The Last Temptation of Christ (3 page)

“It’s my fault ... my fault ...” murmured the young man, his eyes filling with tears.

In the silence of the night the son heard his father’s anguish and he too, overcome with anguish, began involuntarily to sweat and open and close his lips. Shutting his eyes, he listened to what his father did so that he could do the same. Together with the old man, he sighed, uttered desperate, inarticulate cries—and while doing this, slept once more.

But as soon as sleep came over him again the house shook violently, the workbench toppled over, tools and cross rolled to the floor, the door opened and the redbeard towered on the threshold, immense, laughing wildly, his arms spread wide.

The young man cried out, and awoke.

HE SAT UP on the wood shavings and propped his back against the wall. A strap studded with two rows of sharp nails was hanging above his head. Every evening before he slept he lashed and bled his body so that he would remain tranquil during the night and not act insolently. A light tremor had seized him. He could not remember what temptations had come again in his sleep, but he felt that he had escaped a great danger. “I cannot bear any more; I’ve had enough,” he murmured, raising his eyes to heaven and sighing. The newborn light, uncertain and pale, slid through the cracks of the door and gave the soft yellow canework of the ceiling a strange, glazed sweetness, precious, like ivory. “I cannot bear any more; I’ve had enough,” he murmured again, clenching his teeth with indignation. He riveted his eyes upon the air, and suddenly his whole life passed before him: his father’s staff which had blossomed on the day of his engagement, then the lightning flash which struck the engaged man and paralyzed him; afterward how his mother stared at him, her own son, stared at him, saying nothing. But he heard her mute complaint—she was right! Night and day his sins were knives in his heart. He had fought in vain those last few years to vanquish Fear, the only one of the devils which remained. The others he had conquered: poverty, desire for women, the joys of youth, the happiness of the hearth. He had conquered them all—all except Fear. If only this might be conquered too, if only he were able ... He was a man now: the hour had come.

“My father’s paralysis is my fault,” he murmured. “It’s my fault that Magdalene descended to prostitution; it’s my fault that Israel still groans under the yoke. ...”

A cock—it must have been from the adjoining house where his uncle the rabbi lived—beat its wings upon the roof and crowed repeatedly, angrily. It had obviously grown weary of the night, which had lasted far too long, and was calling the sun to appear at last.

The young man leaned against the wall and listened. The light struck the houses, doors opened, the streets came to life. Little by little the morning murmur rose from earth and trees, and slid out through the cracks in the houses: Nazareth was awakening. Suddenly there was a deep groan from the adjacent house, followed immediately by the rabbi’s savage yell. He was rousing God, reminding him of the promise he had made to Israel. “God of Israel, God of Israel, how long?” cried the rabbi, and the youth heard his knees strike crisply, hurriedly, against the floor boards.

He shook his head. “He’s praying,” he murmured; “he’s prostrating himself and calling on God. Now he will bang on the wall for me to start my prostrations.” He frowned angrily. “It’s bad enough I have to deal with God without also having to put up with men!” He knocked hard on the dividing wall with his fist to show the fierce rabbi that he was awake and praying.

He jumped to his feet. His patched and repatched tunic rolled off his shoulder and revealed his body—thin, sunburned, covered with red and black welts. Ashamed, he hastily gathered up the garment and wrapped it around his naked flesh.

The pale morning light came through the skylight and fell upon him, softly illuminating his face. All obstinacy, pride and affection ... The fluff about his chin and cheeks had become a curly coal-black beard. His nose was hooked, his lips thick, and since they were slightly parted, his teeth gleamed brilliantly white in the light. It was not a beautiful face, but it had a hidden, disquieting charm. Were his eyelashes to blame? Thick and exceedingly long, they threw a strange blue shadow over the entire face. Or were his eyes responsible? They were large and black, full of light, full of darkness—all intimidation and sweetness. Flickering like those of a snake, they stared at you from between the long lashes, and your head reeled.

He shook out the shavings which had become tangled in his armpits and beard. His ear had caught the sound of heavy footsteps. They were approaching, and he recognized them. “It’s him; he’s coming again,” he groaned in disgust. “What does he want with me?” He crept toward the door to listen, but suddenly he stopped, terrified. Who had put the workbench behind the door and piled the cross and tools on it? Who? When? The night was full of evil spirits, full of dreams. We sleep, and they find the doors open, pass in and out at will and turn our houses and our brains upside down.

