Immortal (17 page)

Agios's head and body hurt. Every muscle ached, every joint throbbed with the months and years that he had worked and run from memories and longed for something so much more than the life he scraped together for himself and Krampus out of the hills surrounding Nazareth.

A vision came into his mind, so real—
He is doing this
, Agios thought.
Somehow he speaks to me without words and shows me my life!

He saw it all in his mind: The ravine and the libanos trees, Philos being bitten and falling. The months of drunkenness, more of captivity. The caravans, Gamos and then Caspar. His return to gather the resin. The scent of the precious resin filled his nostrils, and it was so unexpected, so fresh and dazzling, that Agios gasped a little. And here again was Philos, his hair thick and dark as the soil where Agios planted his garden, fragrant with the smoke of burned frankincense. His golden skin glowed in the brilliance of the summer sunshine, and Agios could have wept for the beauty of it, for the way that he could taste and feel and see and almost touch the life that he had lived and the love that he had lost. Living water? Oh, God, his soul yearned for it.

The man was standing now, not much taller than the woman with whom he spoke, but with something about him that made Agios want to go and sit at his feet. His heart, which had beat so pitifully before, now filled his chest with the certainty of glory.
Something is happening, something wonderful. It will change everything
. Agios was sure of it.

She knew it, too. The woman sobbed, and though the man hadn't touched her, something about her was different. “Are you greater than our father Jacob?” she asked, wonder in her voice.

“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I offer will never again thirst.”

Impossible! Agios sat up straighter. Surely the man was not in his right mind. But even as the thought arose, Agios dismissed it. This stranger struck him as confident, his words sincere. When he spoke, it was as if Agios were hearing truth for the very first time.

“Indeed,” the man continued, “the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up with eternal life.”

Agios put a hand to his head and felt the wrinkles around his own eyes, the deep-set lines that told the story of his many years and the road he had traveled. Eternal life? He didn't yearn for it, but something in him rose at the words, at the improbable grace of them.

Life was hard and long and heartbreaking. In a lifetime, every man eventually lost everything he loved. Who would want more of it? But contained in the agony of existence was more majesty than Agios had ever realized. He couldn't have guessed at the love that Krampus had offered him. The thought surprised him. Did Krampus love him? Yes, he did, like the father the big man had never known. And Agios loved Krampus as a friend, but even more, as a son, not Philos, but a son nonetheless.

He thought of cool mornings when mist hovered over the trees and the sun was a pink slice of ripe fig on the horizon. There was splendor in that, and in newborn lambs that were born slick and warm, already bleating. He remembered joy in the faces of the children who received Agios's humble gifts. He felt the comfort of memories that he held close, like gold hidden in the palm of his hand. All of it seemed resplendent with something grander and more profound than Agios had ever been willing to admit.

Something . . .
holy
.

It was the word that blew through Agios's heart as he watched the man at the well. And though he was not a religious man, he felt as if he was watching something consecrated, a sacrament so hallowed he felt unclean as he sat a humble witness to it.

Then Agios took the bucket in his hands and lifted the tough, leather rim to his lips. He drank deep, quenching mouthfuls that spilled down his chin and soaked his beard and tunic right through. It was ordinary water but it tasted like joy to him. Cool and satisfying on his tongue, exhilarating to his weary soul. Agios could feel himself reviving with every swallow, the strength returning to his limbs as rainwater brings new life when it douses dry ground. He felt as if he could fling aside the bucket and leap to the place where the Jewish man and the Samaritan woman stood, as if he could bound down the hill to the copse of trees where Krampus and the injured camel waited patiently for him. Agios could carry their burden to Jerusalem himself, and do it happily.

Agios would have risen and approached the unlikely pair at the well, but a small band of men had come over the rise. The woman had turned as if to go. “I know that the Messiah is coming,” she said hurriedly, gathering up her empty bucket. “When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”

Messiah?
It had been a long time since Agios had heard that word. But for a heartbeat or two, everything seemed clear. The man carefully pulled his tallit to his shoulders, exposing a rather ordinary face. Unremarkable features, skin the color of the dusty ground beneath their feet. His hair and beard were in need of trimming, but beneath the unruly brown curls, his deep eyes were at once sharp and kind, wise and filled with compassion. When he looked at the woman, Agios wished he were standing in her place. And just as quickly he was glad that he wasn't. To be gazed at like that? It would undo a man.

“I am he,” the man said.

It was as if a cool breeze blew across the hill. Agios felt his skin prickle, his soul split open. For just a second, the man looked past the Samaritan woman, and locked eyes with Agios. The smile that crossed his lips extended to his warm eyes and beyond, but therein contained something indefinable and secret. Sadness? Agios wanted to call out, but his throat felt pinched tight.

And then the woman was gone, forgetting her pitcher. She had hiked up her skirts and run like a child, shouting as she went: “Come and see. A man who gave me a vision of everything I ever did! Could this be the Messiah?”

She had a vision, too! Messiah? Could this be?

Agios found himself standing beneath the tree, his own pail of water forgotten at his feet. It tipped and spilled its contents among the knobbed roots of the tree where Agios had received solace. It seemed a fitting offering. Yet Agios didn't know what to do. He would have stayed and stared in wonder but for one of the men who broke the spell of his trance.

“Rabbi,” he said, holding out bread to the young man, “eat something.”

Another added, “Please, Jesus.”

Jesus.

Jesus!

King of Kings.

