Chapter Six
THE NEW WORLD
The journey through the mountains The soldier’s name was Sebastian and his friends, the ones who reminded him he could not stay, were Gracian and Marcellus. None of them was actually Roman, and all stayed at the garrison nearby. Now, whenever they arrived, the people eventually knew they were there to defend them and there, also, because Sebastian desired to be close to the Baptist. Sebastian was hungry for the words of the prophets and the visions John had and John said to him, “You could be a Jew. It is done. All of us came from someplace. Father Jacob had four wives and his sons married among the nations. But, somehow, I do not think being a Jew would be to your liking.”
Sebastian was eagle faced and blond. His blood was from far to the north, though he had been brought up in the Phoenician cities.
“There are parts of myself I like too much,” the soldier laughed, gesturing to his groin. “And anyway, I have a feeling—begging your pardon—that this thing Yochanon talks of is beyond Jews or Romans.”
“How’s that?” John said, not because he did not believe it, but because he thought the soldier had caught onto something.
“You say Jews are made of many different people. All the things you do, to separate yourselves from the world is to forget you are, in fact, from the world.”
“There are some who would not like to hear you say that.”
“But it is true of the Romans as well,” Sebastian said. “Not a single one of us here has ever seen Rome. But we are Rome. My father was a Greek slave and one of my grandmothers was a German barbarian. I suppose my other ancestors were Phoenicians, might even have been Jews. But here I am, a soldier of Imperial Rome.”
“My Grandfather was a Greek,” said John. “And if he was a Greek Jew or a Greek who became a Jew I cannot say, though most think it was the later. I see what you say.
“It is not,” Sebastian said, while they sat by the river, the curious pictures of a young man in grayish tunic and another in Roman dress, “that what was does not matter, that the tree does not have roots. But really, the tree is more than the roots. Is it not. It must go beyond.”
“Sir, you should have been a philosopher,” John said.
Sebastian laughed and touched John’s cheek, smling down at him.
John was disconcerted, literally felt as if he were tipping from the earth. He touched the copper bracelet and rose.
“I should tend to Yochanon,” he said.
But since that desperate day when the soldiers had arrived, when Sebastian took off his clothes and wept before Yochanon, the prophet’s message had changed a little. Always he pointed out what he was not, and what was to come, though he could barely see it.
The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if Yochanon might possibly be the Messiah. Yochanon answered them all, “I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”
And with many other words Yochanon exhorted the people and proclaimed the good news to them.
In the night, John woke to relieve himself. Even here, in this new place, there were caves, and he saw the back of Sebastian, guarding them. As he returned, for just a moment he saw, or fancied he saw a lion, large as a bear, with a great mane ,and it gazed steadily at him, and then it was gone. It had stood between him and the cave entrance, and now John left the cave, going toward Sebastian whom, with a guard’s training, turned to see him.
“Hail, Jonni.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” John said, sitting down beside him.
“Then sit by me,” Sebastian said.
After a while, John said, “I thought I saw a lion. It was there, I could have sworn… But my imagination is vivid.”
“There are lions in this country,” Sebastian said, “but I heard none. Yes, come sit by me.”
He clapped John’s knee and laughed.
“Let ole Sebastian protect you from imaginanary lions. It’s what I’m good for.”
In the night, Sebastian stripped his clothes and went into the river, looking like one of the marble statues in Sidon or Sepphoris for that matter, compact and muscled, gentle. He washed himself, and John stripped and went in with him. They laughed and splashed in the night, and John had felt so solemn for so long but now he felt like a child, like he had with Jesus, and he came out of the water and lay on the grass, elbows behind his head, and now Sebastian came out of the water and John sat up to behold him.
“Jonni,” Sebastian said, and when he stood before him, his penis was erect, and John took him in his mouth. Silently they were like that, and Sebastian buried his hands in John’s hair. Time stretched to keep them in this carnal mediation, John’s head snaking contently on Sebastian who thrust into his mouth so gently.
Neither of them said anything. John simply went to his hands and knees, and then he closed his eyes as Sebastian entered him. He fit just right and soon they were moving rapidly together, quietly each meeting the need in the other. John spread himself on the ground like a carpet or like a sacrifice and Sebastian, the gentle soldier, gave himself up to the pounding he had not done for such a long time. When they climaxed it was almost in silence, and Sebastian was sprawled across him. He removed himself gently and John went to the water, his anus pulsing, his skn heated by Sebastian’s handprints. When he came back, Sebastian was in his tunic, and he held out his hand to John.
