Lamb (6 page)

Many a morning I was still dripping and shivering from the bath when I met Joshua to go to work.

“Spilled your seed upon the ground again?” he’d ask.

“Yep.”

“You’re unclean, you know?”

“Yeah, I’m getting all wrinkly from purifying myself.”

“You could stop.”

“I tried. I think I’m being vexed by a demon.”

“I could try to heal you.”

“No way, Josh, I’m having enough trouble with laying on of my own hands.”

“You don’t want me to cast out your demon?”

“I thought I’d try to exhaust him first.”

“I could tell the scribes and they would have you stoned.” (Always trying to be helpful, Josh was.)

“That would probably work, but it is written that ‘when the oil of the lamp is used up, the wanker shall light his own way to salvation.’”

“That is not written.”

“It is too. In, uh, Isaiah.”

“Is not.”

“You need to study your Prophets, Josh. How are you going to be the Messiah if you don’t know your Prophets?”

Joshua hung his head. “You are right, of course.”

I clapped him on the shoulder. “You’ll have time to learn the Prophets. Let’s cut through the square and see if there are any girls gathering water.”

Of course it was Maggie I was looking for. It was always Maggie.

By the time we got back to Sepphoris the sun was well up, but the stream of merchants and farmers that normally poured through the Venus Gate was not there. Roman soldiers were stopping and searching everyone who was trying to leave the city, sending them back the way they came. A group of men and women were waiting outside the gate to go in, my father and some of his helpers among them.

“Levi!” my father called. He ran to us and herded us to the side of the road.

“What’s going on?” I asked, trying to look innocent.

“A Roman soldier was murdered last night. There will be no work today, now you both go home and stay there. Tell your mothers to keep
the children in today. If the Romans don’t find the killer there’ll be soldiers in Nazareth before noon.”

“Where is Joseph?” Joshua asked.

My father put his arm around Joshua’s shoulder. “He’s been arrested. He must have come to work very early. They found him at first light, near the body of the dead soldier. I only know what has been shouted from inside the gate, the Romans aren’t letting anyone in or out of the city. Joshua, tell your mother not to worry. Joseph is a good man, the Lord will protect him. Besides, if the Romans thought he was the killer he would have been tried already.”

Joshua backed away from my father in stiff, stumbling steps. He stared straight ahead, but obviously saw nothing.

“Take him home, Biff. I’ll be along as soon as I can. I’m going to try to find out what they’ve done with Joseph.”

I nodded and led Joshua away by the shoulders.

When we were a few steps down the road, he said, “Joseph came looking for me. He was working on the other side of the city. The only reason he was near the Greek’s house is that he was looking for me.”

“We’ll tell the centurion we saw who killed the soldier. He’ll believe us.”

“And if he believes us, believes it was Sicarii, what will happen to Maggie and her family?”

I didn’t know what to say. Joshua was right and my father was wrong, Joseph was not fine. The Romans would be questioning him right now, maybe torturing him to find out who his accomplices were. That he didn’t know anything would not save him. And a testimony from his son not only wouldn’t save him, but would send more people to the cross to join him. Jewish blood was going to be spilled one way or the other over this.

Joshua shook off my hands and ran off the road into an olive grove. I started to follow, but he suddenly spun on me and the fury of his gaze stopped me in midstride.

“Wait,” he said. “I need to talk to my father.”

I waited by the road for nearly an hour. When Joshua walked out of the olive grove he looked as if a shadow had fallen permanently on his face.

“I am lost,” he said.

I pointed over my shoulder. “Nazareth that way, Sepphoris the other way. You’re in the middle. Feel better?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No help from your father, then?” I always felt strange asking about Joshua’s prayers. You had to see him pray, especially in those days, before we had traveled. There was a lot of strain and trembling, like someone trying to force a fever to break by sheer will. There was no peace in it.

“I am alone,” Joshua said.

I punched him in the arm, hard. “Then you didn’t feel that.”

“Ouch. What’d you do that for?”

“Sorry, no one around to answer you. You’re soooooooo alone.”

“I am alone!”

I wound up for a full-body-powered roundhouse punch. “Then you won’t mind if I smite the bejeezus out of you.”

He threw up his hands and jumped back. “No, don’t.”

“So you’re not alone?”

