Remember Why You Fear Me (57 page)

“If Jesus is there, he can banish us. But once he’s gone, we’ll just keep coming back.”

“But I
am
Jesus,” said Jesus. “I thought that was the whole problem.”

And he banished the other selves out of his body once more. For a few hours he succeeded in banishing them into the curtains. But as soon as he’d done it, he wasn’t Jesus any more, so he hadn’t the power to keep them out. That’s how he spent the night, banishing them back and forth. By dawn he’d banished them into the carpet, the chest of drawers, and the little cupboard under the stairs. All to no avail.

Self-exorcism really took it out of you. “I’m exhausted,” said Jesus eventually.

“So are we,” admitted all the other Jesuses.

“I don’t know how I can keep doing all this,” he said. “All this remembering. I don’t know how I can keep it all in.”

“So don’t,” was the answer. “Let go. Remember what you need to. Forget the rest.”

And that’s what he did.

“You say you love me. And it’s not that I don’t believe you . . . ”

“I
do
love you.”

“Yes. I said I believed you. Didn’t you just hear me say that?”

“Yes. Sorry.”

“Well then.” Jesus licked his lips. He clearly wasn’t enjoying this interview. He sighed, put a sympathetic hand on his apostle’s shoulder. “It’s not easy to do this. But I just don’t think you’re pulling your weight.”

“You’re going to sack me?” He couldn’t believe his ears.

“The question you should be asking yourself is not so much ‘do I love Jesus’, to which the answer is obviously yes . . . ”

“Yes,” he began, but Jesus held up his hand, shut him up. And continued.

“But more, really, ‘is that love I feel for Jesus doing Jesus any actual good’? All your love, James. Very nice, I’m sure. But do I have a use for it?”

It had taken the man well over four hundred goes before he’d got himself incarnated into somebody who was to live so close beside the original Jesus. But the apostle looked now into his predecessor’s eyes and saw the contempt he had for him, and knew that deep down he felt it too. No, not contempt—that’s too harsh. Pity, maybe. A world weary pity.

He’d felt so delighted to discover he’d been born as one of the twelve apostles. What a nuisance he’d come out as the rubbish one.

“If you get rid of me,” he said, “it’s because of my name, isn’t it? Because you’ve already got a James.”

“No,” said Jesus irritably, “it’s not your name.”

He was James the Less. There was already a James, so they had to call him something different. To avoid confusion, they’d said. You know, so when they called them in for supper, they’d all know which one they were referring to. James the Less had suggested they simply call him Jim or Jimmy or Jimbo or other variants thereof, they would all be fine, he’d said—but somehow James the Less had stuck. They said it was because of his height, but he had his doubts.

And besides, he’d often think, they all ate supper together. So that excuse didn’t make sense anyway.

It wasn’t fair. His own brother Matthew was seen as a more trusted apostle, he got all the responsible jobs. But Matthew was only there in the first place because James had egged him on. “We’ve got to join Jesus,” James had told him, all through their childhood. “You don’t know who he is yet, but he’s going to be this prophet, and he’s going to be
big.
Come on, it’ll be great!” As a teenager Matthew would push his little brother over, laugh at him, yawn. “Just don’t see myself following some sort of preacher man,” he’d tell him. “Now buzz off, pipsqueak.” When James had been to see Jesus, Matthew had only accompanied him ironically. And now look what had happened—they’d
both
been made apostles, and Matthew was the favoured.

“Look,” said Jesus kindly. “If you’re going to have twelve apostles, then someone’s got to come twelfth. Stands to reason. There’s no shame in it. But,” he went on, with that more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger shtick he usually reserved for the Pharisees and the moneylenders, “you shouldn’t be coming twelve quite so
emphatically.
It’s all right. Don’t cry. Look. I’m giving you a last chance. All right? There’s a very special job I need doing.”

“An important special job?” asked James, drying his eyes.

“Very important.”

“You’re not just saying that? It’s not cleaning out the latrine again?”

“No,” said Jesus. “It’s the most important job of all. I did have it earmarked for someone else. . . .”

“No, no!” said James. “I’ll do it!”

