Iscariot: A Novel of Judas (3 page)

The next day I immersed in the synagogue mikva three times to the bafflement of my father and the empathetic observance of my brother. Not until the third time did I feel any measure of relief, and even then not until I went outside that evening and saw that the moon was whole once more.

THE NEWS CAME BEFORE we left Scythopolis: Herod had died the night of the eclipse--but not before burning two of Jerusalem's great teachers and forty of their students at the stake in Jericho. My father broke out with a great cry and tore his clothes. Joshua did likewise.

I simply cried.

The students who said they had not instigated the taking down of the eagle survived, and I hated them for it. I hated them because I knew Aaron was not among them--Aaron who would have condemned Herod until the last of his life for sheer love of the law. And then I cried harder because I wished he had not loved the law so much.

For nights to come I shivered beneath my blanket and dreamed of the students burning in the fires.

14

THOUGH I THOUGHT I shouldn't love Sepphoris, I did. I shouldn't, because it was far from Jerusalem, and her fortress seemed to inhabit a world that knew no such thing as the holy Temple. And I should not love it because it was Herod's, and even though Herod was dead, his sons were eagle-kissers just like him who wanted everything Roman--down to the scraps of power the empire threw them like crusts to dogs.

But I loved it because Father was safe. Nothing could touch us here.

I came to know Sepphoris by its sounds. Voices of children my own age wafted up from farther down the hill where the farmers kept their houses and tended their vineyards. Roosters crowed throughout the day. At times I could hear one of the distant shepherds playing a flute. And always there was birdsong.

That spring when it rained, water trickled from the roof into the channels of the cisterns below. It was a good sound, the sound of water. Moss clung to the stones of the houses, so that even on sunny days the air near any house seemed to smell of rain as pines rustled overhead.

We stayed with my father's cousin, Eleazar--a priest who helped place Joshua and me with a teacher who was so impressed with Joshua's early abilities that he called him "little rabbi."

I saw how everyone looked at him with ready fascination, as though such a boy might be proof that God had not forgotten us, but planted in the soil of this generation the mustard seed of a greatness unknown by the last. And though I knew I would never be Joshua's equal, I didn't care. People would say, "There goes the brother of Joshua bar Simon. What is his name? Ah, that's right--Judas." And that would be enough.

15

That year was the first that I did not go to the Temple for Passover. Instead, we watched the families that left together, my heart full of jagged envy as they sang their psalms out the city gate.

Eleazar had fallen ill weeks before and been unable to leave with the rest of the priests. I saw the way his wife, old Zipporah, covered her face with her hands when she thought no one was looking. It made me afraid for Eleazar, whom I had grown fond of, and I prayed for him. I immersed so often that my brother got angry with me and told me that even the Pharisees didn't wash that much, nor the Essenes, who were so extreme as to not move their bowels on the Sabbath. Was I going to keep from that as well?

I did briefly consider it, but I knew better than to rely on my stomach to do what it was told.

We celebrated Passover in the synagogue and at the home of Eleazar, who had recovered in what seemed like a miracle, claiming it was Mother and Zipporah's good lamb stew.

Then, a few days later, the first pilgrims began to return.

Too early.

We had just gathered for the evening meal when Eleazar's nephew came into the house, tearing at his hair.

"They slaughtered them with their sacrifices!" he shouted.

"What's this?" Eleazar demanded, rising from his seat.

"The new king sent his guard to the Temple the day before the feast--a guard of foreign mercenaries. Some of the pilgrims started throwing stones at them in protest. The king retaliated by sending in his army. They massacred the people. Pilgrims--men, women, children. Thousands dead!"

Father staggered, the color gone from his face. The house that night was filled with Mother's and Zipporah's weeping and the

16

groans of Eleazar, who sounded less like a weathered old priest than just a broken old man.

Three thousand died in the massacre that Passover. The tinderbox had exploded.

It was only the beginning.

17

2

With Herod dead and his son Archelaus barely on the throne, rebellions sprang up across the country. That summer, news about the movement of soldiers came like lightning strikes, closer and closer together: Romans, arriving on the coast. Legions, marching down from Syria . . . Soldiers camped outside Jerusalem itself.

We tried to ask Father about it, but he was often gone on some new business and we might not see him for days. When he returned, he was silent, tense, and tired.

Eleazar was by then miraculously healthy. So when his priestly course was selected for Pentecost duties in the Temple, he left for Jerusalem with another priest and a local carpet-maker who wore the tefillin of the Pharisees strapped so tightly to his forehead and arm that they seemed practically embedded in his skin.

With Eleazar gone, I noticed my father's increased absences more keenly than ever and began to cling to Joshua. He was eleven now, nearly a man, and interested in the latest news to the point of obsession. I felt completely deserted, and scowled at him one afternoon when he came running into our teacher's house after having been missing

18

all morning. But instead of sliding into his seat in the courtyard, he shouted,

"Jericho is burning! A rebel named Simon has proclaimed himself king!"

We raced together to the market.