“I guess not.”

“Good, then wait here. I’m going to go talk to your father myself.” I tramped off into the olive grove.

“You don’t have to go in there to talk to him. He is everywhere.”

“Yeah, right, like you know. If he’s everywhere then how are you alone?”

“Good point.”

I left Joshua standing by the road and went off to pray.

And thus did I pray:

“Heavenly Father, God of my father and my father’s father, God of Abraham and Isaac, God of Moses, who did lead our people out of Egypt, God of David and Solomon—well, you know who you are. Heavenly Father, far be it from me to question your judgment, being as you are all powerful and the God of Moses and all of the above, but what exactly are you trying to do to this poor kid? I mean, he’s your son, right? He’s the Messiah, right? Are you pulling one of those Abraham faith-test things on him? In case you didn’t notice, he’s in quite a pickle here, having witnessed a murder and his stepfather under arrest by the Romans, and in all likelihood, a lot of our people, who you have mentioned on
more than one occasion are your favorites and the chosen (and of which I am one, by the way) are going to be tortured and killed unless we—I mean he—does something. So, what I’m saying here is, could you, much as you did with Samson when he was backed into a corner weaponless against the Philistines, throw the kid a bone here?

“With all due respect. Your friend, Biff. Amen.”

I was never very good at prayer. Storytelling, I’m fine with. I, in fact, am the originator of a universal story that I know has survived to this time because I have heard it on TV.

It begins: “Two Jews go into a bar…”

Those two Jews? Me and Josh. No kidding.

Anyway, I’m not good at prayer, but before you think I was a little rough on God, there’s another thing you need to know about my people. Our relationship with God was different from other people and their Gods. Sure there was fear and sacrifice and all, but essentially, we didn’t go to him,
he
came to
us
.
He
told
us
we were the chosen,
he
told
us
he would help us to multiply to the ends of the earth,
he
told
us
he would give us a land of milk and honey. We didn’t go to him. We didn’t ask. And since he came to us, we figure we can hold him responsible for what he does and what happens to us. For it is written that “he who can walk away, controls the deal.” And if there’s anything you learn from reading the Bible, it’s that my people walked away a lot. You couldn’t turn around that we weren’t off in Babylon worshiping false gods, building false altars, or sleeping with unsuitable women. (Although the latter may be more of a guy thing than a Jewish thing.) And God pretty much didn’t mind throwing us into slavery or simply massacring us when we did that. We have that kind of relationship with God. We’re family.

So I’m not a prayer-master, so to speak, but that particular prayer couldn’t have been that bad, because God answered. Well, he left me a message, anyway.

As I emerged from the olive grove, Joshua held out his hand and said, “God left a message.”

“It’s a lizard,” I said. It was. Joshua was holding a small lizard in his outstretched hand.

“Yes, that’s the message, don’t you see?”

How was I to know what was going on? Joshua had never lied to me, never. So if he said that this lizard was a message from God, who was I to dispute him? I fell to my knees and bowed my head under Josh’s outstretched hand. “Lord have mercy on me, I was expecting a burning bush or something. Sorry. Really.” Then to Josh, I said, “I’m not so sure you should take that seriously, Josh. Reptiles don’t tend to have a great record for getting the message right. Like for instance, oh, let’s see, that Adam and Eve thing.”

“It’s not that kind of message, Biff. My father hasn’t spoken in words, but this message is as clear as if his voice had come down from the heavens.”

“I knew that.” I stood up. “And the message is?”

“In my mind. When you had been gone only a few minutes this lizard ran up my leg and perched on my hand. I realized that it was my father giving me the solution to our problem.”

“And the message is?”

“You remember when we were little, the game we used to play with the lizards?”

“Sure I do. But the message is?”

“You remember how I was able to bring them back to life.”

“A great trick, Josh. But getting back to the message…”

“Don’t you see? If the soldier isn’t dead, then there was no murder. If there was no murder, then there is no reason for the Romans to harm Joseph. So all we have to do is see that the soldier is not dead. Simple.”

“Of course, simple.” I studied the lizard for a minute, looking at it from a number of different angles. It was brownish green and seemed quite content to sit there on Joshua’s palm. “Ask him what we’re supposed to do now.”