“Okay. We can’t talk about it now, it isn’t safe. Meet me in the street tonight when all the other apostles are asleep. This is for your ears only.”

James thanked him, and Jesus said it was a great opportunity and that he hoped James wouldn’t let him down, and James said he wouldn’t, and Jesus nodded a little dubiously, and James thanked him again, and then they went in to eat. The rest of the gang were already seated, and some could hardly conceal their surprise that James was still there. “I thought he was being fired for sure,” muttered Thomas to Bartholomew, and Bartholomew said something rude, and Jesus silenced both of them with a look. They all bowed their heads whilst Jesus said grace, then they attacked the bread like vultures. Typically, James the Less was left with the crust end. But for once he didn’t mind. Jesus didn’t look his way again all evening, he was too busy swapping jokes with the others, but that was okay, he didn’t
need
to look, James knew they had a secret, just the two of them. He gnawed on his bread, absently tried to find some taste in it somewhere. A secret! he thought. What could it be?

He determined he wouldn’t sleep that night. He’d just
pretend
to be asleep, so the others wouldn’t suspect anything. He closed his eyes and thought how this could be the turning point for him. If he pulled off this job, then it went without saying that Jesus would be back for more. And they wouldn’t be
secret
jobs, all the apostles could see what he was up to, they’d have to respect him then. And he’d be all the closer to Jesus, and that was important, because there was something he had to prevent, something only he knew about—and it kept sliding out of his head, he had so many peculiar thoughts in there and he sometimes forgot why, but he was sure it’d all come back to him when it was important. Yes, it’d be like that parable Jesus talked about, the one with the fatted calf being killed for the favoured son, this time the fatted calf would be killed for
him.

And after a while James wasn’t sure whether he was daydreaming about calves or
really
dreaming about calves, and it was only when the calves in question began speaking to him and inviting him to dance that he realized he must have fallen asleep after all and woke up with a start.

He picked his way past the sleeping bodies. Matthew stirred. “Where are you off to, pipsqueak?”

“I don’t know,” said James. “I mean, I need the toilet.”

“You sure do need the toilet,” said Matthew, and he was so drowsy he probably thought it was a pretty good insult, because he chuckled himself back to sleep.

James stepped out into the cold of the night. The stars were out and lit up the street. He looked for Jesus, hoped he hadn’t kept him waiting. When he saw him in the alleyway he almost cried out a hello—and then ducked back into the shadows when he saw he had company.

Jesus talked to Judas for a long while. They seemed to argue, and then Judas fell silent, nodded briefly, and went away.

Jesus was left on his own. Then he gave a shuddering sigh that made his whole body shiver. For a moment James thought Jesus was going to be sick—he bent down, hunched over, his hands clasped tight to his stomach, and gagged. But nothing came out.

James broke his cover. “My lord,” he said. “You’re not well.”

Jesus straightened up. “James the Less. You’re late.”

“I overslept. I’m here for my mission.”

“No,” said Jesus. “You’re late.” And more kindly, “Go back to bed.”

James made his way back past the sleeping apostles, doing his best not to disturb them. He cried, but made sure he did it very, very quietly. And when at last he dreamed, the fatted calves were not for him. They danced with Judas Iscariot, and wouldn’t give him a second glance.

The next day Jesus told his disciples it was high time they all had a treat, and that they should go out to their favourite restaurant. That was fine and good, but no one could agree on what their favourite restaurant actually
was—
but Jesus had the casting vote, and so they were soon all seated around a group table looking at menus. After they’d made a start on the main course, Jesus stood up and told them he had something to say.

James had hardly eaten for nerves. This is it, he thought. This is when he’ll tell them I’m out of the gang. How embarrassing.

“One of you will betray me.” Steady on, thought James, I’m not
that
bad—and then he realized Jesus wasn’t necessarily talking about him. There was consternation around the table, and James couldn’t relax
quite
yet, after all, Jesus could throw in his dismissal as a sort of P.S. But as the recriminations and the desserts started, James felt relieved—he was off the hook. Indeed he got some of his appetite back, and as the others argued he felt able to tuck into the mixed meze.

