Janos Kodolanyi: I AM

AIM of this blog about a book written by JANOS KODOLANYI: I AM

Wanting to find the most appropriate Publisher for the publishing of the English translation of a genuine book written decades ago by a famous Hungarian author now I would like to share some information about it and also some part translations of it – by means of this blog.
The book is a true gem, a “Hidden Treasure” from East-Europe.
Small languages are strong barriers even for great thoughts, even if the topic is global. I am convinced that as soon as fully ready, its very good English translation will help to share the experience, will help the ideas of the book reach thousands of readers from all over the World.
I would especially recommend this great book to those with an open, questioning mind, to people reaching their ‘midlife’ and also to those interested in traveling through mind & time; in history and/or religion.
Those interested – either to read or to publish the full version – are very much welcome to send a feedback or contact me through this blog.
Csilla Pataky

…and now feel free to read several chapters (1, 12, 39, 40, 41, 73) already translated into English in RECENT POSTS.

Chapter 73

   Out they went by the Fish Gate. The countryside opened before them, the pungent world of the hills and valleys lay silent in the moonlight. As they passed through the gate it was immediately shut behind them, and city, fire, people and dogs were enclosed by the massive walls. Yehuda breathed the air in deeply, and his heart was eased.

“Are you taking me to some summer house or farm?” he asked inquisitively, and he slipped his arm tremulously round her waist and over her hips, like a teenager.

“Just be patient,” she laughed. She smothered him with her strong, all-pervading perfume and pressed her thigh to his side. “Believe me, my dear. You weren’t so happy in your mother’s womb. We aren’t going far. Be careful, the path’s narrow. I’ll go in front again.”

She ran ahead agile as a goat along the rough, twisting path through the bushes at the foot of the city wall. She stopped now and then and waited for Yehuda, and sometimes held out her hand, her soft, cushioned, scented hand.

On they walked this way and that in the undergrowth, and the silvery leaves of the oaks shimmered.

“What’s your name?” asked Yehuda, now more cheerfully.

“Adila, Adila, and I was born inSyria. My father was a rich landowner . . .” she began, and leant her head on Yehuda’s shoulder.

But he was not interested in that. They all came from wealthy homes, and they were all born inSyria. He could have told the whole tale word for word. He listened with one ear and thought how similar this Adila was to his mother in her young days, to Mariam, Martha and that other woman who had died such a terrible death.

“Here we are. Here’s the entrance. Get the flint out and light the lamp.”

Yehuda caught his breath and involuntarily swallowed. A dark opening gaped among the bushes, deep and black. He stood there startled, stared into it, his face pale in the moonlight.

“Oy, woman,” he groaned nervously, “where’ve you brought me?”

“Don’t say you’re afraid?”

Adila laughed out loud and rocked lightly to and fro on the heels of her red sandals.

“Oy vey, the little coward, the little baby! Don’t start again, d’you hear. Light the lamp, little boy. You’ll soon see, it’s like a palace. It’s not a cave, it isn’t Sheol, my dear, what an idea, it’s a palace. Light the lamp, I tell you!

Yehuda sat down on a rock and stared dizzily into the dark hole, but Adila held the lamp out to him and urged him to light it quickly.

“How long have I got to wait? Why have I come here with you out of town? The gate’s shut now, do you suppose I’m going to hang about with you in the bushes all night?”

“Why’ve you brought me to the cave?” Yehuda groaned. “This cave . . .”

“What cave? Where’s there a cave? You’re not well, my dear. Stop talking and let’s be going.” She squatted down at Yehuda’s side and smoothly extended her bare legs from under her long skirt. They were like Martha’s, muscular, smooth, slender and firm. She clasped his tousled head to her, pressed it to her between her warm, soft, perfumed breasts. Her clever fingers stroked the back of his neck like that of a nervous animal being led under the knife. She cooed, murmured and whispered into his ear. “Why’re you so afraid, my dear? This isn’t a cave, it isn’t, believe Adila. Light the lamp, let’s just go, I’ll hold your hand so you don’t trip, I’ll take you to a nice, quiet place, don’t be silly, my dear, come along. See how much you enjoy yourself. I’ll give you a good time like no other woman ever. I’ll take my clothes off and hold you in my arms . . . Come on, don’t just sit there!”

At her husky murmuring the blood came to Yehuda’s head. His tongue dried up. He could hear the even, firm beat of her heart between the two swelling breasts, feel the warmth of her body and her intoxicating scent. He stroked her bare thigh, it was taut and rounded, her calf youthfully firm, her foot small and arched.

He made up his mind, pulled up his leather bag, took out flint, steel and tinder and made fire. His hands shook a little, but now it was with desire.

“See, now you’re getting the idea,” she praised him like a mother her child.

Carefully she held the lamp and blew on the wick. A pale, trembling little flame arose in the moonlight.

Adila took the bird-shaped clay lamp in her left hand, with her right took Yehuda’s left and carefully led him into the low opening.

The lamplight flickered on a snow-white stone wall, casting long shadows on the stony floor. Down they went along a steep, head-high passage. Down, down and down.

It was not indeed a cave but a man-made cavity. At the end of the steep passage a huge hall opened before them, so big that they could not see the other end, a hall carved into the snowy white rock. Yehuda, a stonemason, realised at once that its walls had been shaped in the course of timeless ages, and that it stretched unseen deep beneath the city. The floor was of fine, floury, white powder, soft as a carpet, and absorbed the sound of their footsteps. The light of the  lamp shone golden on the white wall like a light golden mist and long-legged shadows emerged from the dark and receded back. The unknown quarrymen had cut something like ribs into the roof – and the corridors of the subterranean palace gaped like the mouths of a series of streets. The silence was infinite, not a breath of air moved, the stone walls stretched away rigidly and dreamily, the deep corridors opened and vanished. It was a palace inhabited by silent shadows, where an invisible king ruled. Here there penetrated no sound, music, speech, bustle or cries from the world of light, but shadows flitted about silently like spirits.

Neat little recesses equidistant one from another were sunk into the walls. They were former places for lamps, the smoke from which had stained the white stone. In other places mighty cubes had been cut out, some of them still not detached, others isolated like Roman sarcophagi.

Adila proudly placed the lamp in a little recess and looked at Yehuda with a certain pleasure, as if welcoming him as a guest in her house. Then she sat down on a block of stone and smiled craftily.

“Where are we?” whispered Yehuda, as if reluctant to wake the king or god that slept there in the depths, and his courtiers.

“This place is a thousand-year-old, or even older,” she replied quite loudly, like one that knew all the ins and outs and was not afraid of the inhabitants. “You can speak up, even shout if you like. Isn’t it lovely? I’m not sure, but they say it used to be Solomon’s quarry. This is where the stone was quarried for building the first Mishkan, the real one. Over there,” she made a vague gesture, “a very long corridor leads under the Mishkan. It’s blocked off by a brick wall. They say that’s where Yirmiyahu Moshe hid his sacred vessels, the treasure of the Mishkan and the holy Chest . . . But I don’t know about that, I’ve only heard it said. I’m an ignorant woman about this. Tie a rope round your neck rather than teach a woman. Come on, then, sit by me.”

But Yehuda did not sit by her. He walked up and down in the white hall, gazing at the walls. It was as if Solomon’s masons had ceased working the day before, and the marks of their hands were almost warm on the rock. Their chisels possibly lay abandoned in the dust of the floor. Their lamps might have still been there somewhere. They had just gone to eat, or to break off for Sabbath eve, and might come back at any moment and continue working. And yet there were in this place a thousand years of silence and stillness. Yehuda stood rigid, the words of the Scriptures going round and round in his mind like bits of wood whirled up and down by a flood. He looked thoughtfully into the distance. Suddenly the pertinent text came to him: ‘And when the House was builded, it was builded of stones of the quarry hewed entire, so that the sound of neither hammer nor axe nor of any iron tool was heard at the building thereof’. So this was where Hiram’s Phoenician master-builders had worked.

Again and again he looked at the amazing cavern. He was no longer tense, and for a while his desires too were abated. The white subterranean palace was so fascinating a sight that at that moment he could think of nothing at all. Gradually he also became accustomed to the silence, the like of which he had never experienced. The city, the world of men, was far, far away. Somewhere, on Chanan’s courtyard, a fire was blazing, armed attendants were lounging about and laughing beside it, and that man was standing, bound, before his judges. But perhaps it wasn’t true at all, perhaps it was just a dream or a vision, and truth was here, where spirits of the age of Solomon fluttered in the deserted, dark streets and corridors of the underworld. Here the once mighty empire of Yahwe lived on, and what was up above was  a mirage.

When he had considered it all the silence was filled with a quiet whispering. He was alone, alone with this woman, who was real warm flesh and blood.

He stood in front of her as she sat there and looked at her. She was beautiful. She had pushed back the ample, red striped kerchief on her head and the ringlets of her gleaming raven hair framed her regular, brown face, and her big dark eyes with their long lashes had grown larger still in the feeble light of the lamp. Her neck rose from the folds of her dress, rounded and smooth like the work of a Greek sculptor. She had unfastened her shimla, and her breasts were taut and trembling beneath her snow white kuttoneth. Her waist was willowy and slender, and Yehuda’s head swam at the sight of the golden waist and full breasts. Her jewellery too set off her beauty in amazing fashion. A ring of pale gold matched the light curve of her nose, earrings shone on both sides of her face, a gold chain framed her neck intriguingly and bracelets hung loose on her wrists. He sat beside her and looked her in the face. If she removed the mascara from her eyebrows, the rouge from her lips and just left the jewellery she would be a remarkable blend of his mother, Yudith, Mariam and Martha.

“Shall I take my clothes off, or are you still thinking about it?” asked Adila in challenging tone, and with a practised movement loosened her girdle. Her robes fell away, and only her fine woollen kuttoneth remained clinging to her, loose yet taut, and her golden brown body strained against the thin material.

Yehuda found his tongue.

“I suppose you’re surprised that a pauper, in these wretched rags, a homeless tramp, who’s got nothing, only this empty begging-bowl on his belt and a few silver coins . . . Are you surprised that he’s sitting with you now in this underground palace and thinking how lovely you are?”

In his excitement he stood up, took a few steps and clutched suddenly at his forehead. He stopped in front of her and gave her such a burning look that she involuntarily covered her knees.

“Oy, don’t go thinking that these awful clothes . . . this begging-bowl . . . this uncut hair . . . What do you think, then, what am I?”

Adila smiled, then frowned. She looked Yehuda coolly over from head to foot.

“Why do you care about what I think you are?”

“Don’t beat about the bush, woman!” exclaimed Yehuda. His voice echoed eerily in the depths of the dark passages. “Who do you take me for? What? Tell me!”

“An Ebionite[1] , but a very odd one, a very well educated Ebionite. Come on, now, stop talking! It’s all just rubbish.”

“Wait, wait a moment,” Yehuda raised a finger. “I couldn’t bear it if you took me for some nondescript, dirty tramp. Or the stupid disciple of some half-gentile nabi.”
“What happened to your hand?”

“My hand?” Yehuda lifted his wrist and looked at it. “It’s swollen. I’ve done a lot of walking and I’ve been gripping my staff tightly. That’s what’s caused it. I’m always massaging it, but it won’t pass off. It’s nothing. I’m not going to do any more walking.”

“What happened to your foot, then?” she asked inquisitively but gently, not wishing to upset him.

“Oy, yes, my foot . . .” Yehuda sighed sadly. “I tripped up. Twisted it. But never mind, it’s getting better. I’ve been able to walk all the same.  Up to Kafarnahum, the Kinnereth region, then to the top of Hermon, to Paneas, where the Jordan emerges from a dark cave . . . then back again, to Khorzin, Tiberias, Gadara, Nezereth, Shamron, Yericho . . . all over the place. But I tell you, no more walking for me. Tomorrow I take off these rags” – he grasped his shimla and shook it in disgust. “I’m throwing the begging-bowl away,” he hit it, almost broke it. “I’m getting my beard decently trimmed,” he sank his quivering fingers into it. “I’ll put a smart shimla on my shoulders, silk, the real thing fromMesopotamia. I’ll oil myself with the finest oil. You wouldn’t know me if you saw me. I’m not going to wear these rags much longer. And I’m not doing any more walking. You’re the golden gate through which I’m stepping into the good life! In the morning I’ll knock on the High Priest’s door, say a name, and the door will immediately open to me . . . and by the time I come away, oy, you’ll not imagine! I’ll go home fromJerusalemriding a camel, and I came here limping on foot. A camel, a Bactrian camel. And servants will go with me with laden donkeys, more than you ever saw. I tell you, you wouldn’t know me.”

“I love the dawn,” said she, a little sarcastically, but Yehuda did not notice the scorn.

“I’m a miserable, lame, ragged man with a swollen hand,” he went on contemptuously, but his eyes gleamed feverishly like a drunken man’s. “Oy, not for much longer, not for much longer! And if you could have seen me when I was rich, I used to carry wool, salt, silk, ivory by the caravan-load . . . My ships used to go on the sea. I had land, camels, donkeys, white oxen, Achaean sheep . . . Clothes, gold. But one day, more then three years ago now . . .”

“Yes, my dear, I know. You tripped up and twisted your ankle. Since then you’ve had a limp. Come on.”

“That’s true, I tripped up, but what do you think, can you wipe out your past?”

‘He’s mad, possessed, or he’s on some very mysterious, important business,’ thought Adila. She looked at Yehuda with heightened curiosity.

“Is this the place to ask a question like that, for goodness sake? she laughed aloud, dangled her legs, leant forward to put her elbows on her knees, cupped her face in her hands. Her golden brown breasts jutted from her kuttoneth. “Here, of all places? You’re in a thousand-year-old palace, everything here’s a thousand years old! In this classy bedroom?”

“Yes, this is the very place. And it’s here that I’m telling you, woman, that you can wipe out your past. You don’t believe that? Look at me. I’ve done it. I’ve done it by a real act, if you must know. I’ve crushed the Serpent’s head! Because in case you don’t know, you ignorant woman, the Serpent had raised itself a nabi, was threatening Jerusalem, the Mishkan, the whole of Israel, Adonai himself, blessed be his name for ever. It wanted no stone to be left on stone, the gentiles to trample the men and woe betide pregnant women and mothers nursing children. But rejoice, daughter ofJerusalem, rejoice, virgin of Sion! For I, the wretched Ebionite, have crushed the Serpent’s head. I have savedIsraelandJerusalemand the Mishkan. The mothers, the virgins and you too, Adila. And so I deserve the Mesopotamian robe, the camel, the escort . . . Yes,” he shouted, and the corridors re-echoed it, “rejoice, daughter ofJerusalem, rejoice greatly! Thy king has come to thee, he shall save thee with justice and triumph!” He fell silent, looked fixedly at the woman as she sat there calmly, then quietly added: “I’m telling you this, Adila, so that you won’t think me a ragged, wandering Ebionite.”

