“Lord, your will be done,” he murmured, bowing his head and surrendering himself to God’s mercy.
An old man stood up among the ragamuffins and spoke. “Son of Mary, we are hungry, but it’s not bread we seek of you. You are poor, like ourselves. Open your mouth, say a kind word to us, and we shall be filled.”
A young man ventured: “Son of Mary, injustice is strangling us; our hearts can bear no more. You said you brought a kind word. Tell us that kind word; bring us justice!”
The son of Mary looked at the people. He heard the voice of freedom and hunger, and rejoiced. He felt that he had been awaiting this voice for years, this voice which had now come and called him by name. He turned to the people, his arms spread wide. “Brothers,” he said, “let us go!”
All at once, as though they too had been awaiting this call for years and had heard their true name for the first time, the people rejoiced and bellowed: “Let us go! In God’s name!”
The son of Mary took the lead; the rest moved off in one body. Next to the lake front was a pitted hill, still pale green despite the fiery heat of the summer sun, which beat down on it all day long. Now, in the sweetness of the evening, it was perfumed with thyme and savory. Its summit must have been the site of some ancient heathen temple, for fragments of several carved capitals of columns still lay on the ground. The clairvoyant fishermen, while fishing in the lake at night, regularly saw a white ghost sitting on the marble, and one night old Jonah even heard it weep. ... It was toward this hill that they all marched as if in a trance, the son of Mary in front, and behind, the great family of the poor.
Old Salome turned to her younger son. “Carry me in your arms. We’ll go too.” She took Mary’s hand. “Don’t cry, Mary,” she said. “Didn’t you see a glow around your son’s face?”
“I have no son, I have no son,” the mother replied, beginning to sob convulsively. “All those ragamuffins have sons, and I have none.” She started toward the hill, wailing and lamenting. Now she was sure: her son had abandoned her forever. When she ran to embrace him and take him home with her, he had looked at her with astonishment as though he did not know her; and when she said to him, “I am your mother,” he had put out his hand and pushed her away.
Old Zebedee saw his wife mount the hill with the multitude. Scowling, he grabbed his club, turned to his son Jacob and his son’s two companions, Philip and Nathanael, and pointed to the noisy, agitated mob. “They’re famished wolves, damn them all! We’d better howl along with them so they won’t take us for sheep and eat us. Let’s follow behind—but remember, no matter what that windmill son of Mary tells them, we’ll boo him. Do you hear! We mustn’t let him get the upper hand. Forward, all together, and look sharp!”
This said, he too started to climb the hill, as slow as a lame donkey.
Just then Jonah’s two sons appeared. Peter held his brother by the arm and spoke to him tranquilly, tenderly, in order not to infuriate him. But the other was disturbed and kept his eyes on the swarms of people that were mounting, and on the man in white who led them.
“Who are they? Where are they going?” Peter asked Judas, who still stood in the street, unable to come to a decision.
“The son of Mary,” the redbeard sneered.
“And the troop behind him?”
“The poor who glean the grapes after the vintage. They took one look and attached themselves to him. I think he’s going up there to talk to them.”
“What can he say? He couldn’t even divide up hay for a pair of donkeys.”
Judas shrugged his shoulders. “We’ll see,” he growled, and he too started up the hill.
Two swarthy amazons were returning from the vineyards, exhausted and overheated, each with a large basket of grapes balanced on her head. Envying the camaraderie of the others, they decided to join them to pass the time, and attached themselves to the rear of the procession.
Old Jonah, his net on his shoulders, was dragging himself toward his shack. He was hungry, and impatient to arrive. When he saw his sons and the crowd mounting the hill, he stopped, open-mouthed, and gazed at them with round, fishlike eyes. He did not think of anything; he did not ask himself who had died, who was getting married, or where so many people were going all in a group. He did not think of anything; he simply stared with gaping mouth.
“Come on, fish-prophet Jonah, let’s go,” Zebedee called to him. “It’s a party! Seems like Mary Magdalene’s getting married. Come on, let’s go and have a good time!”
Jonah moved his thick lips. He was about to speak, but changed his mind. Giving a heave with his shoulder to adjust the net on his back, he went off toward his neighborhood with heavy steps. A considerable time later, as he was at last nearing his hut, his mind, after many labor pains, finally gave birth: “Go to the devil, Zebedee, you blockhead!” he grumbled; then, kicking open the door, he went in.
When Zebedee and his companions reached the top of the hill, Jesus was sitting cross-legged on the capital of a column. He had not opened his mouth yet; he seemed to be waiting for them. The crowd of paupers was in front of him, the men cross-legged on the ground, the women standing in back, looking at him. The sun had set, but Mount Hebron, to the north, still held the light at its summit and did not allow it to flee.
Jesus watched the light wrestle with the darkness, his hands crossed over his chest. At times he slowly drew his glance back onto the people’s faces, which were turned directly toward him. They were wrinkled, sorrowful, shrunken by hunger; and the eyes, pinned upon him, looked at him with reproach, as though he was to blame.
As soon as he saw Zebedee and his men, he rose. “Welcome,” he said. “Gather round, all of you. My voice is not very strong. I want to speak to you.”