He has given me something—I took it in with the water I drank.

He has restored my hope
.

Agios turned and ran down the hill as fast as his feet would carry him. Or rather, he flew. He was a man on fire, a man restored.

Alive.

A
gios's impulse was to follow Jesus, but he had responsibilities to Krampus and to the flock he owned. Because the camel was lame, they camped for days near the well at Sychar and sold their goods to passers-by instead of continuing to Jerusalem. In less than a week the heavy packs were empty, and then Agios's mind turned elsewhere. Even as he negotiated fair prices, he was making plans. They would return to their hut near Nazareth, sell the flock, and begin their lives as nomads.

Agios had picked up the thread of the story surrounding Jesus in the days they waited near the well. Travelers spoke of a prophet, a young man who practiced love for God and for all men and women. He traveled far, walking the countryside with his band of followers and preaching a gospel that few could wholly comprehend but no one could forget. People whispered of miracles they had witnessed or had heard about from trusted friends: water at a wedding feast turned into wine; a storm calmed; a leper healed instantaneously.

Agios could add his own tale to the growing narrative, but he held his tongue. What was there to say? A woman had been offered living water. Agios had drunk it. No, not literally—he had drunk earthly water, but with it he had taken in a feeling of exhilaration, and something in Agios had changed. The seed that had been planted on the night he first laid eyes on the baby beneath the star had been watered. It sprang quickly, gloriously to life, as sudden and beautiful as a desert flower.

Krampus noticed the change in his friend immediately. He didn't say anything, but Agios often caught his old friend grinning at him. It gentled the big man, and Agios couldn't help but smile back. By the surprise that lit Krampus's eyes it was obvious to Agios that he hadn't smiled enough in the years gone by. He regretted the long silences, the way he could be so remote. Krampus deserved better.

“We're going to find him,” Agios told Krampus as they traveled on foot back to their hillside home.

Krampus looked at him sharply, his expression filled with disbelief and hope. “Baby Jesus?”

Agios laughed. “He's not a baby now, Krampus. He's a grown man.” He almost added, “I've seen him,” but it seemed an unfair admission when Krampus himself so longed for another glimpse of Jesus. The infant that Agios had carved was still, after all these years, Krampus's most prized possession.

After the sale of the camel and the sheep, Agios told Krampus that they were about to take their journey. The big man asked no questions but took his robes from a chest made of fragrant cedar wood, where for most of the time they lay carefully folded. Agios began to make a bundle of what they would need. It would be a bare minimum.

The furniture in the hut, the beds and table and chairs, he had made himself. He would leave all that. Let some poor shepherd find the hut and make a home of it. Agios did not plan to return. From as long ago as the three scholars' gift to him, and from the trades he had made as a merchant and even as a shepherd, he had a good store of coins. These he would carry in a heavy leather bag. He hesitated over his tools. True, they would add to the burden, but after all this time he felt lost without them. Every time he picked them up he remembered the miles he'd traveled, and other things: Gamos and the caravan that had plucked him off the side of the road and inadvertently saved his life. Philos. It seemed that his heart would forever return to Philos. He decided to take the tools.

Nearly three weeks had passed since Agios had witnessed Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, and he wasn't sure where to find the traveling prophet. Jerusalem was as good a place as any to start. That afternoon Agios and Krampus set out on foot, taking the road south. Krampus leaned heavily on a staff as they followed a dusty road that wound over low hills covered with deep green summer foliage.

At times the road rose to the summits of the hills, and then in the distance the arid, bare brown mountains loomed. Heat made them shimmer and dance. Agios was so intent on the journey that until it was time to rest, he did not notice how badly Krampus was limping. Then, concerned, he asked, “Do your knees hurt?”

Krampus nodded but did not speak. Agios realized then with a shock how old his friend was looking. He was not truly ancient—Agios had met him, when? Thirty-some years earlier. Krampus might be fifty, or close to it, but time had gnarled him into a figure even more stooped and crooked than he had been before. More crooked than Agios, who himself was well past sixty. When had he grown so old? “I'll find you an animal to ride,” Agios told him.

It took another slow day of walking, but finally Agios did find a sturdy and docile little mule that was willing to bear Krampus. The big man had never sat in a saddle, and at first he lurched and clung tight to the little beast's mane and bridle, but he managed to stay in place and gradually learned to keep his balance. Still, a journey that should have taken them three days stretched out into a week.

At the magnificently arched Damascus Gate of Jerusalem, Roman guards stood watch, just as in the old days. In the heat, with only a little traffic in and out of the city, the guards were bored, and they doggedly questioned Agios: Where was he from, where was he going, and for what purpose? Agios told them, truthfully, that he had lived in the countryside for many years and added that now, growing old for his calling as a shepherd, he had come to the city seeking easier employment. He did not mention that his employment was following a prophet. Romans did not trust prophets.

“And what about him?” one of the soldiers asked, grimacing as he nodded at Krampus. “Who's this ugly fellow?”

“My son,” Agios said shortly.

Krampus stared the Roman down and said, “His son.”

Agios looked at him, thinking,
That's the bravest thing you've ever done
.

“Go on,” the soldier said.

Throughout the city Agios found an atmosphere of fear and resentment. The Romans had tightened their grip—and they were quick to come down on anyone they suspected of plotting against them or even of thinking of doing it. At an inn, Agios overheard a merchant complaining about Jesus: “They call Jesus a holy man. What's holy about ruining our business?”