He drew himself upright and looked at her proudly.

“I could tell straight away that you aren’t what you seem,” Adila indulged him. “Your face is like a wild boar’s! You’re a great man! A remarkable man!”

“A nabi fromGalileehas been curing the sick,” Yehuda began again secretively. “Driving out evil spirits by the power of Baal-Zebub, performing miracles, casting spells. Once, for example, he calmed a thunderstorm. I was actually there and nearly got drowned. He’s a black magus, even greater than Shimon. One man had passed away, and he brought him back to life on the fourth day. That too I saw. He stepped out of the tomb as if nothing had happened to him. That nabi was after power, he announced that he was the Anointed One. Wanted to sit in the High Priest’s place. The High Priest’s!” he exclaimed, and the corridors boomed in echo. “But he was only the bastard of a former daughter of Levi and a Roman soldier. But I, I knew who he was! I, I alone of so many! I’ve savedIsraelfrom him. Now he’s under arrest,” he added more quietly, so as not to disturb the peace of the tunnels. “He’ll be condemned and then . . .”

She listened to him wide-eyed. She sat leaning forward, elbows on knees, face cupped in hands. She looked at him as if stripping him, as if wanting to see the Ebionite without his rags, in his true colours. Her rouged lips smiled an enigmatic smile.

“I see, my dear. And now you’re afraid, eh?”

“The supporters of the Serpent are sure to be up in arms. The city may be in flames above our heads, people slaughtering one another. But rejoice, daughter of Sion! Adonai lives, blessed be his name for ever. He has trampled the Serpent, and it’s gone back to the depths where it lay chained for a thousand, a hundred thousand years. The great conspiracy will collapse. The nabi’s followers are running, like those that were with him when he was arrested. Oy, you should have seen them! They threw away their swords, hid in the bushes, climbed over the wall! Nobody stayed with him. He relied on Kefa, so I did likewise!”

He fixed his darkly gleaming gaze on her. He said nothing for a long time.

“What’s this nabi called that you’ve crushed?” she asked.

“Yeshuah bar Yosif,” replied Yehuda quietly, but even so the sounds of the name were whispered back from the throats of the corridors like a wind.

“And what’s your name?”

“My name? Mine?” he hesitated about saying it, and his eyes gleamed suspiciously. “My name is . . . Eleazar ben Yehuda.”

Every time that he stopped speaking from the streets and corridors, from the whole invisible empire, voices croaked and whispered ten, a hundred, a thousand Yehudas. And if excitement got the better of him the whole hidden underworld, like a living town, rattled and rumbled.

“Do you know that you’re sitting here,woman?” he asked thoughtfully, quietly, so as not to stir the spirits in alarm. “But never mind. I was weak, I lost my senses. Later I began to think calmly. That nabi taught that the Kingdom of God was here, man could get to know God, and then would never die and would know everything, see everything, become omnipotent, eternal, immortal . . . Did you ever hear such dreadful blasphemy? I’m not saying it, he did. But I’ve savedIsraelfrom him.”

Again his voice resounded far in the darkness. A whole host of Yehudas repeated his words.

“That’s very remarkable, my dear,” she whispered admiringly. “Did he perform miracles? Was he a magician? How could they arrest him, then? Why didn’t he put a spell on the men that came for him? Oy, if I had magic powers! I’d just wave a hand, like with a sickle, and they’d go down like corn being cut.”

“He might have, I was afraid,” exclaimed Yehuda, and the unseen people of the empire of stone howled back ‘afraid . . . afraid . . . “Do you know what fear of death is? I do. It’s when you see your own body unburied . . . jackals, wolves, dogs tearing at it in a ditch . . . and your son, little Eleazar, dragging himself starving from door to door, and being driven away! But that nabi proclaimed that he’d conquered the world! But it didn’t happen like that! Because I stood up to him for the sake of Adonai, and I won. I won!”

The unseen Yehudas called back from the depths ‘I won . . . I won . . .’

“It’s very strange that the nabi didn’t defend himself,” said Yehuda then, quite quietly. “Whom were they looking for? Yeshuah, the nazarite . . .”
“He was a nazarite?”

“Yes, but what sort of nazarite? He drank wine, didn’t fast. Paid no attention to what was kosher or unclean. Went about with all kinds of tramps, semi-pagans, fishermen, tax-collectors, and all manner of women. Yes, ‘I am he,’ that’s what he said. And he went up to them and held out his hands to be tied up. ‘I am he,’ that’s all he said.”

“I am he,” she whispered to herself, and was transported. Her eyes glowed as if she had drunk wine, and the gentle throbbing of her heartbeat could be seen through her shift. Her red heels tapped rhythmically on the soft carpet of dust.

“’I am he’, that’s what he said, and walked up to them. I am the vine. I am the good shepherd, I am the living bread. I am the truth and the life. He could also have said ‘I am Sylvanus, I am Attis, I am Aten, I am Tammuz, I am Usiri! And Dionysos! And the Serpent which Moshe lifted up in the wilderness! He was everything! The Anointed One, the Liberator. The Master, whom the Father had sent. Oy, I’m not saying that, he did! The bastard son of a temple woman and a Roman soldier!”

When his voice had died way in the depths a long silence arose. He paced this way and that, tugged at his beard, his excitement refusing to die down. The girl’s watchful eye followed his every movement, but as if she were seeing not only him but someone else too, beyond the walls. Her red heels tapped constantly at the carpet of dust.

“You really hate the nabi,” she tossed at him casually.

“I hate him! I do! Because he destroyed for ever people’s faith in the Mashiakh!”

The many, many unseen Yehudas hooted back the impassioned words, and after that a still, profound silence fell, greater than before.

“Well, now you know who I am,” said Yehuda, when he had calmed down a little. “Not the ragged tramp, the Ebionite, that I look. I’m the saviour ofIsrael. Now you can see why I didn’t want to go to a strange house with you, why I didn’t want to stay in the city. That nabi’s arm is long. He’s spread a wide network on the earth, it reaches everywhere . . . But this is all right. I’m at ease here. Oy, woman, you’re sitting on that rock like Persephone on her throne! Do you know who she was? Never mind.”

He stood right in front of Adila and seized both her shoulders in a hard, convulsive, painful grip. He looked fixedly at the painted face as if he wanted to strip away the mask with his eyes so as at last to see who was hiding behind it. His lips and beard trembled, heat flowed from his body. That was the moment when the Ebionite rags fell completely away and he was revealed from head to foot for what he was.

The girl tossed her head back in abandon, shook the black mass of her hair and lifted her breasts from her shift like two rounded golden goblets. She bored into Yehuda’s gaze with her black eyes and her teeth gleamed around her red mouth. Defiant, tempting, coldly lascivious was her smile.

“Which do you want first? Milk or honey?” she asked in a rough, slightly husky voice.

“Honey, honey . . .” whispered Yehuda eagerly.

Chapter 41

   “Didn’t I always say . . . and now here it is . . .” stammered the old lady. Her lips were chalky white and rigid. “Here’s beggary because of your husband’s stupidity!”

Hanna was still mouthing incomprehensible, bitter words, but when Esther said that her breathing stopped, her face flushed and her eyes gleamed insanely. She raised both arms and turned straight towards the old lady. She screamed.

“So you think so too? Even you?” Haha! Now you’ve dropped the mask, you filthy fake. You’ve always praised the Master, but now you’ve shown just how abysmally rotten you are at heart. You slut! You fat heathen pig! Oy, oy, Esther, Esther . . . They want to curse the Master out of Yisrael. Do you know what that means? Do you know, you stupid women? Death! Death!”

She toppled into Esther’s arms, grasping her fleshy shoulders, buried her face in her clothes and sobbed and sobbed. Spasms shook her and she almost lost consciousness.

No one had ever seen Hanna weep. She was better known to laugh, to screech with laughter, and to shed tears of rage. But now she wept, wept, like a woman trampled, tormented, robbed of all she had. She wept as if her heart was broken, like a mother weeping for her child, who can see her loved one drowning in the waves and cannot help, only fling herself down on the shore, weep and tear her hair. Like one whose entire life overwhelms her, so that she may go down into Sheol leaving her body like a worn-out rag.

“We must save him!” she shrieked wildly, digging her fingers into the old lady’s shoulder. “We must tell him! He must get away! Oy, you love him, he’ll listen to you. He loves you. He cured you. Your sons, your husband . . . they’re his friends. Go after him, hurry at once, you know where he is, even though you won’t tell me. Tell him to go into theDecapolis. Or somewhere else, anywhere, into the hills of Hermon, to theLebanon, to a cave, to the forests, wherever Antipas can’t reach him. Oy vey, Adonai! Well, why haven’t you gone?”

Tears were streaming down her face. She was as she had never known that she could be or wanted to be – an anxious woman, worried, forgetful of herself.

Martha would have set out without a second thought to find the Master, but Esther was more sensible. Where would they go? The two of them couldn’t go running in every direction, to every point of the compass, to tell him news which might not even be true but just the wild imaginings of an obsessed, sick woman. After all, the Master was a clever man. And his friends were with him. One of them would know what to do.

She began to calm Hanna down, but nevertheless her heart too was distraught. Martha looked helplessly at the two of them and uttered a fervent silent prayer.

Chapter 40

Esther could not contain herself. She complained, she grumbled, she even wept. Day after day went by, the boat lay idle on the beach, the nets swung in the wind and no one mended them. Meanwhile everyone else was hard at work and there were boats all over the lake. What would it come to if things went on like this? Who was going to do the fishing? Who would take fish to market and to Taricheis? The flour was running short, there was hardly any oil left. They were going to be the sort of people that couldn’t light the lamp at night. Did Shimon want his young wife and her old mother to go begging at the city gate? To sit among the halt and the lame and the lepers outside the beth-haknesseth? Did he want to turn his whole family into homeless vagabonds?

“My girl, I’m too old now to go fishing as well as do all the housework, and make a fool of myself! I tell you, by your father’s soul, if he could see this he’d be turning in his grave! Oy, the Sun went out of my life when he died and the stars set when we laid him to rest. Oy vey, I thought Shimon was a decent man, but now I can see that he just wanted you for your youth, for the flower of your virginity. As soon as you’d conceived he turned away from you.  There never was such behaviour! The ancestors never saw such a thing! Shame, shame and disgrace! Why ever did Shimon come anywhere near you?”

So Esther moaned and groaned, and said a lot more besides in similar vein. Martha, however, did her best to hear as little as possible, because the reproaches, complaints and accusations were levelled not at Shimon but at the Master. She believed in him, admired him, and loved him with a love that was not of this world.

At first she defended the Master and scolded her mother, but Esther took exception to that. She had said nothing about the Master or theKingdomofHeaven, only Shimon. If the name of Yeshuah was mentioned she praised him fulsomely; Shimon, on the other hand, she criticised. It was no good Martha pointing out that Shimon was in fact with the Master, proclaiming theKingdomofGod. Her mother began straight away:

“There’s no kingdom that would want people not to go fishing, not see to the garden, not take care of the family, just leave them to take what comees, drive them to beggary! A kingdom like that wouldn’t be from Heaven, it’d be from Hell! The earth would be full of misery and lies, curses and troubles, people would eat each other up. Things are bad enough as it is. If Shimon were to say one word to the Master about his family being in need, surely he’d tell him ‘My friend, I can’t think for you. Why do you come with me? See to your affairs first, then come. Or don’t come. Someone else will take your place that can find the time.’ That’s what the Master would say, my dear girl, because he’s a wonderful man. He’d send Shimon home at least, if not Andreas as well. Of course, Zabiyah’s sons can go knocking about, their father’s well off, he employs workers, sends fish all over the place with no trouble, his customers get everything like they always have. But the man that lives by the work of his own hands, my girl, can’t allow himself the luxury. What do you think? Has Adonai, blessed be his name for ever, been waiting for Shimon and no one else? Can’t he bring his kingdom into being without him? Either it’ll happen without him or it won’t happen, and then no one’ll be able to bring it down to Earth.”

Esther would not have dared to say all this to Shimon, but she constantly irritated her daughter with it.

Martha did her best to work in place of the others, but she could not go on the water. She wept silently to herself and worked hard, if only to avoid her mother. If she was alone she thought of the child. Now she had given birth in her imagination, was suckling it, rocking it in her arms, whispering fond words to it, calling it Yeshu, hearing its thin little voice. But as her mother began to sigh, then to complain angrily, she grew bitter and so unhappy that she would have liked to die. She passionately wanted Shimon to be with her, wanted to look at the lake and see the boat with the two half-naked men aboard in the dim light of the Moon or the rising Sun, wanted to hear the pebbles crunching under their feet, their laconic words and the splashing of the fish in the boat. But she also wanted the Master to be there, to be able to talk to him, wash his feet, listen to what he said, see his big eyes and the ancient scar on his finger. The Master would be able to make everything as it had been before, and theKingdomofHeavenwould still come! The Master could do whatever he wanted!

Hanna too appeared constantly. Now she was scarcely ever at home but running irresponsibly all over the place, for ever looking for someone. She walked towards the house obstinately, determinedly, like a tax-collector. Her face was grim, her grey hair blew in the wind. She gave no greeting, only looked around with gleaming, enquiring eye and exclaimed:

“Not here this time either?”

He was not. They did not know where he was – or were keeping it a secret. Shimon had not appeared, nor Andreas or the others. Then Esther spoke differently. Who could bring a man to his responsibilities, who could enquire into his ways? A wife served her husband without a word. Haha! It’s easy for you two! Shimon and his brother had had some sense and joined the Master. Hanna’s husband, though, was so gormless and feeble that he hadn’t even gone near that other nabi, but if he had joined him now he too would have been near the Master all the time. Those that envied him, those wicked, wicked people, wouldn’t be able to block the Master’s way. According to Hanna the Master was surrounded by nothing but wicked, envious men who sought only their own interests. He himself, however, did nothing but talk. The wicked, wicked world couldn’t be changed by wandering about, chattering, deluding people and magic. Anyone that could do something (like the Master), however, kept it to themselves, hid it from people. Haha! The question was, could he really do anything? Because if he could he’d have cured her.

