The Gospel of the Twin (15 page)

Other members of their group formed clusters and whispered. Our group did the same. Each side kept eyes on the other, unable to remove all suspicion that a fight might still occur. Jesus walked among the Samaritans, speaking softly to them. I suppose he was assuring them that life would continue, that Phaedrus was, in the end, a good man, or some such platitudes. Whatever he said to them, he gave me and our comrades no indication that we should move.

After an hour of uneasy inaction, someone in the other group built a fire. Soon, more fires were built on each side. Bread was cooked. We all sat and ate in near silence.

Most had finished eating and dusk had settled in when Jesus climbed upon a cart. “Our Father, blessed is your name. You were with us for this great tragedy today, and you shall be with us for others. Because of this encounter, a man died. Because of this great evil, a life has left this world. Help us forgive each other for the tragedy of mistrust, for the evil of withholding our love from fellow seekers—from others like ourselves who want only the peace of your imperial rule.”

As Jesus prayed, I realized that I had not seen Judas since the attack, perhaps two hours earlier. I looked about for Mary but did not see her either. I ran down the road in the direction we had come from but then changed my mind and ran in the other direction. I left the road and went through a narrow strip of pines and came to a field that looked as if it hadn't bore a crop in many seasons. There, I saw Mary standing in the open. When I got to her, she turned to me and laid her tear-dampened face against my neck.

“He's gone, Thomas.”

“Where to?”

“Gone. He doesn't know where. Said he'll find us in a few months.”

“He'll be back before then,” I said. “He can't stay away from you that long.”

“He said to tell everyone that he's sorry.”

“He was only trying to protect you. That's what a husband should do.”

She raised up her head to put her eyes close to mine. “Thomas, I'm so afraid.”

“He'll be fine, Mary.”

“I know he will, but this could change everything. Jesus may become known as the leader of a violent movement. We can't have that. Judas left so that we can claim we expelled him.” I suspected she was trying to occupy herself with something other than heartbreak at seeing her husband leave. She put her face back into the hollow of my neck. We stood together for a minute or two.

We returned to find the Samaritans already a few hundred cubits down the road in the direction they were going when we met them, but our group had grown. Some of the Samaritans must have joined us. Perhaps it was something Jesus said to those thirty or forty Samaritans, or perhaps they would accept any leader now that theirs was dead.

“Has Judas fled?” Jesus asked me.

“Yes.”

“Did you talk with him?”

I thought that Mary was still beside me, but I turned, expecting her to speak, and she wasn't there. “No. Mary said he wanted us to know that he's sorry.”

“So Mary didn't go with him?”

“She was beside me just a moment ago.” I saw Peter and Andrew a few cubits away, watching, trying to mask their attempt to eavesdrop.

“How is she?”

“What do you expect?”

Jesus' hands began to shake. His breath was short. I guess the enormity of the murder was finally becoming clear to him. I took his hands, but he jerked them away and ran them through his hair.

I thought we should talk about something else for a moment. “What did you say to the Samaritans? I see that some of them have stayed with us.”

“I don't know.” His breath had returned to normal, and he bent his head down and blew a slow chestful of air through puffed cheeks, making a low whistle. “I just—I just tried to say kind things, things that I—things they wanted to hear.” He looked up at me. “Thomas, I don't know what to do.”

First, I had sent my cousin John to his execution. Now, another cousin had become a murderer and fugitive. Here I stood in the backwash of God-forsaken Samaria facing my twin, who had never looked so lost. “We'll continue to Nazareth,” I said. “Judas told Mary that we should say that we banished him so that we do not get the reputation of being a violent mob. We don't need to worry about that anyway. No authorities care about some itinerate killed on a back road in Samaria. We'll just tell the others that Judas wisely decided to lay low for a while.” Jesus looked down again and nodded. “And don't worry about Judas. He'll be back. He needs us.”

Jesus looked up, still nodding. “And we need him.”

Chapter Eighteen

Verse One

As I later found out first-hand, the Persians worship a god they call Ahura Mazda. I often wondered if they were actually worshiping our Lord, but under a foreign name. The Persians say that their god created the heavens, the earth, men, and animals. They also say, as did the prophet Daniel, my cousin John, the Essenes, and others of my people, that a man will come from the heavens to lead a great cosmic battle in which evil will be defeated, truth will be uncovered, and peace will reign for eternity. My people believe that the Persians were chosen by the Lord to deliver our ancestors from their exile in Babylon. Wouldn't the Lord reveal himself as the one, true god even to a Gentile people if he were to have them do his work?

