The Gospel of the Twin (17 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

Verse One

On my dusky walk home, I saw our group in clumps about the town. Over here, a dozen or so crouched around a fire; over there, several families bunched in a cow shed. Some reclined on blankets spread in grassy fields; others lay on the bare, packed earth around the Nazarene shacks. Seemingly, the temporary use of these patches of ground, along with a few handfuls of bread, was the only charity the townsfolk could offer. As they waved somber hands in recognition when I passed, they looked more like refugees of a war than volunteers in a spiritual quest.

I stepped through the hundred or more who sat outside my house to find a crowd inside. Mary embraced me at the door. No one needed to tell me why the only sound was Mother's woeful hum: Joseph was dead.

Mother lay by Joseph with her hand over his eyes as if hiding some terrible scene from him. James sat by the bed on a stool and rocked himself more than the child in his arms. Deborah and another young woman—I think a cousin—stood by the table doing something with sheets, counting or folding. My other siblings sat on the floor, hugging their knees as if they had been told to be quiet until they were further instructed.

Jesus was the only one moving about. The crowded room made his circumambulation difficult, but he kissed every wan cheek and whispered to each bowed head. Those to whom he spoke seemed to stand, or look, a bit more erect. Even old Rhodah, who was the first to arrive at and the last to leave any home of the recently deceased, broke into a gap-toothed smile when Jesus stroked her thin hair. When he reached me, he gazed into my face for a long moment.

“Time does many things,” he said. “See how it is shaping our forms, as if by the same sculptor's hand.”

How odd that he, like Leah, would comment upon how age had increased our resemblance. Our neighbor Adah had a silver mirror, probably the only one in town, and when Jesus and I were boys and she would see us pass by, she would call us to her door and pinch our chins and let us look at ourselves in the wondrous device. It delighted Jesus more than it did me, because I always noticed the differences that other people missed or ignored: the tiny space between Jesus' bottom front teeth; how my left nostril was round but the right one was oval, while both of his were uniformly oval; how we each had a mole under the right eye but mine was slightly darker; and how, even as boys, I was more likely to wrinkle my brow in thought or worry while Jesus' face was almost always placid, serene. For years, I had seen my reflection only accidentally in a pool or cup of water. Perhaps Jesus and I were indeed looking more alike.

As we stared at each other, I began to think that maybe I had misunderstood Jesus' remark. Perhaps he was talking not about our physical features, but about something prophetic. Maybe he was talking about destiny. Our lives were like parallel roads that begin to merge, but that was an obvious metaphor. We had embarked together on this mission, and he knew I planned to stay at his side wherever he went.

I decided that, given the circumstance, he was just being sentimental. Maybe being with our family magnified his feeling of estrangement. The more he felt distant from them, the closer he needed to feel to me. This thought made me happy, not because I wanted Jesus all to myself, but because I wanted him to be more candid to me about the program that, I hoped, was taking form in his head.

Before I could question him, he threw up his arms and called for everyone to move outside. Peter cleared the doorway, and the Zebedees leaped up to escort the others. I expected some of the old folks to protest this irregularity, but even Rhodah gladly took Andrew's hand and hobbled out. In moments, Mother, James, and I were left alone with Joseph. James looked anxious.

“You can go, James,” I said. “I'll stay.”

“I'm the eldest. It's my place.” His eyes were teary. I couldn't remember if I'd ever seen that.

“Please,” I said. “I know Jesus wants you.”

James wiped his eyes and left. I walked to the bed. Mother's neck was cold, and for an instant I thought I had placed my hand upon Joseph by mistake. “Mother, I'd like to talk to you. Can I get you something to eat?”

She remained motionless for a few seconds and then drew up her shoulder to her neck, either to offer a minimal squeeze to my hand or to shrug it off.

“Mother, we'll probably leave soon, but I need to know if you are well. I'll stay if you want me to.”

She rolled over to face me. “Leaving? Leaving. You and Jesus are leaving.”