If that woman appeared at Shimon’s work stopped and time spread over the world like a boundless swamp. In that swamp seethed frogs, snakes, leeches and poisonous spiders, weeds  filled the bottom, and anyone that stepped in sank neck-deep. Every time that she came into view on the winding road they decided to hear her out without saying a word, but she wheedled out their sympathy and as soon as she done that there immediately followed the flood of accusations. Or she drove them to contradict, whereupon she blurted out accusations against them, innocent though they were. She was inexhaustible and always deathly tired, and as she could not stop her extravagant onslaught, in her anxiety she found fault with those that were less anxious than her – her husband, her daughter, the shopher, the religious council, the Pharisees, the rich, the poor, the king, the Romans, the wise, the foolish, strangers and good friends . . . The Master too. Now she accused him openly of avoiding her, never being accessible, not wanting to cure her, because he was afraid of her sincerity . . . The Master hated her, she shrieked desperately, and laughed aloud. Of course he did. He couldn’t answer her questions. The Pharisees were right – what was true in what he taught wasn’t new, and what was new was untrue. He gave out some preposterous blasphemies. He performed his miracles by the power of Satan, to bamboozzle the ignorant and make them believe in him. He associated with riffraff, didn’t keep the fasts . . . Oh yes, the Pharisees were right! Hanna had known all along, that was what she’d thought the first time she set eyes on him.

Since the Master and his friends had gone Salome too, mother of the sons of Zabiyah, had called at the house almost every day. She was woman of a sternly moral nature, ambitious and dogmatic, who had ‘made her husband what he was’. She had even given him the name of Zabiyah, because she felt that Beniream was demeaning – nobody was going to call her an antelope! She was not satisfied with Zabiyah becoming a man of consequence, and wanted to make her sons greater men still. And so she had not minded their going to theJordan, nor did it upset her that they were now going round with the Master. It was her finest dream to see Yakob and Yokhanan beside the Liberator’s golden throne, in great glory and power. She wanted to the mother of a dynasty, and in her imagination an endless line of descendants followed her sons and grandsons till the end of the world, each greater, more famous and more powerful than the next. All of them were pillars of theKingdomofHeaven.

“The Master’s going to make my sons great in the Kingdom,” she would say as she sat beside Esther, and they would talk for hours about events in the world. “Yakob and Yokhanan were close to the Baptist, and they joined Yeshuah bar Yosif the moment he called them. I said at the time that Baptist’d get himself executed and the future belonged to the other, but then . . . oy, then hardly anybody paid any attention! But I can see from what people are saying that he’s the real one! But all the same my sons have taken a great risk. The Master will tell the Liberator how valuable they are. Yakob’ll be on his right in the Palace and Yokhanan on his left, because he’s the younger.”

They knew that Salome called so often because she wanted ‘a word’ with the Master about her sons. She wanted his patronage for them. It was a good idea to make sure of their places in the Palace in advance. So she took account of all the signs – never stepped on a doorstep, never got out of bed left foot first, looked to see what kinds of birds flew up first thing in the morning from left and right, behind her and in front, looked over all the rubbish carefully in case there were evil spirits lurking. She knew all the mysteries of sheep’s livers and chicken’s entrails. She could look into oil. If she spoke of something good happening she would spit under a wooden piece of furniture, and if one of her chickens made a sound that resembled crowing as it cackled she would slaughter it at once.

But all that was not enough for her. She offered all the old jewellery in her chest and the money that she kept hidden (from her husband) to the nabi’s cause, in case he needed it. Esther was afraid for her, hated her ambition and calculating pushiness.

“Of course, my dear, of course,” she would say ambiguously, “the Master’s a fair man, he doesn’t forget. He’ll remember who was the first to join him when nobody knew about him, or looked down on him, if they even did that much. He knows what they’ve given up, how much they put up with, what they go without . . . how much flour and oil people have got . . . like that poor woman whose oil Elisha increased, blessed be the memory of him.”

Salome, however, never listened to anyone else. She just went on with what she herself had to say. She dreaded Hanna. If they met in the house she would listen in silence to her outpourings, and when she had gone, say:

“She runs after the Master as well. But if he could hear what she says he’d turn every woman out of theKingdomofHeaven.”

Esther became more and more impatient, Martha more taciturn and gloomy. Her mother’s complaints, Hanna’s peevish criticisms and Salome’s inflated plans and superstitious ways made her head spin. When she looked out over the sunlit landscape from the garden, from her father’s tomb, and could not see the boat and the men she lowered her gaze, her arms hung down, she bowed her head submissively and listened to the quiet messages of the life growing in her womb. Only she could understand those messages, for the child was not yet a child, just a tiny dividing scrap, but peace came to her heart and a tear fell from her eye to her swelling young breast, a smile came to her lips and she whispered with a happy sigh:

“Who could take theKingdomofHeavenfrom me? I give thanks to you, Lord, that you have had regard to your little handmaid and blessed her!”

And she plied her hoe vigorously among the cabbages, onions, cucumbers and beetroots. From the stony hillside the stone that sealed her father’s tomb shone white, and in the bushes above it mating birds chirped and fluttered.

The news of the Master, however, was increasingly depressing. The Pharisees had soon felt the effect of his learned, pious activity. They were even stopping people in the street and arguing with them if they suspected that they were adherents of the Master or of some kind of pagan belief. They stood on street corners, bobbing their heads and praying aloud, giving alms and adding that any who did not keep the Law, the customs and the traditions would meet a dreadful fate from the Lord’s retribution. They gave good advice to the sick, consoled the sorrowful, and encouraged happy and unhappy alike with theKingdomofHeaven, but the Kingdom of the Liberator, not that of the deceiver. It would be they who, in good time, would announce where the Liberator was and what his name was. The nabi’s miracles were false, his master was Baal-Zebub, a foul pagan spirit. This was evident from the fact that he took no account of what was kosher and what was frivolous, disregarded the rules of cleanliness, befriended vile people, gorged himself and drank, encouraged his followers to abandon their old parents, helpless children and poor relations. He praised the Samaritans, with whom it was not lawful to sit at table. Oy, it was the Pharisees’ duty in every way to protect gullible people from lying dreams and filth. Indeed, what was worse still: from rebellion and the horrors of the ensuing reprisals.

The people supported willy-nilly the enlightening work of the Pharisees and Herodians. The pious Pharisees and scribes were in any case held in high esteem. Thus the fickle, who flocked to the nabi only in the excited expectation of miracles or because they hoped for some reward, were as easily dissuaded as they had lightly joined him. As soon as they heard of the miraculous cures that they were performed by the power of Baal-Zebub and not of the Lord they were overcome by terror. What if  blows more dreadful than sickness fell upon them? Instead of a headache leprosy, instead of calm hellish poverty? There were two things especially that frightened people: sickness and poverty. Sickness stole the light of the Sun and deprived us of the greatest pleasures, made us a burden to others and ourselves, while poverty destroyed our dignity, reduced us to an abject condition, was fatal to our self-confidence. The rich man exposed himself to the attacks of thieves, but to resist them there were locks and weapons. Were they to run after the nabi to lose even what they had? That certain little illness, that certain slight poverty, that certain faint hope?

Those who were constant followers of the Master spread the rumours about him as they countered them. They denied them, disputed them. Steadfast men debated furiously all over the country, all the way down toJudeaand up to Gaulitis, with the timid, the stupid and those inclined to be hostile. Rumours good and bad alike about Yeshuah were carried by itinerant merchants and craftsmen, sailors and caravan drivers, and arguments broke out here, there and everywhere. Angry women would run from one house to another or chat on the lakeside as they washed laundry or scaled fish. The Pharisees had really worked on what they said, embellished it, exaggerated it. Their words were poison through and through. The women defended the Master, found fault with his opponents and each other. Why were the Pharisees constantly washing their hands? Because they were dirty. Why did they slander the Master, saying that he cured people by the power of Baal-Zebub? Because they themselves couldn’t do it even by the power of the Lord, they had no such ability. They wanted to prevent the coming at last of the day of justice and great requital. The day when all sin would be revealed.

But yet many believers that debated heatedly were afraid that the Master would suddenly change into something like a tree, a fish, a wolf or a bird. This was the work of Satan in their hearts.

One day Hanna rushed into Esther’s house even more excitedly than usual. She did not offer a greeting, but they did not even expect one. She flung herself onto a couch and tore with her fingers at her hair, which hung out from under her loose kerchief. She was out of breath and could scarcely speak, whereas at other times words poured from her like water from a broken pot.

What had happened? Had someone died? Had someone been arrested, perhaps several families? Had fire broken out in the town? Had the Zealots attacked, were they killing the wealthy and the Herodians in droves?

“Ahh,” she waved a hand dismissively and laughed coldly as if she had stepped on a snake. “Distinguished, famous, learned Pharisees have arrived fromJerusalem!”

“That’s a great honour, but what’s special about it?” Esther wondered.

Hanna laughed again.

“Don’t you see? You don’t see, then?” she shrieked, beside herself. “They’ve come to investigate the affair of Yeshuah bar Yosif! They’ve come to summon people to them, interrogate them, place them under a curse in the beth-haknesseth! Do you see? Do you see? They want to outlaw him and his friends as well . . . everybody! That’s why they’re here!”

“Adonai, help us! Blessed be thy name for ever! Most holy, have mercy!”

Esther sank onto a little low chair, her mighty bosom quivering. Martha turned pale and all but dropped a basket full of eggs. The gold ring in her nose trembled, and she pressed her right hand with the charm-ring on its little finger to her stomach. Her eyes opened wide as if she could see the Master’s injured finger, but not the healed scar but the fresh, bleeding cut.

“What are you staring at?” exclaimed Hanna testily, like a bird swooping. ‘Do you think I tell lies as well? No, no, every word’s the truth. I heard it from Judith, and she got it from her husband, and he heard from the shopher. In fact, I actually saw a scribe fromJerusalem this morning.”

Now she was gabbling, shrieking, laughing and crowing without pause.

“There, you see, that’s the Master. The miracle-worker, the healer, the proclaimer of the Good News. He couldn’t cure me. He didn’t even take any notice of me. He hated me. Despised me. He revelled in my suffering, my wretchedness. Let me change the world! I’ll make the Kingdom of Heaven into hell myself! Hahaha! Well, he was fond of you all. He’s been here eating and drinking, singing, even dancing, they say. He cured you . . . if you were sick. He looked at your daughter as if she were an Ashera who’d just come out of a tree. He even gave you an amulet so that your fishing would be successful . . . so your men don’t have to go fishing. You’ve got no trouble. But me? What about me? Oy, hahaha! And now they’re going to outlaw him.”

Esther and her daughter did not even hear Hanna’s terrible words. They just looked at her and the blood froze in their veins.

Chapter 39

They were like children in the presence of their father. Patiently or impatiently they waited for him, and when he was again among them they were delighted and calmed. They did not ask any questions, but surrounded the Master, offered him things, laughed and laughed. They were not inquisitive about what had happened and what was to happen next day. They prayed fervently, slept soundly and at dawn, when they set off back down the mountain, walked happily and with light tread.

None of them found Galilee as attractive as did Yehuda. After a night spent in uneasy meditation he could scarcely wait to set off – for anywhere, just to get away from there. He waited for the Master or his three companions to say something of what had happened, but they remained silent. So either they had not met the Liberator, or if they had they were speaking to the disciples one by one, but not to him. He said nothing and was bitterly disappointed.

Once more the Greek and Esshaya walked beside him, and as they walked they were taught. Yehuda did not try to fathom the three levels of what he heard, but saw everything in anxiety, alarming ignorance. The picture that stole into his soul was terrible. A pharaoh in very ancient times had forced the religion of Aten, the eagle-headed god, upon the people, and a Syrian Moshe and Aaron made the Israelites in Goshen build a mighty city and temple. Later Aaron killed Moshe in the mountains and installed his son Eleazar in the office of High Priest, then the second Moshe killed Moshe, for Yoshuah ben Nun finally to kill him at Horeb. A venomous snake fastened to a pole, the thousands slaughtered because of the venomous Snake. And the levites likewise were Egyptians, slaves of Moshe and Aaron, the Yillavu[1] , the accompanying horde, concerning whom the second Moshe ordained that they should not receive land in the new country, but towns and the service of the Mishkan. And Yahweh, alas, Yahweh was only the god of an Arab people who had succeeded in subduing Aten, or Adon, and who were to this day vainly struggling against the true God, the One, the Lord!

In silence he listened to Esshaya’s account of sheep, goats and bulls, the shepherds and the overseer. His head was ringing and a single thought was pounding inside it, like a stonemason’s hammer on shining marble: either there was no Liberator or else he, Yehuda, the outcast, the marginalised, the disciple regarded as unworthy, might not know anything about him.

The rest, however, went cheerfully on and no doubt tormented them.

Now too they rested in the same place as they had in their ascent. When they had settled down the Master stood in their midst and said with a smile:

“What do you think, my friends, that men consider me to be?”

The question surprised them. They became thoughtful.

“Some believe that you’re Moshe,” answered Andreas.

“And some take you for Eliyahu,” added the Greek.

“There are some that say you’re Yokhanan come back to life. Such as Herodes. I’ve heard it said that he’s afraid that you’re Yokhanan,” explained the Twin.

The Master was silent for a moment, then looked round at them seriously.

“But whom do you, you, take me for?” he asked emphatically.

There was silence. The disciples looked at one another hesitantly. Finally Shimon quietly, solemnly and firmly replied:

“You are the Anointed One, the son of the living God.”

Yehuda froze. It was nothing special that some should consider the Master Moshe, Eliyahu or Yokhanan. People held all sorts of opinions. They were always enquiring in whom which nabi would return. Superstitions like that would never be rooted out. Nor was it to be wondered at that the ruler was afraid of the return of the executed Yokhanan. But that Shimon bar Yonah, who had been with the Master from the outset, proclaimed him the Anointed . . .

The Master must now protest against the childish utterance. No, no, be quiet! You’re silly enthusiasts, I love you dearly, but don’t say things like that! I’m a simple carpenter, son of a carpenter, a nazir and a nabi of sorts, nothing more. My vow will be kept, and then I shall cut my hair off and throw it in the fire on the altar, blend into the crowd, perform no more miracles . . . The world will forget me, and thereafter will know only the name of the Liberator, who is coming soon, however, and whose servant I am. Be patient, the Liberator is approaching, only don’t speak of him yet. But saying that I’m the son of God is terrible, it’s blasphemy!

All that flashed in a moment through Yehuda’s anguished heart, and he waited for the Master’s outcry. Or something of the sort. Perhaps for him to smile, make a dismissive gesture, and finally divulge the secret, the truth.

Or he was expecting the other disciples to cry out in shock ‘Be quiet, Shimon, be quiet!’ But they did not, but looked at the Master with admiring eyes. Slowly, very slowly, a light of happiness flooded their faces.

“And I say, Shimon bar Yonah,” said the Master very solemnly, carefully enunciating every syllable as if it were a will, “that you are Kefa, and on this rock I shall build my House. That which you bind on Earth shall be bound in the Heavens too. That which you loose on Earth shall be loosed in the Heavens too. I give you the keys of the Kingdom of God.”

Shimon heard that and was shaken. He blanched and his beard quivered.

“Sir!” he stammered brokenly, and prostrated himself at the Master’s feet as if a mighty force had bent his powerful back to the ground.