They honor a founder known in Greek as Zoroaster, who is somewhat akin to our Abraham—their god spoke directly to Zoroaster and forged a covenant with him and his people. They cloud the similarities with their own legends, however, most notably of Zoroaster rising from death to ascend to heaven and become a demigod.

The Greeks inject such a myth into the tales of nearly all their heroes, and it may have grown new and deeper roots in Persia when Alexander conquered it. Greek lore has spread across the land like burrs clinging to travelers' woolen garments.

The Romans, with some name changes, acquired Greek religion almost in its entirety and expanded it to include their emperors, claiming that Julius, Augustus, and probably other throne-warmers rose from the dead to race through the sky (Julius was said to become a comet) and be transformed into gods.

How many nations have tired of their gods and replaced them with men? Even our scriptures have Elijah and Enoch taken up into the heavens. Where did they go? Is that my people's version of men becoming gods? Does it make us feel closer to such a god, being half his nature? Can we more easily blame him for the suffering so prevalent in every life since the human remnants in his nature would render him less than perfect? Who thought he was perfect to begin with?

Verse Two

In the weeks following Judas' departure, Mary alternated between stoic and despondent. Each time we entered a new village, she would ask people if they'd seen him. She tried to describe him, but it was how you'd describe any Galilean peasant: stocky frame, dark hair, dark eyes, and undyed garments. Even his cleft chin and full lips were common traits. He probably did not use his real name.

Not knowing if Judas was alive or dead caused her much grief and, in her worst moments, only Jesus was able to comfort her. They would walk arm-in-arm, she would lay her head upon his shoulder, and he would sing, as if putting an infant to bed: “O Mary, child of the moon, mother of oceans . . .” or some such drivel. If she looked wistful, he could be in the middle of speaking to the inner council and stop to brush her cheek. Sometimes Jesus would end a meeting early, and he and Mary would take a walk together, leaving the rest of us to wonder if Jesus preferred her company to ours.

“Judas should have taken her with him,” Peter said one evening after a council meeting and Jesus and Mary had strolled away, leaving the rest of us sitting by the fire. “A woman at council!” Peter went on. “She is showing what women essentially are—distractions.”

“Mary is a good thinker,” said Andrew, “and she's an inspiration to anyone who pays attention. No one here is more driven for this cause.”

Peter slammed his fist against his chest. “No one?” Peter's great head flushed crimson, and slobber bubbled at the corners of his mouth. I wondered if his impatience for a more focused plan had begun to sour into disillusionment. In the time after Judas' departure, Peter grew increasingly irritable, snorting at all suggestions, grunting disapproval more often than engaging in discussion.

Peter spat into the fire. Then he spat into it again. Then again. He was leaning so close to it that his beard began to singe.

I took a risk and put my hands upon Peter's shoulder, pulled him back from the flames, and nodded toward him the way Jesus did when he stilled troubled hearts. “Peter, we all miss Judas. Maybe you miss him more than all.”

His response was the heel of a broad palm like a mallet against my chest. It rolled me onto my back. My wind was gone; all I could do was wait in a swirling panic. The stars clustered around each other like minnows at the edge of a lake. Voices rose about me as if coming from another room. A commotion was going on, but it felt distant and of no concern to me. Then someone lifted me by the arms and, in a painful gasp, air rushed into my throat.

Jesus could have uttered exactly the same words as I had and Peter would have been weeping in his arms. How did he do it? What did I lack?

Peter, Andrew, and five or six others scuffled and grunted and cursed—I couldn't tell who was shoving or trying to detain whom—until, like some many-legged animal, they all tumbled into the fire. For an instant, I hoped someone would burn to death; perhaps we could make him into a martyr whose death would breathe life into us. We had missed the chance with the baptizer. I caught myself in that desperate thought and vomited.

The squabblers rolled from the fire. They heard and saw me vomit, which must have reminded them that I had been assaulted. They formed a circle around me, asking if I was injured. I felt cramped, as if they were stealing my air, and I just wanted to tell them to move away, but all I could do was retch. The retching strained my bruised chest, as if an oxcart wheel were expanding inside me. From the pain in my sides, I feared I had some broken ribs. Andrew bent down and said he saw no blood in the vomit. I was praying that I would not throw up again. Then arms lay across my back and shoulders—Jesus and Mary.

Mary was in a terror, asking if I was well and what had happened and where was Peter and if I felt cold.

