The Last Temptation of Christ (60 page)

“I ask you again, Rabbi: why did you choose me?”

“You know you’re the strongest. The others don’t bear up. ... Did you go speak to the high priest Caiaphas?”

“Yes. He says he wants to know when and where.”

“Tell him the eve of the Passover after the paschal dinner, at Gethsemane. Try to be brave, Judas, my brother. I’m trying too.”

Judas shook his head and without speaking went out to the road in order to wait for the moon to rise.

“What happened at Jerusalem?” old Salome asked her sons. “What happened to you that makes you so silent?”

“I think, Mother, that we’ve built our house on sand,” Jacob answered. “The damage is done!”

“And the rabbi, the grandeur, the silks threaded with gold, the thrones? ... Did he deceive me, then?” The old lady looked at her sons and clapped her hands, but neither of them answered her.

The moon emerged from behind the Moabite mountains, sad and fully round. Hesitant, it stopped for a moment at the mountains’ crest, looked at the world and then all at once made its decision, pulled away from the peaks and began to rise. Lazarus’s dark hamlet, as though it had suddenly been whitewashed, gleamed a brilliant white.

At daybreak the disciples swarmed around the teacher. He did not speak but looked at them one by one as though seeing them for the first, or the last, time. Toward midday he opened his mouth. “Friends, I desire to celebrate the sacred Passover with you. On a day such as this our ancestors departed, left the land of slavery behind them and entered the freedom of the desert. We also, for the first time on this Passover, come out of another slavery and enter another freedom. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

No one spoke. These words were obscure. What was the new slavery, what the new freedom? They did not understand. After a few moments Peter said, “There’s one thing I do understand, Rabbi. Passover without lamb is impossible. Where will we find the lamb?”

Jesus smiled bitterly. “The lamb is ready, Peter. At this very moment it is proceeding all by itself to the slaughter, so that the world’s poor may celebrate the new Passover. Don’t worry, therefore, about the lamb.”

Lazarus, who had been sitting silently in the corner, got up, placed his skeleton-like hand over his breast and said, “Rabbi, I owe my life to you and, bad as it is, it’s still better than the darkness of Hades. I shall therefore bring you the Passover lamb as a gift. A friend of mine is a shepherd on the mountain. Goodbye, I’m going to him.”

The disciples looked at him with astonishment. Where did this living dead man find the strength to get up and move toward the door! The two sisters fell upon him to prevent his leaving, but he pushed them aside, took a cane to lean upon, and strode over the threshold.

He proceeded through the village lanes. The doors along his passage opened. The frightened, surprised women emerged and marveled that his spindle shanks could walk, that his sagging middle did not break! Though he was in pain he took heart and now and then struggled to whistle in order to show how indubitably he had been rejuvenated. But his lips could not quite join. He therefore abandoned the whistling and began, with a serious expression, to ascend the mountain’s slope, toward his friend’s sheepfold.

He had not advanced a stone’s throw, however, when from out of the flowering broom Barabbas jumped up in front of him. How many days had he roamed the village waiting for this moment, waiting for the confounded resurrected fellow to stick his nose out of his house so that he could do away with him? He must prevent men from seeing him and being reminded of the miracle. The son of Mary, since the day he resuscitated him, had certainly amassed a great following; therefore Lazarus must be dispatched back into the grave and gotten rid of once and for all.

“Damned hell-deserter,” he shouted at him, “how nice to meet you! What say, did you have a nice time down there, by God! Which is better, life or death?”

“Six of one, half dozen of the other,” Lazarus answered. He started to pass by, but Barabbas put out his arm and blocked the way.

“Excuse me, my dear ghost,” he said, “but Passover is coming, I don’t have a lamb, and this morning, so that I too could celebrate the Passover, I swore to God that in place of a lamb I would slaughter the first living thing I happened to meet along the road. Well, you’re in luck. Stick out your neck: you’re about to become a sacrifice to God.”

Lazarus started to scream. Barabbas seized him by the Adam’s apple but was immediately overcome with fright. He had caught hold of something exceedingly soft, like cotton. No—softer, like air. His fingernails went in and came out again without drawing a single drop of blood. Maybe he’s a ghost, he thought, and his heavily pock-marked face grew pale.

“Does it hurt?” he asked.

