The Last Temptation of Christ (27 page)

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 veins 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!”

This provoked the paupers to action. Bellowing furiously, they started toward Zebedee, and Judas bounded out from his pine tree. Old Salome was terrified. She silenced her husband by putting her hand over his mouth and then turned to the stormy, intimidating multitude which was coming closer.

“Don’t listen to him, my children. His rage makes him say one thing when he means another.”

She turned to the old man. “Let’s go,” she said in a commanding tone.

She nodded also to her darling son, who sat tranquil and happy at Jesus’ feet.

“Come, my boy,” she said. “It’s dark.”

“I’m going to stay, Mother,” the youth answered.

Mary got up from the rocks where she had thrown herself. Wiping her eyes, she went forward with unsteady steps in order to fetch her son and bring him home. The unfortunate woman had been frightened both by the love which the poor had shown him and by the threats hurled at him by the rich village elder.

“I implore you in God’s name not to listen to him,” she said now to one, now to another as she went by. “He’s ill ... ill ... ill. ...”

Trembling, she approached her son. He now stood with crossed hands, gazing out over the lake. “Come, my child,” she said to him tenderly, “come, let’s go home together. ...”

He heard the voice, turned and looked at her with surprise. He seemed to be asking who she was.

“Come, my child,” Mary repeated, clasping him around the waist. “Why do you look at me like that? Don’t you know me? I am your mother. Come, your brothers are waiting for you in Nazareth, and your old father. ...”

The son shook his head. “What mother,” he said calmly, “what brothers? My mother and brothers are here.”

Holding out his hand, he indicated the ragamuffins and their wives, and red-haired Judas, who stood mutely in front of the pine tree and looked at him with rage.

“And my father—” he raised his finger toward heaven—“my father is God.”

The eyes of this luckless victim of God’s thunderbolt began to flow with tears. “Is there any mother in the whole world more miserable than I?” she said. “I had one son, one, and now ...”

Old Salome heard the heart-rending cry. Leaving her husband, she retraced her steps and took Mary by the hand. But the other resisted, and turned once more to her son.