John (15 page)
At the cave entrance they stop.
'You must rest now, Papias,' Ioseph says. 'We thank God that you have come back to us.'
'Back? I have not been gone.'
The elders exchange looks, some lower their eyes to the stone path.
'Before the dawn bell you were announced dead,' John says.
Papias looks at him. 'Master, I was not dead.'
None speak. John holds on to the youth's hands, a frail bridge-way, windblown. The illumination of the night is about the Apostle still. We are nothing lest we love. He finds himself welling like a spring struck. His chin trembles with emotion. He fears he may weep with gratitude, may seem the oldest of old men to the elders and buckle with love. It keeps coursing through him. The poor daylight, the sealight, the sounds and smells carried on the wind, these, the disciples who have followed him in banishment all these years, the loyal youth: all are touched with the same blessing. He cannot think of one without feeling love. It is as if he has been rescued and returned to himself, to a time long ago when he felt so. This is his understanding of it now. It is love that informs all. Nor is this love a thing soft or immature like a new bud, but rather that which comes coursing through the vine itself and makes it strong, durable, pliable, makes it spread to encompass more and more ground, cling to the wall, bear fruit. He has been weak, and foolish, and forgotten love, but no more.
'Come. Come all of you. Come inside,' the Apostle says. His blind head at an upward tilt, he releases Papias and waves both hands. 'Come. All. Be with me.'
When they are entered and sit around on rush mats and stools, and Papias has been given a lambswool blanket for his shoulders, the Apostle speaks to them. He speaks as he has not in a long time, and from his first words all of the elders feel a shiver of knowledge, understanding the words he speaks will outlive time.
'Beloved,' he says, 'we must believe not every spirit, but try all spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world.' He touches his tongue to his lips, raises his voice louder and stronger still.
'Hereby know ye the spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God; and this is that spirit of Antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.'
None speak. The elders and the youth look at the blind apostle as though at a column of light.
'But ye,' John says, 'ye are of God, my children, and have overcome them, because greater is he that is in you than he that is the world.
'They are of the world; therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.
'We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us.
'Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.'
He pauses. The phrases are like platforms in his mind, the construction building one upon the next, rising as steps he discovers just as he arrives at each one. It proceeds with perfect logic, as if out of a natural pre-existent order. The words are there just before he needs to find them. He raises his head, his whitened eyes, his arms he holds outwards.
'Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
'He that loveth not, knoweth not God.' Again he pauses, as if he is in flight and discovers a higher plane of purer air, then flies up into it. He says aloud the four words that seem carved on the invisible: 'For God
is
love.'
His speech has the quality of truth, beyond dispute, and the disciples need no persuasion. Some nod silently, others stare as if at a marvel. The Apostle draws to him his arms, presses together his hands. None have heard him speak so before, for this is not the telling of the acts of Jesus, there is no narrative. This is not the preaching Ioseph heard from the Apostle many times when they wandered in the dusted lands of Bithynia or Troas or the stony fields of Thessalonica. This is other. This seems a pure distillation.
'Beloved,'John repeats, 'he that loveth not, knoweth not God: for God
is
love.
'In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only begotten son into the world, that we might live through him.
'Herein is love, not that we loved God,
but that he loved us,
and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.'
The cave catches the wind; the air sings like the sea. Light and cloud-shadow cross. The old apostle raises his hands a last time.
'Beloved,' he says, 'if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
'No man had seen God at any time. But if we love one another, God dwells in us and his love is perfected in us.
'Let us pray that it will be so.'
John bows his head, the others likewise. In the cave on Patmos they kneel in the darkness, flooded with light.
Now is the moment.
Matthias stands on the seashore, before him a great mound of the dead seabirds that Auster and Linus have gathered and now set alight. Lamp oil takes flame, sea faggots, flotsam of storm wrack, timbering. Black smoke in a banner unfurls.
