The Gospel of the Twin (23 page)

Ramanka was more than generous to his family, some of whom didn't seem to deserve the level of comfort he provided for them. Something about his finances ran afoul, and Ramanka suspected that someone was embezzling from him. He told me about his sleepless nights of disbelief that someone close to him had betrayed him. He said it was the worst of evils.

During a holiday feast for one of their gods, Ramanka's brother, after a few bowls of the intoxicating beverage they make from grain, made the mistake of saying something about the price of a crop or a trade route or some such item that he could not have known about unless he had directly sold or transported the crops himself. Ramanka immediately knew that his brother was the culprit, and although many of the most significant scenes of my long years have faded, the image of recognition that evening, of seeing all the timbers and stones of that house of deceit fitting together in an instant, of knowing that his life would never be the same—the whites of his eyes brighter, his skin grayer, his mouth open but with jaw muscled and trembling—chills me even now.

That is what I saw in Mary's face as the evening shadows stretched toward us.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Verse One

I feared that Mary would set out after Judas on her own, resolved to kill someone—maybe Peter before he killed Judas, as she probably suspected. She ran to Jesus, who calmed her and promised to leave for Jerusalem the next morning. He tried to persuade Lazarus and his sisters to come too, but Lazarus said he had no desire to ever again see Jerusalem with its “circus temple and self-important, Roman-loving courts.” He hinted at having gotten into some trouble there once; I wasn't really listening.

Jesus and I walked about the town in the evening, telling our people to ready themselves for the short walk to Jerusalem in the morning. Jesus spoke quite casually, with none of the solemnity conveyed in previous preparatory talks. He anticipated my inquiry into his state of mind.

“Thomas, the presence of the Lord thickens around me,” he said. “I feel that I am wrapped like a precious good, an exotic food being transported across the sea as a gift to a king.” He paused and squinted an eye at me, knowing that I'd find this image peculiar. “I am no seer, but something awaits me—us—in Jerusalem. I had to give it time to mature. Now it is ready.”

This sort of talk troubled me. What if he
was
a seer and had glimpsed a tragedy in Jerusalem? Was this his way of telling me that he knew he would die? I have long rejected that notion, but at the time, I did not know what to think. I was confused about too many things.

“Brother, I . . . I think . . .” I said. “I don't think I—”

“Thomas, I know it's difficult for you to understand. Perhaps this is not for the understanding, but for the body. A message in the blood that informs the muscles and the sinews where the soul knots and strikes like a serpent. The striking is the soul, and the body longs to shed it, but it clings like a scab. In this world, we must live so that the body no longer needs the soul. I'll tell you more as we walk tomorrow.”

I had no idea what he was talking about. “No, that's not what . . .” I was shaking. “I need to . . .”

Jesus' smiling face pinched into a quizzical look, then back to a smile. “This is the point that the Lord, that history, has been leading us to, as true as a plumb line. We have built this structure together, Thomas. It is time to dwell in it.”

This may have been more profound than my brother intended. Did he mean that God is equivalent to history? That was worth pause, and I later discussed this idea with the philosophers in Alexandria, who found it compelling. They prefer deities to be less personal and more conceptual, although some still say “Zeus” while others say “Theos.” If God is history, however, what if history is no more than the scribe's ink? Is there an overarching and eternal stylus that melds and corrects the many and limited pages of temporal historians like me? Such a meta-stylus, as the Alexandrian thinkers might say, would thereby be outside of history and not part of it.

Why was I so stupid that I did not press Jesus on this, and so much more, when I could?

Verse Two

The morning was radiant, and we got a casual start. James, Andrew, the Zebedees, Philip, several others who had become part of the inner council (if that's what it was), and I were aware of each other's general trepidation, as well as our inability to articulate any specific apprehension about what we expected in Jerusalem. The others in the group (maybe five hundred, plus children, but it has been a long time, and numbers grow with years) were quite cheerful. They behaved as if we were on our way to visit friends for some joyous celebration, although some of them said they had been to Jerusalem for Passover in recent years and witnessed the Romans' eagerness to arrest every Jew who entered the city.

Lazarus was ill and did not come from his house to bid us farewell. His sisters made up for his absence. Both wept and clutched at Jesus, while our Mary, Magdala Mary, crimped her lips like olive wood grain. Martha begged us to stay at least until Lazarus felt better. Maybe he would then accompany us, she said. Despite his hatred for the city, Lazarus had some pull in Jerusalem, and he could help us “see to our Lord's matters,” whatever that meant. Jesus kissed both sisters and stroked their chins, and they sloughed back into their well-appointed home.

