The Last Temptation of Christ (28 page)

“You’re not coming?” she cried. “This is the last time I’m going to say it to you: Come!”

She waited. The son was silent: he had again turned his face toward the lake.

“You’re not coming?” the mother cried in a heart-rending voice. She lifted her hand.

“Aren’t you afraid of a mother’s curse?”

“I’m not afraid of anything,” answered the son without turning. “And I’m not afraid of anyone, except God.”

Mary’s face became ferocious. She lifted her fist and even opened her mouth to utter the curse, but old Salome was in time to place her hand over the mother’s lips.

“Don’t! Don’t!” she said. She clasped her around the waist and forcefully dragged her away. “Come, Mary, my child,” she said, “come, let’s go. I have something to tell you.”

The two women started down the hill to Capernaum. Old Zebedee went in front in a rage, decapitating the thistles with his club.

Salome spoke to Mary. “Why are you crying, Mary, my child? Didn’t you see them?”

Mary looked at her with surprise and held back her tears. “See what?” she asked.

“While he spoke, didn’t you see blue wings, thousands of blue wings behind him? I swear to you, Mary, there were whole armies of angels.”

But Mary shook her head in despair. “I didn’t see anything,” she murmured, “I didn’t see anything ... anything.” Then, after a pause: “What good are angels to me, Salome? I want children and grandchildren to be following him, children and grandchildren, not angels!”

But old Salome’s eyes were filled with blue wings. Putting out her hand, she touched Mary’s breast and whispered to her as though confiding a great secret. “You are blessed, Mary, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”

But Mary was inconsolable. She shook her head and followed behind, weeping.

The infuriated ragamuffins, meanwhile, had encircled Jesus. They uttered threats, beat their staffs on the ground, waved their empty baskets in the air.

“Death to the rich!” they shouted. “You spoke well, son of Mary—death to the rich!”

“Go in the lead and we’ll burn down Zebedee’s house.”

“No, let’s not burn it,” others objected. “Let’s break in and divide up his wheat, oil, wine and the coffers-full of expensive clothes. ... Death to the rich!”

Jesus waved his arms in despair. “I didn’t say that! I didn’t say that!” he shouted. “I said, ‘Brothers, love!’ ”

But the poor were driven wild by hunger: how could they listen!

“Andrew is right,” they yelled. “First fire and the ax, then love!”

Andrew heard this, standing at Jesus’ side, but his head was bowed in thought, and he did not reply. When his teacher in the desert spoke, he was thinking, his words fell on men’s heads like stones and crushed them. But this man next to him portioned out his words to men like bread. ... Who was right? Which of the two roads led to the world’s salvation—force or love?

While all this was spinning in his mind he felt two hands on his scalp. Jesus had drawn near and gently placed his palms on the top of Andrew’s head. The fingers were beautifully supple and so very long that whatever they grasped, they embraced—they had spread out over Andrew’s entire head. Andrew did not budge. He felt the suture lines of his skull open and an unutterable honey-thick sweetness flow in, descend to his brain, reach his mouth, neck and heart, continue to his loins, ramify to the very soles of his feet. He rejoiced with his whole body, his whole soul-deeply, with the very roots of his being, like a thirsty tree that is watered. He did not speak. If only these hands above him would never go away! Now, after so much struggle, he finally felt security and inner peace.

A short distance away, Philip and simple Nathanael, the two inseparable friends, were having words.

“I like him,” said the gangling cobbler. “His words are as sweet as honey. Would you believe it: listening to him, I actually licked my chops!”

The shepherd was of a different opinion. “I didn’t like him. He says one thing and does another; he shouts, ‘Love! Love!’ and builds crosses and crucifies!”

“That’s all over and done with, I tell you, Philip. He had to pass that stage, the stage of crosses. Now he’s passed it and taken God’s road.”

“I want works!” Philip insisted. “The itch has begun to attack my sheep. Let him come first to say a blessing over them. If they’re cured, then I’ll believe in him. Otherwise, he can go you know where with the rest of his kind. Why shake your head? If he wants to save the world, let him start with my sheep.”

Night fell and covered lake, vineyards and the faces of men. David’s wain appeared in the sky. In the east a red star hung like a drop of wine over the desert.

