Iscariot: A Novel of Judas (21 page)

And I also knew that he would not do it.

Simon the Pharisee had a terrible look on his face--the look of a man who

has gravely misjudged.

"Simon," Jesus said, his fingers lightly touching the woman's head. "Let me tell you something."

"Yes, please do explain." His voice was stony, his eyes averted.

"Two men owed money to a moneylender. One owed ten times as much."

Perhaps Simon the Pharisee had never owed money to a moneylender, but the faces of those beyond the gate had surely paid with coin and pride both.

And I knew it was to them that Jesus truly spoke.

"Neither had the money to pay him back, so he released both debts. Who will love him more?"

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The Pharisee's face reddened. When the servant came into the room with a tray of food, she was given a sharp gesture to retreat with it.

"I came into your house," Jesus said. "You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair."

No. I covered my face with my hands. No.

The woman left, heads swiveling to follow after her as though she were not a common prostitute at all. She had come in with tears. She went out with peace, the smell of perfume and God wafting behind her, her chin held level as though she were the one, rather than us, wearing the fine ritual tunics.

She might be saved, but now we courted ruin.

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It was the Sabbath and I could only hope for the hours to speed by, and that they would take with them the Pharisees and priests and teachers who had descended on us, some of them come from as far as Jerusalem.

It was the crowd and the renown I had hoped for--only not the way I had hoped for. They came, loudly, some of them wagging fingers at the women in our group. I tried to put myself between the Magdalene and the mob, to even find a way to get her out, but the growing crowd had followed us into the synagogue early in the morning and kept us there, like prisoners, late into the day.

"Are you the Messiah?"

"They say you are Elijah!"

"Please! My brother is blind--"

At one point someone pulled a man through the press at the door. He was like an animal in their hands--a blind mute, making his animal sounds and grabbing at the air.

It was the Sabbath.

But I knew it would not matter.

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My master went to the man--in that moment I saw the lines around Jesus'

eyes, how very weary he was--and covered the man's face with his hands and whispered to him. And I watched, as I had watched and seen before, the look of seeing return to milky irises, and the sound of words--rudimentary at first, and then well formed as though he had not just learned them but had spoken them all his life. It was one thing for a mute to hear and begin to mimic sounds, and a wholly other thing for him to shout his Hosannas to the roof.

I thought the synagogue ceiling would collapse that day.

"He uses no herbs! What about Solomon's incantations?"

"Was this man really deaf or blind to begin with?"

"It is by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that he casts them out!"

My fist lashed out.

And was caught by Simon.

"No, Judas."

Jesus shouted over the ruckus of the synagogue. "Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every household divided against itself will not stand!"

"Do you hear that?" I said to the one who accused Jesus of casting out demons by Beelzebul, spittle flying from my lips. "He is speaking to you!" But the Pharisees--there were some twenty of them now surrounded by a horde of curious, desperate, and gossiping spectators--were shaking their fingers and shouting to be heard.

A man was pushing through the mob, past James and John, and finally let through--pulled through as though he were being born anew--by the arm by John.

It was James, the elder brother of Jesus.

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"Brother!" he shouted. The head of Jesus snapped up at the sound. "Come, we are outside. We've come for you. Mother is here, too."

They had come for him as a family comes to collect their mad son. Their wayward one, before he can disgrace the family or himself anymore.

"Make it rain," one of the priests was saying. He turned to me. "Honi the circle-drawer made it rain."

"He just healed a man!" I snapped.

"None of us was close enough to examine him, to be certain he was not seeing before. Tell your master to make it rain. To give us a sign. Tell him we have come from Jerusalem." We both swayed, jostled by several more who had burst into the overcrowded synagogue. He grabbed me firmly by the shoulder, dragging me toward Jesus. "Tell him--"

I stopped short. Jesus stood alone, his gaze downcast, his head shaking.

Alone, jostled every so often by someone pushing against him, a growing despair on his face. As I looked on, his chest lifted and fell as though he breathed not so much air, as the tar of sadness.

The man was pulling at my sleeve, commanding me. This was not the way I had expected other teachers and learned men to look at me. This was not the way I had envisioned that my time in any synagogue would be.

"Leave off!" I shouted, compulsively, shoving the man back. His eyes went wide.

Next to me, I saw Peter reach toward his waist where I knew his sword to be, but Simon stilled him with a hand.

"Brother!" Again, James.

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"THIS IS MY HOUSE!" The voice of Jesus rang out, jarring us all, ringing off the very lintel over the door. Beside me, the arguments fell silent.