The others too prostrated themselves, pressing their foreheads to the grass, and Yehuda did likewise, painful though it was. He could, however, do nothing else. If he did not do as the rest they would have ostracised him, abandoned him, perhaps even killed him.

“Get up, my friends,” the Master admonished them quietly. “So now you know.” His tone became suddenly stern, commanding. “I forbid you to speak of this! Keep this secret and do not betray it to anyone, but only to him that carries out my command.”

They nodded in silence.

So he had not repudiated that dreadful statement. He had admitted it. Accepted that he was He that Is to Come, the embodied Memra[2] , the Mashiach[3]  . . . The son of God! The Son of Man! The goal of human existence realised . . . The new Adam!

Yehuda turned aside and sat on a rock. Before him yawned a deep valley; on the far side was the solidified dome of an extinct volcano, below in the depths ran a stream. To the left  gleamed the snowy summit of Hermon, to the right the light was reflected by the swampy reed-beds of the Merom. Yehuda knew all that but could scarcely see it. The bright noon Sun seemed veiled in smoke, the whole world had become indistinct. The loneliness of the desert yawned about him. His stomach heaved, his brow throbbed. He clutched at his throat with both hands and retched.

“All is lost, all is lost,” shrieked a voice in his ears.

Then he pulled himself together and looked round. In front of him was the deep valley, on the far side the volcanic dome. That was Hermon, that was the lake of Merom. He was sitting on a solid rock, staff in hand. A stream was flowing down below, goats were grazing on the far hillside. He could see everything, hear everything, he was conscious. He thought rationally. A long flight of cranes drifted across the sky, the time of bird migration was approaching . . . the flowers would wither, the fields be scorched, the ground crack open, the streams dry up. The Liberator would never come.

‘Let’s think calmly,’ Yehuda repeated to himself. ‘So then the Great Conjunction was meaningless? No, impossible. The Liberator must have been born. He’s hiding somewhere, waiting. But then, who is this man? Does he know the Liberator, has he found out his secrets, has he turned the expectations of the embittered people to his own advantage? Has he assembled a few enthusiastic fishermen, dissatisfied craftsmen, restless Zealots, Essenes, stepped into the footsteps of Yokhanan and recklessly proclaimed the Kingdom of Heaven? Has he cobbled together a chaotic system from scriptures, prophecies, myths which he doesn’t really understand, and simply turned everything back to front? Does he deceive the ignorant with his spells, like so many before him? Like Shimon the Magus?

‘Let’s think calmly,’ he repeated to himself stubbornly. ‘I left my home so as to be rid of my past. I was prepared to risk all to gain life. I was about to turn back on the road. Then I met the nabi, and in my depressed condition I believed in him. I thought that he really was bringing the Kingdom of Heaven. I wanted to enter that kingdom, to serve the Liberator. And has it all been for nothing? Can’t I free myself from my former life any more than I can be rid of my gamé foot, will the curse follow me like a prowling tiger? Has what I have believed, what I have seen, been futile deception? Is this carpenter nothing to do with the Liberator, am I never to see him? Have I taken the worst of roads, when I meant with all my strength to do the right thing?’

Miserably he looked at his deformed foot. Never had he seen it look so pitiable, so shameful. There it was, the instep turned slightly inward, the sole not flat to the heel, the bones curved. It was amazing that he could walk so much. But now he no longer could. Oy, it would be better to put it on a tree-stump and cut it off at the ankle with a carpenter’s axe. The Master couldn’t heal it, he could only treat madmen. Who was going to make him better? No one.

Something tingled over his face, rolled over his beard, dropped onto the back of his hand. A tear . . . In alarm he wiped it away, sighed, hardened his heart. The Master was reclining under a tree with the others sitting quietly around him, like happy children around their father. They were talking quietly and had not noticed that he was gazing desperately into the depths and weeping.

Soon they would return to Galilee, go from town to town proclaiming the Good News. He too would have to do his share. Proclaim what he did not believe. Or run away. Or speak out and say that it was all a lie. How was he to choose between the three?

“Let’s be off, my friends,” said the Master.

They stood up, Yehuda too. Obstinately he gripped his staff and hobbled after them from stone to stone. He could hear the disciples’ conversation, the Greek’s teaching concerning the Son of Man, his quotations from Henoch[4] : ‘. . . the Son of Man has been concealed from the beginning of time, the greatest Lord of the Spirits has kept him, and only the elect have been able to know of him . . . he would bring the works of the world under his judgements . . . They would be sunk in shame, and their House would be darkness . . . They would be unable to leave the Earth, would not rise into the Heaven, but they would not descend to Earth . . .’

“Remember, brother, what Henoch says . . .” muttered Esshaya from the right. “He says ‘This accursed chasm awaits the eternally damned . . .’ But he also says, brother, ‘For the Lord of the Spirit none shall become nothing, and none shall be destroyed’. How do you explain that, brother? Think of the triple concealed meaning of the words, remember what Henoch alludes to: ‘If any shall break open the fruit he shall smell an odour unlike any other . . .’ ”

Philippos’s gruff voice came from the left:

“The watchful praise thee, they who sleep not . . . I have seen the watchful, who sleep not in his presence . . . If you break the bitter rind of the fruit, inside, in the seed you will find the odour of these words: sleep and watchfulness . . . As simple as that!”

Yehuda almost choked – and his whole life choked.

“Master,” said Yakob from a little way behind, “when you are sitting on your seat in the Kingdom of Heaven, which of us will be on your right and which on your left?”

“I’ll sit on your right, Lord, because I love you best,” exclaimed Yokhanan passionately.

“What about me? Where shall I sit? What seat will you give me among the mighty?” gabbled Shimon.

Yeshuah stopped and looked sadly at them as they argued.

“You don’t know what you’re asking!” he admonished them.

Then the others began to criticise their companions. Disgraceful! Arguing over who shall be first, who shall sit where, parading their merits in front of the rest, although each of them has his own merit . . . disgraceful!

Yeshuah gestured for them to stop and said:

“Will you be able to be baptised with the same baptism as I? Will you drink from the cup that I drink from?”

“Yes, Lord!” exclaimed Yokhanan eagerly.

“We will,” Yakob competed with him.

“You shall indeed drink from my cup, and be baptised with the baptism too with which I shall be baptised, but the seats on my right and left are not mine to give. The Son of Man has not come to be served, but to serve. Only he that is last among you can be first. Only he that is the servant of you all will be served by all. There are those that are first, who, in the Kingdom of Heaven, shall be last, and there are those that are last, who there shall be first.”

Even a short while previously Yehuda would have taken pleasure in analysing the hidden meaning of the Master’s words, would have thought deeply about the references to baptism and the cup, what initiation they meant and how he too could have a part in it. Now, however, he listened to them woodenly, and when the Son of Man was mentioned gave a hiss of pain, as if he had twisted his ankle. This man was actually speaking of himself as if he were the Son of Man.

He felt ill, dragged his tired leg painfully, and his eyes flickered in despair from one hill to the next. His empty stomach churned, and a flush came to his forehead. If he thought of what he had lost and what would happen to him next day and the day after, he felt dizzy. Yesterday’s image of himself stiffened distorted within him.

Yet even if disappointment was tormenting Yehuda, he was thinking as hard as he could, seeking the means of continuing his life. He meant to investigate what had happened on the mountain. Why was it that the Master even the day before had been one of them, an ordinary mortal, yet today was different, regarding himself as the Son of Man, called by Shimon the Son of God? He went resolutely up to Shimon and asked in a colourless voice:

“Tell me, brother, what happened on the mountain?”

Shimon was still under the effect of the miraculous event. Quietly, dreamily, with an peculiar smile, he said:

“His clothes became white as snow and shone in the light. And suddenly, two men were talking with him, Moshe and Eliyahu . . . And his face shone like the Sun, and his eyes gleamed like stars. And a cloud came down and enveloped us, and a voice was heard from the clouds which said: ‘This is my dear son, in whom I delight, listen to him . . . And our clothes too were bright, and we became like the blessed. And when the voice had become silent, the Master was alone again.”

Yehuda was amazed. The sensible, calm, strong Shimon couldn’t tell a lie. Nor the other two. What had happened?

What Shimon had told him only made him more anxious. Again and again he went over the prophecies and projections. Again and again he had to admit that they did not fit the Master. Finally he gave up the attempt to unravel the mystery quickly by his own mental powers. Perhaps the learned Pharisees would be able to explain it. Yes, he would call on Yosif bar Yonah, who had honoured him with an invitation, and ask him what he made of the affair.

But when he had decided that, he could not rid himself of the anguish that gnawed his heart. He looked down on Galilee and thought that there was no longer anyone to direct the wishes and hopes of the people . . . what Yeshuah taught was either futility or the obstinate dream of a few chosen supporters.

He looked them over. There went Shimon, ‘kefa’. What a joke that was, calling that stupid fisherman ‘Kefa’, like the present high priest appointed by Vitellius! Build the House on him! Oy, the House was not the Mishkan, only a ramshackle thing like these people’s knowledge.

Shimon’s whole world was Kafarnahum and a small area around it. The shore of Kinnereth. Stacking nets, casting nets, mending nets. An honest, down-to-earth man, pious husband of a beautiful young wife, father-to-be of sons and daughters. His brother Andreas? An insignificant fisherman, more insignificant than any of them. Shimon dominated him, he hadn’t a single thought of his own. He scarcely spoke, was something of a yes-man, occasionally flared up in childish fashion against his brother’s importance. Taddé-Lebbé? A hefty, crude longshoreman. A blind follower of the Master, ready to kill or to die for him. He didn’t know the scriptures. Matthew, however, did, he had gained insight into the mysteries of Heaven, knew a lot, only some vague trance held him ensnared, and he didn’t even walk on the ground. Yehuda wouldn’t accept him, as he had been a despised tax-gatherer. There was Thomas. A man of education of sorts, thoughtful, inclined to worry. He wanted to get hold of everything, touch things, count them. He knew a lot, but his whole destiny was a barren swirl around him. The two Zabiyah brothers . . . Yehuda looked down. They could fight, but hadn’t any real knowledge. Nathanael was a respectable doctor, a learned, cultured, careful man, but he followed such scriptures as had taken him off the path. Philippos? He had acquired secret knowledge in Ephesos, knew something which the rest didn’t, had been immersed in obscene pagan rituals, had seen Dionysos, if it was true . . . but what did he know about the Law? Zelota knew one thing: how to fight, though that wasn’t certain, he was more likely a big mouth. A lean, skinny, dazzled bullyboy. Stupid as . . . Who else would there be? No one, no one. At their head went the Master, the Liberator, the Anointed, the Son of Man, a failed nabi, a carpenter . . . One could laugh at it all if it weren’t so pitiful!

Yeshuah called a halt. Meanwhile the Sun was setting and night approaching. They chose a mighty terebinth and settled down beneath it. Again they had nothing to eat, but there was water, as a narrow rivulet meandered through the tall grass.

Someone was already sprawled under the tree – a stocky, morose individual in a leather jacket, obviously a homeless vagabond. When the new arrivals clustered around him he woke up and looked at them as if they were burglars breaking into his house. Then it became apparent that he was drunk. His big nose was red, his face was bluish and bloated like that of one that has been a heavy drinker for years.

None the less Philippos sat down beside him and began a conversation, as if he had known him for a long time. His name was Alexander, he had been a potter in Paneas, but had given it up years before and left his family simply because ‘there was no point in bothering about anything in this damn world’. He had gone to Gaulitis and wandered round the hills, subsisting by begging although he was fit enough to work. Eight years ago he had heard from a few reliable friends that the Liberator was coming soon, that his armies were at the ready around Yisrael, only waiting for the sign to burst in. Frequently it had been said that Shamron had been taken and the wretched people there put to the sword, but afterwards it had turned out that nothing of the sort had happened yet. There had also been a rumour of a battle on the plain of Yisrael bigger than the one that had turned out so badly a year ago, but this time the Liberator’s forces had won. But it had turned out that it was not true, not yet . . .but tomorrow it surely would be.

He looked around helplessly, seeking reassurance, good news, even lies. But the disciples said nothing. They could not say that the Liberator was sitting there in their midst, he need not take a single step, look at him, recognise him. Nor that he was wasting his time imagining battles. All the same, Philippos said a few words of encouragement.

“Cheer up, my lad! The Liberator is here, the Kingdom of Heaven has come. Stop drinking and wandering about. Don’t listen to all sorts of vague rumours. Listen to what you hear in your heart.”

“That’s just talk as well,” the tramp gestured as if rejecting a rope that was not strong enough to hang himself with. “Nothing’s going to happen. We just in a bad way, we’re waiting, but the Liberator says nothing. How long’s he going to sit around in some castle? How long’s he going to lie about in some Arab prince’s tent? It’s easy for him. He can sleep easy. Eat and drink, enjoy himself with women, and the people’s waiting and putting up with it. And going to the dogs. The Roman swine give themselves airs, and the Greeks and the Israelite collaborators get fat.”

He picked up a flask from the damp grass, shook it and took a gulp.

“This won’t see me to Capharnahum,” he muttered disconsolately.

“You should be ashamed!” exclaimed the Zelota crossly. “How dare you speak like that about the Liberator.”

“Leave it, forgive him,” Nathanael gestured.

“I spit on your forgiveness,” the morose man grumbled at him. “I’ve heard kind words like that before. Tell me where the Liberator is! When will he have had enough of all this shame? When is his army coming!”

“You’re being silly, my lad,” said the Greek as if he were a relation. “Why do you roam all over the country? Why do you drink so much that you’re drunk even when you’re sober? That Liberator that you’re expecting doesn’t exist. Don’t you understand, you fathead?”

“That’s enough,” shouted the doleful man and his nose glowed. “Give your advice to somebody else, push off. But I’ll not rest till I find the Liberator, even if he’s hiding down a mouse hole. I’ll find him, I’ll face up to him and I’ll tell him to wait no longer. We can’t stand it any more! We’re done for!”

“What can’t you stand?” Yakob turned on him furiously. “Drifting around? Hanging about? Begging? Drinking? Abusing the Liberator?”

“Clear off, stop bothering me and don’t tell me what’s what! You Galilean layabouts!” shrieked the tramp. His puffy face was even redder, his engorged nose more flushed still, but in his eyes brooded the grief of an old, worn-out mule.

Slowly he got to his feet, made his way to a bush some way off and lay down. But he still had one question for the Galilean layabouts.

“Haven’t got a drop of wine, have you?”

“We enjoy it ourselves if we’ve got any. But we haven’t just now,” replied Lebbé.

After that he did not dignify them with another word. He turned his back and did not so much as move.

