The Gospel of the Twin (22 page)

“We all live for the empire of the Lord,” said Jesus. “We cannot put it before our lives, though, for it is not distinct from our lives. The empire is already spread amongst us. We are not bringing it about. We are making it visible.”

Judas did not respond immediately. Poetry and metaphor had no place in his vision, and I was sure that God did not either. Judas was moving at a pace different from ours, occupying a mode of being not of spirit but of earth, and for all of Jesus' talk of us as the body of God, Judas was fully in the flesh, inhabiting a realm in which the only currency was blood.

“Too many of our own people wish to keep it hidden,” said Judas. “They want to keep hidden from us anything that means freedom and independence. They are happy to whore themselves to the Romans as long as they can keep their purses full.”

Peter ground his jaw. “Why are you back, then, if you were doing such important work as an agitator? Are you a fugitive once more, hiding behind us like a goat in a flock of sheep?”

In earlier times, such a comment would have infuriated Judas, regardless of the odd comparison, and we would have had to hold him back to keep him from striking Peter and probably getting his neck broken in the ensuing fight. Instead, Judas seemed oblivious to the taunt and did not even turn Peter's way.

“I have reasons for returning,” Judas said. “Among them, an associate named Barabbas left for a brief visit to Jerusalem. He should have returned over a week ago. A source said that he had been arrested. We were on our way to try to find him when we ran into you.”

I had no reason to doubt that Judas and his band were on a mission to pay ransom for the release and return of this Barabbas, but his claim that they had happened upon us just did not sound right to me. Maybe Peter's instincts were correct.

All this time, Mary sat wordless beside Judas and looked into his face like an admiring child. He stroked her chin. “And I have this reason as well.”

Judas put his arm around Mary, she pressed her forehead to the side of his neck, and I ached to touch Leah in the same way.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Verse One

In some dreary Judean village, a group assembled in the street as if the people there expected us. Judas and his Zealot associates were with us, and I wondered if they had connections in all these towns. Perhaps Judas had sent a message that we were coming. Would we encounter more of those connections as we moved through Judea?

A villager tossed a coin at Jesus' feet.

“What shall I do with this, Master? The Romans demand it from me. The Temple demands it from me.” Like us, the man was a peasant and could not afford to part with the coin. “Whom do you pay?”

Jesus picked up the coin, pressed it so hard that his fist shook, and reopened his hand as we stared. I wondered if some of the villagers expected to see the coin pulverized into a clump of silver dust.

“Whose face is this?” Jesus asked.

The man's nostrils flared. “You mock us. You know perfectly well that that is the emperor.”

The man was right. Of course Jesus knew. It was a common Roman coin, with Tiberius' face on the front and “Pontif Maxim,” a shortened version of their term for “high priest,” on the back.

“Then this must be his,” Jesus said.

Matthew laughed. He undoubtedly found this funny because of his previous job as a tax collector. He noticed that all eyes turned to him, and he pretended to cough.

“Then what shall I give the Temple?” the man asked.

Jesus laid the coin in the man's palm and folded the man's fingers around it. “Give the Temple whatever you like, which may be nothing, but give to God what is God's. And that is your life.”

“But that leaves nothing for you,” the man said. “If I take you as my master, what do I owe you?”

Jesus released the man's hand. “Yes, give to me what is mine, and you have already done so.”

When Jesus walked away, we followed. I had no idea what he had meant, but when I turned for a last look at the man, he was embracing a woman and small boy, their faces pressed together. He may have been crying.

Later, as Jesus walked a few rods ahead, Peter said, “I can't agree with the Master on what to give the emperor. The emperor has taken too much from me as it is.”

“No,” Judas said, “we should indeed give the emperor what is his, but it's not money. It's the sword.”

“Aye!” cheered Peter and Judas' fellow Zealots.

Mary was oblivious and blissful, humming softly under Judas' arm—an arm that may well have spent these past months guiding daggers between other people's ribs.

Verse Two

Proof that word of Jesus' reputation had spread and taken a shape of its own came in Bethany. There we were welcomed by the town's poorest and wealthiest alike. They invited us to sit on blankets spread under the pink blossoms of almond trees and offered us delicious roasted eggs and honey cakes and fig wine. The locals approached with reverence and timidity, some attempting a furtive and momentary stroke of Jesus' cloak, a few shamelessly thrusting infants toward him and begging for a blessing. He graciously obliged them all and Mary even took a baby into her own arms and carried it through town.

