her head around the doors, studying every face to see whether it was the man she’d loved. And when she’d exhausted the town, she began to search further afield. She had to be careful; her husband was a jealous man, and she rarely had time to check more than one or two shops before it was time to turn back home again.
But one day she found it. She recognized it immediately, how could she have forgotten it? And she rushed into the shop, her heart already bursting with passion. He was there, his manner surly and unwelcoming. She’d never realized before how ugly he was, having never seen his body through these eyes. But it didn’t matter, all that mattered was that she had at last found her life’s purpose.
She made up some excuse about wanting a present for her husband, but then remembered it was all such nonsense, she knew full well no such present would ever be made or delivered. So she kissed him, and made love to him. He didn’t know how to do it, she had to show him exactly. But she knew he’d improve with practice.
“What’s your name?” he’d ask her. And she wouldn’t tell him. The truth is, when she was with him, she could no longer remember. At home with her husband, in the drudgery that was her real life, she knew her name, she knew her whole family history, she knew what she’d called their pet dog when she’d been a little girl. But with this other Jesus, she found the rush of all thos
e memories and past lives confused her, and quite wiped out her identity. And that was good. She had a feeling she didn’t much like herself anyway. And when they made love it was on a cloud of beautiful guiltless ignorance.
He taught her carpentry for fun. And she pretended she was learning from him, that she hadn’t known for herself how to shape wood for countless centuries already. She liked the way it made him feel proud, that he believed in some way he was making an impression on her life.
And of course, he was. He was.
One day in the shop she idly made herself a wooden crucifix. It was only a little thing, no bigger than her palm.
“What on earth did you make that for?” he asked.
“I’ve no idea,” she replied, and hadn’t.
But from that day on, she found that whenever she worked a piece of wood, it always ended up as a crucifix. Sometimes a little medallion, to be threaded through a necklace chain. Sometimes just a miniature to be hung on the wall. Planed smooth and pretty. And, occasionally, if she were really daydreaming, she’d carve a little figure to the cross, with little knobs of wood for the nails.
The carpenter didn’t want to criticize her, he loved her too much. But even so, he couldn’t help but remark upon the peculiar choice of her handiwork. “It’s sick,” he told her bluntly.
She told him that she wouldn’t do any more carpentry. She’d watch him instead—she’d like that. And they recovered their good humour: she’d laugh as she watched him labour so delicately over a chair or table, and then, when they both agreed he’d earned a reward, they’d make love. But whilst he dozed, she would get up. Go to the workshop. And start work upon the crosses once more. She couldn’t help it, her hands would be itching, literally itching, for her to make them. Then she’d steal them home. She kept one wall decoration under her pillow, another under the mattress. The pendant hung layers beneath her clothes, and when she stripped for sex she’d take care to hide it before the carpenter or her husband could see.
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