Barabbas sat opposite to him and was drawn to examine his face. It was sallow and seemed as hard as bone. The skin was completely parched. Barabbas had never thought a face could look like that and he had never seen anything so desolate. It was like a desert.
To the young man’s question the man replied that it was quite true that he had been dead and brought back to life by the rabbi from Galilee, their Master. He had lain in the grave for four days and nights, but his physical and mental powers were the same as before, nothing had altered as far as they were concerned. And because of this the Master had proved his power and glory and that he was the son of God. He spoke slowly in a monotone, looking at Barabbas the whole time with his pale, lack-lustre eyes.
When he had finished, they continued talking for a while about the Master and his great deeds. Barabbas took no part in the conversation. Then the young man got up and left them to go and see his parents, who lived in the same village.
Barabbas had no wish to be left alone with the man, but he could think of no pretext for abruptly taking his leave. The man looked steadily at him with the queer opaque eyes that expressed nothing at all, least of all any interest in him, but which nevertheless pulled Barabbas towards him in some inexplicable way. He would have liked to make his escape, tear himself away and escape, but he could not.
The man sat for some time without speaking. Then he asked Barabbas if he believed in their rabbi, that he was the son of God. Barabbas hesitated, then answered no, for it felt so odd to lie to those vacant eyes which didn’t seem to mind in the least whether one lied or not. The man took no offence, merely said with a nod:
—No, there are many who don’t. His mother, who was here yesterday, doesn’t believe either. But he raised me from the dead because I am to witness for him.
Barabbas said that in that case it was only natural he should believe in him, and that he must be eternally grateful to him for the great miracle he had wrought. The man said, yes, he was, he thanked him every day for having brought him back to life, for the fact that he belonged to the realm of the dead no longer.
—The realm of the dead? Barabbas exclaimed, noticing that his voice trembled slightly. The realm of the dead?… What is it like there? You who have been there! Tell me what it’s like!
—What it’s like? the man said, looking at him questioningly. He clearly didn’t quite understand what the other meant.
—Yes! What is it? This thing you have experienced?
—I have experienced nothing, the man answered, as though disapproving of the other’s violence. I have merely been dead. And death is nothing.
—Nothing?
—No. What should it be?
Barabbas stared at him.
—Do you mean you want me to tell you something about the realm of the dead? I cannot. The realm of the dead isn’t anything. It exists, but it isn’t anything.
Barabbas could only stare at him. The desolate face frightened him, but he could not tear his eyes away from it.
—No, the man said, looking past him with his empty gaze, the realm of the dead isn’t anything. But to those who have been there, nothing else is anything either.
—It is strange your asking such a thing, he went on. Why did you? They don’t usually.
And he told him that the brethren in Jerusalem often sent people there to be converted, and indeed many had been. In that way he served the Master and repaid something of his great debt for having been restored to life. Almost every day someone was brought by this young man or one of the others and he testified to his resurrection. But of the realm of the dead he never spoke. It was the first time anyone had wanted to hear about it.
It was growing dark in the room, and, getting up, he lighted an oil lamp that hung from the low ceiling. Then he got out bread and salt, which he placed on the table between them. He broke the bread and passed some to Barabbas, dipping his own piece in the salt and inviting Barabbas to do the same. Barabbas had to do likewise, though he felt his hand shaking. They sat there in silence in the feeble light from the oil lamp, eating together.
This man had nothing against eating a love feast with him! He was not so particular as the brethren in Potters’ Lane, and made but little distinction between one man and another. But when the dry, yellow fingers passed him the broken bread and he had to eat it, he imagined his mouth was filled with the taste of corpse.
Anyway, what did it mean, his eating with him like this? What was the hidden significance of this strange meal?
When they had finished, the man went with him to the door and bade him go in peace. Barabbas mumbled something and hastily took his leave. He strode rapidly out into the darkness and down the mountainside, thoughts pounding in his head.
The fat woman was joyously surprised at his violence as he took her; it was with no little zest he did it this evening. What caused it, she didn’t know, but tonight it seemed as if he really needed something to hold on to. And if anyone could give that to him, she could. She lay dreaming she was young again, and that someone loved her …
Next day he kept clear of the lower part of the city and Potters’ Lane, but one of them from the workshop there ran into him up in Solomon’s colonnade and immediately asked how it was yesterday, whether it was not true what they had said? He answered that he did not doubt that the man he had visited had been dead and then resurrected, but that to his way of thinking their Master had had no right to raise him from the dead. The potter was dumbfounded, his face turning almost ashen at this insult to their Lord, but Barabbas merely turned his back and let him go.