A man named Lazarus invited some of us to his home. He enjoyed comfort in a sizable house into which three Nazarene huts could have fit. The walls were painted. One held a mosaic of a man's face, perhaps Lazarus', made of many-sided tiles that were probably polished daily. His sisters, Mary and Martha, joined us in a large room, where we reclined on woolen rugs of a quality I would not see again until my travels east, where fine-haired goats are so prized for their wool that wars are fought over them.

Three or four servants brought pans of water and Egyptian cloths of cotton to wash our feet. Lazarus insisted that Jesus take the large chair and instructed his sister Mary to fetch a particular vase decorated with jewels or colored stones that sat in a part of the room with three tables covered with vases and vials. He told us of his occupation as an oil and perfume merchant, although illness had prevented his travels for many months.

As a servant washed Jesus' feet, Lazarus' sister Mary poured perfume from the colorful vase onto Jesus' head and rubbed it through his hair. She massaged his scalp as if trying to get the oil to seep into his skin. Jesus' head dropped back, and his eyes rolled up like sheep's do when you scratch between their ears.

“What do you think that perfume costs?” Judas asked me, loudly enough that Jesus must have heard. “We could feed many poor families or those weary travelers outside for weeks for the price of that stuff. Can any of you guess how many prisoners we could ransom with that?”

“Be quiet,” Mary said. “You've been away a long time, but you remember how we lived, and still do, on others' scraps. Jesus never took more than anyone else—never looked for special attention. You could allow him one indulgence.”

It was indeed an indulgence, or indulgences: the perfumed oil plus the woman anointing him. Judas was right that it looked like money being wasted, yet my only thought was how much I wished a woman would massage me like that. Maybe Lazarus would give me a bottle of his oil as a gift, and I could take it home and rub it into Leah's hair.

Lazarus' sister Martha came in and out of the room directing the servants and helping them carry bowls of bread and dates and wine. The bowls were black and red, with images of dancers and warriors in the Greek style.

“Judas is right about this,” whispered Peter. He downed a huge quaff of wine. “We are practically in Jerusalem. Could be there in—what?—a few hours? We could even reach it today. This is no time for luxuries.”

As in earlier days, Judas and Peter could set aside their personal animosity when they agreed on a principle. They looked at each other and exchanged instantaneous and nearly imperceptible nods. Then Peter shifted his gaze to Mary as if to make sure she understood that she had been overruled.

The other Mary wiped excess oil from Jesus' hair onto her gown and took a seat on the floor in front of him. This seemed to serve as a signal that he should speak, so he thanked Lazarus and the women and told a story about a young man who spent all of his time helping the poor.

As he spoke, the Mary who had perfumed his hair bent down and rubbed her hair upon his feet. She may have been trying to transfer some perfume from her hair onto him, or perhaps she saw some remaining water and was drying his feet. She had not uttered a word the entire time we were there, and I began to think that she might have been simple-minded.

Jesus ended the story with the young man being told by his father that the poor will always be here, but that he, the father, would soon be gone. The story of a lonely old man seemed irrelevant to our work. After I thought about it, I wondered if it had been a response to Judas' complaint about the expensive perfume. Why, though, did the old man say that he'd
soon
be gone?

Given the perspective of decades, I can look back and try to attribute meanings to Jesus' comments that appear to foretell later events. I have agonized countless hours, wondering if Jesus had tried to give me clues, but I could not read them because he overestimated how much we thought alike. If he genuinely foresaw the events of the next week, would he really have tried to convey that vision as a secret hidden in a parable? But he always spoke in parables.

His very life was but a parable writ large.

Verse Three

We tarried in Bethany for three days. Jesus preached a few times, Pharisees showed up, and he handled them deftly, having learned over the past few weeks how to parry their questions effortlessly. He was also fond of Lazarus and his sisters, more so than I understood at first. He spent hours with them, joking with the women and listening to Lazarus' stories of his travels as a merchant. When I asked Jesus why we had not left yet for Jerusalem and, moreover, why hadn't he instructed us on exactly what he planned to do there, he laughed and kissed my cheek.

“Thomas,” he said, “you do not even know yourself how much you have done for me, and yet you will do much more.”

Another prophetic riddle?
I took his remark as dismissive and stepped out of Lazarus' house, where Judas stopped me. He had spent the past three days growing increasingly distraught. He was eager to get to Jerusalem, but he did not want to leave us, and thereby leave Mary.

“What's going on with him, Thomas? What's he waiting for? I
have
to get to Jerusalem.” His Zealot friends leaned against the house a few cubits away.

“He's still as mysterious as you remember, and maybe more so,” I said. “I don't know what's happening. Why don't you take Mary and go?”

