Immortal (18 page)

Agios sat close to him and asked a question or two. The story came out as the man drank wine, but it was spoken in hushed tones. The man was a money-changer in the Temple yard, but Jesus had passed by and had declared God's house no place for buying and selling. The man said, “He drove all us money-changers out with a whip!”

Though the man himself was Roman, Agios noticed he seemed just as wary of the authorities as the Jewish population. That afternoon he and Krampus meandered through Jerusalem, asking about this prophet. Many were too afraid to speak at all. Others would only whisper a few words: Jesus had been baptized by John, and then not long ago Herod had John executed. Herod Antipas, a woman explained, son of Herod the Great and ruler of Galilee. “At least he doesn't hold power here,” she said. “The Roman procurator Pilate governs Judea.”

From what others said, Agios gathered that Jesus was no longer in Jerusalem, nor was he likely to return soon. Where was he, then? Out in the countryside, traveling from place to place, spreading his message. Agios needed a clue—where had Jesus traveled, and in what direction could Agios search for him?

Finally, he found a man who knew about Jesus of Nazareth and was able to help them pick up the trail. “I've been following him for weeks,” the stranger said in a reverent voice. “He is a holy man.”

“How do you know?” Agios asked.

“By his deeds.” The stranger spoke of miraculous cures—people who came to Jesus blind and went away able to see again, and a madman whose spirit grew calm and peaceful at a word from Jesus, and most of all, a child healed of some mysterious illness.

“She was dead,” the man whispered. “Yet at a word from him, she recovered and lives still.”

“Where is Jesus now?” Agios asked.

“He was in Jericho two weeks ago,” the man said. “And then meant to go to Galilee from what I understand.”

That very evening, Agios and Krampus left Jerusalem the same way they had entered it.

“We go home now?” Krampus muttered, confused.

“Do you want to go back to Nazareth, son?” Agios asked him gently. Their journey was a lot to ask of a man who so clearly struggled along the way. Krampus never complained, but though Agios did not want to settle down again, he worried about his adopted son. Jesus of Nazareth—and Egypt and Bethlehem and everywhere and nowhere, it seemed—was an inexorable pull. Agios had spent more than thirty years searching for something to soothe his broken soul, and he had been given a taste of the peace he craved. He wanted more.

If Jesus would allow it, Agios would follow him until the very end of his days. And if he wouldn't, Agios had already decided to follow anyway, as he had decades earlier, a protector at a distance, willing to defend Jesus to the death. Still, all of that was much to ask of Krampus. “Do you want to go home?” Agios repeated reluctantly.

“No,” Krampus said firmly. “We go find Jesus.”

Agios thought,
Our mission has always been to follow him—but at a distance! Not to put him in danger
. Still, for the first time in decades, Agios felt as if he could understand Krampus's obsession with the baby and then the boy. Krampus needed to see Jesus for himself, and they were in this together.

Agios put his hand on Krampus's chest, over the place where his heart thumped its irregular beat. “Then we will find him,” he said. And suddenly, the other reason he longed to see Jesus again slipped off his tongue before he could hold it back. “We'll find him and he'll heal you, my son.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Krampus's mouth. He gave his head a little shake.

“You don't want to be healed?” Agios asked.

Krampus thought for a moment, his brows drawing together as he tried to summon the right words. It was obvious that he wanted to say something important, and that whatever it was weighed heavily on him. But in the end, he couldn't conjure more than the simplest statement: “Father, I don't need healing.”

Agios didn't understand.

They traveled up to Ephraim and through Samaria, always a step behind Jesus. However, he left evidence of his passage in his wake. Some grateful people had been healed, other dissatisfied folks had heard his message and felt confused and troubled by it—and some were even angry, claiming that Jesus would bring the anger of the Romans down on them all. However, most spoke of wonder, amazement, and awe. A wind was beginning to blow across the land, whispering of change and hope and rest for weary souls. To Agios, it also carried with it the scent of an impending storm.

The subtle shift in the atmosphere made him uneasy.

Krampus was no longer a hardy traveler and required many stops. Because there were more than enough coins in the leather pouch that Agios carried, and even more hidden inside his cloak—concealed in the same manner that he had once carried nuggets of frankincense—they stayed at inns nearly every night. Krampus was so weary he even agreed to sleep upon a bed. He acted as if the stale straw covered with musty blankets to make a rough mattress was fit for a king, and as if he was woefully undeserving of such comfort.

As the days passed, Agios felt as if time was slipping through his fingers, the sands of an hourglass spilling so quickly there was nothing he could do to restrain it. They journeyed through Capernaum, Tyre, and Caesarea Phillipi, and when Bethsaida was behind them Krampus suddenly slumped over the neck of his plodding gray mule. Agios had been walking with his hand on the animal's halter and he caught his old friend almost by accident. The mule, sensing something was amiss, stopped and let Agios pull Krampus from his bowed back.

“You are not too heavy for me these days,” Agios said lightly as he lowered Krampus to the ground. His friend's breath was coming high and fast in his chest, his palms slick with sudden sweat. “Do you need a drink?”

Krampus didn't respond. His entire body was taut, strung tight in the grip of his unpredictable heart. It was racing again; Agios knew it without even checking. He was all too familiar with the way Krampus's lips would slowly turn blue, his arms stiffen and bend until they were curved toward his body like bowstrings overstretched and fit to snap. If Agios put his ear to Krampus's chest, he would not be able to make out the beats or even attempt to count them. They would rush together, a herd of horses galloping so fast the whir of it left him dizzy.