"If I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your people drive them out?" He leveled his finger at one of the most venomous Pharisees, spittle on his lips, his face red. "So then, they will be your judges!"

In the stifling press of the synagogue even on that cold day, my skin prickled.

The man next to me started forward, but Jesus thundered, "Whoever is not with me is against me! And whoever does not gather with me scatters!"

"A sign!" the man next to me called out. "We want to see a sign! We have come from Jerusalem and will take back the word of you. But prove all you say. For all we know, this man's ears were awakened by this noise.

Command the rain to come and to cease again! If you can do these other things, what is one sign to you?"

Jesus turned away, his hands going to his head, the heels of his palms over his eyes.

"Bring the rain! Or are you a fraud?" the man demanded, angrily.

"A wicked generation asks for a sign!" Jesus shouted. "But I'm telling you, none will be given."

I covered my eyes.

Why. Why? It would cost him nothing to still this controversy. To silence them all!

But of course he wouldn't. Of course not.

The synagogue rang out with fresh chaos. The blind-mute was staring, his hands over his ears, the ruckus no doubt cacophonic and too loud, so that I pitied him and gestured him toward me.

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The room was about to erupt in earnest. I looked around at us, at everyone red-faced, there with their agendas, their demands, angrily compelling him to do this or that, and even angrier that he would not make a sign or side with one party or another, or even come home with the family as placidly as a good son, a good man of Israel, should do.

A woman's voice was shouting over the outside din. "My son!" The diminutive form of a woman was ducking beneath outstretched arms, grabbing at the upper arm and shoulder of James, the brother of John, at the door.

"It is his mother. It is his mother. Let her through!" I shouted, shoving past the Pharisees and teachers in their fine linen, who could not be bothered to help a peasant through the crush.

"Teacher!" I called out, drawing her through, my arm winding around her from behind as James and John held the doorway. It was improper, but I couldn't help it. I took her by the hand and as I did, her veil came askew.

I caught at her veil, tried to help her cover her head.

She looked not so much like a mother as a woman on the brink of losing her heart, her tiny fingers clasping at my sleeve, and then the hem of her veil, her eyes--those uncanny eyes--fiercely searching the crowd.

"Master! Your mother is here with your brother!" I shouted.

He glanced up with a strange look. "Who?"

"Your mother! Your brother!" Let them take him out from here at least.

"Who is my mother and who are my brothers?" Jesus said.

I blinked.

Surely he had misunderstood. But then he pointed at me. And 181

then Simon. And then Peter. "There is my brother. There--" he pointed to Andrew, and then Nathanel and then James and John at the door. "And there," he pointed to the Magdalene, "is my sister."

James stared, his arm wrapping around his mother, who had covered her face with her hands. I thought I had reached the end of shock with this teacher. But I had been wrong.

He shuns his family. He shuns them and claims me--I, who spat at my brother and neglected my half-brother.

What was a man without his family? Here, in Galilee, where so many died before they were even weaned, to be cut off from family was to die.

"How can you follow this man?" a man next to me said. He was gray-haired, an elder of the city. And though I saw the words come from his mouth, I heard them with the voice of Levi.

Beware.

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The throng grew like a dust storm out of control. It swelled into the thousands. Our meals, our getting up and lying down, our praying and going to immerse, were now open to every eye that cared to see. We could hardly find a patch to lift up our tunics and relieve ourselves without someone looking on to see that we were indeed Jews.

Jesus healed. He taught. He also spoke more and more openly now about the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven. Seditious words, to any king or Roman ear. It was one thing to tell a story of leaven to a small group of hungry fishermen in Capernaum. It was another to tell it to thousands going up to Jerusalem for the feast of dedication of the Temple.

We were all aware that we were in increasing danger; Herod would not--

could not afford to--overlook such a mass of people gathering together

around one man beneath his Roman masters.

It must be soon.

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ONE EVENING JESUS WAS leaning heavily against James' shoulder as we came down from the hills. A young man, thin as a reed, came pushing through the crowd. His exuberance told me he had only just arrived in time to see the teacher departing.

"Please, Teacher, let me follow you wherever you go!"

Jesus' head was hanging forward, his arm around James' shoulder.

Exhaustion overcame him more and more often these days. "Foxes have dens and birds have nests," he said. "But the son of man has no place to lay his head."

"What--but what do you mean?" the man said, looking from him to us.

"He says go home," James said.

Just then we saw a new group rushing up from the city, coming across the fields toward us. Simon groaned.

"No more. He's delirious," Peter murmured, fatigue etched like furrows around his own eyes.

"Quickly," James said. "The boat."