When we got back to Nazareth we expected to find Joshua’s mother hysterical with worry, but on the contrary, she had gathered Joshua’s brothers and sisters outside of their house, lined them up, and was washing their faces and hands as if preparing them for the Sabbath meal.

“Joshua, help me get the little ones ready, we are all going to Sepphoris.”

Joshua was shocked. “We are?”

“The whole village is going to ask the Romans to release Joseph.”

James was the only one of the children who seemed to understand what had happened to their father. There were tear tracks on his cheeks. I put my arm around his shoulders. “He’ll be fine,” I said, trying to sound cheerful. “Your father is strong, they’ll have to torture him for days before he gives up the ghost.” I smiled encouragingly.

James broke out of my embrace and ran into the house crying. Mary turned and glared at me. “Shouldn’t you be with your family, Biff?”

Oh my breaking heart, my bruised ego. Even though Mary had taken position as my emergency backup wife, I was crestfallen at her disapproval. And to my credit, not once during that time of trouble did I wish harm to come to Joseph. Not once. After all, I was still too young to take a wife, and some creepy elder would swoop Mary up before I had a chance to rescue her if Joseph died before I was fourteen.

“Why don’t you go get Maggie,” Joshua suggested, taking
only a second from his mission of scrubbing the skin off his brother Judah’s face. “Her family will want to go with us.”

“Sure,” I said, and I scampered off to the blacksmith’s shop in search of approval from my primary wife-to-be.

When I arrived, Maggie was sitting outside of her father’s shop with her brothers and sisters. She looked as frightened as she had when we first witnessed the murder. I wanted to throw my arms around her to comfort her.

“We have a plan,” I said. “I mean, Joshua has a plan. Are you going to Sepphoris with everyone else?”

“The whole family,” she said. “My father has made nails for Joseph, they’re friends.” She tossed her head, pointing toward the open shed that housed her father’s forge. Two men were working over the forge. “Go ahead, Biff. You and Joshua go on ahead. We’ll be along later.” She started waving me away and mouthing words silently to me, which I didn’t pick up.

“What are you saying? What? What?”

“And who is your friend, Maggie?” A man’s voice, coming from near the forge. I looked over and suddenly realized what Maggie had been trying to tell me.

“Uncle Jeremiah, this is Levi bar Alphaeus. We call him Biff. He has to go now.”

I started backing away from the killer. “Yes, I have to go.” I looked at Maggie, not knowing what to do. “I’ll—we—I have to—”

“We’ll see you in Sepphoris,” Maggie said.

“Right,” I said, then I turned and dashed away, feeling more like a coward than I ever have in my life.

When we got back to Sepphoris there was a large gathering of Jews, perhaps two hundred, outside of the city walls, most I recognized as being from Nazareth. No mob mentality here, more a fearful gathering. More than half of those gathered were women and children. In the middle of the crowd, a contingent of a dozen Roman soldiers pushed back the onlookers while two slaves dug a grave. Like my own people, the Romans did not dally with their dead. Unless there was a battle ongoing, Roman soldiers were often put in the ground before the corpse was cool.

Joshua and I spotted Maggie standing between her father and her murderous uncle at the edge of the crowd. Joshua took off toward her. I followed, but before I got close, Joshua had taken Maggie’s hand and dragged her into the midst of the crowd. I could see Jeremiah trying to follow them. I dove into the mass and crawled under people’s feet until I came upon a pair of hobnail boots which indicated the lower end of a Roman soldier. The other end, equally Roman, was scowling at me. I stood up.

“Semper fido,”
I said in my best Latin, followed by my most charming smile.

The soldier scowled further. Suddenly there was a smell of flowers in my nose and sweet, warm lips brushed my ear. “I think you just said ‘always dog,’” Maggie whispered.

“That would be why he’s looking so unpleasant then?” I said out the side of my charming smile.

In my other ear another familiar, if not so sweet whisper, “Sing, Biff. Remember the plan,” Joshua said.

“Right.” And so I let loose with one of my famous dirges. “
La-la-la. Hey Roman guy, too bad about your getting stabbed. La-la-la. It’s probably not a message from God or nothing. La-la-la. Telling you that maybe you should have gone home, la, la, la. Instead of oppressing the chosen people who God hisownself has said that he likes better than you. Fa, la, la, la.
”

The soldier didn’t speak Aramaic, so the lyrics didn’t move him as I had hoped. But I think the hypnotic toe-tappiness of the melody was starting to get him. I plunged into my second verse.