“Someone came last night in my sleep,” he murmured under his breath, as though he feared the visitor were still there and might overhear him. “Someone came. Surely it was God, God ... or was it the devil? Who can tell them apart? They exchange faces; God sometimes becomes all darkness, the devil all light, and the mind of man is left in a muddle.” He shuddered. There were two paths. Which way should he go, which path should he choose?

The heavy steps continued to draw nearer. The young man looked around him anxiously. He seemed to be searching for a place to hide, to escape. He feared this man and did not want him to come, for deep within him was an old wound which would not close. Once when they were playing together as children, the other, who was three years older, had thrown him down and thrashed him. He picked himself up and did not speak, but he never went after that to play with the other children. He was ashamed, afraid. Curled up all alone in the yard of his house, he spun in his mind how one day he would wash away his shame, prove he was better than they were, surpass them all. And after so many years, the wound had never closed, had never ceased to run.

“Is he still pursuing me,” he murmured, “still? What does he want with me? I won’t let him in!”

A kick jarred the door. The young man darted forward. Summoning up all his strength, he removed the bench and opened the door. Standing on the threshold was a colossus with a curly red beard, open-shirted, barefooted, red-faced, sweating. Chewing an ear of grilled corn which he held in his hand, he swept his glance around the workshop, saw the cross leaning against the wall, and scowled. Then he extended his foot and entered.

Without saying a word he curled up in a corner, biting fiercely into the corn. The youth, still standing, kept his face averted from the other and looked outside through the open door at the narrow, untimely awakened street. Dust had not yet been stirred; the soil was damp and fragrant. The night dew and the light of the dawn dangled from the leaves of the olive tree opposite: the whole tree laughed. Enraptured, the young man breathed in the morning world.

But the redbeard turned. “Shut the door,” he growled. “I have something to say to you.”

The youth quivered when he heard the savage voice. He closed the door, sat down on the edge of the bench, and waited.

“I’ve come,” said the redbeard. “Everything is ready.”

He threw away the ear of corn. Raising his hard blue eyes, he pinned them on the youth and stretched forth his fat, much-wrinkled neck: “And what about you—are you ready too?”

The light had increased. The young man could now see the redbeard’s coarse, unstable face more clearly. It was not one, but two. When one half laughed the other threatened, when one half was in pain the other remained stiff and immobile; and even when both halves became reconciled for an instant, beneath the reconciliation you still felt that God and the devil were wrestling, irreconcilable.

The young man did not reply. The redbeard glanced at him furiously.

“Are you ready?” he asked again. He had already begun to get up in order to grab him by the arm and shake him awake so that he would give an answer, but before he could do so a trumpet blared and cavalry rushed into the narrow street, followed by the heavy, rhythmic march of Roman soldiers. The redbeard clenched his fist and raised it toward the ceiling.

“God of Israel,” he bellowed, “the time has come. Today! Not tomorrow, today!”

He turned again to the young man.

“Are you ready?” he asked once more, but then, without waiting for a reply: “No, no, you won’t bring the cross—that’s what I say! The people are assembled. Barabbas has come down from the mountains with his men. We’ll break into the prison and snatch away the Zealot. Then it will happen—don’t shake your head!—then the miracle will happen. Ask your uncle the rabbi. Yesterday he gathered all of us together in the synagogue—why didn’t your Highness come too? He stood up and spoke to us. ‘The Messiah won’t come,’ he said, ‘as long as we remain standing with crossed hands. God and men must fight together if the Messiah is to come.’ That’s what he told us, for your information. God isn’t enough, man isn’t enough. Both have to fight—together! Do you hear?”