It must have become known not only in Potters’ Lane, but in the oil-pressers’, the tanners’, the weavers’ lanes, and all the others; for when Barabbas, as time went on, went there again as usual, he noticed that the believers he usually talked to were not at all as before. They were taciturn, and looked at him suspiciously the whole time out of the corners of their eyes. There had never been any intimacy between them, but now they openly showed their mistrust. In fact a wizened little man whom he didn’t even know tugged at him and asked why he was forever mixing with them, what he wanted of them, whether he was sent by the temple guard or the high priest’s guard or perhaps by the Sadducees? Barabbas stood there speechless, looking at the little old man, whose bald head was quite red with rage. He had never seen him before and had no idea who he was, except that he was obviously a dyer, judging from the red and blue strands of wool stuck through holes in his ears.
Barabbas realized that he had offended them and that their feelings towards him were quite changed. He was met with snubs and stony faces wherever he went, and some stared hard at him as if to make clear to him that they intended finding out who he was. But he pretended to take no notice.
Then one day it happened. It ran like wildfire through all the lanes where the faithful lived, suddenly there was not one who didn’t know it. It is he! It is he! He who was released in the Master’s stead! In the Saviour’s, in God’s son’s stead! It is Barabbas! It’s Barabbas the acquitted!
Hostile glances pursued him, hate gleamed from smouldering eyes. It was a frenzy which did not even abate after he had vanished from their sight, never to show himself there again.
—Barabbas the acquitted! Barabbas the acquitted!
He crept into his shell now and didn’t speak to a soul. For that matter, he hardly ever went out; just lay inside the curtain at the fat woman’s or in the arbour up on the roof when there was too much of a hubbub in the house. Day after day he would spend in this manner, without occupying himself in any way whatsoever. He scarcely bothered about eating, at least he wouldn’t have done if food had not been put before him and his attention drawn to it. He seemed utterly indifferent to everything.
The fat woman could not make out what was wrong with him; it was beyond her. Nor did she dare ask, either. It was best to leave him in peace, which was what he seemed to want. He barely answered when spoken to, and if one peeped cautiously inside the curtain now and again, he merel
y lay there staring up at the ceiling. No, it was quite beyond her. Was he going off his head? Losing his reason? It was more than she could say.
Then she hit on it. It was when she overheard that he had been mixing with those lunatics who believed in the fellow who had been crucified when Barabbas himself should have been! Then it dawned on her! No wonder he had grown a bit queer. They were the cause of it. They, of course, had been filling his head with their crazy notions. It was enough to make anyone touched, going about with half-wits like them. They thought that that crucified man was some sort of saviour or whatever it was, who was to help them in some way and give them everything they asked for, and wasn’t he to be king in Jerusalem too and send the beardless devils packing? Oh, she didn’t really know what it was they taught and she didn’t care either, but they were soft in the head, everyone knew that. How, in heaven’s name, could he go and get tied up with them? What had he to do with them? Yes! Now she had it! He himself was to have been crucified, but then he hadn’t been, their saviour had been instead, and that was terrible, of course; he had to try and explain it, and so on, that it wasn’t his fault, and so on, and then they had kept on talking of how remarkable that fellow was that they believed in, how pure and innocent and what an important person, if you please, and how awful it was to treat such a great king and lord in that way, had in fact filled his head with all sorts of stuff and nonsense, until he had gone quite daft because he wasn’t dead, because it wasn’t he who was dead. That was it, of course, that’s what had happened, of course!
She might have known it was because he had not been crucified! The simpleton! She really had to laugh, laugh outright at her silly old Barabbas. He was too funny for words. Yes, that’s what it was all about, of course.
But even so it was about time he pulled himself together and listened to reason. She’d have a talk with him, that she would. What was all this nonsense?
But she didn’t have a talk with him. She meant to, but nothing ever came of it. For some reason one didn’t start talking to Barabbas about himself. One meant to, perhaps, but could never bring oneself to do it.
So things went on as before, with her going around wondering what on earth was the matter with him. Was he ill? Perhaps he was ill? He had got thin, and the scar from the knife-wound that that Eliahu had given him was the only spot of colour in the wan, hollow face. He was a sorry sight, not at all his usual self. Not at all his usual self in any way. It wasn’t like him to go mooning about like this, to lie staring up at the ceiling. Barabbas! A man like Barabbas!
Supposing it was not he? Supposing he’d become someone else, was possessed by someone else, by someone else’s spirit! Just think if he were no longer himself! It certainly seemed like it! By that other man’s spirit! He who really had been crucified! And who certainly wished him no good. Fancy if that “saviour” when he gave up the ghost breathed it into Barabbas instead, so as not to have to die and so as to be avenged for the wrong that had been done him, be avenged on the one who was acquitted! It was quite possible! And when one came to think of it, Barabbas had been queer like this ever since then. Yes, she remembered his strange behaviour when he had come in here just after his release. Yes, that’s what it was, all right, and that explained everything. The only thing that wasn’t quite clear was how the rabbi had managed to breathe his spirit into Barabbas, for he had given up the ghost at Golgotha and Barabbas had not been there. But then if he was as powerful as they made out, he could probably do even that, could make himself invisible and go wherever he wanted. He no doubt had the power to get exactly what he wanted.
Did Barabbas himself know what had happened to him, that he had someone else’s spirit in him? That he himself was dead but that the crucified man was alive in him? Did he?