‘Sleep then, you fool,’ thought Yehuda sorrowfully. ‘Stop running about. Go back to your family and your potter’s wheel. See to making a living, get your daughter well married if you’ve got one, teach your sons a trade. Be kind to your wife. Don’t make a fuss, don’t complain, just eat and drink, filter your wine, get drunk and sing. The armed men watching in the valleys are getting tired of waiting, because the Liberator isn’t coming. He’s only a carpenter’s son.  And eleven poor supporters, not even a round number. Off to sleep and come to your senses, don’t go chasing wild geese!’

Yehuda could not sleep. He had been a poor sleeper since childhood, but had seldom had such a night of torment as that one. Now he sat up, his head spinning, in the dewy grass and listened to the sounds of night, now he lay down again and wrapped himself in his cloak, but sleep did not come to his burning eyes. He would have liked to weep, as he had that time by the Jordan when he thought that he had buried his past and was beginning a new life. His heart ached for the Master, which he was no more. Inwardly he implored him not to think that he was the Liberator, but to proclaim the Good News as before. If that teaching was a delusion, let him not spread it about! But oh, the Master could never be what he had been.

As dawn approached he fell into a troubled sleep. His spirit moved in dark places, walking on rough stones, constantly falling and starting into wakefulness. A moment later, though, and his dreams began again. It was as if a timeless world had sprung up within him, the frightening darkness and chaos of which Nathanael had told him. The hidden past in which Moshe and Aaron and the levites were Egyptians, soldiers of a hawk-headed god, aware of special secrets and obedient to terrifying commands and laws, in which Moshe killed Aaron, the second Moshe killed him, Yehoshuah killed him . . . and all the nabis in turn up to Yokhanan. A venomous snake on a pole looked upon its remaining followers, rebellions and battles followed one another, bloody vengeance raged, thousand upon thousand died by the swords of the tribe of Levi by order of the new Moshe . . . And Levi was no longer the son of the patriarch Yakob, but the pretorian guardsman of the hawk-headed Aten, the Sun-god. The past was nothing but chaos and darkness, all teaching, tradition and law in complete confusion, everything that had been holy was reduced to nothing. Corrupt high priests plotted for power, betrayed the Lord’s mysteries, dragged the treasure of initiation into the marketplace, and while they surreptitiously read the truth they winked at one another and shared out the money.

At length he came to himself. He sat woodenly on the grass amid the sleepers. What dreams were theirs? What had been their past lives? He thought that he ought to go off by himself, aimlessly, but the world was empty and a sort of dull sadness held him back. Even now he loved the Master, before whom he had sobbed beside the Jordan.

The sky was leaden, heavy and grey. Scarcely a star now twinkled. Behind the hills a narrow strip of blue was showing, like a silken thread. An invisible little bird began to twitter in the tree; it had a feeble voice like that of a very tiny child, not of this world, painfully pure and simple. Yehuda’s heart was torn by such despair that he would have liked to frighten it off with a stone, but he did not have it in him to bend for one to carry out his bitter plan.

Chapter 40

Esther could not contain herself. She complained, she grumbled, she even wept. Day after day went by, the boat lay idle on the beach, the nets swung in the wind and no one mended them. Meanwhile everyone else was hard at work and there were boats all over the lake. What would it come to if things went on like this? Who was going to do the fishing? Who would take fish to market and to Taricheis? The flour was running short, there was hardly any oil left. They were going to be the sort of people that couldn’t light the lamp at night. Did Shimon want his young wife and her old mother to go begging at the city gate? To sit among the halt and the lame and the lepers outside the beth-haknesseth? Did he want to turn his whole family into homeless vagabonds?

“My girl, I’m too old now to go fishing as well as do all the housework, and make a fool of myself! I tell you, by your father’s soul, if he could see this he’d be turning in his grave! Oy, the Sun went out of my life when he died and the stars set when we laid him to rest. Oy vey, I thought Shimon was a decent man, but now I can see that he just wanted you for your youth, for the flower of your virginity. As soon as you’d conceived he turned away from you.  There never was such behaviour! The ancestors never saw such a thing! Shame, shame and disgrace! Why ever did Shimon come anywhere near you?”

So Esther moaned and groaned, and said a lot more besides in similar vein. Martha, however, did her best to hear as little as possible, because the reproaches, complaints and accusations were levelled not at Shimon but at the Master. She believed in him, admired him, and loved him with a love that was not of this world.

At first she defended the Master and scolded her mother, but Esther took exception to that. She had said nothing about the Master or the Kingdom of Heaven, only Shimon. If the name of Yeshuah was mentioned she praised him fulsomely; Shimon, on the other hand, she criticised. It was no good Martha pointing out that Shimon was in fact with the Master, proclaiming the Kingdom of God. Her mother began straight away:

“There’s no kingdom that would want people not to go fishing, not see to the garden, not take care of the family, just leave them to take what comees, drive them to beggary! A kingdom like that wouldn’t be from Heaven, it’d be from Hell! The earth would be full of misery and lies, curses and troubles, people would eat each other up. Things are bad enough as it is. If Shimon were to say one word to the Master about his family being in need, surely he’d tell him ‘My friend, I can’t think for you. Why do you come with me? See to your affairs first, then come. Or don’t come. Someone else will take your place that can find the time.’ That’s what the Master would say, my dear girl, because he’s a wonderful man. He’d send Shimon home at least, if not Andreas as well. Of course, Zabiyah’s sons can go knocking about, their father’s well off, he employs workers, sends fish all over the place with no trouble, his customers get everything like they always have. But the man that lives by the work of his own hands, my girl, can’t allow himself the luxury. What do you think? Has Adonai, blessed be his name for ever, been waiting for Shimon and no one else? Can’t he bring his kingdom into being without him? Either it’ll happen without him or it won’t happen, and then no one’ll be able to bring it down to Earth.”

Esther would not have dared to say all this to Shimon, but she constantly irritated her daughter with it.

Martha did her best to work in place of the others, but she could not go on the water. She wept silently to herself and worked hard, if only to avoid her mother. If she was alone she thought of the child. Now she had given birth in her imagination, was suckling it, rocking it in her arms, whispering fond words to it, calling it Yeshu, hearing its thin little voice. But as her mother began to sigh, then to complain angrily, she grew bitter and so unhappy that she would have liked to die. She passionately wanted Shimon to be with her, wanted to look at the lake and see the boat with the two half-naked men aboard in the dim light of the Moon or the rising Sun, wanted to hear the pebbles crunching under their feet, their laconic words and the splashing of the fish in the boat. But she also wanted the Master to be there, to be able to talk to him, wash his feet, listen to what he said, see his big eyes and the ancient scar on his finger. The Master would be able to make everything as it had been before, and the Kingdom of Heaven would still come! The Master could do whatever he wanted!

Hanna too appeared constantly. Now she was scarcely ever at home but running irresponsibly all over the place, for ever looking for someone. She walked towards the house obstinately, determinedly, like a tax-collector. Her face was grim, her grey hair blew in the wind. She gave no greeting, only looked around with gleaming, enquiring eye and exclaimed:

“Not here this time either?”

He was not. They did not know where he was – or were keeping it a secret. Shimon had not appeared, nor Andreas or the others. Then Esther spoke differently. Who could bring a man to his responsibilities, who could enquire into his ways? A wife served her husband without a word. Haha! It’s easy for you two! Shimon and his brother had had some sense and joined the Master. Hanna’s husband, though, was so gormless and feeble that he hadn’t even gone near that other nabi, but if he had joined him now he too would have been near the Master all the time. Those that envied him, those wicked, wicked people, wouldn’t be able to block the Master’s way. According to Hanna the Master was surrounded by nothing but wicked, envious men who sought only their own interests. He himself, however, did nothing but talk. The wicked, wicked world couldn’t be changed by wandering about, chattering, deluding people and magic. Anyone that could do something (like the Master), however, kept it to themselves, hid it from people. Haha! The question was, could he really do anything? Because if he could he’d have cured her.

If that woman appeared at Shimon’s work stopped and time spread over the world like a boundless swamp. In that swamp seethed frogs, snakes, leeches and poisonous spiders, weeds  filled the bottom, and anyone that stepped in sank neck-deep. Every time that she came into view on the winding road they decided to hear her out without saying a word, but she wheedled out their sympathy and as soon as she done that there immediately followed the flood of accusations. Or she drove them to contradict, whereupon she blurted out accusations against them, innocent though they were. She was inexhaustible and always deathly tired, and as she could not stop her extravagant onslaught, in her anxiety she found fault with those that were less anxious than her – her husband, her daughter, the shopher, the religious council, the Pharisees, the rich, the poor, the king, the Romans, the wise, the foolish, strangers and good friends . . . The Master too. Now she accused him openly of avoiding her, never being accessible, not wanting to cure her, because he was afraid of her sincerity . . . The Master hated her, she shrieked desperately, and laughed aloud. Of course he did. He couldn’t answer her questions. The Pharisees were right – what was true in what he taught wasn’t new, and what was new was untrue. He gave out some preposterous blasphemies. He performed his miracles by the power of Satan, to bamboozzle the ignorant and make them believe in him. He associated with riffraff, didn’t keep the fasts . . . Oh yes, the Pharisees were right! Hanna had known all along, that was what she’d thought the first time she set eyes on him.

Since the Master and his friends had gone Salome too, mother of the sons of Zabiyah, had called at the house almost every day. She was woman of a sternly moral nature, ambitious and dogmatic, who had ‘made her husband what he was’. She had even given him the name of Zabiyah, because she felt that Beniream was demeaning – nobody was going to call her an antelope! She was not satisfied with Zabiyah becoming a man of consequence, and wanted to make her sons greater men still. And so she had not minded their going to the Jordan, nor did it upset her that they were now going round with the Master. It was her finest dream to see Yakob and Yokhanan beside the Liberator’s golden throne, in great glory and power. She wanted to the mother of a dynasty, and in her imagination an endless line of descendants followed her sons and grandsons till the end of the world, each greater, more famous and more powerful than the next. All of them were pillars of the Kingdom of Heaven.

“The Master’s going to make my sons great in the Kingdom,” she would say as she sat beside Esther, and they would talk for hours about events in the world. “Yakob and Yokhanan were close to the Baptist, and they joined Yeshuah bar Yosif the moment he called them. I said at the time that Baptist’d get himself executed and the future belonged to the other, but then . . . oy, then hardly anybody paid any attention! But I can see from what people are saying that he’s the real one! But all the same my sons have taken a great risk. The Master will tell the Liberator how valuable they are. Yakob’ll be on his right in the Palace and Yokhanan on his left, because he’s the younger.”

They knew that Salome called so often because she wanted ‘a word’ with the Master about her sons. She wanted his patronage for them. It was a good idea to make sure of their places in the Palace in advance. So she took account of all the signs – never stepped on a doorstep, never got out of bed left foot first, looked to see what kinds of birds flew up first thing in the morning from left and right, behind her and in front, looked over all the rubbish carefully in case there were evil spirits lurking. She knew all the mysteries of sheep’s livers and chicken’s entrails. She could look into oil. If she spoke of something good happening she would spit under a wooden piece of furniture, and if one of her chickens made a sound that resembled crowing as it cackled she would slaughter it at once.

But all that was not enough for her. She offered all the old jewellery in her chest and the money that she kept hidden (from her husband) to the nabi’s cause, in case he needed it. Esther was afraid for her, hated her ambition and calculating pushiness.

“Of course, my dear, of course,” she would say ambiguously, “the Master’s a fair man, he doesn’t forget. He’ll remember who was the first to join him when nobody knew about him, or looked down on him, if they even did that much. He knows what they’ve given up, how much they put up with, what they go without . . . how much flour and oil people have got . . . like that poor woman whose oil Elisha increased, blessed be the memory of him.”

Salome, however, never listened to anyone else. She just went on with what she herself had to say. She dreaded Hanna. If they met in the house she would listen in silence to her outpourings, and when she had gone, say:

“She runs after the Master as well. But if he could hear what she says he’d turn every woman out of the Kingdom of Heaven.”

Esther became more and more impatient, Martha more taciturn and gloomy. Her mother’s complaints, Hanna’s peevish criticisms and Salome’s inflated plans and superstitious ways made her head spin. When she looked out over the sunlit landscape from the garden, from her father’s tomb, and could not see the boat and the men she lowered her gaze, her arms hung down, she bowed her head submissively and listened to the quiet messages of the life growing in her womb. Only she could understand those messages, for the child was not yet a child, just a tiny dividing scrap, but peace came to her heart and a tear fell from her eye to her swelling young breast, a smile came to her lips and she whispered with a happy sigh:

“Who could take the Kingdom of Heaven from me? I give thanks to you, Lord, that you have had regard to your little handmaid and blessed her!”

And she plied her hoe vigorously among the cabbages, onions, cucumbers and beetroots. From the stony hillside the stone that sealed her father’s tomb shone white, and in the bushes above it mating birds chirped and fluttered.

The news of the Master, however, was increasingly depressing. The Pharisees had soon felt the effect of his learned, pious activity. They were even stopping people in the street and arguing with them if they suspected that they were adherents of the Master or of some kind of pagan belief. They stood on street corners, bobbing their heads and praying aloud, giving alms and adding that any who did not keep the Law, the customs and the traditions would meet a dreadful fate from the Lord’s retribution. They gave good advice to the sick, consoled the sorrowful, and encouraged happy and unhappy alike with the Kingdom of Heaven, but the Kingdom of the Liberator, not that of the deceiver. It would be they who, in good time, would announce where the Liberator was and what his name was. The nabi’s miracles were false, his master was Baal-Zebub, a foul pagan spirit. This was evident from the fact that he took no account of what was kosher and what was frivolous, disregarded the rules of cleanliness, befriended vile people, gorged himself and drank, encouraged his followers to abandon their old parents, helpless children and poor relations. He praised the Samaritans, with whom it was not lawful to sit at table. Oy, it was the Pharisees’ duty in every way to protect gullible people from lying dreams and filth. Indeed, what was worse still: from rebellion and the horrors of the ensuing reprisals.

The people supported willy-nilly the enlightening work of the Pharisees and Herodians. The pious Pharisees and scribes were in any case held in high esteem. Thus the fickle, who flocked to the nabi only in the excited expectation of miracles or because they hoped for some reward, were as easily dissuaded as they had lightly joined him. As soon as they heard of the miraculous cures that they were performed by the power of Baal-Zebub and not of the Lord they were overcome by terror. What if  blows more dreadful than sickness fell upon them? Instead of a headache leprosy, instead of calm hellish poverty? There were two things especially that frightened people: sickness and poverty. Sickness stole the light of the Sun and deprived us of the greatest pleasures, made us a burden to others and ourselves, while poverty destroyed our dignity, reduced us to an abject condition, was fatal to our self-confidence. The rich man exposed himself to the attacks of thieves, but to resist them there were locks and weapons. Were they to run after the nabi to lose even what they had? That certain little illness, that certain slight poverty, that certain faint hope?

