The son of Mary bowed his head and did not reply. He was ashamed to say he was going to the monastery to become a saint.
Jacob gave his head a toss and eyed him. An evil thought had suddenly entered his mind. “You’d rather not say, is that it?” he growled. “You’re keeping it a secret, are you!”
Grabbing hold of his companion’s chin, he raised his head. “Look into my eyes. Tell me: who’s sending you?”
The son of Mary sighed. “I don’t know, I don’t know,” he murmured. “It may be God, but it may be the ...”
He hesitated. He was so frightened, the word stuck in his throat. What if he were truly being sent by the devil?
A dry laugh, filled with contempt, burst from Jacob’s lips. He grasped him tightly by the arm and shook him with violence. “The centurion,” he bellowed softly, “your friend the centurion—is he the one who’s sending you?”
Yes, that was it: the centurion must be sending him as a spy. New Zealots had cropped up in the mountains and the desert. They came down to the villages, got hold of the people secretly and spoke to them of revenge and liberty. The bloodthirsty centurion of Nazareth had unleashed a greased-palm spy of a Jew to every village. This fellow, this cross-maker, was without a doubt one of them.
Knitting his brows, Jacob shoved Jesus away from him. “Listen to me, son of the Carpenter,” he said, lowering his voice, “here’s where our ways part. You may not know where you’re headed, but I do. All right, go now, but this won’t be the last you’ll see or hear of me. No matter where you lead me, poor devil, I’ll follow you—and woe is you! That’s all I’ve got to say; but mark my words, this road you’ve chosen, you won’t leave it alive!”
This said, and without offering him his hand, he cascaded down the slope at a run.
Zebedee’s adopted sons removed the copper cauldron from the fire and sat in a circle around it. First to dip in the wooden spoon was the old man himself. He chose the largest fish and began to eat. But the oldest of the group put out his hand to prevent him.
“We forgot to say grace,” he reminded him.
Old Zebedee, still chewing his mouthful of food, lifted the wooden spoon and started to give thanks to the God of Israel for sending fish, grain, wine and oil to nourish the generations of the Hebrews and enable them to endure until the coming of the day of the Lord—when their enemies would be scattered, when all nations would fall prostrate at Israel’s feet and worship her, when all gods would fall prostrate at the feet of Adonai and worship him. “That is why we eat, Lord, that is why we marry and have children, that is why we live—all for your sake!”
This said, he swallowed the fish in one gulp.
While master and men ate and enjoyed the fruits of their labor, their eyes fixed on the lake-the mother that nourished them—suddenly Jacob appeared before them, puffing and covered with mud. The fishermen crowded together to make room for him, and old Zebedee, who was in a merry mood, cried, “Welcome to my first-born! You’re in luck, sit down and eat. What news?”
No answer. The son knelt by his father’s side but did not extend his hand to the fragrant, steaming cauldron.
Old Zebedee turned his head timidly and looked at him. He knew this peevish, taciturn son of his inside-out, and feared him. “Aren’t you hungry?” he asked. “What kind of a face is that? Who’ve you been fighting with this time?”
“With God, devils and men,” Jacob answered in a rage. “I’m not hungry!”
Ouch! he’s come to spoil our soup, Zebedee said to himself, but he strained to retain his good humor and change the subject. He slapped his son lovingly on the knee. “Hey, you rascal,” he said, winking at him, “who were you talking with along the way?”
Jacob gave a start. “So we have spies, have we? Who told you? ... I wasn’t talking with anyone!”
He got up, went to the lake, plunged in knee-deep and washed himself. Then he returned to the group, but as he saw how happy they were, all eating and laughing, he burst out, “You eat and drink, and in Nazareth others are crucified for your sakes!”
Unable to stand the sight of them any more, he started toward the village, grumbling.