“People believe in Jesus' . . .” I wasn't quite sure how to put it. “They believe in his leadership. Many from all around the Galilee followed us here, and I'm sure many more will join us.”

“They follow Jesus.”

“He inspires them. You've always known that he's special. Now, something more is happening to him. You heard him speaking earlier. You saw how those people looked at him as if he were Moses, how they swayed like one body, and how they cheered at his every word. Have you ever heard anyone say the things he says?”

She reached up and rubbed a finger through my beard. “I knew this was coming, Thomas. The night before you were born, I had a dream. I was holding two blue eggs. They hatched together, and out came two beautiful birds. They were like doves, but they were gold and smelled like lilies. They flew around me. Sometimes the tips of their delicate wings brushed against my face.” She reached out as if she were trying to catch the birds. “Their singing sounded like bells, and also like people talking, but not like words. Then they flew away, and one returned. I woke up crying, not because I had lost one of the beautiful birds, but because I was sad for the one who was alone.”

I sat beside her on the bed. “That was only a dream, Mother. What is important now—”

“Only a dream?” Her eyes widened in horror. How could I have been so stupid? I could just as well have said that people lived on the stars in the sky or that Moses did not lead our people out of Egypt. I had tolerated her superstitions all my life. After all, they were hardly more ridiculous than those of most other Galileans. I had always feared that if I accidentally said something that made me sound skeptical, I would get this very reaction from her, looking at me as if I were a foreign intruder in her home.

“I meant that dreams are tricky to interpret,” I said. “You've said so yourself. Remember the one I had about a giant camel eating our house, and you said it meant that a storm would destroy our home? I was a child and it terrified me, but no storm ever came.”

“You've forgotten, Thomas, that I drew a ring around the house with a chicken bone and made sure no dogs crossed it for three days. What if I hadn't done that?”

I could hear bits of what Jesus was saying: “Blessed are the casket-makers.” “God in the grain of the wood.” “God in the midst.” “God of the depth.” “God of the dirt beneath your feet.” “Blessed are the gravediggers.” “Blessed are the mourners.”

With these cues, I could probably fill in the rest of what he said, or at least the sense of it, but it would not be poetry. It would not sing to the listeners' hearts nor still their troubled minds. And it would not cause them to leave their homes without thought about their next meal.

“He has them under his spell again,” Mother said. She must have noticed that I had turned to hear what Jesus was saying outside. She put her thumb to my chin and pulled my face toward hers. “You are more like Jesus than you know, Thomas. Today, while you were gone, he spoke to Joseph of you. I think he really wanted me to hear. He talked about where you had traveled and the people you had met, and how much he relies upon your guidance. He said that you have a practical sort of wisdom and help him understand things, like if people are good or if they are evil and might try to use him. Thomas, you know that some people have dark hearts of demons and will do anything to get what they want. They'll steal from their own family and even kill them if they think it will get them what they want. Jesus can't see this in people. He's a leader now, Thomas, and leaders have to watch out for those close to them. He understands that you can see into hearts better than he can.”

What did she know about leaders and betrayal? Had someone suggested to her that John's death was due to duplicity? Did she even know that John was dead?

She was speaking calmly and sensibly, as if her dead husband had been cleansed from her thoughts. Perhaps no one had spoken earnestly to her in a long time, and she just needed to be shown some respect. She seemed so lucid that I nearly told her what I really feared: that once Jesus and I left, James would claim the house as his own and send her and Joses and Simon away.

“Mother, those were kind things for Jesus to say. I would expect nothing less. But James may leave now that Father is gone. Deborah and Sharon have families of their own. Joses and Simon can work and keep up the house, but I'm not sure they're yet mature enough to care for you.” They probably were, but I didn't want her to think so. “I think I need to be here. I need you to help me convince Jesus that he can continue his mission without me. He will listen to you.”

I wasn't totally clear on what I was saying or even why I was saying it. I suppose that seeing her stretched across the bed and moaning had me worried that she might never fully recover. I think she knew how important Jesus' mission was and how much it meant to me, but I wanted her to feel that she meant more. I guess I was hoping that would be enough for her and that she'd insist I go with Jesus instead.