We sang traditional hymns as soon as we marched out of Bethany. Several families emerged from the pines and poplars that flanked the road to listen and watch us pass. Those were trying days, and who knew why these people had retreated to the wild? They may have been thieves banished from their villages or travelers afraid of the Roman patrols.

Regardless, seeing their serene response to the old songs heartened even the most insecure and fearful of us, and that would have been me. We sang louder, and for an idiotic moment found power as magicians might in a spell.

But the magic vanished as Mary, Lazarus' sister, came howling through the ranks. Her unpracticed voice squeaked like a plane working on a cedar plank—I even sensed the aroma of cedar shavings!—as she called to Jesus.

“Mazderrr! Mazderrr!” I don't know how to render the hardening of her consonants, so I won't try. “Lazarus is dead!”

Jesus' body slackened. His head drooped, his chin came to rest on Lazarus' chest, and his shoulders narrowed. When his knees unlocked and came together, he looked as if he were folding into himself. He didn't ask Mary any questions—just stood in that impossible posture like a sleeping man tied to a post. Mary clumped like a rag at his feet and wailed. The crowd watched in silence. People looked to me for reassurance, or a sign that I understood what was happening to Jesus as he continued in that ragged, motionless pose. For a moment, the thought raced in my head that Jesus might be in a trance that was part of some attempt to draw Lazarus' death upon himself.

I placed his arm around my neck and helped him stand up straight. I risked creating the undignified image of a leader suddenly disabled by the death of someone he'd known for only three days, but it had to be better than letting him collapse like pathetic Mary.

“Take me to him,” Jesus said.

“Brother, please.”

“To Lazarus.”

I nodded to James and John, and they lifted Mary from the ground. James held her across his chest, and her head and arms hung limp like a dead sheep. Our Mary cupped her face in her hands and shook her head as if shedding dust. We shuffled along a few steps until Jesus regained his footing and continued without my support, although he kept his hand upon my shoulder.

Soon, we were near Lazarus' house. Mary leapt from James' grasp and fell heavily upon her knees, then sprang up and ran the last hundred cubits. Jesus lit out right behind her. I spent a moment trying to recall the last time I'd seen Jesus run. All I could dredge up was when we were eleven or twelve years old and a neighbor's goat got loose. We saw the old man struggling to retrieve it, so Jesus and I tried to help. We ran in separate directions around a house, thinking one of us would block the animal's path. I heard the goat bleating and came around the house to discover that Jesus had chased the goat into a corner, where the animal tried to run through a fence, breaking its leg. The old man, named Tuval, arrived, sat upon the ground, and panted as his goat cried in pain. The old man caught his breath and fussed at Jesus for injuring his goat.

“It was an accident,” I said. “My brother was helping you.”

Tuval looked back and forth at the two of us. “Freaks. Twins are the Lord's curse upon unclean women. Did you know that? Now you've cursed me.” He coughed up a great mouthful of matter and spat it up into the air. It arced and hit a fence post, hanging there like a raw egg. “Killed my goat. Freaks.”

He rose to his feet, approached the terrified animal, and seized it by the ear. He drew a knife from his cloak, plunged it into the goat's neck, and dropped the knife. Lifting the trembling thing by its hind legs, Tuval grunted as he drained the blood. A spasm went through the goat before its unbroken front leg stiffened, as if it were reaching to Jesus for help. Tuval dropped the dead goat onto a nearby wagon and, placing his thumb upon one nostril, blew a rope of snot that stretched almost to the ground before snapping free.

Tuval picked up his knife and turned to Jesus. “Grab that cart and follow me.”

Like a servant, Jesus obeyed. I told the people in the house that this man was taking their cart, but they didn't seem to care. I went home and asked Mother if I was a freak. She dropped a jar of oil or flour, and I was for a few seconds so fascinated that the jar hadn't broken that I missed her first few words.

“. . . for you.” Her hands flitted like insects and she spoke rapidly. “When you were born, I slept outside with you for two full moons and washed you with goat milk. When you were circumcised, I buried the foreskin with a cow hoof, and tall weeds grew just like they were supposed to. I did everything the proper way. That man with the goat doesn't know what he's talking about. Never listen to fools.”