Old Zebedee watched him recede. “My sons are thorns in my flesh,” he said, shaking his large head. “One too soft and pious, the other too pigheaded: wherever he goes or stops, he’s sure to start a row. Thorns. ... Neither of them developed into a true man: a little bit soft, a little bit against the grain; sometimes kind, sometimes a snapping dog; half devil, half angel—in short, a man!”
Sighing, he grabbed a gilthead to force the bitterness down. “Thank goodness we have the giltheads,” he said, and the lakes which make them and the God who makes the lakes.”
“If you speak like that, what must old Jonah say?” said the old man of the group. “The poor fellow sits on a rock every evening, looks toward Jerusalem and weeps for his son Andrew. He’s another one of those clairvoyants. They say he discovered a prophet and goes the rounds with him, eating nothing but locusts and honey, and grabbing people to dunk them in the Jordan, apparently to wash away their sins.”
“And we’re told to have sons to thrive!” said Zebedee. “Fetch me the gourd, men. There’s still some wine, isn’t there? My spirits need lifting!”
They heard heavy, slow-moving footsteps on the pebbles. Some cumbersome beast seemed to be approaching in a rage. Old Zebedee turned.
“Welcome to Jonah, the good man!” he shouted. He sponged off his wine-stained beard, rose respectfully and offered him his place. “I’ve just been having it out with my sons and the giltheads. Come, try your hand at the giltheads and tell us what news from Saint Andrew, your son.”
An old fisherman appeared before them. He was short and stocky, barefooted, roasted by the sun; with cloudy, stale eyes, an immense head covered by curly white hair, and skin which had grown fishlike scales. Leaning forward, he stared at them one by one, looking for somebody.
“Who are you looking for, Father Jonah?” Zebedee asked. “Are you too weary to speak?”
He gazed at his feet, his beard, his hair, all tangled and filled with fishbones and seaweed, and at his thick, chapped lips which opened and closed like those of a fish and made no sound. Zebedee wanted to laugh, but suddenly he was overcome by fright. A foolish suspicion darted through his mind. Terrified, he stretched forth both his hands as though he wished to prevent old Jonah from coming closer.
“Speak! Can you be the prophet Jonah?” he shouted, jumping to his feet. “Such a long time with us, and you’ve been hiding all the while? I adjure you in the name of Adonai: speak! Once I heard the holy Abbot of the monastery tell about the shark that swallowed the prophet Jonah and how, afterward, the fish vomited and Jonah jumped out of its belly, a man as before. So help me God, the way the Abbot described him to us he was just like you: seaweed entwined in the hair of his head and chest, and his beard full of newborn crabs. No offense, Jonah, but I wager that if I feel under your beard I’ll find crabs there.”
The fishermen burst out laughing, but Zebedee continued to gaze at his old friend with terror in his eyes.
“Speak, man of God,” he said to him. “Are you the prophet Jonah?”
Old Jonah shook his head. He couldn’t recall being swallowed by any fish. It was possible, however. After so many years wrestling with the fish, what chance did he have to remember?
“It’s him, it’s him!” murmured old Zebedee, his eyes darting from side to side as though he wanted to escape. He knew that prophets were freakish men whom one must not trust. They disappeared into the air, the sea, or into fire—and afterward, when you least expected them, lo! there they were in front of you! Had not Elijah risen to heaven mounted on fire? Yet he still lived and reigned, and no matter what mountain peak you scaled, there he was before you. The same was true of Enoch: immortal. And now, here was the prophet Jonah. He plays ignorant, Zebedee said to himself; he pretends to be a fisherman and the father of Peter and Andrew. Better tackle him with kindness: these prophets are
an odd, pigheaded lot, and if you don’t watch out you’ll find yourself in hot water.
He sweetened his voice. “Beloved neighbor, Father Jonah,” he began, “you are looking for someone—is it Jacob? He returned from Nazareth but was tired, it seems, and went to the village. If you want to know about your son Peter, he says he’s well and that you shouldn’t worry: he’s well, he’s coming soon, he sends his best wishes. Do you hear me, Jonah? Give me some sign.”