He grasped the young man by the arm and shook him. “Do you hear? Where is your mind? You should have been there to listen to your uncle—maybe you would have come to your senses, poor devil! He said the Zealot—yes, the very Zealot the Roman infidels are going to crucify today—might be the One we’ve waited for over so many generations. If we leave him unaided, if we fail to rush out and save him, he will die without revealing who he is. But if we run and save him, the miracle will happen. What miracle? He will throw off his rags and the royal crown of David will shine on his head! That’s what he told us, for your information. When we heard him we all shed tears. The old rabbi lifted his hands to heaven and shouted, ‘Lord of Israel, today, not tomorrow, today!’ and we, every one of us, raised our hands, looked up at heaven and yelled, threatened, wept. ‘Today! Not tomorrow, today!’ Do you hear, son of the Carpenter, or am I talking to a blank wall?”

The young man, his half-closed eyes pinned on the strap with the sharp nails which hung on the wall opposite, was listening to something intently. Audible beneath the redbeard’s harsh and menacing voice were the hoarse, muffled struggles of his old father in the next room as he vainly opened and closed his lips, trying to speak. The two voices joined in the young man’s heart, and suddenly he felt that all the struggle of mankind was a mockery.

The redbeard gripped him on the shoulder now and gave him a push.

“Where is your mind, clairvoyant? Didn’t you hear what your uncle Simeon told us?”

“The Messiah will not come in this way,” murmured the young man. His eyes were pinned now on the newly constructed cross, bathed in the soft rosy light of the dawn. “No, the Messiah will not come in this way. He will never renounce his rags or wear a royal crown. Neither men nor God will ever rush to save him, because he cannot be saved. He will die, die, wearing his rags; and everyone—even the most faithful—will abandon him. He will die all alone at the top of a barren mountain, wearing on his head a crown of thorns.”

The redbeard turned and gazed at him with astonishment. Half his face glittered, the other half remained completely dark. “How do you know?” he asked. “Who told you?”

But the young man did not answer. It was fully light out now. He jumped off the bench, seized a handful of nails and a hammer, and approached the cross. But the redbeard anticipated him. Reaching the cross with one great stride, he began to punch it rabidly and to spit on it as though it were a man. He turned. His beard, mustache and eyebrows pricked the young man’s face.

“Aren’t you ashamed?” he shouted. “All the carpenters in Nazareth, Cana and Capernaum refused to make a cross for the Zealot, and you— You’re not ashamed, not afraid? Suppose the Messiah comes and finds you building his cross; suppose this Zealot, the one who’s being crucified today, is the Messiah ... Why didn’t you have the courage like the others to answer the centurion: ‘I don’t build crosses for Israel’s heroes’?”

He seized the absent-minded carpenter by the shoulder. “Why don’t you answer? What are you staring at?”

Lashing out, he glued him to the wall. “You’re a coward,” he flung at him with scorn, “a coward, a coward—that’s what I say! Your whole life will add up to nothing!”

A shrill voice tore through the air. Abandoning the youth, the redbeard turned his face toward the door and listened. There was a great uproar outside: men and women, an immense crowd, cries of: Town crier! Town crier! and then once more the shrill voice invaded the air.

“Sons and daughters of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, by imperial command: attention! Close your workshops and taverns, do not go to your fields. Mothers, take your babies; old men, take your staffs—and come! Come, you who are lame, deaf, paralyzed—come to see, to see how those who lift their hands against our master the Emperor—long may he live!—are punished; to see how this villainous rebel, the Zealot, will die!”

The redbeard opened the door, saw the agitated crowd which was now silent and listening, saw the town crier upon a rock—skinny, hatless, with his long neck and long spindly legs—and spat. “Damn you to hell, traitor!” he bellowed. Slamming the door furiously, he turned to the young man. His choler had risen clear to his eyes.

“You can be proud of your brother Simon the traitor!” he growled.

“It’s not his fault,” said the youth contritely; “it’s mine, mine.”

He paused a moment, and then: “It was because of me that my mother banished him from the house, because of me—and now he ...”

Half the redbeard’s face sweetened and was illuminated for an instant as though it sympathized with the youth. “How will you ever pay for all those sins, poor devil?” he asked.

The young man remained silent for a long time. His lips moved, but he was tongue-tied. “With my life, Judas, my brother,” he finally managed to say. “I have nothing else.”

The redbeard gave a start. The light had now entered the workshop through the skylight and the slits of the door. The youth’s large, pitch-black eyes gleamed; his voice was full of bitterness and fear.