“No,” Lazarus answered, sliding out of Barabbas’s grip in order to escape.

“Stop!” Barabbas growled, seizing him now by the hair. But the hair, together with the scalp, remained in his hand. Lazarus’s skull flashed yellowish-white in the sunlight.

“Damn you!” Barabbas murmured, trembling. “Blast it, are you a ghost?” He clutched Lazarus’s right arm and shook it violently. “Say you’re a ghost and I’ll let you go.”

But as he shook the arm, it came off in his hand. Terror took hold of him. He threw the decayed arm into the flowering broom and spat, nauseated. He was so terrified, the hair on his head stood on end. He grabbed his knife. He wanted to finish him off in a hurry, to be rid of him. He took hold of him carefully by the nape of the neck, propped his throat against a stone and began the slaughter. He sliced and sliced, but the knife did not penetrate. It was like cutting through a tuft of wool. Barabbas’s blood ran cold. Am I slaughtering a corpse? he asked himself. He started to go down the hill in order to flee but saw Lazarus still moving and was afraid his confounded friend might find him and resurrect him again. Conquering his fear, he seized him at both ends and, just as one might wring out a wet garment before hanging it up on the line, he twisted him and gave him a snap. His vertebrae uncoupled and he separated at the middle into two pieces. These Barabbas hid under the broom; then he departed at a run. He ran and ran. It was the first time in his life he had been afraid. He dared not look back. “Ah,” he murmured, “if I can only get to Jerusalem in time to find Jacob! He’ll give me a talisman to exorcize the demon!”

In Lazarus’s house, meanwhile, Jesus was bending over the disciples, struggling to throw a little light into their minds so that what they were about to see would not frighten them into dispersing.

“I am the road,” he told them, “as well as the house toward which one heads. I am also the guide, and he whom one goes out to meet. You must all have faith in me. No matter what you see, do not be afraid, for I cannot die. Do you hear—I cannot die.”

Judas had remained all by himself in the yard. He was uprooting the pebbles with his big toe. Jesus frequently turned to look at him, and an inexpressible sorrow spread over his face.

“Rabbi,” John complained, “why do you always call him to stay near you? If you look into the pupils of his eyes you’ll see a knife.”

“No, John, beloved,” Jesus answered, “not a knife-a cross.”

The disciples gazed at each other, disturbed.

“A cross!” John exclaimed, falling on Jesus’ breast. “Rabbi, who is being crucified?”

“Whoever leans over those eyes and looks in will see his face on the cross. I looked, and I saw my face.”

But the disciples did not understand. Several laughed.

“It’s a good thing you told us, Rabbi,” snapped Thomas. “As for me, I won’t look into the redbeard’s eyes as long as I live!”

“Your children and grandchildren will, Thomas,” Jesus said. He glanced through the window at Judas, who was standing now on the doorstep, gazing toward Jerusalem.

“Your words are obscure, Rabbi,” Matthew complained. “How do you expect me to record them in my book?” All this time, he had been holding his pen in the air, unable to understand anything or to write.

“I don’t speak in order for you to write, Matthew,” Jesus answered bitterly. “You clerks are rightly called cocks: you think the sun won’t come up unless you crow. I feel like taking your pen and papers and throwing them into the fire!”

Matthew quickly gathered together his writings and shrank away.

Jesus’ rage did not abate. “I say one thing, you write another, and those who read you understand still something else! I say: cross, death, kingdom of heaven, God ... and what do you understand? Each of you attaches his own suffering, interests and desires to each of these sacred words, and my words disappear, my soul is lost. I can’t stand it any longer!”

He rose, suffocating. Suddenly he felt his mind and heart being filled with sand.

The disciples cowered. It was as though the rabbi still held the ox-goad and pricked them, as though they were sluggish oxen who refused to move. The world was a cart to which they were yoked; Jesus goaded them on, and they shifted under the yoke but did not budge. Looking at them, Jesus felt drained of all his strength. The road from earth to heaven was a long one, and there they were, motionless.

“How long will you have me with you?” he cried. “Those who guard within yourselves a grave question, hurry and ask it. Those who have a tender word to say to me, say it quickly: it will do me good. Say it, so that after I have gone you will not complain that you missed the opportunity to utter a kind word to me, that you never made me realize how much you loved me. Then it will be much too late.”