“La-la-la, didn’t we tell you that you shouldn’t eat pork, la-la. Although looking at wounds in your chest, a dietary change might not have made that big a difference. Boom shaka-laka-laka-laka, boom shaka-laka-lak.
Come on, you know the words!”

“Enough!”

The soldier was yanked aside and Gaius Justus Gallicus stood before us, flanked by two of his officers. Behind him, stretched out on the ground, was the body of the dead soldier.

“Well done, Biff,” Joshua whispered.

“We’re offering our services as professional mourners,” I said with a grin, which the centurion was eager not to return.

“That soldier doesn’t need mourners, he has avengers.”

A voice from the crowd. “See here, Centurion, release Joseph of Nazareth. He is no murderer.”

Justus turned and the crowd parted, leaving a path between him and the man who had spoken up. It was Iban the Pharisee, standing with several other Pharisees from Nazareth.

“Would you take his place?” Justus asked.

The Pharisee backed away, his resolve melting quickly under the threat.

“Well?” Justus stepped forward and the crowd parted around him. “You speak for your people, Pharisee. Tell them to give me a killer. Or would you rather I crucify Jews until I get the right one?”

Iban was flustered now, and began jabbering a mishmash of verses from the Torah. I looked around and saw Maggie’s uncle Jeremiah standing only a few paces behind me. When I caught his eye he slipped his hand under his shirt—to the haft of a knife, I had no doubt.

“Joseph didn’t kill that soldier!” Joshua shouted.

Justus turned to him and the Pharisees took the opportunity to scramble to the back of the crowd. “I know that,” Justus said.

“You do?”

“Of course, boy. No carpenter killed that soldier.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

Justus motioned to one of his legionnaires and the soldier came forward carrying a small basket. The centurion nodded and the soldier upended the basket. The stone effigy of Apollo’s severed penis thudded to the ground in front of us.

“Uh-oh,” I said.

“Because it was a stonecutter,” Justus said.

“My, that
is
impressive,” Maggie said.

I noticed that Joshua was edging toward the body of the soldier. I needed to distract Justus. “Aha,” I said, “someone beat the soldier to death with a stone willie. Obviously the work of a Greek or a Samaritan—no Jew would touch such a thing.”

“They wouldn’t?” Maggie asked.

“Jeez, Maggie.”

“I think you have something to tell me, boy,” Justus said.

Joshua had laid hands on the dead soldier.

I could feel everyone’s eyes on me. I wondered where Jeremiah was now. Was he behind me, ready to silence me with a knife, or had he made his escape? Either way, I couldn’t say a word. The Sicarii did not work alone. If I gave up Jeremiah I’d be dead by a Sicarii dagger before the Sabbath.

“He can’t tell you, Centurion, even if he knew,” said Joshua, who had moved back to Maggie’s side. “For it is written in our holy books that no Jew shall rat out another Jew, regardless of what a weasel one or the other shall be.”

“Is that written?” Maggie whispered.

“Is now,” Joshua whispered back.

“Did you just call me a weasel?” I asked.

“Behold!” A woman at the front of the crowd was pointing to the dead soldier. Another screamed. The corpse was moving.

Justus turned toward the commotion and I took the opportunity to look around for Jeremiah. He was still there behind me, only a few people back, but he was staring gape-jawed at the dead soldier, who was currently standing up and dusting off his tunic.

Joshua was concentrating intently on the soldier, but there was none of the sweating or trembling that we had seen at the funeral in Japhia.

To his credit, Justus, although he seemed frightened at first, stood his ground as the corpse ambled stiff-legged toward him. The other soldiers were backing away, along with all of the Jews except Maggie, Joshua, and me.

“I need to report an attack, sir,” the once-dead soldier said, performing a very jerky Roman salute.

“You’re—you’re dead,” Justus said.

“Am not.”

“You have knife wounds all over your chest.”

The soldier looked down, touched the wounds gingerly, then looked back to his commander. “Seems I have been nicked, sir.”

“Nicked? Nicked? You’ve been stabbed half a dozen times. You’re dead as dirt.”

