Suddenly the silence was broken by the voice of the monk who was doing sentry duty on the rock: “They’re coming! They’re coming!”
The monks in the Abbot’s cell awoke with a start and flew outside, leaving the Abbot all alone.
Nerving himself, the son of Mary advanced two steps, timidly, and stopped on the threshold. Inside was the calm of death, of immortality. The Abbot’s pale, slender feet gleamed, bathed in sunlight. A bee buzzed near the ceiling; a fuzzy black insect flitted about the seven lights, hopping from one to the next as though trying to select its crematorium.
Suddenly the Abbot stirred. Exerting all his strength, he raised his head—and at once the eyes popped out of his head, his mouth dropped open, his nostrils sniffed the air, twitching insatiably. The son of Mary put his hand to his heart, lips and forehead in the sign of greeting.
The Abbot’s lips moved. “You’ve come ... you’ve come ... you’ve come ...” he murmured, so imperceptibly that the son of Mary did not hear. But a smile of unspeakable bliss spread over the Abbot’s severe, embittered face and straightway his eyes closed, the nostrils remained motionless, his mouth shut and the two hands which were crossed over his breast rolled one to the right and the other to the left and rested on the ground with open, upturned palms.
In the courtyard meanwhile, the two camels had knelt. The monks rushed forward to help the old rabbi dismount.
“Is he alive, is he still alive?” the young novice asked in anguished tones.
“He’s still breathing,” answered Father Habakkuk. “He sees and hears everything, but does not speak.”
The rabbi entered first, followed by the novice with the precious wallet containing the healer’s salves, herbs and magic amulets. The two black dogs, their tails between their legs, did not even turn their heads. Their necks were stretched out against the ground and they were yelping woefully, like human beings.
The rabbi heard them and shook his head. I’ve come too late, he reflected, but he did not speak.
He knelt by the Abbot’s side, leaned over his body and placed his hand on his heart. His lips were almost touching those of the Abbot.
“Too late,” he whispered. “I’ve come too late. ... Long may you live, Fathers!”
Crying out, the monks stooped and kissed the corpse, each according to his length of service, as prescribed by custom: Father Habakkuk the eyes, the remaining monks the beard and upturned palms, the novices the feet. And one of them took the Abbot’s crosier from the empty stall and laid it next to the holy remains.
The old rabbi knelt and regarded him, unable to tear away his eyes. What was this triumphant smile? What meaning had the mysterious gleam around the closed eyes? A sun, an unsetting sun, had fallen over this face and remained there. What was this sun?
He looked about him. The monks, still on their knees, were paying homage to the deceased; John, his lips glued to the Abbot’s feet, wept. The old rabbi shifted his glance from one monk to the next as though questioning them; and suddenly his eye was caught by the son of Mary standing motionless and tranquil in the back corner of the cell, his hands crossed on his breast. But spread over the whole of his face was the same calm, triumphant smile.
“Lord of Hosts, Adonai,” whispered the terrified rabbi, “will you never cease tempting my heart? Help my mind now to understand—and decide!”
The next day an angry blood-red sun ringed by a dark tempest bounded out of the sand. A fiery east wind arose from the desert; the world turned black. The monastery’s two ebony dogs tried to bark, but their mouths filled with sand and they remained still. The camels, glued to the ground, closed their eyes and waited.
Slowly, linked one to the next in a chain, the monks groped their way forward, struggling not to fall. Squashed together in a row and holding the Abbot’s remains tightly in their arms so that the wind would not take him from them, they proceeded, going to bury him. The desert swayed: rose and fell like the sea.
“It’s the desert wind, the breath of Jehovah,” murmured John, leaning his entire body against the son of Mary. “It withers every green leaf, dries up every spring, fills your mouth with sand. We’ll simply leave the sacred remains in a hollow, and the waves of sand will come to cover them up.”
The moment they passed over the monastery’s threshold the red-bearded blacksmith, his hammer over his shoulder, rose up black and enormous out of the swirling mist and looked at them for an instant, but immediately disappeared, enveloped by the sand. The son of Zebedee saw this ogre in the middle of the sandstorm. Terrified, he clutched his partner’s arm.
“Who was that?” he asked softly. “Did you see him?”
But the son of Mary did not reply. God arranges everything perfectly, and exactly as he desires, he reflected. Look how he brought Judas and me together—here in the desert, at the very ends of the earth. Well, then, Lord, let your will be done.
Bent over, they advanced all together, planting their feet in the burning sand. They tried to block their mouths and nostrils with the edge of their robes, but the fine sand had already descended to their throats and lungs. The wind suddenly took hold of Father Habakkuk, who was in the lead. It twirled him around and threw him down. The monks, blinded by the clouds of sand, walked over him. The desert whistled, the stones jingled; old Habakkuk uttered a hoarse cry, but no one heard.
Why shouldn’t Jehovah’s breath be the cool breeze which comes to us from the Great Sea? the son of Mary was thinking. He wanted to ask his companion but could not open his mouth. Why couldn’t the wind of Jehovah fill the dried-out wells of the desert with water? Why couldn’t the Lord love the green leaf and feel pity for men? Oh, if only one man could be found to approach him, fall at his feet and succeed, before being reduced to ashes, in telling him of man’s suffering, and of the suffering of the earth and of the green leaf!