I felt a little better. “Peter and I had a disagreement,” I managed to say. “I provoked him.” I took a slow, deep breath. “Nothing serious.”

My hands were pressed against my chest. Jesus placed his hands upon mine. For a moment, I feared he was attempting to heal me. I tried to move away from him before he embarrassed us both, but he grabbed my robe and leaned toward me, his eyes wet, and I realized that he was thanking me—whether for defending him against slurs or trying to tame Peter―while at the same time not blaming him for failing to show needed authority.

This was another unspoken exchange between us, the meaning of which is difficult to articulate. I sensed that Jesus had come to some new level of awareness that he was sharing with me. Maybe his private conversations with Mary had led to a great insight. Maybe he detected something in me that neither he nor I had seen before. Regardless, I was in no condition to talk about anything, but at least I forgot the pain in my chest.

Chapter Nineteen

Verse One

I walked this sick land with Jesus nearly fifty years ago now. Tying together these broken and faded images is like weaving a tapestry in the dark. We may have decided to take a course for Nazareth, or we may have been going in the other direction, but these events seem to connect more easily if we were near home when my younger brother Joses found us. He was in the road ahead of us, and when he was close enough to recognize Jesus and me at the front of the group, he ran to us. He was dirty with matted hair and stained garments; he must have walked for days.

“I went the wrong way to find you,” Joses said. “I've searched so many villages, each time hearing that you had just been there.” Jesus and I hugged and kissed him as he continued to chatter like a child proud of his accomplishment. “Either I was repeatedly sent in the wrong direction or you had no planned route. Yesterday I—”

“Joses,” I said, “why did you seek us? Are things well at home?”

Joses stopped speaking and surveyed the group. I couldn't tell if he was impressed or disappointed by the number of followers, or maybe he expected something more than a collection of peasants who looked as bedraggled as he. “No, Brother. Things are not well.” He turned his face as if he would not reveal the secret to us. I grabbed his cloak and spun him around. Jesus touched my arm to settle me.

Peter made his way to stand beside us, his jaw clenched and tilted high like a solemn guard.

Joses rubbed his palms together, then bent his head as if speaking into his hands. “Our father is dying.”

Before I could press Joses for details, Jesus continued walking north as if we had hesitated for only a momentary rest. The others in the group—three hundred?—followed him without command. Some may have heard Joses' news and understood Jesus' urgency or, even though he usually gave some indication of his intentions, they needed no instruction to fall in behind him. Some were from the region and surely did not need to be told that we were on the way to Nazareth, as had been the plan weeks before when these meanderings began. Perhaps they thought that a new stage in the project was approaching.

Joses and I joined the others. He had the innocence of a much younger man. As a child, the other boys his age had often tricked him, and Joses fell victim to all such tricks: eating a turd he was told was lamb, trying to ride a goat that nearly bit off his fingers, attempting to jump over a fire that he fell into and singed off half his hair. Several times Jesus and I would find the pranksters and punch them in the stomach, only to have their angry fathers confront Joseph, who would scold us. (I always suspected he was proud of us.)

Joses filled me in as we walked. It was difficult for him, clearing his throat and stuttering as if he half-doubted what he was saying or expected me to call him a liar. Joseph had taken ill three weeks before. Mother had found him slumped by the door with a blistering fever and soiled clothes. He lay in bed for a week, taking little food and waking for only seconds at a time. James feared the worst and had sent Joses to find us.

“What of Mother?” I asked.

“Crazier than ever,” said Joses. “Traces patterns on his face. Marks his chest with ash. Speaks in some language I have never heard.”

“The others?”

“James runs the house, and not so badly. He has a child now, born a few months after you left. The others are the same as they always were. We have sheep. Simon and I tend to them. Deborah spins the wool. We're all about the same, except for Father, who may be dead by now.”

We all assume that our parents will die before we do, but that does nothing to prepare us. Unless we were far too late, I expected to find an unpleasant home—neighbors washing and preparing the body in the inane ancient manner, Mother wailing, and James giving orders and trying not to show that he was walking on the edge. He adored Joseph and would in time probably break down and weep uncontrollably, but James had always claimed that, as a Judean, he was nobler than the rest of us and thereby in more control of his emotions. I could not imagine how Jesus and I would abide him if his grief made him even more arrogant.

A few furlongs up the road, I leaned close to Joses. “Have you seen Leah lately?”

“Who? Oh, wait, yes, Leah. A week or so ago, near Samuel's, the baker.”