Jesus returned home at dusk. Tuval had had him help clean and butcher the goat and then sent Jesus home with a cut of meat, which Mother placed into a bowl of salted water. I got a fresh robe and went with Jesus to the well and helped him clean up. “He was nasty to me until we began to clean the goat,” Jesus said as I poured water over his arms. “The more he cut and carved, the more Tuval became friendly. By the time we were done and were both covered in blood, he was smiling and calling me ‘Son.'”

“So he likes blood?”

Jesus laughed. “When I left, he made me promise to tell Mother and Father that he thinks I am a fine boy. He may have cried a little.” Jesus pulled off the bloody robe and I poured a bucket of water over his head and chest. He shook water from his hair and put on the clean robe. “What do you make of it, Brother?” he said. “The way Tuval acted toward me?”

“I don't know,” I said, “but Mother says we're not freaks. She did spells.”

“But we
are
freaks, Thomas! Abraham, Moses, David—they were all freaks. Are we going to be like them, or are we going to be like our father and pretend there's no real work to be done? Maybe freaks are the only people with courage enough to do something about the Romans.”

“You know that's not what I'm talking about. What if we are a curse that the Lord placed upon Mother because of her potions and the figures she draws in the air? You know that some people, even her friends, don't approve of that stuff. They haven't called her a witch, but I'm sure some of them have thought it. And what if those potions and things didn't work and didn't keep us from being freaks? You have a spot of blood on your forehead.” I wiped his forehead with my thumb.

“We are what we are, Thomas. Maybe we aren't freaks like Tuval meant, but we're not like other boys, are we?”

Verse Three

Most in our group—Jesus' followers, that is—were too anxious to sit and thus milled about in the street. I saw our Mary pacing in the distance, crossing the street with her head bowed. She was hugging herself as if holding something precious to her breast. I'd assumed she'd gone into Lazarus' house behind Jesus.

She acted as if she didn't hear me call her. When I got to her, her eyes were red and she was making a low, growling sound through closed lips. I spoke her name, but she ignored me and continued her brisk pacing until I grabbed her. She put up no struggle.

“I'm not waiting for them to bury him tomorrow, Thomas. I'm sorry he's dead, but he's not keeping me here while Judas goes to Jerusalem to die.” She rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands. “I just got him back, Thomas.”

I spied the Zebedees back near Lazarus' house and waved to them. They came with resolute faces as if ready to execute any order.

“Take Mary to Jerusalem,” I said. “Help her find Judas. We'll be along soon. Take this.” I handed John a shekel.

“Yes, Thomas,” John said.

“We'll take care of her,” James said and nodded to Mary.

Mary took James' arm but was not interested in thanks and goodbyes, and had unceremoniously walked away when someone spoke behind me. “Poor Mary. Many other women ache to see the men they love.”

I turned to find Leah's mother, shaking her head, her lips pinched at the corners. “Yes,” I said. “These are bad times.”

“Think of your brother James' wife, crying at home for him.”

“I'm sure she's doing well, but these are demanding days, like war, separating husbands and wives.”

“Not just husbands and wives.”

I knew what she meant and did not think she intended to upset me. I took a step toward Lazarus' house.

“Thomas, you know that Leah misses you.”

The impulse to yell at her was nearly irrepressible.
Yes, I know it, you old bitch! Do you not think I miss her every moment? Each time I see you, I'm reminded that I left her alone!
Seeing you also reminds me that I left my widowed mother behind! Do I need more guilt?
What are you trying to do to me? What do you want me to say?

“I can see her,” she said, “gazing down the road for hours every day, hoping to glimpse your form returning to her.”

I could see her too, leaning against her doorjamb, doing something with her hands, maybe mending a torn robe, while watching the empty street with no expression on her face, just the blank, hardening features of a woman who has known little joy. The Greeks have a story about a king who goes to war and returns home after twenty years to find that his wife has remained loyal, keeping suitors at bay, never doubting that she and her beloved would be reunited. I like to think that if I stayed away for years, Leah would wait for me with the unwavering fidelity of that Greek queen, but how could I know? What if I had overestimated her devotion?

My eyes went wet while my teeth ground in anger for being reminded of the longing I tried daily to forget. Leah's mother reached toward me, but I recoiled as if her hand were a mottled scorpion. I was about to succumb to the urge to shout in her face, but I was distracted by roars and cheers from Lazarus' house. James and John ran past me—“Come, Thomas!” John said—and I followed them through the crowd gathering in front of Lazarus' house.