Those who were constant followers of the Master spread the rumours about him as they countered them. They denied them, disputed them. Steadfast men debated furiously all over the country, all the way down to Judea and up to Gaulitis, with the timid, the stupid and those inclined to be hostile. Rumours good and bad alike about Yeshuah were carried by itinerant merchants and craftsmen, sailors and caravan drivers, and arguments broke out here, there and everywhere. Angry women would run from one house to another or chat on the lakeside as they washed laundry or scaled fish. The Pharisees had really worked on what they said, embellished it, exaggerated it. Their words were poison through and through. The women defended the Master, found fault with his opponents and each other. Why were the Pharisees constantly washing their hands? Because they were dirty. Why did they slander the Master, saying that he cured people by the power of Baal-Zebub? Because they themselves couldn’t do it even by the power of the Lord, they had no such ability. They wanted to prevent the coming at last of the day of justice and great requital. The day when all sin would be revealed.

But yet many believers that debated heatedly were afraid that the Master would suddenly change into something like a tree, a fish, a wolf or a bird. This was the work of Satan in their hearts.

One day Hanna rushed into Esther’s house even more excitedly than usual. She did not offer a greeting, but they did not even expect one. She flung herself onto a couch and tore with her fingers at her hair, which hung out from under her loose kerchief. She was out of breath and could scarcely speak, whereas at other times words poured from her like water from a broken pot.

What had happened? Had someone died? Had someone been arrested, perhaps several families? Had fire broken out in the town? Had the Zealots attacked, were they killing the wealthy and the Herodians in droves?

“Ahh,” she waved a hand dismissively and laughed coldly as if she had stepped on a snake. “Distinguished, famous, learned Pharisees have arrived from Jerusalem!”

“That’s a great honour, but what’s special about it?” Esther wondered.

Hanna laughed again.

“Don’t you see? You don’t see, then?” she shrieked, beside herself. “They’ve come to investigate the affair of Yeshuah bar Yosif! They’ve come to summon people to them, interrogate them, place them under a curse in the beth-haknesseth! Do you see? Do you see? They want to outlaw him and his friends as well . . . everybody! That’s why they’re here!”

“Adonai, help us! Blessed be thy name for ever! Most holy, have mercy!”

Esther sank onto a little low chair, her mighty bosom quivering. Martha turned pale and all but dropped a basket full of eggs. The gold ring in her nose trembled, and she pressed her right hand with the charm-ring on its little finger to her stomach. Her eyes opened wide as if she could see the Master’s injured finger, but not the healed scar but the fresh, bleeding cut.

“What are you staring at?” exclaimed Hanna testily, like a bird swooping. ‘Do you think I tell lies as well? No, no, every word’s the truth. I heard it from Judith, and she got it from her husband, and he heard from the shopher. In fact, I actually saw a scribe from Jerusalem this morning.”

Now she was gabbling, shrieking, laughing and crowing without pause.

“There, you see, that’s the Master. The miracle-worker, the healer, the proclaimer of the Good News. He couldn’t cure me. He didn’t even take any notice of me. He hated me. Despised me. He revelled in my suffering, my wretchedness. Let me change the world! I’ll make the Kingdom of Heaven into hell myself! Hahaha! Well, he was fond of you all. He’s been here eating and drinking, singing, even dancing, they say. He cured you . . . if you were sick. He looked at your daughter as if she were an Ashera who’d just come out of a tree. He even gave you an amulet so that your fishing would be successful . . . so your men don’t have to go fishing. You’ve got no trouble. But me? What about me? Oy, hahaha! And now they’re going to outlaw him.”

Esther and her daughter did not even hear Hanna’s terrible words. They just looked at her and the blood froze in their veins.

Chapter 41

   “Didn’t I always say . . . and now here it is . . .” stammered the old lady. Her lips were chalky white and rigid. “Here’s beggary because of your husband’s stupidity!”

Hanna was still mouthing incomprehensible, bitter words, but when Esther said that her breathing stopped, her face flushed and her eyes gleamed insanely. She raised both arms and turned straight towards the old lady. She screamed.

“So you think so too? Even you?” Haha! Now you’ve dropped the mask, you filthy fake. You’ve always praised the Master, but now you’ve shown just how abysmally rotten you are at heart. You slut! You fat heathen pig! Oy, oy, Esther, Esther . . . They want to curse the Master out of Yisrael. Do you know what that means? Do you know, you stupid women? Death! Death!”

She toppled into Esther’s arms, grasping her fleshy shoulders, buried her face in her clothes and sobbed and sobbed. Spasms shook her and she almost lost consciousness.

No one had ever seen Hanna weep. She was better known to laugh, to screech with laughter, and to shed tears of rage. But now she wept, wept, like a woman trampled, tormented, robbed of all she had. She wept as if her heart was broken, like a mother weeping for her child, who can see her loved one drowning in the waves and cannot help, only fling herself down on the shore, weep and tear her hair. Like one whose entire life overwhelms her, so that she may go down into Sheol leaving her body like a worn-out rag.

“We must save him!” she shrieked wildly, digging her fingers into the old lady’s shoulder. “We must tell him! He must get away! Oy, you love him, he’ll listen to you. He loves you. He cured you. Your sons, your husband . . . they’re his friends. Go after him, hurry at once, you know where he is, even though you won’t tell me. Tell him to go into the Decapolis. Or somewhere else, anywhere, into the hills of Hermon, to the Lebanon, to a cave, to the forests, wherever Antipas can’t reach him. Oy vey, Adonai! Well, why haven’t you gone?”

Tears were streaming down her face. She was as she had never known that she could be or wanted to be – an anxious woman, worried, forgetful of herself.

Martha would have set out without a second thought to find the Master, but Esther was more sensible. Where would they go? The two of them couldn’t go running in every direction, to every point of the compass, to tell him news which might not even be true but just the wild imaginings of an obsessed, sick woman. After all, the Master was a clever man. And his friends were with him. One of them would know what to do.

She began to calm Hanna down, but nevertheless her heart too was distraught. Martha looked helplessly at the two of them and uttered a fervent silent prayer.

Chapter 12.

(The notes written in Greek by Yehuda bar Shimon after leaving the Gamala estate, his brother and his trade, and going to Capharnahum.)

I

I came into the world feet-first. This is quite a rare event, and it is rarer still for mother and child to survive. My mother lived and so, as you can see, I too still live, though only in the sense that the ignorant give to the word. Only my left leg suffered damage in my unusual birth, but so perhaps did my entire destiny. That’s why I was named ‘Feet-first’. It’s become as much a distinguishing name as bar Shimon. Of all the thousands of Jews on earth there’s only one called Feet-first.

As a little boy I was inordinately proud of this name. I and I alone bore it, and all the rest were bar Yosif, bar Yonah, bar Abbas, that was all. I was the only one to be born feet-first, the way they carry you to the grave. And I alone hadn’t died being born that way; anyone else would have. My miraculous birth made me proud, and I regarded myself as unlike others. My mother had another son after me and he was like other children. Only I was Feet-first. For that reason, and not just because I was the first-born, my brother was jealous and teased me. “No good you being the first-born, you can’t become a nazir!” he would shout if we quarrelled.

Because my parents had wanted to offer me to the Lord as first-born, but the priest turned them away. “Moses ordained that an offering must be immaculate,” he said. My father tried to insist that that regulation only applied to animals and the produce of the soil, but the priest maintained that neither the Law nor the great doctors granted a concession for such a birth, and so the Law applied to me too. Because could anyone be a nazir that had come from the womb feet-first, not headfirst? Was that not a contrary indication? True, Moses didn’t forbid it, but neither did he permit it. “How can you give the Lord a defective son? Because you can’t give him a defective ox, sheep or fruit, nor rusted corn,” said the priest.

It upset my parents badly. Because, as devout Jews who wished to observe the Law to the letter, even when my mother was still carrying me they’d planned to dedicate me to the Lord. They’d been certain that the Lord would bless them, that their son would be born and become a nazir. So there was a bitter disappointment in store for them. Presumably they were being punished through me for sin unwittingly committed, or some sin of their ancestors.

And so I often caught my mother or father looking at me pityingly, concealing the bitterness which they felt towards me, their faces clouded. If my father beat me I knew that in fact he did it because he was disappointed in me. If my mother gave me a piece of cake or a handful of fresh dates without my brother knowing, or stroked my head, I felt that she was being kind to me because her hopes had been shattered and she’d wished me harm. In the silence of night, when they thought I was asleep, I often heard my parents arguing quietly and accusing themselves, but in fact it was me that they were accusing. Later on they did it openly. What had at first been passionate whispers became bitter sighs to the Lord: ‘With what have I troubled thee? What have I done, knowingly or unknowingly, to offend thee?’ In the course of time, however, stifled rage would burst forth: ‘Perhaps you’re the cause of it, not me! And if not you, then your father, your grandfather or your mother!’ They each listed the things that the other had done. The room would fill with ghosts, and these would angrily share in what they dragged forth from the grave. I could hardly catch a word here and there, and what I could make of them was disjointed and meaningless, and with my child’s mind I gave it such meaning as I could. In those nights it was as if I were glimpsing the Underworld. My teeth chattered, I was afraid. I often contemplated packing a bag and leaving home, going a long way so that I’d never be found. For the most part I made such plans outside the town, by myself, on the bank of a stream.

I became withdrawn, suspicious, avoided people. At other times I had an eager desire for them, but even then I couldn’t rid myself of my ever wary distrust.

My parents, then, were very pious and brought us too up in that way, but very harshly, not sparing the rod and punishing us severely. We observed the Mosaic laws scrupulously, the forbidden foods, the fasts, the prescribed prayers. My father tithed meticulously, was never a shekel in debt, was careful that the sacrificial animals and everything that he gave to the Mishkan were immaculate. For Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles we went up to the City, delivered a whole load of gifts, and only those servants who were vitally necessary stayed at home. I went with them on their journeys when I was a little bigger, but mother took my brother in swaddling-clothes.

Even after that, however, the Lord didn’t relieve them of his affliction; my brother was born only four years later, and after him my mother was never pregnant again. Her womb had closed. My parents found that all but unbearable. They did everything to assuage the wrath of Adonai, that he might grant them a child. They besieged him with abundant, special sacrifices and gifts, fervent imprecations, but he turned his face from them and his ears remained stopped.

My father, Shimon bar Menahem, was of the tribe of Yehuda and my mother from that of Shimeon. He settled in Kerioth, near my mother’s home, and we lived there for a year or two before moving toBeersheba. My father was therefore known as ‘Keriothi’, and later, in Gamala, this name was applied to me as well.

My parents preserved the memory of their origins, kept up the traditions. My father was proud of the fact that Yehuda Makkabi had succeeded in holding Yudea against the heathen, andJudeahad then liberated the whole of Eretz Yisrael. One of his ancestors had actually taken part in the bloody fighting, been the first to join the Hero, and stood staunchly beside him through many vicissitudes until the final victory. Both he and my mother were Yudeans to the core, proud of the purity of their ancestry. ‘The lion of Yehuda never sleeps,’ my father used to repeat. His tribe and that of Shimeon had maintained the Laws of Moses in the times of the greatest destruction, the worst aberrations, the greatest darkness. They were hard, tenacious, dogged people.

My grandfather, Menahem, by unremitting toil had amassed some money and bought a house and land inBeersheba. We all moved there. None of us had liked Kerioth, which we thought bleak and empty and always yearned to leave. Our desire was fulfilled. As it was said, their old estate had been lost during the great battles, or rather had been assigned to the Makkabi movement, and the family had thus become impoverished and so, a long time before, had gone to wretched Kerioth. We, however, succeeded in climbing out of poverty. My mother had relations in Gamala – on the other side of the country, and we only met them at the great festivals inJerusalem. In addition to farming, my father also carried on my grandfather’s business activities, delivering asphalt and salt from the shores ofLakeLoth, and had a smallish caravan, a few camels, a dozen donkeys, five or six male and female servants; it didn’t amount to much, but we were able to live respectably. I actually knew my grandfather Menahem. He was a laconic, slow-moving, grey-haired old man with a piercing eye, who never smiled. He prayed fervently, observed the fasts, foods and ritual washing, and declared with satisfaction that his whole life was pure, a life pleasing to Adonai, worthy of his heroic ancestors. By that, however, he merely added to my parents’ disquiet. My brother was too young to have known him. My mother said with relief, when she was carrying my brother, that ‘you see, that old Menahem was the cause of it,’ he’d laid some unwitting sin on her, because as soon as he’d gone to his fathers she’d conceived at once. The delight was great, my father had a calf slaughtered, invited guests, they ate and drank, sang, finally even played music and danced. They thought that they were going to have as many children as Yakob. A crowd of grandchildren and great-grandchildren would surround them by the time they were old, all good-looking, well-built, strong, keen Judeans. They set off forJerusalemwith an even bigger load, sacrifices and gifts without number. Of course, afterwards their disappointment was all the harder.

I was in my teens and going to the beth-hashefer when my father, to escape his crushing spiritual burden, chose a slave-girl to demonstrate that he was not the cause of the childlessness of their marriage, . She came fromEgypt, but how she’d come into his possession I don’t know. Father had acquired her together with other slaves. I can’t remember her name, only that mother called her Lilith out of spite. The girl’s ageing father was a gardener, her two grown-up brothers went with the camels, and her mother sat all the time in a little room, scarcely did any work, all crippled with disease. She was forever moaning and sighing, and only asked the Lord to look after her daughter and let her herself die. The girl was the youngest of her children. She was muscular, slender, swarthy, black-haired, healthy and cheerful. She worked indoors in the family house. I liked her a lot, and she liked me. I remember the lovely days when we played together. I admired her cleverness, the way she could run and her laughing face more than I can say. I was happy when she picked me up, hugged me and kissed me. Her eyes in particular were lovely. They were large, wide apart and brown like an antelope’s, her lashes long and silky. And her voice was like dove’s: ringing, deep, pure and bright. She was well aware that she was beautiful and that her eyes were specially so, because sometimes she would open them wide, sometimes hide them behind her dark lashes, sometimes wink flirtatiously, sometimes stare naively like a tame animal. Even when she was calling the chickens or the cow there was that charming lilt to her voice. This was the girl for whom father lusted.

He had the right. No one could raise any objection. Even mother couldn’t say anything, but she did. She didn’t care about law, traditions, customs, ancient parables, nor that wifely duty to which she’d been brought up. She didn’t accept what her husband did just like that; she said that the woman’s head was the man and the man’s was Adonai, but she didn’t mean it.