Perhaps he suspected nothing; but it was easy to see he was the worse for it. And no wonder, either; it was someone else’s spirit and it wished him no good.
She felt sorry for him, she could hardly bear to look at him, she felt so sorry for him. He, for his part, never looked at her at all, but that was because he couldn’t be bothered. He took no notice of her at all, not the slightest, so it was no wonder he didn’t look at her. And he never wanted her any more at nights; that was the worst of all. It showed more than anything else that he couldn’t be bothered with her. It was only she who was stupid enough to cling to this poor wretch. She would lie crying to herself of a night, but now it didn’t feel a bit nice. Strange … She never thought to experience anything like that again.
How was she to get him back? How was she to cast out the crucified man and get Barabbas to be Barabbas again? She had no idea how you cast out spirits. She knew nothing at all about it, and this was a powerful and dangerous spirit, she could see that; she was almost afraid of it, though normally she was not of a timid nature. You only had to look at Barabbas to see how powerful it was, how it just took complete control of a big strong man who was alive himself until a short time ago. It was beyond her. No wonder she felt a bit scared. It was sure to be specially powerful having belonged to a crucified man.
No, she wasn’t afraid exactly. But she didn’t like crucified people. It was not in her line. She had a large, generously proportioned body, and the one that suited her was Barabbas. Barabbas as he was himself. Such as he was before he had got it into his head that it was he who should have been crucified. What she relished was the very fact that he had not been crucified, that he had got off!
Such were the fat woman’s thoughts in her great loneliness. But at last it came to her that in actual fact she knew nothing at all about Barabbas. Neither what was wrong with him nor whether he was possessed by that crucified man’s spirit or not. Nothing at all. All she knew was that he took no notice of her and that she was foolish enough to love him. The thought of this made her cry, and she lay there feeling dreadfully unhappy.
Barabbas was about in the city once or twice during the time he lived with her, and on one occasion it happened that he found himself in a house that was merely a low vault with vent-holes here and there to let in the light, and with a pungent smell of hides and acids. It was evidently a tannery, though it was not in Tanners’ Lane but down below the temple hill towards the Vale of Kedron. Presumably it was one of those that tanned the hides of the sacrificial animals from the temple; but it was no longer in use. The vats and tubs along the walls were empty, though they still retained all their fumes and smells. The floor was littered with oak-bark, refuse and filth of all kinds that one trod in.
Barabbas had slunk in unobserved and was huddled in a corner near the entrance. There he squatted, looking out over the room full of praying people. Some he couldn’t see; in fact the only ones discernible were those who happened to be lying where the light filtered through the vent-holes in the arched roof; but there must have been people lying everywhere praying, even in the semi-darkness, for the same mumbling could be heard from there too. Now and then the murmur would rise and grow stronger in one part, only to subside again and mingle with the rest. Sometimes everyone would begin praying much more loudly than before, with more and more burning zeal, and someone would get up and begin witnessing in ecstasy for the resurrected Saviour. The others would then stop speaking instantly and all turn in that direction, as though to draw strength from him. When he had finished they would all start praying together again, even more fervently than before. In most cases Barabbas could not see the witness’s face, but once, when it was someone quite close to him, he saw that it was dripping with sweat. He sat watching the man in his transports, and saw how the sweat ran down the hollow cheeks. He was a middle-aged man. When he had finished he threw himself down on the earthen floor and touched it with his forehead, as everyone does in prayer; it was as though he had suddenly remembered there was also a God, not only that crucified man he had been talking about the whole time.
After him a voice could be heard a long way off which Barabbas seemed to recognize. And when he peered in that direction he found it was the big red-bearded m
an from Galilee standing there in a ray of light. He spoke more calmly than the others and in his native dialect, which everyone in Jerusalem thought sounded so silly. But all the same they listened more tensely to him than to anyone else. They hung on his words, though, as a matter of fact, there was nothing in the least remarkable about what he said. First he spoke for a while about his dear Master, never referring to him as anything else. Then he mentioned that the Master had said that those who believed in him would suffer persecution for his sake. And if this did happen, they would endure it as well as they could and think of what their Master himself had suffered. They were only weak, miserable human beings, not like him, but even so they would try and bear these ordeals without breaking faith and without denying him. That was all. And he seemed to say it as much to himself as to the others. When he had finished it was almost as if those present were rather disappointed in him. He noticed it, evidently, and said that he would say a prayer which the Master had once taught him. This he did, and they appeared more satisfied; some, in fact, were really moved. The whole room was filled with a kind of mutual ecstasy. When he came to the end of the prayer, and those nearest him turned as if to “congratulate” him, Barabbas saw that he was surrounded by the men who said: “Get thee hence, thou reprobate!”
One or two others then witnessed and were so filled with the spirit that the congregation continued in its exaltation and many rocked their bodies to and fro as though in a trance. Barabbas watched them from his corner, sitting and taking note of everything with his wary eyes.