Judas still stood in the low doorway of the isolated cell which the monks had given him as a workshop. Splitting with laughter, he watched the funeral procession which rolled and pitched, sank away and vanished at one moment, reappeared at the next. He had caught sight of the person he was hunting, and his dark eyes gleamed with pleasure. “Great is the God of Israel,” he whispered. “He arranges everything beautifully. He has brought the traitor right to the point of my knife.”
He went inside, stroking his mustache with delight. The cell was dark, but in a small furnace in the corner, the burning coals glowed fiercely. The low-rumped monk, half saint, half lunatic, was poking the fire, bellows in hand.
The blacksmith was in a good mood. “Hey, Father Jeroboam,” he said, “is this what they call the wind of God? I like it, I like it very much. I would blow that way myself, if I were God.”
The monk laughed. “I wouldn’t blow at all—I’m worn out.” He abandoned the bellows in order to sponge the sweat from his forehead and neck.
Judas approached him. “Will you do me a favor, Father Jeroboam?” he asked. “Yesterday a young man with a small black beard came as a guest to the monastery, a half lunatic like Your Worship. He was barefooted and wore a red-spotted kerchief on his head.”
“I was the first to see him,” said the monk, putting on airs. “But my dear smith, he’s no half lunatic; he’s as crazy as they come! He says he had a dream and traveled from Nazareth so that the Abbot—may he rest in peace—could disentangle it for him.”
“All right, then, listen: you’re the guest master, aren’t you? Whenever anyone comes, isn’t it you who fits up his cell, makes his bed, takes him to eat?”
“That’s me, no doubt about it! It seems I’m hopeless in any other function, so they made me the guest master. I wash, I sweep, and I feed the visitors.”
“Fine! Put his bed in my cell tonight. I can’t sleep alone, Jeroboam—how can I explain it to you? I have nightmares, Satan comes and tempts me, I’m afraid I’ll be damned to hell. But as soon as I feel a human being breathing near me, I grow calm. Go on, do it. I’ll give you a present: a pair of sheep shears so you can trim your be
ard. You can barber the monks too, and clip the camels—and no one will call you untalented any more. Do you hear what I say?”
“Bring me the shears!”
The blacksmith rummaged through his bag and extracted a pair of huge rusty scissors. The monk snatched them, brought them close to the light, opened them, closed them. His admiration was endless.
“Lord, you are great, and wonderful are your works,” he whispered, completely stupefied.
“Well?” said Judas, shaking him violently to wake him up.
“You shall have him tonight,” the monk answered, and, seizing the scissors, he left.
The others had returned already. They had not been able to go very far, for the wind of Jehovah twirled them around and threw them to the ground. They found a pit, rolled the carcass in and called for Father Habakkuk to say the prayer, but he was nowhere to be found, and the old rabbi of Nazareth bent over the pit and shouted to the evacuated, soul-less flesh: “Dust you are, return to dust. The soul within you has fled, you are needed no longer, you have accomplished your duty. Flesh, you have accomplished your duty: you aided the soul to descend to its earthly exile, to walk for a few suns and moons over the sand and stones, to sin, to feel pain, to yearn for heaven, its fatherland, and for God, its father. Flesh, the Abbot no longer needs you: dissolve!”
Even while the rabbi spoke, a layer of fine sand was deposited over the Abbot’s corpse: the face, beard and hands sank away. Still more clouds of sand arose, and the monks hurriedly retreated. The moment the half-crazy guest master snatched his sheep shears and left the blacksmith, the monks, blinded, their lips cracked, their armpits chafed, burrowed into the monastery, carrying old Habakkuk, whom they had found on the way back, half buried in the sand.
The old rabbi brushed his eyes, mouth and neck with a damp cloth and squatted on the ground in front of the Abbot’s empty stall. Through the bolted door he could hear the breath of Jehovah parch and obliterate the world. The prophets strode across his brain, from temple to temple. It was in fiery air such as this that they had cried out to God; and at the approach of the Lord of Hosts they must have felt a similar burning of their lips and eyes. “Of course! God is a scorching wind, a flash of lightning I know that,” he murmured. “He is not an orchard in bloom. And the heart of man is a green leaf: God twists its stem and it withers. What can we do, how can we behave toward him to make his expression grow sweeter? If we offer him sacrificial lambs, he shouts, ‘I don’t want them, I don’t want flesh; my hunger is satisfied only with psalms.’ If we open our mouths and begin to sing the psalms, he shouts, ‘I don’t want words. Nothing but the flesh of the lamb, of the son, of the only son, will satisfy my hunger!’ ”
The old rabbi sighed. Thinking about God had driven him furious and worn him out. He looked for a corner where he could lie down. The monks, exhausted from lack of sleep, had scattered to their cells to go to bed and dream about the Abbot. His spirit would roam the monastery for forty days, would enter their cells to see what they were doing, and to give them advice or scold them. They lay down, therefore, both to rest and to see him in their sleep. The old rabbi turned and looked around him. He saw no one. The cell was empty except for the two black dogs. They had entered, had lain down on the flagstones, and were mournfully sniffing the deserted stall. Outside, the rabid wind beat on the door: it wanted to come in too.