Life at home became terrible. And because her woman friends too only paid lip-service to the customs the whispering, discussion and agitation went on ceaselessly, as is the way with women. My poor mother followed now this advice, now that; sometimes she was gentle and tolerant, sometimes hateful and malicious. Sometimes she would be nice to father, sometimes she would burst out and find fault with him, curse him and sob. Sometimes at night she would run out of the house in just a kuttoneth, through the town, out into the gardens and vanish. Father and the servants would search for her until dawn until they found her in a riverside thicket or by an abandoned well-head in which there was no water. I’ve never forgotten those nights. The house was in uproar, everyone running about calling mother’s name. The dogs would bark. Everywhere shutters would be raised and people – inquisitive, malicious, sympathetic or irritated – would stare out of windows. My brother and I would sit on the carpet and wail. But it also happened that mother would take my brother in her arms, seize me by the hand, and set off with us into the night. She would shout something about not stopping before she got to Gamala or died on the road with us. And let our deaths be on father’s soul, and that miserable whore could go to hell with him. Then she would sit down under a big fig tree and my brother would go to sleep in her lap while I, in despair, leant my head on mother’s shoulder and she wept bitterly.

How did father’s connection with the slave-girl end? What became of the Egyptian beauty? I don’t know, I never found out. A long time afterwards my uncle Yehuda said something to the effect that the shopher and other scribes persuaded father to sell the slave-girl, because the calm plough land of peace is worth more than even the most delightful garden of love. One day the swarthy girl with the lovely eyes and nightingale voice vanished from our lives. I missed her badly, her singing of an evening, her calling in the poultry and the cow, her playing with me. I would have liked to snuggle up against her yielding breast, feel her soft, warm kisses.

Father too went about for a long time hanging his head, grimly, not speaking, but mother didn’t cry as much as before, or she hid it. Rather she tried to sing in her colourless, tremulous voice, and bustled briskly around the house. She looked nicer too, dressed with care, spent a long time combing her long hair; her figure filled out, her step became lighter, her movements more delicate. She was a thin-boned woman, quite tall; her dark eyes looked on the world intelligently if a little sharply, and a few early streaks of grey were appearing in her raven hair. She gave the impression of being submissive, now especially, but in fact she was dreadfully stubborn. Even if she yielded voluntarily she only did it outwardly in order to overcome opposition. At that time she was easygoing, taking even the movement of Father’s eye as an order. She knew, of course, that as soon as the Egyptian woman had left the house she was the one and only, and took care not to lose father’s favour.

A woman can change remarkably if she has to. Mother’s blossoming came not from clothes, cosmetics, bathing and brushing. Sometimes, even before then, she had followed the advice of a wiser woman, dressed up, wore her old earrings, put gold bracelets on her wrists and ankles, but it only made her more dismal. She felt it herself too, and after a few days the clothes and jewellery went back into the chests and she was all the more miserable, slovenly, unkempt, pale, with burned-out, red eyes, paying no attention to the house or her children. Now all that went at a stroke.

They had clearly decided to begin a completely new life, because father sold the house and land and we moved to Gamala inGalilee. Father entrusted the sale of the house and land to mother’s relatives.

Indeed, our lives changed radically. To move fromBeershebato distantGalilee, to the shores of Kinnereth, was to move to another world, to break off completely from the old and familiar. My parents decided, however, after long, long discussion that their lives were going to be completely different from before. A different country, different area, different people, different way of life, different air to breathe. Mother’s wish prevailed. “I feel,” she repeated, “that if we live inGalileeI’ll conceive again.” And she proved by a series of examples that completely barren women, and infertile men too, had become fecund through a change of place.

For us children all this was exciting novelty. Now I could boast to my friends not only that I was Feet-first, but also that we were going to Galilee, a very, very long way away. The fuss and bother of the move, all the excitement, was simply great fun. We could run around the empty premises shouting, climb over sacks, barrels and chests, chase startled mice, investigate the mysteries of the old cellar, use old tools and broken pots as weapons. We could establish a robbers’ cave in the musty cavities under the house, hide away like Yehuda Makkabi. All this was like happiness that would never end. Now my brother and I got on well together; I thought up games, I was the hero, and he was my slave, my arms-bearer, my soldier.

Finally we went with mother to the familiar places, looked at the big sacred rock and the huge tamarisk where people used to gather for special celebrations, festivities or mysterious prophecies. We called on our friends too, said good-bye to everyone. Mother was emotional and happy; father was taken up by his work, but we could see that he was out of sorts and gloomy.

We set off at the beginning of summer, in the month of Iyar. The heat was dreadful. We leftBeershebain the evening, so that we could use the cool, moonlit night to travel. My brother and I was placed in baskets, one on each side of a camel, mother rode the quietest of our donkeys, and father led the way on the camel with a bell. The servants accompanied the loaded animals, some on foot and some holding onto donkeys. The Moon soon rose as we left the little town. I remember even today the red half-moon hanging above the hills.

I’d already travelled with my parents to the City, so that part of the journey held no surprises. Then, however, we had travelled in a big crowd, together with all sorts of families that we knew. Almost everyone fromBeershebawent together, moving like an army on the march. Noise, chatter, laughter, the loud singing of psalms and all the laden animals diverted attention from the journey itself. The time taken had been amazingly short – scarcely a few moments went by and we’d reached the City, because I’d had so many friends, so many kindly women picked me up and sat me on their donkeys or camels, that I scarcely saw my own. They gave me things to eat and drink, made a fuss of me, taught me things, played with me, and I often even went to sleep in their laps. The men were even more amusing. They were for ever arguing, telling stories or singing some travelling psalm. All of them had some interesting custom or property. One would solemnly tell stories that made us split our sides laughing, another could drink without swallowing, another was the image of some hated great man and was always imitating the way he spoke and moved, a fourth would always be boasting of how he had thrashed three or four or even twelve mighty men, and so on. In the evening a big fire was lit, prayers said, people sang and told wonderful tales of the old times. Now, however, there was just us in the moonlight, surrounded by dark, silent hills and grim mountain ranges, the journey was long and I could take a good look at everything.

Now and then father would come over to us on his long-legged camel and in a gruff voice ask whether we were comfortable, weren’t we tired, weren’t we feeling sick at the camel’s swaying? Mother would talk to us as well as she jogged along beside us. The camel did shake us, our baskets swung about wildly, and at first we were almost sick. My brother wailed all the time. Now he was thirsty, now he needed to pee, now the basket was hurting him. He was always finding some way of stopping the camel until father lost patience and spanked him hard. Then he screamed and mother comforted him. I sat quietly in my basket without a word and put up with it, swallowed big gulps, and would have liked to drive my brother out into the desert. I looked solemnly at the darkened landscape. I saw antelopes running off, hares crouching, their ears twitching, big old well-heads, irrigation channels. The Moon became brighter and brighter and gleamed wonderfully in an occasional puddle. I could make out mysteriouscairns, isolated stone pillars, mighty, dark trees hung full of all sorts of old clothes, beggars’ staffs and crutches. I saw a little town or two in the distance, down in a valley, like pebbles piled up in a big basket. I caught the strong scents of herbs and earth on the wind, the acrid smell of animals, and finally I enjoyed it all very much and forgot about my brother. In my imagination I looked out at our new home and unknownGalilee. I’d heard that there was a big lake there, and could scarcely wait to see it. Then I started imagining what would happen if we were attacked by a lion. The lion ofJudah. Inquisitively, fearfully too I waited to hear its roar, for it to rush upon us. At length I fell asleep in the basket.

At sunrise we reachedHebron. We spent the whole day in the house of someone that we knew, and it was boring. The elderly lady of the house had a great swelling like a loaf on her neck, and I was frightened of it, but she kept giving me things and patting me. My brother slept in a darkened room, and he was thought to be ill. I wouldn’t have minded if we’d had to leave him there. I didn’t see anything of the famous roses ofHebron. The lady with the bad neck said that by then they’d all withered in the heat. I didn’t believe her.

In the evening we set off again and must have reached the City in the morning.

By that time I’d grown tired of looking round and was more aware that father was pensive and gloomy, and although mother was pleasant to him he scarcely spoke. Because mother was very confident. She was always dreaming, making plans, and if she couldn’t get close to father she would tell us that it was going to be like this, then like that. What lovely peace we would have in our new home. How the relations there would love us. I know that she was certain that in a year she’d have another son and that more children would follow, mostly sons. Father just nodded. From time to time he looked to the South; it went hard with him leaving Judea, the work that he was used to, the graves of his ancestors, the countryside where his forebears had tended their flocks and where such familiar rocks,cairns, old stone pillars, wells and trees had reminded us of them. And I know that he was grieving for something else too. He saw in the move his own defeat, his own weakness. He had failed to make mother submit humbly to her fate like Rachel and Leah. Mother knew this, she was kind and gentle towards him, and watched for even the flicker of his eye.

Chapter 1

The Sun was rising from behind the Gergesha hills. A mighty sheaf of light stabbed into the sky and at the same time downwards into the depths too, for the sparkling mirror of Lake Kinnereth hurled back the light. Height and depth were in abeyance, for what was above was also below, and the world lay between two sheaves of light, blue, green and brown, weightless, seeming to float in the air.

A red cloud hung above the farther shore like a gigantic water lily. Down below, however, another gleamed likewise, and there was no telling which was the real one: that floating on high or the one in the depths.

Up surged the Sun in the fullness of its mastery and power, in the splendour of its regal pomp, triumphally. In the west the slender sickle of the Moon still hung in a faint silver light, withdrawing wanly before the flood from the east.

Suddenly a thousand voices sang out in the world. Chirpings, cooings, twitterings, plangent whistles, strident cawings, chatterings. The world filled with the sounds of light. Birds, creatures of the light, flew up, took wing from the eucalyptus branches as they shone with the dew of the early spring morning, from the palms that swayed in the light breeze, the perfumed citrus trees and the cover of the undulating reed-beds, and in a tumult of joy scattered towards the blue water and the sky, appearing at the same time in the air above and in the mirror beneath.

To the right the houses of the half-built Tiberias, the new town, gleamed in the dawn light. White cubes on the hillside, white cubes in the shimmering depths, and further along the curving shoreline the white patches of Migdal replied. Above and below, far and near, all was reflection. Nothing but vibrating play, nothing but light. Behind Migdal in a long arc lay green patches of dense forest, and the plain of Galilee sprawled beneath a distant, trembling veil. The houses clustering in nearby Capharnahum sparkled like glass. A horn rang out, the signal of the watchmen at the southern gate that they had opened it. Now melancholy, now powerful, the notes drifted over the lakeside, out across the water, up towards the Sun, merged with the tide of light, and with the horn came the crowing of cocks.

The tiny stream too suddenly spoke out among the shining rocks, as if it had hitherto been silent. It babbled off excitedly its night-time sleepiness and, like a waking child, ran in a silver thread towards the lake, its mother, to be lost in its love as in enfolding maternal arms.

Shimon bar Yonah, the fisherman, stopped and looked around. His thick black beard shook in the breeze, and his brow and body, bare to the waist, shone brown.

“The lake’s like a great heart,” said he in an undertone, as if reluctant to disturb the son et lumière all around.

Andreas, the younger of the brothers, gave lake, shores and sky a long look, scratched his hairy chest and stretched,

LakeKinnerethwas indeed like a heart. Wide in the north, pointed in the south, it drew in a ceaseless flow of the shallow waters of the Jordan and released them again, wide and deep, among the dark trees and thickets, to run across the plain and lose themselves in the lifeless, poisonously salty hell of the Dead Sea, where all life ended, every flicker extinguished, where in rock-strewn desolation every sound and movement was consumed, life came to a halt, and the throat of the Void yawned in blistering heat.

The dark stones now came to life in a moment and slid in hordes into the water. Terrapins. Once, long ago, a poor starving woman had asked a rich woman for bread, but she had not given her any. Then the starving woman had cursed her: may your loaves turn into terrapins! And the loaves, of which the heartless woman had plenty, all became terrapins that moment. From then on, for the rest of her life, every loaf for which she reached, from which she wanted to eat, became a terrapin. So that is why there are so many terrapins, because one woman did not take pity on another.

The two brothers strode in silence across the cold stones among the horde of terrapins as they slid into the water. Their only clothing was a loincloth, while on their heads white keffiyehs fluttered like wings in the chill early morning wind.

The boat, moored to a knobbly root, was moving gently on the waves. The men waded into the icy water as if stepping on knife-blades. They shivered from head to foot at the biting cold of Kinnereth.

Shimon took the oars while Andreas went to the bow. The blue water shattered, and the world hitherto dancing on it broke into a million sudden fragments. They peered around, their eyes mere slits against the blinding light. The rowlocks creaked as the oars dipped into the water and the edges of the land began to rise and fall, to rock. Above the dry land stood a trembling column of light, warmth rising, the glistening vapour quivering like a dangling silken curtain rippling in the cold onshore breeze. A few wildfowl flew up into the rising light, flocked together and then glided down in the direction of the lake and struck into the depths like spears. In the distance the town rumbled quietly, and the bells of a caravan rang softly. Came the croak of a crane, the splash of a duck, the scream of a fishing bird . . . then again silence, tiny ripples under the stern of the clumsy boat, the water dripping from the oars like pearls of light.

It was the two men’s practice to set long nets in the water of an evening and to take them up  and collect the fish that were caught at dawn. Today that was Andreas’s task. As brothers who worked peaceably together they took it in turn to row and to pull in the fish. Then they would pick over the fish and divide them into the sections of the boat; some they ate themselves, and the better part of the catch they handed over to Zabiyah, the wealthy fishing-boat owner. He and his two sons, Yokhanan and Yakob, and their servants used to fish lower down, kept a fish-shop inJerusalem, and  supplied the High Priests’ houses and the kitchens of the Roman officials with fish. They also delivered to the big Greek fish-smoker at Tarichais, from where they were sent on to distant parts, to the ever-hungry Arabs, Bedouin and Syrians. That big business was, of course, in the hands of the Greeks.

They had not gone far from the shore when, under the silken curtain of the rising light, they caught sight of a man wearing a blue robe and a fluttering keffiyeh. A thought flashed into both their minds. Surely it was not he? Shimon stopped rowing and Andreas’s hands paused on the half-raised end of the net. They did not move. The man walking on the shore was so surprisingly tall that he seemed to reach to the Heaven, his feet scarcely touching the ground. Behind the blue-robed figure stood a dark green forest, which in the bright light made the floating garment more dazzling yet. They stared at the newcomer.

It could only be he. Only he walked so lightly, as if his feet did not touch the ground, only he gave that impression of height, though he was of no more than average build.

They exchanged glances. They both remembered the times on the banks of theJordan, remembered Yokhanan, remembered the baptisms, the words of the two masters and the crowds that had flocked to them. And the quiet, profound conversations, the mysteries which the Master had taught some of them, such as the sons of Zabiyah and a few others. Yehoshuah bar Yosif had left Ainavan, or the Place of Springs, with his few followers, and they had returned to Kinnereth and heard hardly anything of him. Just now and then it had been mentioned that he had gone into Samaria, but the people of those parts had driven him away, then he had been wandering in the territory of the Decapolis, mostly along the Jordan, among the fisher folk, and had finally returned to his town, Nazareth, and nothing special had been heard of him. He worked in his brothers’ carpentry shop as he had before, in his youth.