“Was she alone?”

“No. She was with somebody. Why?”

I looked around to see if anyone was listening. I'm not sure why I should have cared. “Who was she with?”

Joses cocked his head. “I think it was her mother. Why?”

“Never mind,” I said. I guess I should have felt a bit guilty, although I didn't, for having heard that my father could be dying, I was still focused on a woman who, for all I knew, might not care one grain of salt's worth about me. The least I could do was ask about him. “So, do you really think Father is dying?”

“A doctor looked him over and left a powder to mix with milk,” Joses said. “He said the mixture would ease the fever some but that he could not do any more for him. He suggested we pray for a miracle.”

That gave me a terrifying thought, and I took Peter and Andrew aside to tell them that Jesus might wish to heal Joseph. We had to figure out what to do if he tried.

Verse Two

We were closer to home than I realized, and when we neared Nazareth, Joses ran ahead to tell the family we were coming. I had the uncanny feeling that I was returning home a stranger, and although the village looked the same as it always had when we arrived a day after Joses, I noticed features otherwise discernible only by an outsider. The houses were smaller, the people slower, the cows thinner. The children darted about the streets in odd gaits, as if the earth was unsteady beneath their feet. Old men whose names I could no longer recall watched us with curious expressions of both recognition and suspicion. Perhaps they thought us mad to return to this place, and madder still for bringing others to witness the despair.

“If Father dies,” I said to Jesus, “James will probably leave. You know how he's always acted as if we were not his real family, and he'll feel no obligation to care for Mother. He'll probably go to Jerusalem.” Two thin dogs ran barking across the road as if they were pursuing game. They almost collided with us. Jesus stopped to watch them scamper behind a house as if he had not heard me. “Can Joses and Simon take care of her? Jesus, do you think that you or I have to stay here with her? Or what if James says that he now owns the house and tries to send everyone else away?”

Jesus cocked his head the way one does when trying to trace a distant sound.

Mary took his arm as if offering support to a sick man. “Jesus, what's the matter?”

“Joseph is dead,” Jesus said. He turned to me and gave a slight nod.

I shook my head. “You don't know that. Let's go. Either way, Mother needs us.” I suspected that he was right, and part of me hoped that he was, but I was not sure if this would aid or harm his reputation. If Joseph were indeed dead, would he now be seen as a seer, and followers would expect more predictions? Maybe they'd treat him like an oracle. “Master, how will I make my fortune?” “Rabbi, will I ever find a husband?” Their petty, selfish concerns would be all they would think of, not the deliverance of their nation.

More worrisomely, would Jesus try to raise Joseph from the dead? I doubted he would try something so audacious. Despite the ruses I had helped him pull off, he didn't think of himself as a miracle worker or magician and considered these healings in terms of treating social ailments, not curing physical diseases. At least that's what I hoped.

But what if his “miracles” had gone to his head? Andrew and I had already discussed this possibility, but we could not decide how we would handle things if Jesus stood over Joseph and mumbled some incantation. Just the attempt to overcome death might cause some people to consider him demonic. Would he need to pronounce that the Lord had explained to him in a dream that trying to raise the dead was not blasphemous? Those who would believe him would then expect more dream messages.

If Jesus was wrong, and Joseph was not dead, how would that affect things? Would his pronouncement be seen as a spiritual failure, or simply a minor embarrassment? “Master, how could you make such a blunder?” “Master, you were just preparing yourself for the worst and spoke too quickly, right?” Some might try to wring a metaphorical meaning from his words. “Rabbi, I understand now—your father's illness was a test, and now he is better and his old self is dead.” Maybe he would try to heal our father, and I could only hope that the old man rallied at least until we left Nazareth. But what about the inaccurate premonition? Perhaps he could say that he began the process of resurrecting Joseph at the moment he divined him dead.

Whether Joseph died or not did not mean much to me. He was my father, but he had hardly been more than just there. How his death or survival was handled by Jesus, or translated to the crowd by me and Andrew and the others, was what mattered at the moment. I tried to convince myself that regardless of what happened, we could weave a narrative that would work to our favor. That would be the real miracle.

If only Judas were here.