Now is the moment. I will win to me no more but Papias. He alone of the others would be of value. Testament. Eyewitness. My own Lazarus. How quickly they carried him away! It will matter not. I will confront him: You were dead; I went after and brought you back. How deny that? Arise and follow.
The bird fire burns poorly. Smoke smudge thickens against the daylight. The grey sea twists as though in chains. In the near distance some few fishers are about, starting late because of the storm, hoping to bring home a heavy catch of fish foolish to seek sanctuary in the shallow waters. The boats cut across the waves on quick wind till the nets grow heavy. Auster and Linus stand by the pyre. They are in open-eyed amazement still at the discovery of the seabirds after Matthias had told of them in his struggle with the devil. When Linus saw them, he vomited, Auster wanted to clap his hands. The birds were a brilliant display, all the more awesome for the substantial weight of each as Linus and Auster dragged them over the sand. What power it took to strike them from the sky! What flash of mind forked into the night to plunge them headlong! The two disciples watch the smoke rise and curve in upon itself and uncoil, caught by the wind. Matthias walks away down the stony shore, stands.
The storm will have passed by this evening. At daybreak we will leave.
Lemuel comes with the news. The Apostle has announced the community will take supper together. There will be a communion before sunset. Matthias returns to his dwelling, his eye pulsing with pain. He removes the poultice, palms water on to his face from a bowl. The hour is near. His heart is quickened at the thought. He palms the water a second time, touches gingerly the throbbing, winces. Still, the wound has its worth. He sits to consider how things must proceed. After a time he sends Auster and Linus to tell the others to come to his dwelling before the supper.
The Apostle is renewed. He has a vigour and resolve unfamiliar but to Ioseph, who has known him the longest. He sits by Papias, who tells him, 'You need not care for me, Master. I recover quickly.'
'Call me not "Master", call me Brother, or call my name, John.'
'I cannot, Master.'
'My name is John.'
Papias lowers his brow, his complexion waxy and pale, his eyes glossed. 'I must call you "Master",' he says, then adds, 'and Master, I must confess.'
'And you will be forgiven.' John bows his head and Papias tells him in whisper the story of the woman Marina and her children and the vanity of thinking he could bring them back from the dead. He confesses to temptation and concealment, to the potent seduction of power. His face reddens as before a fire. His voice drops further so the words are smallest sounds. John listens, holds out his right hand and prays. 'Walk in the light,' he says.
After, he tells Papias, 'I, too, must confess. I have forgotten myself. I have forgotten love. I have been harsh and have tired of the burden I carry within me, which burden now is made light as air. Papias, from this day forth the sun shall not set but I will have told you and all our brothers the word of our Lord Jesus. The sun shall not set but I will have related what was, that it will be still. My telling will continue while does my breath till he come again. I confess to you, I have forgotten myself. I have fallen down, but now stand up, my burden light.' John's face smiles, deep furrows paired, cheekbones prominent. He is both the Gallilean fisher, Zebedee's son, John, brother of James, mender of nets a lifetime ago, fleet barefoot boy who ran one end of his father's boat to the other, untoppling, gifted with balance, and also this other, this man who seems footed in two worlds, this and the next. He is the boy and the old man both.
Now he rises. 'We must make ready,' he says.
Ioseph brings him a white stole he lays over the Apostle's shoulders. With Papias he draws two tables together, and for them benches.
The sun retreating, the elders approach. They bring some of the flat fire-baked bread the islanders make, two skins of winter-berry wine. The events of the night past are still in their minds but age and experience and faith quiet the questions. They come nonetheless with the awareness of heightened moment; the storm, the death and return of Papias, the fall of seabirds, are as currents that converge. The call to communion is another such. So as they enter the cave the disciples bear themselves as if to counsel and revelation both. Something is happening, and they are its witnesses.
They stand. John goes to each and takes their hands. None speak of Matthias and the younger disciples, though all notice they are not there. Ioseph goes outside to look. Behind clouds the sun nears the sea. He returns, tells nothing. There opens a long pause.
