The Gospel of the Twin (14 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Verse One

As we crisscrossed the Galilee and beyond, Jesus' reputation as a healer spread, but often he was irritated by the many requests he received and would labor to remind the crowds that his visit was about healing their spiritual wounds through the empire of the Lord, not their physical ailments.

By the time we wandered there, the people of Tyre had heard about him, and even the Greeks and other foreign merchants in that port city who were not interested in a message about our god or his people came looking for a miracle.

A Greek woman approached Jesus, saying that her daughter, whom she had left home, was inhabited by a demon.

“She screams that she hates me and says she will leave my house to live in the streets like an animal and be a whore for the soldiers. My husband is dead. She is my only child. I cannot lose her too.” Her accent was heavy, but her Aramaic was good.

I'm sure Jesus was thinking the same as I: that this woman did not understand that an unruly child is normal, especially in an outsider's home, and that a parent can do little more than be stern and tolerate the child's impudence. She wished only to absolve herself of any responsibility for her daughter's rancor, hoping others might believe that she had tried every remedy, having conceded finally that nothing short of a miracle would have any effect on her beloved but hateful child. If the miracle worker failed, then the mother had done all she could.

Jesus was having none of it.

“
Gune
”—he used the Greek word for “woman”—“my work is for my people,” Jesus said. “I have nothing for those who will not be part of the future empire of our Lord.”

I stood beside Jesus, and the woman looked from him to me. I thought for an instant that she would remark on our resemblance, but she turned back to him and pointed. Her fingers were black at the tips—perhaps she worked in dyes—which accentuated her words. “You would deny the stranger who comes to your door begging for food, only because she is a stranger?”

“Should I not feed my own children first?” Jesus asked. “Should I care more for others? Should I see that the dogs under the table get their bread before I fill my family's plates?”

That we commonly referred to foreigners as dogs was not lost on this woman. “Even dogs have to eat, don't they?” she asked.

Jesus cocked his head and smiled. “But dogs can live on their own,” he said. “We feed the ones we care about.”

“So you do care about dogs, then?”

“We care about the ones that live among us and help with our sheep or guard our homes—”

“And also those that are simply companions, or even those that struggle in the streets, for whom you sometimes feel compassion and toss a crust.”

Jesus nodded slowly. “Go home to your child, woman. Feed her the best you have. She will not leave your table.”

The woman bowed and left. I think Jesus enjoyed this banter with her, and she was surely wise enough to know that he was telling her that only her love could mend the gash between her and her child. Maybe she took seriously his advice, bland though it was, and rethought her duties as a mother. We'll never know.

But soon we were working the crowd.

“Our master has healed the woman's possessed child!” said Peter.

“The girl was not even present, but Jesus cast out the demon!” said Judas.

I knew that Judas was trying to emphasize Jesus' healing power: He could not only heal, but he could heal at a distance! I wondered, though, if others were skeptical. Anyone could claim to work a miracle that was not in sight. I figured I'd better contribute something to keep the excitement going, so I said, “The power of the Lord on high works through Jesus!”

Jesus gazed at me sternly, then walked away, with Mary hurrying behind him.

Many years afterward, when I lived in India and was married to a beautiful daughter of a priest, I looked back on this episode with embarrassment. These Indians almost never married outside of their social class, much less a foreigner like me. Her father and I became friends—I had learned Sanskrit by then, and his language was close enough that we could communicate fairly well—and he seemed to think that I had been a priest in my country. His daughter, Kali, was very dark-skinned, almost the color of soot inside an old stone oven, and her eyes were as black as obsidian. Dark skin was associated with the peasant class, and no one in the priestly class would marry Kali. He offered her to me, and I married her with no hesitation.

Kali was less than half my age and stood only as high as my chest, but when she painted her face and danced for me—her arms waving like ropes hanging from the stern of a boat, her legs rising and snapping like striking serpents—I saw the luscious form of womanhood I had never seen back home.