Jesus suddenly felt tired and hungry. He wanted to be alone. The people gradually recalled the journey home, and their houses and the small children who awaited them. Their daily cares crushed down on them again. This was a flash of lightning—they had let themselves be swept away, but now it had passed and they had been recaptured by the wheel of everyday need. Singly, and in pairs—furtively, like deserters—they slipped away and left.

Overcome by melancholy, Jesus lay down on the ancient marble. No one held out his hand to bid him goodbye; no one asked him if he was hungry or if he had a place to spend the night. His face turned toward the darkening earth, he heard the hurried steps recede, recede ... and then die out. Suddenly all was quiet. He lifted his head: no one. He looked around him: darkness. The people had left. Around him, nothing but the stars above; within him, nothing but fatigue and hunger. Where could he go? At which door could he knock? He curled up again on the ground, feeling reproachful and aggrieved. “Even the foxes have lairs in which to sleep,” he murmured, “and I have none.” He closed his eyes. A smarting cold had come down with the night, and he was shivering.

Suddenly he heard a groan from behind the marble and then muffled weeping. Opening his eyes, he perceived a woman crawling toward him on all fours in the darkness. When she arrived she unplaited her hair and began to sponge his feet, which had been cruelly lacerated by the stones. He recognized her by her scent.

“Magdalene, my sister,” he said, placing his hand on her warm, perfumed head, “Magdalene, my sister, return to your home and sin no more.”

“Jesus, my brother,” she said, kissing his feet, “let me follow in your shadow until I die. Now I know what love is.”

“Return to your home,” Jesus repeated. “When the hour comes, I shall call you.”

“I want to die for you, my child.”

“Do not be impatient, Magdalene. The hour will come, but it has not come yet. I will call you when it does. Now, go.”

She was about to object when she heard his voice again, and this time it was extremely stern: “Go!”

Magdalene began to descend the hill. Her light steps were audible for a short while; then, little by little, they were snuffed out, and nothing remained but the smell of her body in the air. But the night breeze blew and carried this away too.

The son of Mary now remained completely alone. Above him: God, his ebony night-face splashed with stars. Jesus cocked his ear as though he wanted to hear a voice in the starry darkness. He waited. ... Nothing. He wanted to open his mouth and ask the Invisible: Lord, are you pleased with me? but did not dare. He wanted to say many things to the Invisible, but did not dare. He was terrified by the abrupt silence which closed in upon him. Surely the Lord must be displeased with me, he suddenly thought, shuddering. But why am I to blame, Lord? I’ve told you, how many times have I told you: I cannot speak! But you have pushed me more and more, sometimes laughing, sometimes frowning with anger; and this morning at the monastery when the monks chased me in order to make me Abbot—unworthy that I am—and bolted all the doors to prevent my escape, you opened a tiny hidden gate for me, you dug your talons into my hair and threw me down here in front of this immense crowd. “Speak,” you ordered me; “the hour has come!” But I kept my lips squeezed tight and said nothing. You shouted, but I said nothing. Finally your patience gave out and you darted forward and opened my mouth. I did not open it, you opened it for me—by force; you anointed it not with lighted coals as you are accustomed to anoint the lips of your prophets, no, not with lighted coals, but with honey! And I spoke. My heart was angry; it incited me to cry: God is fire!—yes, just like your prophet the Baptist—God is fire, he’s coming! Men without law, without justice, without honor: where will you hide? He is coming! ... That’s what my heart tried to make me shout, but you anointed my lips with honey, and instead, I cried, “Love! Love!”

“Lord, O Lord,” he murmured, “I cannot fight with you. Tonight I surrender my arms. Your will be done!”

As soon as he said this, he felt relieved. Lowering his head to his breast like a drowsy bird, he closed his eyes and slept. Straightway it seemed to him that he withdrew an apple from under his shirt, split it, removed a seed and planted it in front of him in the ground. No sooner had he done so than the seed germinated, pushed up through its covering of earth, formed a stem, sprouted branches, leaves, flowers—and produced fruit: hundreds of red apples. ...

The stones shifted; a man’s footsteps were heard. Jesus’ sleep took fright and fled. He raised his eyelids and saw someone standing before him. Happy that he was no longer alone, he calmly, mutely, welcomed the man’s warm presence.

