Iscariot: A Novel of Judas (25 page)

I told myself it didn't matter--that he could have every malaise he wanted and I would be gentle with him. My spirits were high, and I was renewed, and from that reserve I would give him every patience.

But he did not ask me to pray with him the next night either. Or the night after.

And as the mob grew, my master grew increasingly distant.

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A WEEK LATER JESUS came down to the piers of Capernaum to see us off. Crowds of hundreds waited for him here, some having traveled for nearly a hundred miles to see him. We had returned for a few days but dare not stay longer--but the crowds had not yet had their fill of him.

"Go. I'll join you there," he said, untying the rope himself.

"Please. Come away, Teacher," I said. It was by now nearly evening and I was none too eager to go out on the lake without him after what had happened the last time, but he gave me a smile and pushed us off. Earlier, I had offered and then asked to stay with him, but he had sent me with the others.

I had not admitted, even to myself, how that injured me.

I watched him look back at us before turning away. His back was bent, and as he turned toward the low hills, he faded into the dusk so unremarkably that I wondered if he had disappeared. For a moment I even wondered if I would ever see him again, or if, in that odd and quiet departure, he would exit my life forever.

The thought unnerved me so that my pulse began to pound.

I closed my eyes, willed my heart to quiet. I had been in a state of gnawing anxiety since my talk with Simon. In a state of fear, too, for my mother and my brother so that I sent them a message via the Roman post saying only that I missed them and wanted to know if they were well. I could not say more.

We passed the trip wagering when we would march into Judea, and when Jesus would enter the Temple to claim his throne at last.

"Tabernacles," Peter said.

"Spring," Andrew said.

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"Sooner," Thomas said.

"Yes. Let it be sooner."

Matthew and some of the others were silent.

"What if we don't live that long?" Matthew said eventually.

"Of course we'll live that long," James said. "He's promised us a place in the kingdom. The only question is who will be greatest."

"The one who has been with him the longest," Andrew said.

The one he loves the most, I thought to myself.

Evening descended across the lake, thick and buggy. There was fear in the darkness of the lake for me, and I kept a sharp eye on James and Peter. But I never saw them glance to the sky even once. The wind did pick up, but only enough to slow our progress, so that Peter cursed and Andrew briefly took down the sail, the wind seeming intent on blowing us all the way back to Heptapegon.

As the night wore on without a storm but without a wind to see us to Bethsaida, a few of us slept when we were not taking turns at the oars.

It was sometime before dawn when a swift prayer and the hissing intake of a breath woke me. I had been sleeping lightly and came awake all at once.

But there was no gale, no gusting wind or even rain. It didn't seem we had moved at all since Andrew had taken down the sail.

"There," Nathanel whispered.

What was he pointing at? The clouds were thin, the moon full so that it illuminated the surface and waves of the water.

"I see it!" Matthew said, sinking lower in the boat. The gazes of the others were as intent as wolves--but not nearly as brave. But it was the fishermen who had begun to pray, the fear on them palpable.

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I had heard them murmur about strange things on the lake at night. I considered it the product of uneducated minds and Galilean suspicion and was about to close my eyes again.

But then I saw it.

It rose up like a pillar of moonlight, growing taller by the moment as though it had risen up out of the lake itself.

"A ghost!" That, from James.

I had heard more talk of ghosts in the Galilean countryside than I ever had growing up, where we had learned of the spirits brought back by the witch of Endor. But I had never fully understood and therefore never fully believed in these things.

Until now.

James, beside me, shrieked with a voice that I might have thought to come from a woman. I would have laughed at him, except that I could see it walking, striding out over the water. I could see from here the movement of the figure's tunic around its legs, the way the mantle was drawn up over its head as my master was often wont to do . . .

"Don't be afraid!" the figure shouted.

His voice.

My heart leapt within me. Before I could say it, though, Peter had gotten to his feet.

What man but Peter would leave a perfectly good boat in the middle of the lake, climbing over the side of it so that we all cursed ourselves for our fear?

What man but Peter, who, flagging in the moment, began to sink, so that we

were grateful we hadn't spoken out?

And what one of us did not envy him that saving grasp in the end?

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By the time they came into the boat together, the wind had picked up so that we took in the oars and let out the sail. It was then, in the first tinge of dawn, that I saw the tears on Peter's cheeks, just before he lowered his head beneath his mantle and wept.

THE CROWDS IN BETHSAIDA were ravenous for him by the time we came ashore that morning.

"We're ready to do the work the Lord requires," a representative for many other men said when we had gone into the synagogue. It was not safe to speak of these things out in the open.

I was excited for every man who came to Jesus like this, like a warlord pledging both men and fealty.