He spoke sweetly to him and stroked his leathery shoulders. Who could tell, everything was possible, and this blockhead of a fisherman might be the prophet Jonah. So, best take care!
Old Jonah stooped, snatched a small sea scorpion out of the cauldron, stuffed the whole thing into his mouth and began to chew it, bones and all.
“I’m going,” he mumbled, and he turned his back on them. Once more the pebbles began to crunch. A seagull skimmed over his head, flapped its wings and stopped for a moment as though its eye had caught sight of a crab under the fisherman’s hair. But it uttered a hoarse cry, apparently from fear, and flew away.
“Watch out, lads,” said old Zebedee. “I bet my bones he’s the prophet Jonah. Two of you had better go help him now that Peter’s away. Otherwise, who knows what will happen to us?”
Two great colossi got up and addressed him, half joking, half afraid. “Zebedee, we hold you responsible for the consequences. The prophets are wild beasts. They open their mouths out of the blue and gobble you up to the last bone! All right, let’s go. Farewell!”
Old Zebedee stretched with satisfaction—he had managed well with the prophet. Now he turned to the remaining adopted sons. “Look alive, men, step lively, load the fish into the hampers and go around to all the villages. But be careful, the peasants are foxy; they’re not like us fishermen—we’re God’s own! Give the least number of fish you possibly can and take the greatest possible amount of wheat (even if it’s last year’s), and of oil, wine, chickens, rabbits. Do you understand? Two and two make four.”
The adopted sons jumped up and began to fill the hampers.
In the distance, behind the rocks, a man appeared mounted on a racing camel. Old Zebedee shaded his eyes with his hand and looked.
“Hey, men,” he cried, “here, have a look—do you think it’s John, my son?”
The rider was now passing over the fine sand and approaching them.
“It’s him, it’s him!” the fishermen shouted. “Welcome to your son!”
Now the rider was passing in front of them, waving his hand to greet them.
“John,” cried the old father, “why in such a rush? Where are you going? Stop a minute and let us see you!”
“The Abbot is dying; I haven’t time.”
“What’s the matter with him?”
“He doesn’t want to eat; he wants to die.”
“Why? Why?”
But the rider’s words were lost in the air.
Old Zebedee coughed, thought for a moment and then shook his head. “The Lord preserve us from sainthood,” he said.
The son of Mary watched Jacob descend with angry strides toward Capernaum; then he collapsed to the ground, legs crossed, his heart filled with grievance. Why did he, who yearned so much to love and be loved, why did he awaken so much hatred in the hearts of men? It was his own fault; not God’s, not men’s, but his own. Why did he behave so cowardly, why did he choose a road to follow and then lack the courage to pursue it to its end? He was a cripple, a pitiful coward. Why didn’t he dare take Magdalene as his wife, to save her from shame and death; and when God clawed him and commanded him to rise, why did he cling to the ground and refuse to get up? And now, why was he governed by fear and going to the desert to hide? Did he think God would not find him there as well as anywhere else?
The sun stood nearly above his head. The lamentation for the wheat had stopped. These tormented people were already used to calamities: they recalled that their wailing had never brought a cure, and were quiet. For thousands of years they had suffered injustice, gone hungry, been tossed about by forces both visible and invisible. But somehow they limped through life, always managing to make ends meet—and this had taught them patience.
A green lizard emerged from a squat bush. It had come out to sun itself. When it saw this terrifying man-beast above it, its heart took fright and began to thump, just below the neck; but the reptile nerved itself, glued the whole length of its body to the warm rock, shifted its round, jet-black eye and gazed with confidence at the son of Mary, as though welcoming him or saying, I saw you were alone, so I came to keep you company. Rejoicing, the son of Mary held his breath so that he would not frighten the visitor; but while he watched it, feeling his own heart thump like the lizard’s, two fuzzy butterflies, both black and splashed with red, fluttered down between them and flew back and forth from one to the other, not wanting to leave. They danced gleefully, frolicking in the sun, and at the very last alighted on the man’s bloodied kerchief with their proboscises over the red spots, as though they wished to suck up the blood. Feeling their caress on the top of his head, he recalled God’s talons, and it seemed to him that these and the butterfly wings brought him the identical message. Ah, if only God could always descend to man not as a thunderbolt or a clawing vulture but as a butterfly!