Now, however, there he was on the lakeside, as if his feet did not touch the ground and his head reached as high as the Heaven. It was he, he, it could only be he, even at that distance it was certain.

The two fishermen quivered from head to foot with excitement.

Nevertheless, Andreas asked his brother:

“What are you staring at?”

Shimon said nothing.

“The way he’s standing it’s as if he were floating. And he’s looking at us,” stammered Andreas, as if he were afraid that he might frighten away the blessed vision with his words. So suddenly had it appeared that he could not believe his eyes.

“It’s a trick of the light, that’s why he looks so odd,” muttered Shimon, likewise not daring to believe it. As the elder, he had stepped into his father’s shoes on his death and was a married man of some importance, and liked to teach Andreas things. He had the right. Andreas did not pay much attention to him, ignored him. At one time, when they were children, he had protested, become angry, struggled against him. They had even come to blows. Shimon, however, had had a hard fist and could bend a thick coin in his fingers, and if he was angry thrashed his brother severely. But that had been a long time ago . . . All sorts of things had happened since then!

“He’s a nazir[1] ,” said Andreas uncertainly.

“A nazir, I suppose so. What else? And I . . . I just want to say . . .”

“What do you want to say?”

“Well, that this nazir . . . Is beckoning us!”

The man standing on the shore was raising his arm, beckoning. His robe was blowing out like two huge wings. It seemed that he wanted to fly from the ground.

“Hey!” he called in a friendly, ringing tone. “Come over here!”

“It is him . . .” stammered Shimon.

“Come with me, and you shall catch men, not fish!” went on the nazir, distinctly, but not very loudly.

How ever much they might have doubted, from that they recognised him. It was he, Yehoshuah bar Yosif. The summons was typical of him.

Shimon quickly stepped out of the boat and, ignoring the sharp stones, waded headlong ashore. Andreas quickly followed.

While they were hurrying to the bank the man in blue looked at them with a smile. They had even abandoned the boat and each was trying to reach him first.

“Master! Master!” shouted Shimon.

“It is I,” he replied, pointing with his finger to his chest, as was his custom. He said ‘I’ and ‘is’ with emphasis such as no one ever anywhere had given to those words. Delight flooded the hearts of the brothers on hearing that, and tears came to their eyes. They even forgot to make a proper bow to the Master but competed with one another to embrace him, kissing him on both cheeks, not caring that they were wetting his clothes. He clasped to himself affectionately with both arms, returning kiss for kiss, and then pushed them back a little and looked at them.

A little time went by during which none of them spoke. There was so much that they would have liked to ask the nazir that words would not come.

“What . . . what is your wish now, sir?” Shimon asked at length.

“What I said,” replied Yeshuah pleasantly. His shining, light brown eyes rested on the questioner’s face, and the old light smile played on his lips. “Come with me and you shall fish for souls.”

At that silence fell again, a profound silence. They were moved. They merely looked at the Master, filled with excitement and delight, and he looked and smiled at them.

His figure, wrapped in the thin blue robe, was not tall, but he was slender, muscular and sturdy. His hands were longish and calloused, but finely shaped. His feet were small. His face was brown, like that of a sunburnt Arab, and his shoulder-length hair gleamed in the morning light although it had not yet seen the comb. He wore it as before, parted in the middle after the fashion of the nazir. His forehead, however, seemed higher and smoother – or was that just how the two of them saw it? He did not trim his beard now, but it was not long; it was the sort of beard that suited a healthy young man, silky and wavy, darker than his hair. It was the sort of beard that ageing, much disappointed women might like to stroke, to which children in arms would at once like to cling with happy squeals. And his eyes? If they could have seen nothing of him but his eyes they would have recognised him. Large, slightly projecting, bright as a cut jewel, calm and yet acutely and fearlessly attentive. But in those deep, childishly wondering, attentive eyes it was evident that they had known tears when at night everyone had thought that they were fast asleep. So wonderful were his eyes; sometimes they gleamed with flecks of golden brown, sometimes they were grey-blue like iron. Now they were as soft as pure gold, now hard and cold as a knife.

The nabi[2]  sat down on a smooth rock and the two brothers sat on the grass beside him. They were sitting now as they had done years before at Ainavan, apart from the crowds and immersed in the silence and the mysteries of quiet teaching. The Tetrarch’s new, unfinished palace shone arrogantly above the vine hills of Tiberias, and a single red sail drifted over the water. Yeshuah loosened the kerchief from his head because the air was becoming warm, shook out his hair, smoothed his beard with his calloused carpenter’s fingers, and looked towards the lake. A huge wild fig tree cast a lacy shadow on them, and the light played in the nabi’s eyes as on the mirror of the waters.

“Why are you calling us, Master?” asked Andreas in surprise.

“Yes, why call two poor, ignorant fishermen?” his brother went on. “Some of Yokhanan’s disciples were much more special than us. Some of yours too.”

He said from seemly modesty that they were ignorant. In fact they were educated men, not only because they had attended the beth-hashefer and had often listened to the debaters beneath the columns of the synagogue, but because they had been initiated in the mysteries of Heaven and Earth at the feet of Yeshuah and Yokhanan. They understood the Master’s emphatic declaration ‘I am he’, and knew what it meant that he was calling them to be fishers of men. For all their modesty they drew a deep breath and their hearts swelled. They sensed that a great, decisive event was to come their way.

The Master’s words rolled from his lips in spicy, rounded, Galilean fashion. He related briefly how he had gone into theJordanarea, gone about in Judea too and tried to sow the tiny mustard seed of theKingdomofHeaven, just as much as men could accept. On a number of festivals he had gone up toJerusalemtoo and taken part in debates beneath the columns of the Mishkan. The fullness of time, however, had not yet come. They had not understood him, had not even wished to understand. Indeed, on a number of occasions he had found himself in a dangerous situation. Yokhanan too was hated, but they had not ventured to trouble him. As a person of no importance, however, he, Yeshuah, was freely and cheerfully persecuted both verbally and with menaces. He had returned toNazareth, to his trade, and waited. Now that Yokhanan had been imprisoned, however, his time had come to gather together the best and accomplish his task.

“The king has imprisoned Yokhanan, but I’m at liberty,” said he quietly. “And what he proclaimed, that theKingdomofHeavenis at hand, I must fulfil. TheKingdomofHeavenis here, it has come. The Father is sending me to proclaim it to men. And you will come with me, and be with me to the very end. We shall part no more.”

They had forgotten everything. The boat, abandoned and empty on the water, the net, the fish, the house and their family. They were living in that world which they had come to know beside theJordan, into which the Master had initiated them. They half lay, half sat as they listened to the nabi. They forgot place and time – and yet the whole world was within them.

The sound of a pipe was heard from far away, came closer and, and then the shepherd appeared on the road as he walked, almost danced, ahead of his flock, playing his five-holed pipe, dressed in a sheepskin, his heels throwing up tiny clouds of dust. The jostling, bleating grey-fleeced animals appeared too, the lambs with their childlike cries, the rams with their thick voices, and a few mean-faced, greedy-looking goats. The shepherd took the pipe from his lips now and then to call back encouragement to his sheep as if he knew them individually. An acrid smell spread in the air, golden dust rose among the bushes and a cloud of flies swarmed in the wake of the flock.

Then the dust settled, the pattering of the many little hooves and the bleating died away, and the cheery sound of the pipe faded while they sat on and talked. The nabi raised his hand again and again to give emphasis to his quiet words, and when he did so they could see the white scar of an old cut on his left thumb, the mark of the carpenter. They took pleasure even in that scar.

They looked at him and listened to him, would have liked to sit there on the lakeside for ever. It was as if they had, without noticing it, been transported to the Kingdom of Heaven, where the king was a gentle man and they sat beside him to right and left with their friends around them: the sons of Zabiyah, Levi that worked at the customs house, Philippos from Ephesus, who had come to the Jordan and then settled in Migdal, never returned to his family . . . and the rest, who were far away.

The nabi, however, got up from the rock, stretched, wound the keffiyeh round his head and spoke:

“Well then, my friends, Shimon and Andreas, let’s go. It’ll be midday, they’ll be coming ashore down there and we can meet them. I mean to call them too.”

And as if were the most natural thing the two fishermen also stood up and, as they were, with just loincloths on their bare bodies, set off with the nabi among the basking terrapins and scuttling lizards. They set out on the road as they had gone on the water with their father when they were boys, their hearts full of pleasure and the confidence that they felt in him.

2

On the lakeside the big, awkward boat was just being dragged ashore. The crew were still hauling it up, the stones grinding under the great weight. Zabiyah, a white-haired, powerful, bony man, his two sons and three bearded men, wearing little but keffiyehs, were grouped around the boat. They were stowing the nets and oars and sorting the fish. Young Yokhanan, using a net, was measuring out the wriggling silvery mass of fish and placing them in a small boat alongside.

Their house was a little farther along, a brown building among old wild figs and tamarisks. All around were racks on which nets awaiting repair swung in the breeze as they dried.

“Don’t pull that rope so taut, you blockhead!” Zabiyah’s thick, throaty voice could be heard at a distance. “If the wind comes up it’ll toss the boat about, it’ll get all chafed, don’t you know that? How often do I have to tell you, eh?”

“A good, tidy man,” muttered the nabi with a smile.

“A strong man,” added Shimon.

“And rich,” said Andreas.

“Peace be with you!” called the nabi as they came up.

“Peace, peace,” the men replied in voices thicker and lighter, as they turned their heads to see who had come and touched fingers to their foreheads.

“Ah, it’s you, Shimon, and your brother,” said old Zabiyah in a pleasant tone. “Haven’t you been out today, then?”

Yokhanan called cheerfully as he struggled with the net: “Hey, Shimon, Andreas! Only just up?”

“They’re gentlemen, they get up late,” Yakob laughed.

But suddenly their voices fell silent as they caught sight of the Master and recognised him. Their mouths fell open, their eyes stared. Then they jumped off the boat, crowded around the arrivals and embraced and kissed the nabi. And laughed, simply laughed, for what could they in fact have said? The water ran off them.

“Well, well!” exclaimed the downy-chinned Yokhanan when he had finally got his breath back. “Oh, Master! How did you get here? Where’ve you come from? Where are you going?”

“This is the man I saw in Capharnahum,” said one of the men, puzzled. “Aren’t you the man I saw sitting outside the House of Assembly yesterday?”

“I am he,” the nabi nodded. He pointed at his chest with a finger.

“Well, what an honour, a great honour,” old Zabiyah enthused. “Isn’t it, boys? The honourable nabi, whom we’ve heard so much about? The learned man?”

The Master smiled. He looked around as if he had grown up with these people, and was now returning home having been round the world.

“He whose name must not be spoken has overwhelmed us with delight,” went on Zabiyah, not knowing where to put himself, now turning towards the house, now hovering round the nabi. “Come in, step inside, eat and drink with us, what’s mine is yours! Hey! Hey! Salome! Wife! Girls! I’ve got two wretched daughters as well,” he turned apologetically to Yeshuah. “They take it in turns to work in the fish market in the City.”

The Master, however, declined the eager invitation.

“Adonai keep you, but we won’t come in. We’ve come for Yokhanan and Yakob, your sons.”

A startled silence fell. One could hear the quiet hissing of the waves and the rustle of the leaves in the big trees.

Yokhanan held out his hand and exclaimed: “You have called me, I will go.”

“I’ll go with you as well,” exclaimed Yakob with equal warmth.

Yeshuah places his hands on the shoulders of the two young men. “Do you know where I am calling you to go?”

“No, but that doesn’t matter. Wherever you’re going, we’ll go with you,” Yokhanan assured him.

The Master smiled happily, like a child. Zabiyah, however, scratched the back of his head and hummed and hawed. He looked anxiously now at the Master, now at the others.

“Sir, if I may,” he finally decided to speak. “I need my sons. I’ve got business to attend to at the smoker and inJerusalem. I can’t manage without help. One of them takes the fish to Tarichais, the other to the City, and I’ve got a stall there as well, just by the Fish Gate.”

The Master’s eyes turned convincingly to the anxious man.

“Take no care for tomorrow,” said he quietly.

Zabiyah was reluctant to upset the learned rabbuni, the man of God, but he shifted from one foot to the other and scratched his head. He was accustomed to the movement of an eyebrow being seen as an order – except by his wife – but now he dared not contradict the stranger.

“Sir,” he muttered respectfully but unhappily. “At least take a bite to eat in my house. Speak to their mother. Because in the past we’ve seen nabis who’ve danced, played and sung, and the sort that go from village to village. And we know that Yokhanan’s disciples went about in skins and were as thin as that pole there, where we hang the nets . . . But you, I can see, don’t fast and don’t mortify the flesh . . . So at least have a bit of fish and bread in my house, and a drop of wine to go with it.”

“I will come back, and then you will entertain us,” the Master reassured him. “But now we must go.”

“This boy only came home recently, when Yokhanan was imprisoned, and now you want to take him?”

He pointed at Yokhanan.

The nabi looked seriously at them. The golden glint of his eyes touched now the labourers, who were craning their necks, now the radiantly attentive faces of the brothers and the anxious father. They all felt that there was power in his eyes, that the Spirit of the Lord – blessed be his name for ever – dwelt in him.

“Live in peace,” the nabi took his leave, bowed, touched heart, lips and forehead with his fingers and turned.

The four men went with him without a word.

“Here, at least take some clothes with you! You haven’t even got keffiyehs on your heads!” called Zabiyah after them.

They, however, paid no attention but went. The father stood helplessly, watching them go. So too stood the labourers, half-naked, sunburnt, hefty lads. Perhaps they would have liked to go with them, to have nothing more to do with the boat, the net and the owner? Just to go along the lakeside, among the blossoming hills, under the citrus trees and terebinths . . . to who knows where?

JANOS KODOLANYI: I AM

Wanting to find the most appropriate Publisher for the publishing of the English translation of a genuine book written decades ago by a famous Hungarian author now I would like to share some information about it and also some part translations of it – by means of this blog.

The book is a true gem, a “Hidden Treasure” from East-Europe.

Small languages are strong barriers even for great thoughts, even if the topic is global. I am convinced that as soon as fully ready, its very good English translation will help to share the experience, will help the ideas of the book reach thousands of readers from all over the World.

I would especially recommend this great book to those with an open, questioning mind, to people reaching their ‘midlife’ and also to those interested in travelling through mind & time; in history and/or religion.

Those interested are welcome to contact me through this blog!

Csilla Pataky