John (16 page)
Under the scrutiny of all, uncertain, puzzled, full of torn pieces, hearing for the first time the extraordinary account of his resurrection, Papias stands.
'Look upon him. See. Believe. Behold the miracle.' Matthias allows his witness a moment; he takes a half step back, opens wide his arms as if the youth is a thing conjured out of the dark. He smiles, his head inclined away to better view the marvellous, then he says, 'Papias, go and stand by the others.'
But Papias does not move. His face reddens. All are looking at him.
'Papias,' Matthias raises his voice.
When still the youth does not move, Matthias taps him on the shoulder, then leans in to whisper: 'Papias, you will be the wonder of the world as we walk in it. You will be marvelled at and praised. In time you will recall the truth of what happened and tell to gathered multitudes how death came for you and be living witness of that other darkness. You will spread fear and wonder. You will tell what was and is on the other side of this mortal domain. You shall be by my side as an angel to the Divine, testament to the Omnipotent. Men and women shall fall before your feet. The sick and infirm shall seek the hem of your cloth. Consider. You have been chosen and cannot deny it. It is your destiny I bring you, good Papias. Go, take your place at the forefront of the others.'
Along the table the disciples' faces are turned towards him; in firelight by the cave entrance Linus, Auster, Cyrus, Baltsaros, and the others watch. Papias is still weak; his ear wound pulses. All seems stopped. In the mute delay comes the vision of himself as another, as this Lazarean disciple, this thin figure of return still printed by the fingers of death. Lands far and strange whose names he does not yet know, places of dust and sand, blue rivers, villages where they might arrive like ones traversed down from another world: these he sees. He would walk at the front beside Matthias. He would wear a white robe. Perhaps the Divine might touch him, too, and give him the power to resurrect. Why not? It was likely. Had not Matthias just said as much? And it would all be in the name of goodness. There would be no gain sought. It would be for the glory of the Creator. If he could do that, would that be wrong?
'Good Papias.' Matthias's face moves close to him again, his voice low.
'Beloved
Papias, be not afraid, go.'
Pain beats at his temples. Papias must close his eyes. His head he inclines slightly.
'Auster, Linus, come, help our disciple, he is yet weak.'
'Leave him!' the Apostle cries out. 'Lay not your hands upon him!' He comes forwards so he stands facing Matthias, his white head back. 'Papias, be not seduced, but abide with us here. This is the very voice of the Antichrist amongst us. Listen not.'
'Old man, old fool!' Matthias shouts, 'Jesus-lover! You dwindle to nothing.'
'Brother Matthias!' Lemuel shouts, standing stoutly, and Matthias flares back at him. 'Brother? I am not your brother,' he says, his eyes narrow and dark, his lips spitting the words. 'Why call each other brothers, ye are not so. Some of you mistrust the others, some envy and despise. Brothers! This is a mockery, a mask ye hide beneath. I know you all. Brothers! Call me not Brother. I am Matthias, son of Ignatius of Amphipolis, who has known the Divine, the One. Stand back, old man. Your time is past.' Matthias turns to the youth. 'Papias, come with us to your glory.'
There is a moment, the cave like one breath held.
In whisper, dream voice and eyes as if upon a distant truth, Papias says, 'I will not.'
Matthias leans nearer. 'Be not a fool! Do not let the old man sway you. You have no need of loyalty to him. Do not be afraid. You are of us, and know it.'
Papias says nothing. His lips quiver and he presses them together as if they might utter betrayal.
'He has spoken, leave him!' The Apostle touches Matthias's shoulder, who shakes the hand roughly away.
'I could break you like a stick. I could make you fall to the ground with vomiting and wailing, old man, if it were my will. Touch me not. You know not with whom you deal.'
'I have no fear!'John replies sternly. 'We come gathered here for communion, for our community of believers, brothers in our Lord Jesus Christ. If you are not of us, then be gone.'