"But give us a sign first so we know what we've heard is true. Seeing it with our own eyes, we'll follow you."

Inwardly, I groaned. The last time anyone had asked for a sign we had nearly drowned on the lake.

"We heard about the bread!" someone called out. "Show us that you can multiply bread!"

My master's face tightened into a look of absolute frustration.

"Yes! Show us!"

"Don't do it for the food that spoils!" Jesus suddenly shouted. "But the food I give you! I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry!"

Silence in the synagogue. Was this to be the moment? I barely breathed.

Those on the benches leaned forward. Waited. But when he did nothing, they began to look around, confused.

"So where's the bread?" someone said.

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Today was not the day. Because just then my master's expression twisted.

He spun away, looking as though he might inexplicably weep.

No. No.

He was far too worn. When was the last time he had slept? Ate?

They must not see him like this. We needed these men. These numbers. But this was not the charismatic leader and revolutionary that they had come to see.

"Master, come away," I whispered, reaching toward him.

He pushed my arms away.

"The bread is my flesh!" he said, stalking back. "Whoever eats it will live forever. I'm telling you the truth, that unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you."

I went cold and then instantly hot, heat searing my cheeks, enveloping my head. Next to me, Simon blanched.

No. No. No!

He was raving. He was mad. It was the only reason he could have possibly said something so perverse.

Shock on the faces of those standing closest. Outrage from the stone seats.

Men had gotten to their feet. Even the uneducated peasants were staring.

Across from me, Peter covered his face with his hands.

"Stop," I cried, reaching for my master but he ignored me and began to cry out: "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life! And I will raise them on the last day!"

I closed my eyes. When I opened them, men were already angrily going for the door.

A man did not talk about eating the flesh of another man. He did not speak of drinking blood.

The blood of birth and the blood of circumcision tied a man to the 215

Lord. But blood belonged to God alone. For that reason a woman segregated herself at the time of her bleeding. For that reason, the blood of sacrifices ran from the Temple into the ground. It was not to be shed without purpose or lightly, lest it cry out to God in the direct connection that it had to the divine. These were not our laws, but God's.

Jesus would not just ruin our mission--the vision for an army, for Israel, marching against Rome--he would ruin us. And with such words, he would kill us.

Quickly, Simon said: "Even the prophet Isaiah has said, 'Come all you who are thirsty, and you who have no money--come, buy and eat!' " But it was too late; the people were in uproar. I turned away.

I watched them filter out of the synagogue, my peace, my heightened hopes, going with them.

"Does this offend you?" Jesus said, his voice rising. He followed a group of them as they made for the door. "Then what if you saw the son of man ascend to where he was before? The words I speak are full of life and of the spirit!"

He stood there and watched them go and did nothing to stop them. And we stood there, powerless to stop them, watching them go.

"You. You don't want to leave, too, do you?" he said to us as we stood there, his head lowered as though he had vomited or emptied his bowels onto the floor. The synagogue was nearly empty.

"Where would we go?" Peter said, looking utterly lost.

Indeed, where?

Jesus dropped his head. I thought for a moment he might weep. He looked for all the world like a man utterly alone. But I had nothing with which to comfort him.

"I would not be bought by bread, or by power, or swayed by riches. How can

I let them be, either?"

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Was he even speaking to us?

He covered his face with his hand, the strain of these days and weeks and long nights showing in the droop of his shoulders, in the lines of his forehead even as he slid his fingers against them. A moment later his knees buckled.

James was there to catch him, his arms going around him, this man who had been a hand-laborer, whose strength seemed to have been bleeding out from him these last days.

"Master!" he held him up. My arm went behind his neck in James' arms.

"I chose you twelve," he said, so quietly that I could barely hear him even in the empty space of the synagogue. And then he said something else that I could barely hear.

"What do you say, Teacher?" I said, wearily.

"One of you . . ."

"Yes?"

"Is a devil."

"Why do you say these things?" I demanded.

"Because," he said. "It's true."

"HE'S LOST HIMSELF," PETER said that night. "He hasn't been right since John's death."

Across our small fire, Simon sat, stony and pale in the dark. I did not need to ask his thoughts to know he wondered what he'd done in coming here, in leaving everything to follow this man. I knew these were his thoughts, because they were also my own.

That night I dreamed I was returning from Galilee. But as I went up to Jerusalem, there was no gleaming Temple facade, no

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gold or marble. It was all burned to the ground. As I got closer to the city, I could see what I thought were fence posts along the road. But then as I got closer I saw that they were not fence posts at all, but crosses, their patibulums wide enough only to accommodate the span of a man's arms.