And just as he joined butterflies and God in his mind, he felt something tickle the soles of his feet. He looked down and saw a preoccupied swarm of fat yellow-black ants filing hurriedly under his arches. Working in groups of twos or threes, they were carrying away the wheat in their roomy mandibles, one grain at a time. They had stolen it from the plain, right out of the mouths of men, and were transporting it now to their anthill, all the while praising God the Great Ant, who, ever solicitous for his Chosen People the ants, sent floods to the plain at precisely the right moment, just when the wheat was stacked upon the threshing floors.
The son of Mary sighed. Ants are God’s creatures too, he reflected, and so are men, and lizards, and the grasshoppers I hear in the olive grove and the jackals who howl during the night, and floods, and hunger. ...
He heard someone puffing behind him. Terror took hold of him. He had forgotten her for such a long time, but she had not forgotten him. He could now feel her in back of him, seated cross-legged like himself and breathing heavily.
“The Curse is God’s creature too,” he murmured.
He felt completely enveloped in God’s breath. It blew over him, sometimes warm and benevolent, sometimes savage, merciless. Lizard, butterflies, ants, Curse—all were God.
Hearing voices and bells along the road, he turned. A long camel caravan laden with expensive merchandise was passing by, led by a humble donkey. This caravan must have started from Nineveh and Babylon, the rich river valley of the patriarch Abraham, and come across desert transporting silks, spices, ivory and perhaps male and female slaves to the many-colored ships of the Great Sea.
The procession filed by; it seemed to have no end. What riches these people have, the son of Mary thought, what marvels! Finally, at the caravan’s tail, the rich black-bearded merchants appeared with their golden earrings, their green turbans and flowing white jellabs. They were passing in front of him now, rolling and pitching with the swaying jog of the camels.
The son of Mary shuddered. It suddenly occurred to him that they would stop at Magdala. Magdalene’s door is open day and night and they will enter, he said to himself. I must save you, Magdalene—oh, if I could only do it!—you, Magdalene, not the race of Israel: that I cannot save. I’m no prophet. If I open my mouth, I have no idea what to say. God did not anoint my lips with burning coals, did not cast his thunderbolt into my bowels to make me burn, rush frenzied into the streets and begin to shout. ... I want the words to be his, not mine: I want nothing to do with them. I’ll simply open my mouth, and he’ll do the talking. No, I’m no prophet; I’m just a plain, ordinary man who’s scared of everything: I can’t drag you out of the bed of shame, Magdalene, so I’m going to the desert, to the monastery, to
pray for you. Prayer is all-powerful. They say that during the wars, as long as Moses kept his hands raised to heaven, the sons of Israel conquered, and as soon as he grew tired and lowered them, they were defeated. ... Magdalene, I shall keep my hands raised to heaven for you day and night.
He looked up to see when the sun was going to set. He wanted to continue on in darkness so that he could get past Capernaum without being seen by a soul and then go around the lake and enter the desert. He was growing more and more anxious to arrive.
“Oh, if I could only walk over the waters and go directly across the lake!” he murmured, sighing once more.
The lizard was still sunning itself, glued to the warm rock. The butterflies had flown up high and disappeared into the light. The ants continued to transport the harvest. They shoveled it into their granaries, went hastily back to the fields and returned with new loads. The sun was ready to set. The passers-by grew scarcer; shadows lengthened; the evening fell upon trees and soil, gilding them. On the lake, the water was in perfect confusion: at the twinkling of an eye it altered its appearance—reddened, turned light violet, darkened. One large star hung in the western skies.