But as the rabbi prepared to lie down next to the dogs, he discovered the son of Mary standing motionless in the corner, watching him. All at once the sleep fled from his drowsy eyelids. Troubled, he sat up and nodded to his nephew to approach. The youth seemed to have been waiting for the invitation. He came forward, a bitter smile quivering about his lips.
“Sit down, Jesus,” said the rabbi. “I want to talk to you.”
“I’m listening,” the youth replied, and he knelt opposite him. “I want to talk to you too, Uncle Simeon.”
“What are you seeking here? Your mother goes around the villages looking for you, and lamenting.”
“She seeks me; I seek God. We shall never meet,” answered the youth.
“You are heartless. You never loved your father and mother as a human being should.”
“So much the better. My heart is a lighted coal. It burns whomever it touches.”
“What’s the matter with you? How can you talk like that? What is lacking in you?” said the rabbi, stretching forth his head to get a better look at the son of Mary. The youth’s eyes were brimming with tears. “A hidden pain is devouring you, my boy. Confess it to me and relieve yourself. A pain hidden deep down—”
“One?” interrupted the youth, and the bitter smile spread over his entire face. “Not one, many!”
The heart-rending sound of this outburst terrified the rabbi. He placed his hand on the youth’s knee, to give him courage. “I’m listening, my boy,” he said gently. “Bring your sufferings into the light, draw them up out of your bowels. They thrive in darkness, but light kills them. Don’t be ashamed or afraid—speak!”
But the son of Mary had not the slightest idea how to begin or what to say: what to keep unrevealed deep in his heart, what to confess in order to relieve himself. God, Magdalene, the seven sins, the crosses, the crucified—all were passing through him and lacerating his insides.
The rabbi regarded him with a look of mute supplication and patted his knee.
“Can’t you, my child?” he said finally, in a low, tender voice. “Can’t you?”
“No, Uncle Simeon, I cannot.”
“Are you beset with many temptations?” he asked, his voice even softer now and tenderer.
“Many,” answered the youth, with terror, “many.”
“When I was young, my child,” the rabbi said with a sigh, “I too suffered much. God tormented and tested me just as he does you: he wanted to see if I would bear up, and for how long. I too had many temptations. I wasn’t afraid of some—the ones with savage faces—but others, the tame ones, the ones full of sweetness, those I feared; and as you know, in order to find a respite I came to this monastery, just as you have done. But God did not give up the chase, and it was here, right here, that he caught me. He sent a temptation dressed like a woman. Alas, I fell before this temptation; and since then—perhaps that is what God wanted, perhaps that is why he tormented me—since then I have been tranquil, and so has God: we were reconciled, and now we are friends. In the same way, my child, you will become reconciled with God—and be cured.”
The son of Mary shook his head. “I do not think I shall be cured so easily,” he murmured. He remained silent, as did the rabbi next to him. They were both breathing rapidly, gasping.
“I don’t know where to begin,” said the youth, starting to rise, “I shall never begin: I’m too ashamed!”
But the rabbi kept a firm hold on the youth’s knee. “Don’t get up,” he commanded, “don’t go away. Shame is also a temptation. Conquer it—stay! I’m going to ask you some questions; I’ll do the asking and you’re going to be patient and answer me. ... Why did you come to the monastery?”
“To save myself.”
“To save yourself? From what? From whom?”
“From God.”
“From God!” the rabbi cried out, troubled.
“He’s been hunting me, driving his nails into my head, my heart, my loins. He wants to push me—”
“Where?”
“Over the precipice.”
“What precipice?”
“His. He says I should rise up and speak. But what can I say? ‘Leave me alone; I have nothing to say!’ I shouted at him, but he refused. ‘Aha! so you refuse, do you?’ I said to him. ‘All right, then, now I’ll show you—I’ll make you detest me, and then you’ll leave me alone. ...’ I fell, therefore, into every conceivable sin.”
“Into every conceivable sin?” cried the rabbi.
But the young man did not hear. He had been carried away by his indignation and pain.
“Why should he choose me? Doesn’t he uncover my breas
t and look in? All the serpents are entwined and hissing there, hissing and dancing—all the sins. And above all ...”
The word stuck in his throat. He stopped. Sweat spouted from the roots of his hair.
“And above all?” asked the rabbi softly.
“Magdalene!” said Jesus, raising his head.
“Magdalene!”
The rabbi’s face had grown pale.
“It’s my fault, mine, that she took the road she did. I drove her to the pleasures of the flesh when I was still a small child—yes, I confess it. Listen, Rabbi, if you want to be horrified. It must have been when I was about three years old. I slipped into your house at a time when no one was home. I took Magdalene by the hand; we undressed and lay down on the ground, pressing together the soles of our naked feet. What joy that was, what a joyful sin! From that time on Magdalene was lost; she was lost—she could no longer live without a man, without men.”
He looked at the old rabbi, but the other had placed his head between his knees and did not speak.