Zebedee went in front in his capacity as village elder and enthroned himself on a stone. To his right were his two sons and also Philip and Nathanael; to his left, Peter and Andrew. Old Salome and Mary the wife of Joseph stood among the women, farther back. The other Mary, Mary Magdalene, was fallen at Jesus’ feet, her face hidden in her palms. Judas waited under a tormented, wind-gnarled pine tree, off to one side, and his hard blue eyes looked daggers at the son of Mary through the pine needles.
Jesus trembled secretly and struggled to find courage. This was the moment he had feared for so many years. It had come; God had conquered, had brought him by force where he wanted him—in front of men—in order to make him speak. And now, what could he say to them? The few joys of his life flashed through his mind, then the many sorrows, the contest with God, all that he had seen in his solitary wanderings—the mountains, flowers and birds, the shepherds who happily carried a stray sheep home on their shoulders, the fishermen throwing their nets to catch fish, the plowmen sowing, reaping, winnowing the grain and then transporting the produce to their homes. Heaven and earth opened and closed repeatedly within his mind: all the miracles of God—and he did not know which to choose first! He wanted to reveal them all, all! in order to console these inconsolables. This world which unfolded before him was God’s fairy tale, full of princesses and ogres, just like the tale his grandmother used to recite to keep him from crying; and God leaned over the edge of heaven and narrated it to men.
He smiled and opened wide his arms.
“Brothers,” he said in a trembling, still-unsteady voice, “brothers, forgive me if I speak in parables. I am a simple, illiterate man, poor and despised like yourselves. My heart has much to say, but my mind is unable to relate it. I open my mouth and without any desire on my part, the words come out as a tale. Forgive me, my brothers, but I shall speak in parables.”
“We’re listening, son of Mary,” shouted the people, “we’re listening!”
Once more Jesus opened his mouth. “The sower went out to sow his field, and as he sowed, one seed fell on the road and the birds came and ate it. Another fell on stones, found no soil in which to be nourished, and withered away. Another fell on thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it. Finally, another fell on good soil; it
took root, sprouted an ear, brought forth grain and fed mankind. He among you who has ears to hear, let him hear!”
No one spoke. They all looked at each other, bewildered. But old Zebedee, who sought a pretext for a brawl, jumped up.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but I don’t understand. I have ears, glory be to God, I have ears and I’m listening—but I don’t understand. What are you trying to say? Can’t you put it a little more clearly?” He laughed sarcastically, and proudly stroked his white beard.
“Or by any chance, are you the sower?”
“Yes,” Jesus replied with humility, “I am the sower.”
“The Lord preserve us!” exclaimed the old chief, banging his club on the ground. “And we, to be sure, are the stones and thorns and fields where you sow, eh?”
“You are,” the son of Mary answered, his voice still tranquil.
Andrew tensed his ear and listened. As he looked at Jesus his roused heart pounded furiously. It had pounded in this same way at the banks of the Jordan when he caught his first glimpse of John the Baptist—wrapped in the skins of animals, gnawed away by the sun, devoured so completely by prayer, vigils and hunger that nothing remained of him but two monstrous eyes—two live coals; and a larynx which cried, “Repent! Repent!” When he shouted, great waves swelled up on the Jordan, the caravans halted, the camels were unable to proceed. But now here was this other man in front of him who smiled and whose voice was tranquil and wavering—a gawky bird he was, struggling to twitter for the first time; and his eyes, instead of burning, caressed. Andrew’s heart winged back and forth between the two, completely bewildered.
Little by little, John moved away from his father’s side and approached Jesus. He had almost reached the teacher’s feet when Zebedee saw him and grew even more enraged than before. He was already sick and tired of false prophets. New ones sprouted up every day of the year and took the weight of the world upon their shoulders; and every single one of them, as though they had come to some previous understanding, attacked landlords, priests and kings. Whatever was stable and good in this world, they wanted to demolish. And now—what next!—here was the barefooted son of Mary! Ah, thought Zebedee, I’d better wring his neck for him while it’s still young and tender.
To find encouragement, he turned to see what the others were saying. He saw Jacob, his elder son, with wrinkled brow, but he could not tell whether from distress or anger; he saw his wife, who had come close now and was wiping her eyes; he shifted his glance to the ragamuffins and was terrified to see all of them, all of those famished paupers, staring at the son of Mary with opened mouths, like birds being fed by their mother.
“A plague on all beggars!” he grumbled as he slunk down next to his son. I’d best be still, he told himself, I’ll only get myself in trouble.
A calm, pathetic voice was heard. Someone sitting at Jesus’ feet had begun to talk. The people who were stretched out behind sat up to see. It was Zebedee’s younger son. He had crawled gradually to Jesus’ feet and was speaking to him now, with his head bent up.
“You are the sower and we are the stones, the thorns and the field. But what is the seed you hold?”
His fuzzy, virginal face was on fire, his black, almond-shaped eyes gazed at Jesus in an agony, his chubby white body, all tremors, was stretched upward and waiting. He had a foreboding that his whole life depended on the answer he would receive—this life, and the next.