We soon had a child and named him Jeshrishna. When he was only six months old, we found that he could not keep his food down. A priest who was the village healer sang in Sanskrit over the crying Jeshrishna for a few minutes and then spat upon the baby's forehead and declared him healed. Jeshrishna died three days later.

Kali dressed in black and would take no food. The Indian priests conferred and announced that Jeshrishna had died because Kali had been “marked” due to sins from her past lives. They'd hoped at her birth that the charcoal skin was punishment enough, but apparently the gods were not done torturing her. Kali continued to refuse food, heeding none of my pleas that she take a little bread and milk. As I watched her wither away, her father did nothing. He acted as if he wished to be rid of her. He got his wish a week later when she died from starvation.

I left the village while the coals of her funeral pyre still glowed.

During those mournful days, I thought of that Greek woman often. I wondered if she'd returned home to find her child worse. Jesus had done no more for her child than the Indian priest had done for mine. Jeshrishna's death had nothing to do with the Indians' superstitions about Kali's past transgressions. Even if she'd had past lives, nothing she did would warrant the death of her child. In my earlier life, though, I was complicit in—no, I
assisted
with shams and schemes worse than that of the Greek woman. Perhaps I deserved the agony of watching my child and wife die as well as the poisoning bitterness that I carry with me to this day.

Verse Two

The encounter with the Greek woman made Jesus more acceptable to Gentiles. He was far from being a bigot; like, I presume, most other Jews, he just considered the predicament of the Jews different from that of others subjugated by the Romans, and he had no message for them. Greeks had lived with the Empire for many more generations than our people had, and the Romans had even taken to worshiping Greek gods.

Once, we were veering far off course—if we were on a course—until someone, I think it was Thaddeus, a tough farm boy who had recently joined us, said we were in Samaria. This caused some nervousness among the followers; we Galileans had heard all our lives that Samaritans were bloodthirsty highwaymen who killed for sport. Samaria was indeed a lawless wilderness filled with bandits, but they would know immediately that we were poor and had nothing to rob, and that we were Galileans, not Judeans, whom the Samaritans despised. They didn't love Galileans, but they could abide our passing through.

We came upon a group of travelers, several hundred or so, and just about as many as in our assemblage. Like us, they were all on foot. An emissary ran towards us yelling, “Who are you? Who are you?” so quickly that he left no chance for us to answer. He stopped a few cubits in front of us and extended his arms as if holding us back. None of us spoke for a moment. I wondered if any response would have suited this peculiar fellow.

Mary stepped forward. “We are the followers of Jesus of Nazareth. We seek liberation for all whom the Romans oppress, Jew and Samaritan alike.” I thought that a good answer, but the man seemed further agitated.

“What men are you that a woman does your speaking?” He spat on the ground. “Who is the herdsman here?” I thought this funny. These Samaritans were not robbers, with whom we could deal, but just people of different customs and—if the rest were like this fellow—bizarre etiquette. Judas and Peter were not amused and moved to the front along with the Zebedees and a few others.

Jesus, who had been walking near the back of our group talking to several new followers who had joined us in Tyre, pushed his way to the front and stood between Judas and Peter. “Friend, we are grateful for your welcome,” Jesus said. From any other lips, those words would have sounded like sarcasm. “We wandered here by accident, but we are humbly honored to travel your fine roads.”

By that time, the rest of the man's group had gathered in close before us. Eight or ten of their men lined up shoulder to shoulder in front of their people like a phalanx across the road, much as Peter and the others did in front of our people. Judas pulled Mary from the front and then returned to formation. The other women and the children in our group moved to the back.

“We are poor Galileans,” Jesus said, “and we have come in kinship with Samaritans, a kinship that is more important now than ever before if we are to save our nations.” I'm sure I wasn't the only one thinking that Jesus' “now” could mean this very moment here on this road, and “we” could mean our vagabond collection, not our entire race, and thereby he would have been more to the point had he said “skins” instead of “nations.”

A man emerged from the opposing ranks. “Some among us are indeed Samaritans, but some are not.” His accent was Greek. “I am Phaedrus,” he said and made a slight, stiff bow. “What do you seek?”