“I don’t think so, sir. Look, I’m not even bleeding.”

“That’s because you’ve bled out, son. You’re dead.”

The soldier began to stagger now, started to fall, and caught himself.
“I am feeling a little woozy. I was attacked last night sir, near where they are building that Greek’s house. There, he was there.” He pointed to me.

“And him too.” He pointed to Joshua.

“And the little girl.”

“These boys attacked you?”

I could hear scuffling behind me.

“No, not them, that man over there.” The soldier pointed to Jeremiah, who looked around like a trapped animal. Everyone was so intent on watching the miracle of the talking corpse that they had frozen in place. The killer couldn’t push his way through the crowd to get away.

“Arrest him!” Justus commanded, but his soldiers were equally stunned by the resurrection of their cohort.

“Now that I think of it,” the dead soldier said, “I do remember being stabbed.”

No outlet from the crowd, Jeremiah turned toward his accuser and drew a blade from under his shirt. This seemed to snap the other soldiers out of their trance, and they began advancing on the killer from different angles, swords drawn.

At the sight of the blade, everyone had moved away from the killer, leaving him isolated with no path open but toward us.

“No master but God!” he shouted, then three quick steps and he leapt toward us, his knife raised. I dove on top of Maggie and Joshua, hoping to shield them, but even as I waited for the sharp pain between my shoulder blades, I heard the killer scream, then a grunt, then a protracted moan that ran out of air with a pathetic squeal.

I rolled over to see Gaius Justus Gallicus with his short sword sunk to the hilt in the solar plexus of Jeremiah. The killer had dropped his knife and was standing there looking at the Roman’s sword hand, looking somewhat offended by it. He sank to his knees. Justus yanked his sword free, then wiped the blade on Jeremiah’s shirt before stepping back and letting the killer fall forward.

“That was him,” the dead soldier said. “Bastard kilt me.” He fell forward next to his killer and lay still.

“Much better than last time, Josh,” I said.

“Yes, much better,” Maggie said. “Walking and talking. You had him going.”

“I felt good, confident, but it was a team effort,” Joshua said. “I couldn’t have done it without everyone giving it their all, including God.”

I felt something sharp against my cheek. With the tip of his sword, Justus guided my gaze to Apollo’s stone penis, which lay in the dirt next to the two corpses. “And do you want to explain how that happened?”

“The pox?” I ventured.

“The pox can do that,” Maggie said. “Can rot it right off.”

“How do you know that?” Joshua asked her.

“Just guessing. I’m sure glad that’s all over.”

Justus let his sword fall to his side with a sigh. “Go home. All of you. By order of Gaius Justus Gallicus, under-commander of the Sixth Legion, commander of the Third and Fourth Centuries, under authority of Emperor Tiberius and the Roman Empire, you are all commanded to go home and perpetrate no weird shit until I have gotten well drunk and had several days to sleep it off.”

“So you’re going to release Joseph?” Maggie asked.

“He’s at the barracks. Go get him and take him home.”

“Amen,” said Joshua.

“Semper fido,”
I added in Latin.

Joshua’s little brother Judah, who was seven by then, ran around the Roman barracks screaming “Let my people go! Let my people go!” until he was hoarse. (Judah had decided early on that he was going to be Moses when he grew up, only this time Moses would get to enter the promised land—on a pony.) As it turned out, Joseph had been waiting for us at the Venus Gate. He looked a little confused, but otherwise unharmed.

“They say that a dead man spoke,” Joseph said.

Mary was ecstatic. “Yes, and walked. He pointed out his murderer, then he died again.”

“Sorry,” Joshua said, “I tried to make him live on, but he only lasted a minute.”

Joseph frowned. “Did everyone see what you did, Joshua?”

“They didn’t know it was my doing, but they saw it.”

“I distracted everyone with one of my excellent dirges,” I said.

“You can’t risk yourself like that,” Joseph said to Joshua. “It’s not the time yet.”

“If not to save my father, when?”

“I’m not your father.” Joseph smiled.

“Yes you are.” Joshua hung his head.

“But I’m not the boss of you.” Joseph’s smile widened to a grin.

“No, I guess not,” Joshua said.

“You needn’t have worried, Joseph,” I said. “If the Romans had killed you I would have taken good care of Mary and the children.”