His jaw tensed and his nostrils flared. I think he believed I had presented him with a dare. “I can't tend to her there. I have things to do. She could be . . . She'd be in the way.”

“She can take care of herself, Judas. But despite her strength, she has one great weakness. If you leave her again, I don't think she could bear it. Have you any idea how she longed for you, not even knowing if you were alive? Each time we came to a village, she asked the locals if anyone knew anything about you. She was desperate for news. I'm surprised she didn't run off alone to Tiberias to see if you'd been arrested. Jesus spent much time with her, comforting her, telling her that the Lord would bring you back safely.”

I didn't know if Jesus actually said that to her, but it seemed like the right thing to tell Judas. It had an effect on him, for he cleared his throat and spat on the ground. “I do know that, Thomas, and that's the problem. She'd do anything for me, except seek her own safety if trouble came for me.” He looked pitiful and probably wanted me to certify what he believed he needed to do.

“Then just go,” I said. “We'll be along soon. I'm sure you'll have found your friend by the time we meet up with you. I'll think of something to tell Mary.”

He squatted and cupped his temples. I nearly said that I knew what he was going through—what it was like to be pulled in incompatible directions.

“Let's go, Judas,” said Peter, who suddenly was beside us. How could such bulk appear unnoticed? “ I'll go with you. We'll leave now before your woman knows anything.”

Judas sprang to his feet. “Yes.”

I was astonished. How had this alliance come about? They walked away, talking with heads bowed, and I knew what I had to do.

Verse Four

“Have you seen him, Thomas?” Mary was frantic. She dug her fingernails into my forearms as if she feared someone would try to pull me from her. “He wandered off early this morning, and no one has seen him since! What if they came and got him?” Judas had been gone only three or four hours, but Mary knew that if he was still in town, she should have been able to find him in that time.

“Don't worry, Mary, he—”

“We don't know anything about those men he's been with, Thomas! What if he was running from them? I don't think I can go through that uncertainty again. I can't!” She collapsed to her knees, still clasping my arms, and bent her head against my leg.

I knelt and embraced her. She made a sudden gasp as if emerging from too long a time underwater. She threw her head back and wept in heaves, and I had to hold her to keep her limp body from tumbling over.

“Mary, listen to me.” Others gathered around, as helpless as I was. “Mary. Mary, I know where he is.”

Her wails simmered to sobs. She brought her head forward and gave me what looked like an angry gaze, as if she thought I had purposely withheld this information from her. “No one came for him. He could wait no longer and went to Jerusalem. He said he couldn't watch after you there.”

“Watch after me? He went to look for this Barabbas, right? Is that so dangerous that I couldn't help him search?”

“I don't know, but I don't think he meant that you, or he, would be in danger—just that he would be distracted and could not care for you as he'd like with all the Passover travelers and all the extra Roman soldiers. It'd be different if we were all there together.”

Beyond Mary's shoulder, I saw Leah's mother a few cubits away. She appeared to watch two small boys stacking twigs, but her head was cocked toward us, and I wondered if she was trying to hear my and Mary's conversation. I was afraid she'd join us and say something like: “A man always returns to the woman he loves.”

Mary stopped crying and regained her focus. She took a deep breath and let it pass slowly from her nose. “Why couldn't he wait another day? Jesus said we'd leave tomorrow.”

“Jesus has said that for the past two days, Mary. I don't understand the delay, but Jesus seems at peace with himself and no one else is complaining. Lazarus has kept the entire group well-fed.”

Mary clucked her tongue, perhaps signaling her impatience that I had changed the subject. “My Judas is a fearless man, which I worry will be his undoing,” she said. “Did he go with those friends of his?”

“Yes. And Peter is with him.”

Years later, in India, I lived with a landowner named Ramanka for several months. He grew large fields of bushes sprouting thumb-sized red fruits that burned like hot coals when bitten. Indians mixed them into all their food, and I soon grew fond of them. When I left Ramanka, he gave me a sack of them, dried, and on my journey home, some Median travelers recognized them and bought them for more money than I had ever held.

Ramanka and his entire extended family lived in a compound of houses, along with many servants and field laborers. His generosity toward his workers was astonishing. I saw the funeral he provided a man who, having served the family much of his life, had been gored to death by an ox. Ramanka had fragrant wood imported from a nearby principality. The timbers were piled in a hatched formation above my height (an Indian equaling my stature was considered tall), and the smoke was so aromatic that birds of many varieties appeared and swooped around and over the fire as if their performances were part of the ceremony. Ramanka closed down the farm for three days while he mourned.