The night visitor came forward and knelt. “You must be hungry,” he said. “I’ve brought you bread, honey and fish.”

“Who are you, my brother?”

“Andrew, the son of Jonah.”

“They all abandoned me and left. Yes, it is true that I am hungry. How is it, my brother, that you remembered me and brought me bread, honey and fish, all the riches of God? Nothing is wanting but the kind word.”

“I bring you that too,” said Andrew, the darkness giving him courage. Jesus did not see the youth’s trembling hands, nor the two tears which rolled down his pale cheeks.

“That first—the kind word first,” said Jesus, holding out his hand to him and smiling.

“Rabboni, my master,” whispered the son of Jonah, and he stooped and kissed his feet.

TIME IS NOT A FIELD, to be measured in rods, nor a sea, to be measured in miles; it is a heart beat. How long did this betrothal last? Days? Months? Years? Jolly and compassionate, the son of Mary went from village to village with the good word on his lips, from village to village, mountain to mountain, or sometimes by rowboat from one shore of the lake to the other, dressed in white like a bridegroom. And the Earth was his betrothed. As soon as he lifted his foot, the ground he had trodden filled with flowers. When he looked at the trees, they blossomed. The moment he set foot in a fishing boat, a favorable wind puffed out the sail. The people listened to him, and the clay within them turned to wings. The entire time this betrothal lasted, if you lifted a stone you found God underneath, if you knocked at a door, God came out to open it for you, if you looked into the eye of your friend or your enemy, you saw God sitting in the pupil and smiling at you.

The indignant Pharisees shook their heads. “John the Baptist fasts and weeps,” they scolded, glaring at him with leaden eyes, “he threatens, and does not laugh. But you—wherever there is a merry wedding, you’re first and foremost. You eat, drink and laugh with the rest, and the other day at a marriage in Cana you were not ashamed to dance with the young ladies. Who ever heard of a prophet laughing and dancing?”

But he smiled. “Pharisees, my brothers, I am not a prophet; I am a bridegroom.”

“A bridegroom?” the Pharisees howled, going through the motions of tearing their clothes.

“Yes, Pharisees, my brothers, a bridegroom. Forgive me, but I know no other way to describe it to you.”

He would turn to his companions, John, Andrew and Judas, to the peasants and fishermen who abandoned their fields and boats in order to run and hear him, seduced by the sweetness of his face, and to the women, who came with their infants in their arms.

“Rejoice and exult while the bridegroom is still among you,” he would tell them. “The days will also come when you shall be widows and orphans, but place your trust in the Father. Look at the faith of the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap, and yet the Father feeds them. Consider the flowers of the earth. They do not spin or weave, but what king could ever dress in such magnificence? Do not be concerned about your body, what it will eat, what it will drink or wear. Your body was dust and it will return to dust. Let your concern be for the kingdom of heaven and for your immortal soul!”

Judas listened to him and knit his brows. He was not interested in the kingdom of heaven. His great concern was for the kingdom of the earth—and not the whole earth, either, but only the land of Israel, which was made of men and stones, not of prayer and clouds. The Romans—those barbarians, those heathens—the Romans were trampling over this land. First they must be expelled; then we can worry about kingdoms of heaven.

Jesus saw the redbeard’s frown and from the wrinkles which stormed his forehead read his hidden thoughts.

“Heaven and earth are one, Judas, my brother,” he would say, smiling at him; “stone and cloud are one; the kingdom of heaven is not in the air, it is within us, in our hearts. I talk about that, about the heart. Change your heart, and heaven and earth will embrace, Israelites and Romans will embrace, all will become one.”

But the redbeard kept his indignation within him, brooding over it and forcing himself to be patient and wait. He does not know what he’s talking about, he grumbled to himself. He lives in a dream world and hasn’t the slightest idea of what goes on around him. My heart will change only if the world about me changes. Only if the Romans disappear from the land of Israel will I find relief!

One day Zebedee’s younger son turned to Jesus. “Forgive me, Rabbi,” he said, “but I find I don’t love Judas. When I go near him a dark force gushes out of his body, thousands of tiny, tiny needles which wound me; and the other day at dusk I saw a black angel whisper something in his ear. What did he say?”

“I have a foreboding of what he said,” Jesus answered with a sigh.