'My brothers, sit,' the Apostle says at last.
And they do, gathered in the yellow lamplight about the tables, Papias at the right hand of John.
'Brothers, whom I love in the truth, the darkness is past and the true light now shines. Let us give thanks and break bread and take of wine in memory of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father.'
'Amen.'
The bread is broken and passed. The elder men watch the Apostle for signs. They can see in his demeanour renewed vigour and purpose. The communion is not yet properly begun when Matthias comes.
'O Beloved. Why do you begin without us? Are we not also chosen children of the Father?' About and behind him Linus, Auster, and the other disciples bear torches and stand in fire glow.
'Indeed you are welcome, brothers,'John says. 'All are welcome to give thanks to our Lord Jesus Christ. There is room at the table. Sit.'
'We do not come to sit,' Matthias says and comes forwards. 'We come to announce the true light. The Divine.'
There is a murmur. Some of the disciples look down. John says nothing, his face held upward, as though to take a blow. Matthias walks to the top of the table.
'I come to speak the truth. For it has been given to me. "I am come a light into the world that whosoever believeth in me should not abide in darkness." '
'You cite the words of our Lord Jesus?' John's anger flares.
But Matthias turns from him, throws open his arms, booms his voice. He glares down at the assembly. 'Why do you speak of Jesus as a messiah? Any of you? Because this ancient says so? Because this Jesus was his friend, because he was the beloved disciple, of this carpenter's son, a Galillean like himself? The Christ? How convenient! His own relation, his neighbour!'
' "I am the resurrection and the life," said the Lord, "he that believeth in me though he were dead shall he live",' John calls.
'How, old man, how shall he live being dead? You are a fool. And all of you who follow him fools, too, who cannot see how he has led you. That he might have caretakers in his ancient years, attendants who serve him in his dotage.'
'Matthias! Be silent,' Ioseph calls.
'I will be silent hereafter. I come this time and this time only to announce to those who will follow. Hear me: there is a light divine. It is the One. It was from the beginning and ever shall be. It is as the prophets tried to tell us. Even as the prophet Jesus. Its illumination I have felt, have touched. I myself His right hand he slaps on his chest twice.
John stands. 'Jesus said: "Verily, verily I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved." '
'The sheep! The door of the sheep! Is that what you think? What you believe, all of you? Are you sheep? Is that what you were born for, to be sheep? Is that a man? A sheep? Is that why you remain here on this rock? O apt indeed! Sheep going through a door?'
Ioseph stands up beside John. 'Blasphemer!'
'Ioseph,' John extends his hand, holds back the other by the shoulder. 'Leave him. Let him to speak.'
'He takes the name of our Lord in vain, Master. Though I am old, I would strike him down.'
John shakes his head. 'Leave be, Ioseph.'
Emboldened, Matthias moves down along the table. 'Listen, listen now this time that ye might know the truth and choose for yourselves. I, Matthias, son of Ignatius of Amphipolis, have been chosen by the One that I might bear his light as witness into the world. The light that was from the beginning and is and ever will be. Which light makes other lights a darkness. Though others preach their own words of God, these are but poor versions of the truth, as candles to the sun. Listen now, I am come to tell you what is. We must be soldiers, not sheep. We must leave here and go out into the world. I fear not. I fear no Roman, nor any man. Nor should any who follows me.'
He comes along the line of disciples, passes Lemuel and Simon and Meletios until he stands behind Papias. Both hands Matthias places on the youth's shoulders.
'I have faced death. I have faced him and fought him myself for this youth who was taken from us. The divine light shone upon me. I was as one lifted from myself. Not in this world nor the next. But in the Presence. The Presence who made me all-powerful against death.' He leans down, his face next to Papias, and speaks loudly. 'This youth was given back to me. As proof. That you might know, that you might believe. Stand, Papias.'