It was there, in the bustle of the stalls, that I first saw him: a broad-shouldered man moving through the crowd. He was tall, which was what first caught my eye. But it was the way he passed among the people like water that caused me to stare. His mantle was up over his head so I knew nothing about his face, but I saw the way others responded to him with silent nods and tilts of their heads. Was he a teacher? Men noted his movement with their eyes as though standing aside for him without moving. And several vendors he passed pressed food or even a small jug of wine into his hand, and turned away as though the transaction was done before they had accepted payment.

"Who's that?" I said, my gaze fixed on him.

Joshua pulled me to the edge of the street. "Never say to anyone what I'm going to tell you. And stop staring."

I nodded, desperate to gain back my brother's confidence, which felt so recently removed from me. When I tried to locate the man again, he was gone.

"That . . . was Judas bar Hezekiah," he said with a strange smile.

Judas son of Hezekiah?

Joshua waited a beat and then said, as though I should have known: "His father was the most famous bandit in Galilee. Come." He tugged me toward home, his need for news apparently satisfied. But I noted that he glanced back, once, over his shoulder.

That evening Father prepared to leave with some men who came to the door to fetch him. When Joshua asked to go with him,

19

he hesitated before nodding and motioning for him to hurry. I leapt up as well, but Father shook his head.

"No, Judas."

I was hurt as he crouched down in front of me. "Joshua is eleven, nearly a man. It's fitting he should go. But you--keep your mother and Zipporah company. Enjoy your boyhood, Judas, while you have it."

I turned and ran into the other room.

Sometime that night I felt Joshua lie down beside me, but instead of curling against him as I often did, I pretended to be asleep. When he said, very softly in the darkness, "Judas?" I refused to answer.

I woke with a hard shake that rattled my teeth. "Judas!"

Mother.

She tugged me up along with the mantle covering me. In the distance, thunderous sounds. The faint smell of fire wafted through the house from somewhere outside.

I clung to her as she carried me out the back room and down the steps carved into the bedrock beneath the house. Joshua came after us with a lamp, the flame seeming to bob in the darkness.

Zipporah was the last one down. I could barely make out her wiry form as she stood with Mother on the narrow stair, pulling something across the opening, encasing us in darkness. Cold.

"Joshua?" My voice sounded too loud in the man-made cavern.

"Quiet!" Zipporah hissed from the stairwell.

"I'm here," he whispered. I reached for him, accidentally knocking the lamp in his hand so that the wick came out of it and sputtered on the dank floor.

"What's happening? Where's Father?"

20

Joshua started to speak, but Mother said, "Hush now. Your father is seeing to things."

That night, Judas bar Hezekiah took Sepphoris.

"His bandits have taken the palace and looted the armory!" Joshua cried, running into the house the next morning. I felt I should be excited, but all I could say was, "Where's Father?"

"He's at the palace."

"With Judas bar Hezekiah?" I said, confused.

"No, Judas has gone on already to Jerusalem." His eyes were alight. "Don't you see? If he controls the capital here, he controls western Galilee. And now he's going to the Holy City."

He came and laid his arm over my shoulders. "Judas bar Hezekiah is the Messiah and our father is a hero!"

My heart sailed with pride for my father. Of course he was a hero. I had known all along--even as I felt desperate jealousy at the realization that Joshua had known what was happening and shared something with Father that I had not.

Father returned the next night before the coming in of Sabbath, somber and silent, so that I did not throw myself at him or even ask him questions. But he was there, which was enough, though he had brought with him something I had never seen on him before: a sword. He put it away from us in the corner

of the front room, his gaze warning us to let it be.

Late in the day, as Zipporah and Mother fixed the Sabbath meal, he drew me onto his lap so that I felt the strong circle of his arms.

"I know these days have been hard for you, Judas," he said, his beard against my cheek smelling of fire. "I will explain everything in time and these things will all make sense. But for now,

21

remember that I love you, and what I have done, I have done for you and Joshua, and for your sons, so that one day they may be free."

WE CELEBRATED PENTECOST AT the synagogue. It was the first time Mother and I had ventured out in days. All of Sepphoris was on nervous edge, like a cage of doves shaken on the way to market.

"When Eleazar returns, we should think of leaving," I overheard Father say a few nights later. I was in bed with Joshua in the next room, unable to sleep.

By the sound of his breathing, I knew he was awake, too.

Mother's voice registered alarm. "What? Why have we come if only to leave again? Unless you mean we'll return to Jerusalem . . . ?"

"No. Every army, would-be king, and messiah is on his way to the Holy City.

It'll be a miracle if the city withstands the day."

"Then we should stay. We are safe in Sepphoris and you are a man of importance here. Now that Judas bar Hezekiah has taken the city--"

"Judas bar Hezekiah has lived too long in the hills. Men flock to him for his zeal and because his father was a hero. But he doesn't know how to run a city or to protect it!"

"He has men like you!"

"Men like me are not enough. I fear what may happen to us here. I've only exchanged one tinderbox for another!" His voice broke and in the ensuing silence I knew Mother had taken him into her arms.

I had never heard Father like that before. But when I pushed