Joses burst from the door of our house when we arrived. I expected him to announce that our father was dead, but he just stood before us as if we had a message for him. Jesus and I entered the house. James stared blankly at us. His wife Sarah sat on the floor with a drooling child of a year or two on her lap. Two women, neighbors, kneaded dough at the table. Slowly, our siblings, including James, came and hugged us. Deborah pressed my cheeks with her hands and kissed me, then did the same to Jesus. Simon told us that he had prayed for us to return home, where we belonged. Over their shoulders, I could see the bed: Joseph stretched out like a corpse, Mother curled beside him, mumbling. I went to the bed and took Joseph's flaky, skeletal hand. Mother's eyes were closed, and she appeared not to notice us. She held Joseph's head.

Jesus put his arms around Mother and whispered something to her.

Without opening her eyes, she wailed and sat up as if she had been startled from sleep. She clasped her hands, moved her arms in circles like stirring a large pot, then looked at Jesus and pulled her hands apart as if releasing a bird into his face. She spoke gibberish—“hunkoi hunkoi”—and Jesus nodded in mock understanding. This seemed to give her great joy, and she leapt from the bed and pushed Jesus into her place.

She ran around the bed to embrace me. “Thomas! Thomas, you have brought him back!”

I did not, and still do not, know why she spoke normally to me and not to Jesus (and she never again lapsed into babbling), but I saw clearly that to her, my true and full identity was as my brother's keeper. I suppose she was right, in a number of ways.

“We are all here, Joseph!” Mother proclaimed. She went about the house touching everyone on the head and counting. She did not stop with family, but included the women in the kitchen. When she looked around and saw that no one was left to count, she left the house to count people in the street. My brother Simon ran after her, found her in a neighbor's house counting children, and led her back. On the way, he said, she'd counted chickens.

Jesus, meanwhile, sat staring at Joseph. I brushed the old man's forehead, and his eyebrows fluttered but his eyelids remained shut. His breathing became more rapid, and I took this to mean he was aware that someone else was with him. Whether or not he could recognize our voices, I did not know. I also didn't know what Jesus thought of his incorrect pronouncement that Joseph had died.

“Father,” I said. “It is Thomas. Jesus is here, too. Father, can you hear me?” His hand moved, maybe voluntarily, or maybe it slipped.

“He's been this way for three days,” James said. “Sometimes he will move his head or moo like a cow, but he does not respond, at least not in any clear fashion.” He looked toward the door. Mary, Andrew, Peter, James, John, and a few others stood there. I motioned for them to enter, and they squeezed in and gathered around the bed. Mary pushed by the others to stand by Jesus. She was crying.

Jesus stood and began to sing. “O Joseph, you are going, going into darkness, where Abraham has gone, where Moses has gone . . .” I cannot recall more, but what began as a dirge transformed into a sort of children's memory game in which a list of items is repeated: “where David has gone” and “where Isaiah has gone” and so forth. Then Jesus added lines about Joseph: “Joseph held the hammer, hammer” and “Joseph split the stones, stones.”

To me, this may have been Jesus' most amazing talent, that on the spot he could compose a melody for any situation. People came in and filled our tiny house, and more stood just outside, and all sang. Everyone sang the first line, then Jesus would point to someone who had to sing the next line, then he'd point to another person, and so on, and soon we were laughing at ourselves for forgetting items in the list when we repeated the lyrics.

Abarrane, the old midwife who'd brought Jesus and me and nearly every other Nazarene child into the light for the past forty years, sang, “Joseph split the Amos, Amos,” and we laughed so hard that we could no longer sing. James kissed his laughing wife's forehead. Peter threw back his head and guffawed as he punched Andrew on the shoulder. Mary clapped her hands and did a gleeful hop. I think it was the only time I ever saw solemn old Abarrane laugh.

Jesus made his way toward the door and motioned for the others to do the same. He began singing a different song—“We all take this happy journey, but alone, all alone”—and led us to the middle of the street, where he motioned for us to sit. Most of the Nazarenes joined us, including some of the old men who fancied themselves scholars and stood in the back pulling at their beards.

“Be joyous with me!” Jesus said. “I see before me my beloved family, my friends from my childhood in Nazareth, my friends from all quarters of the Galilee, and even some from beyond there. I think we have a few Samaritans and perhaps”—Jesus looked about slyly—“even a Judean or two.” Everyone, except the droll old men, laughed. I suspect they were in no mood for a young man's sarcasm, or anything else from the younger generation. Maybe they felt a challenge to their delusional self-importance any time someone else got attention. “This is a day, as all days should be for us, not for thinking of our regional and accidental separations, but for rejoicing in being subjects in the empire of the Lord.” The longer-term members of our group erupted into cheers, soon followed by the newer members.