'We will be gone. By sunrise we will have left this hell.' Matthias paces down the table length. 'And you, you all, old men, what will you do? Stay here till death, like Prochorus, lie beneath mounds of stones and be forgotten? Yes, forgotten. Old man, old teller of a tale, your tale is threadbare and runs to nothing. This carpenter's son messiah. Do you wait, all of you, do you wait yet? That the carpenter will come again? Ha! Because the hour is at hand?'
'Matthias stop!' Papias cries.
'You will be bones and dust. Dust and bones. All of you. And your Jesus not even dust on the pages of the books of history. Remembered a few more years, then forgotten. You are fools, credulous fools, to follow an old fool.'
Papias comes forwards as though he will strike the other. Matthias stops and looks into his face.
'And you, the greatest fool if you do not come to your destiny.'
'Be gone.'
There is a moment, the face of Matthias an implacable mask inches from the youth, his lips pressed tightly, his dark eyes burning. Then, as if he releases in disgust what he himself has caught, he wheels away.
'So be it.' He walks swiftly to the cave entrance, stops. 'Hear ye. We, the chosen, the believers in the Divine, will leave this island at sunrise. Those who will follow are welcome. Consider well, Papias. Those who remain on Patmos will die on Patmos. Your Jesus does not come. Your Jesus does not care. Because your Jesus was a man, and is dead. Behold, the truth. Fools of Jesus, farewell.'
Matthias raises his two hands and brings them together in a loud clap. Then he turns on his heel and leads the others from the cave into the night.
When the bell rings at sunrise, the Christians do not know their number. In their separate huts they do not know who will have left and who remained. In the aftermath of Matthias's departure from the cave, the Apostle called them to sit again for the supper communion, Papias at his right hand. There was a pause first for prayer and contemplation. Then John broke the bread and gave thanks. He spoke the words of blessing they had heard many times, but there was a hardened edge to his voice, as though now there was an imperative. 'Jesus said: "I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger, he that believeth in me shall never thirst." ' The Apostle held aloft the cup of wine and said, 'Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God.' After, he had turned his head to each as though he could see and spoken loudly: 'My brothers, truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.'
He spoke on and the disciples listened, marvelling at urgency of voice, the vigour and conviction that seemed of old. He spoke of the light as if the darkness was nearer now. Papias and the elders attended as though the words were newly necessary, and in their telling remade the world, as if therein were retraced maps for the lost.
The old Apostle had taken the hands of each as they left the cave and went out across the dark. The night was blown about, unruly winds and heavy starless sky. Papias and Ioseph had remained. In the course of the night they woke and slept both, but neither could say they saw the Apostle rest.
Now, at the rising of a timid sun, the bell rings, its leaden clapper hand-beat to make a dull sound as the disciple Lemuel crosses the first thin light on the island and comes along the upper ridge to sound the call for prayer. In the chill gloom are shadow figures, silent, stepping the stone path to assembly. Birds are not yet astir; nothing sounds but the sea turning the key of its tide. In grey, like shades crossed from another world, the Christians. First there is only Lemuel, the bell ringer, then the woken form of Danil, then Meletios, and others, each uncertain as they come outside if they alone are left, if all will have followed Matthias. They take comfort from one another's company, but say nothing. They cross as always up the beaten way to the promontory where the flat table rock stands.
The sun rises.
The Apostle and Ioseph and Papias come - they, too, feeling the human consolation of community, and more, the enduring witnessing of their belief. The disciples have each prepared themselves in the night to be the only remaining in the dawn, and thinking so having ventured into the wild dark of their own spirits, to seek the truth of what they believe and then live by it — they have accepted it. Each has thought to abide with the old apostle in a community of two or three, if so be it, to wait in prayer for the coming of Jesus the Christ. But now they see, there remains all who sat to the supper communion, nine in number. And though they are less than half the community of before, from this each takes strength.
By the table rock they stand. The daylight reveals them where they pray to the Father.
Below, the sea unveiled, a boat waits. To it, in form like a snake, Matthias and his followers come. Behind them they leave their huts afire that nothing be left but darkened prints upon the ground.