Several women entered the house, undoubtedly to help prepare Joseph's body for burial. Mother stood. “Didn't Jesus say that the Lord is within us? He will listen to the Lord.” She took my hand. “Now, go listen to him.”

Verse Two

Jesus stood atop a house with Mary on one side and Peter on the other. Even in the darkness, he looked radiant—somehow fresh and clean despite all the walking and little sleep. The crowd filled the street and was larger than before. The entire town must have been in attendance. I thought at first that this was their way to pay their respects to Joseph, but they were not simply listening politely. They were, as before, rocking and swaying to the rhythms of Jesus' voice. Fires were banked along the sides of the street, and many in the crowd held oil lamps, more as a sort of rite, I thought, than to find their way.

Shouts of agreement erupted here; chant-like repetitions of Jesus' colorful phrases arose there. He ended with a song, something like: “O Lord within and without, in the depth of being, we find our nation. We are the body of the Lord”—all the catalogued catchphrases that the crowd had just heard.

James stood with his wife, and I was shocked that they both swayed and sang, just as all the others did. Maybe James was merely caught up in the moment, the way one might join a mob without even knowing what was happening. Before I could consider it any longer, I saw Leah beside her mother, whose face was turned skyward with tears glistening on her cheeks. Leah saw me, smiled, and nodded. I took that to mean that I had given her mother a rebirth.

When the singing ended, I returned to my house to find Mother arranging dried beans in rows before the door. She grabbed my cloak at the neck. “Thomas, you will go with him.”

What could I say?

Verse Three

Jesus climbed down from the house to meet the mass that had rushed forward to touch him. Peter, Andrew, and several others pushed the petitioners into a line that curved around the house and reached nearly to the edge of town. There seemed to be even more people than a few minutes earlier, and more than I ever thought populated our tiny village.

A few told him of some affliction for which they wished relief. I doubt that they knew what; they just thought that his hand upon their troubled brows or a brush from his robe would ease something—illness, hard luck, despair. Leah's mother, whom I thought was a healthy woman, was among them. Perhaps she said something to him, for Jesus looked my way as he kissed her forehead.

When I later traveled through northern India, a land the Greeks call Kasperia, the people there were fascinated by my stories of Jesus. I do not know what language they spoke. I learned Sanskrit later, and it may have been related. A Persian fellow named Faraz (or Forusa, I couldn't tell) journeyed with me for a few days; he knew their tongue fairly well and translated for me. I spoke to him in Greek and a bit of Persian, and he would try to put my stories into a form they could understand.

I told them about healings, about feeding multitudes with only morsels, and about stilling the savage hearts of Roman soldiers by raising only a hand. The more outrageously miraculous the tale, the more eagerly they listened. Maybe Faraz embellished them. As soon as I finished a story, most would run home to fetch family members and beg to hear the same story told again. I got the notion that they found some restorative power in simply listening to the story in much the same way that the people in Nazareth had felt blessed just by being near Jesus.

Certain confusions arose, however. For example, they could not seem to keep track of whether the story was about Jesus, whom they called Issa, or me. They appeared to understand that Jesus was dead, but they would ask me to clarify the story of how
I
healed the lame man or made the deaf man hear.

I would tell Faraz to ask them if they knew that I was telling them that Jesus was dead, and they would do their side-to-side head wobble for “yes,” and then they would say something to Faraz, and he would say to me, “They say, ‘Issa, tell for you have man no walk to walk.'” When I left, I could only wonder if they believed that, by seeing me, they had met the ghost of Jesus. If they did, it would not be the strangest belief about Jesus I'd encountered in the half century since his death.

Verse Four

The self-righteous old men slid past the line of petitioners and stood by Jesus as he spoke to a pregnant woman and her husband. Jesus ignored the elders and focused upon the next people in line. The old men were clearly agitated. They grumbled to each other and spat at the ground.