“I wanted that,” he said. “I think since I saw you. Please don’t be angry with me.”
“No,” John said, shaking his head. “I’m not angry with you at all.”
He was confused, though. He had felt high and grand and holy and above these common feelings, solemnly waiting for the new day, and then here he was, rutting in the field, being plowed by a Roman soldier and loving it, wanting it again. He didn’t understand himself, and he wanted to be alone. But he could not leave Sebastian, that would have been unkind, and so he sat there with him under the tree until he drifted into sleep.
Mary dreamed of a great bright white fire burning her flesh and drying up her mouth, blinding her eyes through her eyelids. The fire rose up, blazing, and became a bird, an eagle, and then it took the shape of a roaring lion, and when it roared all the land shook, and at last it was the form of a man long tall, narrow, and narrower and narrower until it was a pinprick of light, until it was light through her eyelids, until she was blinking up into the midday coming through the leaves of the olives tree she’d slept under. She had heard this was the way the messengers of God came.
This day was like waking into still a greater dream, and though her feet were steady, the ground seemed to move all about. The sky was brighter than usual, the sun as well, yet it did not hurt her eyes. Everything was so clear and so bright. The whole world was shifting. And she approached the river, and things were as they were every day. Every day Yochanon roared the scriptures, though these days he had begun to declare against the Herod family, speaking openly about Herod Antipater’s new marriage. In the nights he spoke his beautiful enigmatic words, but in the day he roared:
“Zion will be delivered with justice,
her penitent ones with righteousness.
But rebels and sinners will both be broken,
and those who forsake the Lord will perish.
You will be ashamed because of the sacred oaks
in which you have delighted;
you will be disgraced because of the gardens
that you have chosen!”
And it seemed that this day was like the other days, and the next day would be like it if nothing happened, but then in the middle of his speaking, Yochanon stopped.
“You will be like an oak with fading leaves,
like a garden without water.
The mighty man will become tinder
and his work a spark;
both will burn together,
with no one to quench the fire—”
When Yochanon stopped talking it was as if the whole world had stopped.
There were the lines of those coming to be baptized, though there were not as many as usual, and at the edge of the river one was putting down his satchel and his staff and calmly undressing. He lifted his worn robe and then unloosed his breach clout, and naked as birth, he stepped into the water. In the water he washed himself, and then he waded toward Yochanon and though Magdalene saw it was Jesus, though her heart rejoiced, after all the wondering what had become of him, wondering if she would ever see him again, now her mouth opened and she prayed:
“Today You have shown forth to the world, O Lord,
and the light of Your countenance has been marked on us.
Knowing You, we sing Your praises.
You have come and revealed Yourself,
O unapproachable Light.”
She barely knew what she was saying. She was approaching, but John and Andrew were already near. They all had to be nearer, and it was if nothing had been true, as if for all of their lives they had been at some sort of play and the real moment was unfolding right here before them.
Yochanon, so forward, so strong always, backed away, shaking his head, his matted beard moving with him.
“No,” Yochanan rasped.
But Jesus said, “Yes.”
Yochanon shook his head again, words gone from him so that he nearly growled like a dog.
“Nooo…”
But Jesus stood before him.
“I need baptism from you!” Yochanon cried. “And do you come to me?”
Jesus smiled.
“Cousin, the only baptism I will ever give is one of fire.”
Yochanon insisted, “I am not worthy to untie your sandals. You should be the one cleansing me.”
“Let it be thus now;” Jesus said. “It is proper for us to do this…”
The two of them, strange images of each other, spoke together,
“To fulfill all righteousness.”
And so Yochanon took Yehoshana by the shoulders and pressed him into the waters, reciting the old blessing:
“Barukh atah Adonay Eloheynu melekh ha-olam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al ha-t’vilah.”
Three times Mary watched her friend dunked into the water, and though John murmured the old Hebrew blessings, what she heard was, “Father…. Son…. Holy Spirit…” But what did that even mean?
And even as she wondered, the sky was opened, everything was opened. It was as if there had been a dome of mother of pearl or of horn over all she saw and suddenly it was cracked to reveal the truth of things. The fire from her dream roiled overhead where once the sun had been, and it fell down upon Jesus, like a conflagration, like a bomb, like a star, like a white, white dove, and everyone, everyone at that river heard from beyond the world, or inside their hearts, a voice like a father, the voice of the Mother, the rushing of the roar of the river, the fiercest breeze, the rumble of the earth, declare as the naked man rose from the river, full of light, face to the sun:
“This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.”