I think of the multitude.
I think of the great multitude who followed you because they had seen your miracles on those who were diseased. The crowd whose number Simon Peter could not count but said were more than five thousand. Up the stony ground of the mountain following, the time of Passover near. The multitude in the heat of day. I looked back upon them, marvelling. How many there were. Philip saying to me, 'We become a nation.'
As we believed and were witness thereof.
The great company murmuring, whispering, expecting, climbing the mountain behind you to the place you led, where was a grassy expanse.
'Whence shall we buy bread that these may eat?'
The boy who carried five loaves and two small fishes. The sun shining upon the multitude.
I saw the loaves and fishes carried to you in the one basket. Your prayer of thanks over them, your eyes to the heavens. And breaking the loaves and fishes that they might be distributed among many and sending forth: 'Gather up the fragments that remain that nothing be lost.'
The twelve baskets that were filled. And again, and again, so a clamour arose among the multitude. They stood and cried out. 'O Prophet! O Most Mighty! Hail Holy King! Hail Holy King!'
For, in fervour then, they were for coming and taking you by force to be their king. The great multitude of your believers.
But you departed hence alone into the mountain.
We stood before the great assembly. Philip said, 'What number in the world there will be of us will outnumber stars.'
For so it seemed.
The multitude.
O Lord, if it be thy will, send us your mercy that we may abide.
If it be thy will, send us a sign.
'Papias?'
'Yes, Master?' Papias still cannot call the Apostle by his name. It does not seem fitting. For the truth is he wishes him to be other than mere human, not merely an old man called John.
They sit outside the cave in the afternoon. It is some days since Matthias and his followers have left.
'You are well?'
'I am.'
'What I ask you will obey, Papias?'
'You have no need to ask me.'
'Nonetheless. Answer me.'
'I will obey you.'
'God be with you.'
The weather is broken, the island in bleak light. What was empty before is now more so. Where before the younger disciples carried out many of the chores of the community, catching the fish, drawing the water, such tasks are now fallen to the elders. In the aftermath of the departure there is renewed vigour in belief, but hardship, too. The Apostle is aware of this. More than ever now he wishes their faith might be rewarded. He wishes there might be something to avouch for their staying on, for their refusal to surrender though their number is diminished. Long since, he has accepted for himself that there be no obvious exchange, between heaven and earth no simple traffic of plea and response, whereby all that is sought is granted. But nonetheless he feels there exists always the listening presence. He feels love. Always the prayer is heard; the judgement of its merits is the Lord's. But now, in the bleak aftermath, John feels the urgency of the time. There is a turning. He can sense it in the air, in the fall of the sea. It must be now. Now nears the hour. So he says to Papias, 'I am to ask the community of our brothers to fast with me. We will fast that our spirits be made pure and our prayers ascend. I will ask this of our brothers, but not you, Papias.'
'Not me? But I am the youngest. I am the most able. I . . .'
'No. Not you, Papias. I command it.' John extends his hand, takes hold of the youth's shoulder. 'You have suffered and serve the Lord as he wishes. I am grateful for your love. But you should not fast. Bear with us. For forty days and nights we shall take only water. The time is near for our Lord.'
The disciples are told at communion. All consent. They eat the last bread and taste the last wine. Then quiet falls on them. Their faces are old and lined. The flesh of Ioseph's cheeks is white and sags from prominent bone. The bald head of Lemuel is wrinkle-creased, his brown eyes deep; Danil is in his sixth decade, narrow-jawed; Melitios, with the long face and blue eyes of Iconium, has forgotten his age; in his narrow chest Simon breathes wheeze. They are all in various manner infirm. In ordinary time they suffer the multitude of ailments visited on the aged — rheums and aches of joint, poorness of breath, wheeze and gasp and cough, vision blurry or marred with floating fish-hook nothings, dryness, deafness, flakiness, dolour of source unknown — and are poorly suited to the rigours of fasting. Nonetheless, each agrees without discourse. By nightfall they are begun.