Jesus did a little bow, too. “
Philos
”—Jesus had spoken the Greek word for “friend”—“we seek only those who recognize the imperial rule of the true God. These people with me have tired of the worldly empire and wish to loosen its chains.”

“Imperial rule? So you are the subjects of your god?” Phaedrus asked.

“It is the only servitude that frees the subject.”

“And you wish to increase your ranks of slaves? Slaves to Romans, and also slaves to your god? Is one set of shackles not enough for you?” The men walled behind Phaedrus smirked. The mad messenger threw back his head to release a laugh that slid into a howl.

Our people murmured. This Phaedrus seemed less curious about us and more interested in ridiculing us. I hoped Jesus would cut this encounter short. Jesus would talk to anyone, but he was wasting his time if he thought these people had any interest in our movement. I took them to be Gentiles or, worse, Samaritans. They had their own problems, but they weren't the same ones we Jews faced. Everyone dealt with the Romans, but Gentiles could embrace the pagan gods. So far, the Romans had let us worship our Lord, but pressure was increasing to sacrifice to the Emperor. Plus, Gentiles didn't have the extra complication of a corrupt Temple hanging over them.

“We all serve masters,” said Jesus, “and while we are no match for iron shackles that bind ankles and wrists, can the
soul
be bound?”

Why did he continue with this game? The more he kept this up, I feared, the more the tension would build and guarantee a fight. Andrew, Philip, and several more of our men locked shoulders behind Jesus.

Phaedrus smiled as a wrestler does when he recognizes that he is pitted against a skilled challenger. “Indeed it can—tighter than any chains. But the soul is apprehended and tied not by another, but only by oneself, yes?”

“Does one do so voluntarily or by coercion?”

“Is it not possible to acquiesce and forget—
voluntarily
forget—that one has chosen all the same?”

“Possible and common,” Jesus said. “Now, can the same be said of a nation as well as of a man?”

I'd heard of wandering sages who question everything and everyone they meet. As boys, we had been warned that these men, usually Greek, could twist one's thoughts until one's most cherished beliefs fall apart with nothing to replace them. They were said to have no love for truth, no love for God, no love for what is good, only a love for bewildering others and a hatred for social convention. They were more likely to frequent Judea than the Galilee, perhaps wanting to avoid an impoverished area where no one could or would offer a foreigner a precious crumb. Maybe they believed us unable to follow arguments for more than a few utterances.

Listening to the exchange and looking over a group that was nearly a twin to ours—same number, same social class—I had the horrifying thought that perhaps some considered Jesus no more than one of those roaming philosophers who support no cause and bring no message.

Phaedrus lifted a wineskin tethered to his waist. He squirted wine into his mouth, then spat it at Jesus' feet. “Indeed. Some nations, perhaps yours, choose and deserve their chains.”

“We have chosen no such thing,” said Mary. She had wriggled through the barrier of men to stand by Jesus. “No nation deserves what the Romans have done to ours. What about your people? Did they willingly become part of that demonic empire?”

Phaedrus clenched and worked his jaws as if trying to bear an intense pain. “Silence this whore!”

Judas was upon the man in a bound. They stood for a moment with cheeks together as if speaking secrets in embrace. A dark liquid, like wine, dripped between their feet. Judas stepped away.

Phaedrus's arms fell to his sides, but the wineskin seemed to stick to his chest. Blood and wine flowed more heavily now, puddling in the dust. As Phaedrus slumped to his knees, he looked at Jesus as if greeting an old friend and grasped with both hands the top of Judas' dagger. “It is good,” he said. “It is good. It feels like God.” Then he pitched forward onto his face.

Women shuffled their children away from the sight of the dead man, but no excitement ensued. Ordinarily, a melee would have erupted, but I got the crazy sense that no anger was created, only an ethos of tragedy for both groups. The mad messenger lay beside Phaedrus and hummed. Jesus knelt beside them and spoke in low tones as if comforting them both. Everyone in both groups shifted about anxiously. Two of the Samaritans came forward with a donkey and, lifting Phaedrus, draped him over it.