There was nothing Agios could do. He sat beside his ungainly adopted son, and while Krampus's closed eyelids fluttered, Agios told him stories.

He spun tales of the caravan and their first days together, how Krampus made Gamos laugh with the unusual sounds he could make, and of Caspar's kindness and Melchior's grand home in Megisthes. He reminded Krampus of the starry nights and fever-hot days, the meals they had shared and the moments of contentment. He also spoke of the fisher boys at the beach in Egypt and the first time they experienced one of Krampus's episodes together. He said they'd never been far from Jesus in all that time.

“We'll find him, now,” Agios told Krampus. “And when we do, he'll heal you.”

Krampus moaned.

“We won't leave him again. I promise.”

The attack passed gradually, but by the time Krampus could sit up it was too late to journey on. Agios set up a makeshift camp for them along the side of the road, and they spent the night under the stars just like they had in the old days.

That night, Krampus murmured, “I am your son. You said.”

“You are not really, but I'm proud to call you that. I hope I've been the father you never knew,” Agios told him.

“Father. If I die, promise me?”

Agios tried to sound cheerful: “You're not going to die. They say Jesus can even conquer death. He'll help you, you'll see.”

“Yes. But promise, father?” Krampus insisted.

“What?”

“Bury me in water,” Krampus said. “My mother say once, your father buried in ocean. Maybe in water I find him. Then even away from you, I still have a father. Bury me in water.”

“I promise, son,” Agios said. “But you'll live a long time yet.”

Krampus smiled and fell asleep.

It seemed divine that when they woke the following morning it was to news of Jesus.

“Have you two come to seek him? He's here!” a man said as he hurried by the place where Agios and Krampus ate a simple meal of barley bread and dates.

“Where?” Agios was already on his feet, calling after the man. He didn't even need to ask who the man was referring to —only Jesus could engender that sort of response in people.

“By the Sea of Galilee! They say he will preach to the crowd!”

Agios struck camp quickly, rolling their mats and tying them to the mule so haphazardly that Krampus laughed.

“You think I'm funny?” Agios grinned, helping his friend to stand. “Laugh all you want, Krampus. Today we see Jesus!” And then, Agios pulled Krampus to him and embraced the man he loved as a son. It was an uncharacteristic move, something that Agios hadn't done in years. When was the last time he had touched another person in this way? He couldn't recall even a moment of such physical affection in the last decade—two? three?—and all at once he stung with regret.

Yet Krampus clung to him, fists bunching the fabric of Agios's cloak and head bent to his shoulder. They stood like that for a long time, holding each other, until Agios pulled away abruptly. His eyes felt hot, his throat thick and aching.

“Friend,” Krampus said, and reached out to put his hand on Agios's head. “Father.”

“Yes,” Agios smiled. “I am your friend, Krampus. And your father.”

They set off, Krampus on the mule and Agios leading the animal, hurrying as fast as he dared. The hills around the Sea of Galilee obscured their view until they crested a low rise and saw a great crowd spread out before them. The bowl of a small valley opened toward the lake, the blue water bright and sparkling in the morning sun. And all throughout a field of dry, brown grasses, people of every size and age and shape and color were gathered.

“There must be thousands,” Agios whispered, and felt his hope dim. How would they ever find Jesus in the midst of such a throng?

But Krampus was grinning. “See him! Look there!”

Agios opened his mouth to ask where, but people thronged around them, mothers holding their children's hands and men running sure-footed. “The teacher is going to speak,” one woman told her companion as she rushed by.

“Where is he?” Agios called.

She glanced back for just a moment. “On the hill. Come quickly.”

Agios pulled the mule along, Krampus swaying on his back, until they were at the very outskirts of the assembly. It would be impossible to cut through the crowd, especially with the lumbering mule. Agios felt disappointment choking him. They would never see Jesus in this mass, let alone get close enough to see him, touch him, or speak to him. But Krampus didn't seem to mind. He was already slipping off the back of the mule and settling himself in the brittle grass.

“We won't be able to hear him from this far away,” Agios said, trying not to sound bitter.

“Sit,” Krampus told him.

So Agios sat, and strained to see past the heads of so many people before him. There, up on the hill, a man stood alone. The same white robes. The same striped tallit. Agios's eyes were not as good as they once were, yet he knew that it was Jesus. If only they could approach, if Agios could only ask Jesus to heal his friend—

It was a wish almost too precious to hold.

“We're too far away.” Agios could have wept for the injustice of it.

“Shhh.” Krampus waved his hand.

And then Jesus began to speak.

It seemed impossible that they could hear him clearly, but the breeze that made the grasses dance conspired with the basin of the valley between the high, rocky hills and carried Jesus's every word to them. Agios was so surprised he missed the first few things Jesus said. Jesus spoke with certainty—he obviously knew that here the earth had created something like a Roman amphitheater, where his words traveled distinct and far. Agios could sense the crowd holding its collective breath as they hung on every word, and he turned his attention to the Teacher.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Blessed?

Agios could not have heard him properly. This was not the order of things. Everyone knew it.

“Blessed are the mourners, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled . . .”

Blessed. Blessed. Blessed—nonsense!

Agios clenched his fists, clamped his jaw so tight it began to throb. How could Jesus say such things? The poor in spirit were not blessed, nor the mourners and the meek and the hungry and thirsty. There was no good fortune in this, nothing beautiful or happy or consecrated. Agios knew this with every ounce of his being.