Late that night Judas brought the soldiers to the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus was identified with a kiss, and the Romans arrested him. There was panic and confusion and all the apostles fled, James among them. He spent the next few hours hiding from passers-by who might turn him in to the militia—and eventually found he was hiding in the same place as Judas.

“You rotten shit,” said James, and even as he said it, he realized it didn’t quite have the moral outrage he’d been hoping for. “And after he gave you my mission too!”

Judas looked at James in honest bemusement. Worked out what he meant. Then told him he was an idiot.

“You want a mission?” said Judas. “Here’s a mission. Fetch me some rope.”

“Where am I going to get rope from at this time of night?” But Judas gave him a bag of silver, and told him he’d find a way.

“We’re closed,” said the owner of the hardware store.

“I need rope,” James called up to his bedroom window.

“Rope can wait until morning.”

“I have money,” James said. “Look.” And the starlight picked out the silver coins.

There was a pause. “I’ll be right down, sir,” said the man.

James found Judas waiting in a field. Like Jesus had been the night before, he was doubled over. But Judas was retching far more successfully.

“Here’s your change,” said James, and handed Judas the bag of silver pieces. Judas tossed it aside impatiently. “Help me with the rope,” he said. “Tie this end to the branch, make a noose with the other.”

“I’m not very good at knots,” said James. “Sorry.”

“You’re an idiot,” said Judas, but smiled a little fondly. “You’ll at least witness this for me. You can do that, can’t you?”

So James watched as Judas killed himself. He watched the whole thing, because a part of him thought it was his fault somehow—if he’d only stayed awake everything would have been different. And in the same way James made himself watch Jesus’ crucifixion. As the crowd jeered, James stood rock solid and silent in the midst of them all, refusing to take his eyes off him. He was the only apostle who had dared to come.

And James fancied that as Jesus died he saw him there. And that at last Jesus realized that he was James the Less, just as James now realized he was Jesus. But then again, James thought, he might well have imagined it. After all, Jesus had been rather busy at the time.

Pontius Pilate was very excited to be meeting Jesus at last. Of course, he had to keep that excitement reined in, that was the point. Cold and detached, that was the way through this. That had been the way through everything. “All right,” he told the guard, “you can bring him in.”

Pilate’s heart leaped when he saw Jesus in front of him, hands manacled behind, bleeding a little. He hadn’t seen him in
so
long, not for centuries and centuries. He kept his face impassive. He dismissed the guard with as much languor as he could muster. Now they were alone together Pilate felt shy and flustered. “Believe it or not,” he babbled, “I’ve been dying to meet you.”

Jesus said nothing to this. Didn’t even raise an eyebrow.

“They want me to kill you.”

“I know,” said Jesus.

“They want me to sentence you to death, I mean. Have you taken away and crucified.”

“I know,” said Jesus.

“I’m not going to let it happen,” said Pilate.

Jesus said nothing. But at least the eyebrow raised.

“The charges against you,” said Pilate, “I’m dismissing them. They’re not true, they’re all lies. Or they
are
true, but I pardon you. Whatever you think is best. But you’re free. You’re free to go.”

Silence.

“All I ask is that you go somewhere else. Somewhere far away. From the threat of the cross, at least. Go somewhere where they’ll execute you in a completely different way, if you want!” And he almost giggled.

“No,” said Jesus.

“What’s that?”

“No.”

“Right,” said Pilate. “Right. I see. Look,” he went on, “I wasn’t going to say this. It’s hard to explain. But you see, I
know.
I know everything that happens. To you. To
us.
Because I am you. Do you see?
I
am
you.
”

Jesus just looked at him.

“I’m not saying you’re
me
or anything,” went on Pilate, “that’d just be crazy. No, this is strictly one way round. Look, I can prove it. Look, I know what you’re thinking right this second. Hang on, I have to work it out, yes, you’re thinking I’m insane. You’re thinking I’m possessed by evil spirits, ha ha, yes. See?”

“If,” said Jesus, “you really
are
me, then you know that the crucifixion
has
to happen. You know that everything I have done on earth. The healing, the miracles, all my ministry, even—all of it’s nothing to this one act of sacrifice and what it represents.”