The women listened. They were heaped up in a corner, their chins wedged between their knees. From time to time they sighed. They understood everything but could say nothing. Suddenly Magdalene uttered a cry. She was the first to have the presentiment, and the funeral lamentation broke out within her. She jumped up and went into the inner room. Searching under her pillow, she found the crystal flagon she had brought with her. It was full of Arabian perfume which a former lover had given her in payment for one night. As she followed Jesus she carried it always with her, poor wretch, saying to herself: God is great; who knows but the day will come when I shall wash the hair of my beloved in this precious scent. The day might come when he’ll wish to stand next to me as a bridegroom. Such were the hidden longings of her bosom; but now behind her beloved’s body she saw death—not Eros, death. It too, like a marriage, required perfumes. She removed the crystal flagon from under her pillow, placed it in her bosom and began to weep. Holding the flagon to her breast and rocking it like an infant, she wept quietly, so that she would not be heard. Then she wiped her eyes, went out and fell at Jesus’ feet. Before he could lean over to lift her up, she crushed the flagon and the fragrant myrrh flowed over the holy feet. Then, weeping, she let out her hair and wiped the perfumed feet. With the remaining perfume she washed the beloved head. Straightway she again collapsed at the rabbi’s feet and kissed them.

The disciples were provoked.

“It’s a shame to let so much expensive perfume go to waste,” said Thomas, the merchant. “If we’d sold it, we’d have been able to feed many of the poor.”

“To dower orphans,” said Nathanael.

“To buy sheep,” said Philip.

“It’s a bad sign,” John murmured, sighing. “With such perfumes the corpses of the rich are anointed. You shouldn’t have done it, Mary. If Charon smells his beloved aroma and comes ...”

Jesus smiled. “You will always have the poor with you,” he said, “but you will not always have me. It does not matter, therefore, if a flagon of perfume has been wasted for my sake. There are times when even Prodigality mounts to heaven and sits next to her well-born sister Nobility. You, John, beloved: do not feel oppressed. Death always comes. It is better that it come when the hair is perfumed.”

The house had the fragrance of a rich tomb. Judas appeared and glanced at the rabbi. Could he have revealed the secret to the disciples? Were they anointing the moribund with funeral myrrh?

But Jesus smiled, “Judas, my brother,” he said, “the swallow flies faster in the air than the deer moves on land; and faster than the swallow moves the mind of a man; and faster than the mind of a man, the heart of a woman.” When he had spoken, he indicated Magdalene with his eyes.

Peter opened his mouth. “We have said many things but have forgotten the most significant. Where in Jerusalem, Rabbi, shall we have our Passover? I say we should go to Simon of Cyrene’s tavern.”

“God has arranged it differently,” said Jesus. “Get up, Peter. Take John and go to Jerusalem. You’ll see a man there with a pitcher on his shoulder. Follow him. He will enter a house. You enter also and say to the owner, ‘Our master sends greetings and asks you, Where are the tables laid so that I may eat the Passover supper with my disciples?’ And he will reply, ‘My compliments to your master. Everything is ready. We look forward to seeing him.’ ”

The disciples stared at each other, wide-eyed in admiration, like infants.

“Are you serious, Rabbi?” asked Peter, goggle-eyed. “Everything ready? The lamb, the skewer, the wine—everything?”

“Everything,” Jesus answered. “Go. Have faith. We sit here and talk, but God does not sit and does not talk. He works for men.”

At that moment they heard a feeble rale from the back corner of the house. They all turned, ashamed. All that time they had forgotten the old rabbi in his death agony! Magdalene ran with the three other women behind her. The disciples reached the bedside. Jesus again placed his palm on the old man’s icy mouth. The other opened his eyes, saw him and smiled. Then he moved his hand, signaling the men and women to leave. When they were alone, Jesus bent over and kissed his mouth, eyes and forehead. The old man looked into his eyes, his face radiant.

“I saw the three again—Elijah, Moses and you. I’m sure now. ... I’m going!”

“God bless you, Father. Are you pleased?”

“Yes. Let me kiss your hand.”

He seized Jesus’ hand and glued his icy lips to it for a long time. He looked at him ecstatically, mutely, saying goodbye to him. But in a moment he spoke.

“When will you also come—there, above?”