Jesus had bent over in order to hear. He was silent for a considerable time as he listened to his heart and struggled to find the right word, the simple, everyday, immortal word. Hot sweat frosted his face.
“What is the seed you hold?” Zebedee’s son anxiously repeated.
All at once, Jesus jerked himself erect, spread out his arms and leaned toward the multitude.
“Love one another—” the cry escaped from his very bowels—“love one another!”
As he said this, he felt his heart become suddenly empty, and he collapsed onto the capital, exhausted.
Whispering arose. The people were roused. Many shook their heads; some laughed.
“What did he say?” asked an old man who was hard of hearing.
“That we should love one another.”
“Impossible!” said the old man, growing angry. “Someone who’s starving can’t love a man whose stomach is full. The victim of injustice can’t love his oppressor. Impossible! Let’s go home!”
Judas leaned against the pine tree and stroked his red beard in a rage. “So, son of the Carpenter,” he grumbled, “that’s what you’ve come to tell us, is it? Is this the stupendous message you bring us? You want us to love the Romans, eh? Are we supposed to hold out our necks like you do your cheek, and say, ‘Dear brother, slaughter me please’?”
Jesus heard the whispering, saw the scowling faces, the leaden eyes—and understood. Bitterness flowed over his face. Summoning up all his strength, he rose.
“Love one another! Love one another!” he repeated in a persistent, imploring voice. “God is love! I too used to think him savage, I too used to think that at his touch mountains fumed, men died. I hid in the monastery to escape; I fell on my face and waited. Now he will come, I said to myself; now he will fall on me like a thunderbolt. And one morning he did come, he blew over me like a cool breeze and said, ‘Arise, my child,’ and I arose, I came: here I am!”
He crossed his hands and bowed from the waist as though greeting the people before him.
Old Zebedee coughed and spat, squeezing his club. “God a cool breeze!” he growled softly, infuriated. “Go to hell, you quack!”
The son of Mary continued to speak. He went down now among the people, looked at them one by one, besought them one by one. He marched up and down, his arms lifted to heaven.
“He is our Father,” he said. “He will leave no pain unconsoled, no wound unhealed. However much we suffer pain and hunger in this world, by that much, and more, shall we be filled in heaven, shall we rejoice. ...”
Tired, he went up again to the capital of the column and sat down.
“Pie in the sky when we die!” a voice shouted, and laughter broke out.
But Jesus was swept away by God, and did not hear.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” he now shouted.
“Righteousness isn’t enough,” interrupted one of the famished. “Righteousness isn’t enough. We want bread!”
“Bread too,” said Jesus, sighing, “bread too. ... Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are those who mourn, for God will comfort them. Blessed are the poor, the meek, the wronged. It is for them, for you, the poor, the meek and the wronged, that God has prepared the kingdom of heaven.”
The two amazons, who stood with their baskets of grapes still on their heads, glanced rapidly at each other and without a word lowered their baskets and began, one to the right and the other to the left, to distribute the grapes to the poor. Magdalene, fallen at Jesus’ feet, still did not dare lift her head and let the people see her face, but she secretly kissed the teacher’s feet, which were buried in her hair.
Jacob’s endurance gave out; he jumped up and left. Andrew was infuriated. He extricated himself from his brother’s grasp and went and stood before Jesus. “I’ve just come from the river Jordan in Judea,” he shouted. “There a prophet proclaims: ‘Men are chaff and I am the fire. I have come to burn up and purify the earth, to burn up and purify the soul so that the Messiah may come forth!’ And you. son of the Carpenter, you preach love! Why don’t you take a look around you? Everywhere: liars, murderers, robbers! All are dishonest—rich and poor, oppressed and oppressors, Scribes and Pharisees—all! all! I too am a liar, I too am dishonest, and so is my brother Peter over there, and so is Zebedee with his fat paunch: he hears ‘love and thinks of his boats and men and how to steal as much as he can from the wine press.”
When old Zebedee heard this he flew into a rage. His blubbery nape turned fiery red, the ve
ins of his neck swelled and he rushed forward with raised club, ready to strike. But Salome was in time to catch hold of his arm.
“Shame on you, shame on you,” she said to him softly. “Come, let’s go home.”
“No barefooted beggars are going to get the upper hand here in my territory!” he yelled at the top of his voice, so that all could hear. Huffing and puffing, he turned to the son of Mary. “And you, Carpenter, don’t go playing the Messiah with me, because woe is you, poor thing, you’ll end up being crucified like the others—that’s the way you’ll forget your problems! But it’s not you I pity, you good-for-nothing, it’s the unlucky mother who has you for her only son.”
He pointed to Mary, who had collapsed to the ground in a heap and was beating her head against the stones.
But the old man’s anger was still not appeased. He continued to bang his club on the ground, and shouted, “ ‘Love,’ he says, and forward everyone—you’re all brothers, so grab what you can, everything’s on the house! But can I love my enemy? Can I love the beggar who roams outside my yard, just itching to break down the door and rob me? ‘Love,’ he says—just listen to the cock-brain! Three cheers for the Romans! That’s what I say, even if they’re heathens. Three cheers! They keep order!”