Chapter Thirteen
Crosses
Nathanael sang:
“I was glad when they said to me,
‘Let us go to the house of Adonai.’
Our feet are standing in your gates,
O Jerusalem.
Jerusalem is built up
as a city united together,
where the tribes go up,
the tribes of Adonai,
as a testimony for Israel,
to give thanks to the name of the Adonai.
But all the tribes did not go up. In fact many did not. How could the entirety of Galilee have left off all business? Zebedee did not go up, for one. And most years neither did Peter. But this year he would, and he would take Ada, and he found her succulent and juicy, riper than she’d been in a while, and could not be parted from her, and though she had not said this, she found him equally unable to resist.
“If we leave now we can be to Sepphoris at the end of the day,” Magdalene said.
Jesus and all of his new companions went up, or at least went to Sepphoris, and as they were leaving Capernaum, Matthew and Alphaeus were sitting at the gate and Matthew caught his hand.
“Master, are you going up to Jerusalem?”
“I am. It is the time of the Feast. I’m told we should have headed there days ago.”
“Will you stay long?” Matthew asked.
And then Jesus said, “Why does it matter if I stay long or short? Look, Matthew, and you,” he pointed to Alphaeus, “how much longer can you go on living the lives you’ve been living when the New World is here? Get up, you two. Follow me.”
Matthew blinked at him, but Alphaeus was already ignoring those in line behind Jesus, closing up his money boxes and and reaching for his cap
Jesus said, again, “Follow me.”
He took the edge of his mantle, and placed it on Matthew’s shoulder, and then he placed another edge on Alphaeus’s, and headed out of the town gate. As would be written later on, Matthew simply got up and followed him. And so did Alphaeus.
Mary had wondered why her son thought they might already be late for the festival, but then, as they all wound their way to the house of Matthew, she began to understand that there might be many of these diversions. The trip south, would not only be a trip, but of course a ministry, of course a teaching. Who knew when he would finally arrive in the City.
As they under the large pillars surrounding the atrium of Matthew’s house, which was more lovely by day than by night, Salome told Jesus, “I will take your mother with me. We wll head South and you may take your time. I could even leave a carriage here with you.”
“That will not be necessary,” Magdalene told her. “Soon enough we will join my brother and sister, and they will provide one. Or two.”
“Are you not coming with us?” Salome was shocked, perhaps even a little scandalized by Magdalene, and always had been. A woman, after all, should know her place.
“No,” she said.
Magdalene did know her place, and apparently it was with the men.
Ada left with Mary and Salome, and they had all agreed to meet later in Sepphoris. Mary was a strategic woman and had made meeting points all along the way to Jerusalem.
“If we do not meet here, we will meet there,” was what she had said, before kissing her son and being lifted into the carriage that took her and her sister away.
“I imagine we could head out tomorrow?” Peter said.
“We will leave today,” Matthew declared. “We will leave within the hour. And we will all leave on mules, and with a carriage to boot. We will leave this place and I will provide everything you need.”
He looked around the well appointed house, the murals, the mosaic floor, the fine, slender necked amphorae lining the walls.
He clasped his brother’s hand.
“All of this means so little to me,” he said. “And Jaci, over here—”
“Brother, I would go with you!” Alphaeus’s voice was high and innocent and reedy.
“We have a sister and she has children, and this would be fine for them,” Matthew nodded his head and stroked his beard.
“Or at least the money from the sale.”
He looked Jesus directly in the face.
“I have a mind to become a traveling man, a man with less, a man who follows you wherever you go.”
“See that you don’t let go of too much too soon,” Jesus warned.
“After all, wherever I go, it will end up in us returning here.”
Matthew nodded.
“Well, then from now on this will be a much less lonely house. Everything I have it yours, Lord. Everything.”
It was late in the day when they set out, but what did it matter? They were a group of men well, mostly, Magdalene thought wryly, and clasped Jesus’s hand, pressing her cheek to his as they laughed. They were loud and full of life until, stomping northeast while they stomped southwest came a troop of Romans, always an off putting sight.
“Off the road,” Matthew whispered.
“We will not get off the road,” Jesus said, and Magdalene clasped his hand.
They were dusty red capes and cuirasses, shields and grime, pack animals at the back, and as they halted beside Jesus, the leader said, “Where are you all heading?”
“To Sepphoris for the night,” Jesus said “We are on our way to Jerusalem.”
“Have a care in the night. There are bandits, and far as I know no troops to defend the road for some time.”
“Will do,” Jesus said. “Your men look thirsty.”
“We are nearly out of water. The storm I heard happened up here did not happen down south. Never mind. It toughens one.”
“Would you like to be less tough and less thirsty for a bit?”
The grizzled old soldier said, “This is a dry land compared to my Campania. I could be glad of a gallon of water.”
Jesus looked to Matthew.
Matthew said, “We’re on our way to the city, sure enough. If you have the canisters we can lend you two.”
There was a cheering that went up among the men, and the soldier at rhe head of them confessed, “We are on our way to Capernaum, and not sure of the welcome we will receive. There was a riot to split up down south, and we should have been there an hour ago, my thanks, sirs for this. I am Batiatus of Padua. One of the few Latins you’ll see here.”
“And I am Jesus of Nazareth, and these are my companions, Matthew and John.”
In the night they reached Sepphoris, and Mary and Salome, who were up and full of life. Having spent the afternoon in the baths, Marta was more beautiful than ever, a crown of coins upon her thick dark hair, and she smelled of sandalwood as she let them all into the house.
“These are new,” she said.
“My lady, I am James Alphaeus, and this is my brother, Levi, called Matthew.”
She bowed low, crossing her hands before her chest, and said, “Both of you, be welcome in my home.”
And so the next day they set south, their voices high with song and the prospect of Jerusalem, but at the end of the next day, they saw a sight like a grizzly orchard. Erected straight in the air, along the road, and guarded by a few tired looking troops, were crosses set up with men stretched across them, dying in the sun.
“Come away,” Mary urged her son, for they could have gone quickly, or they could have avoided the road, traveling through the fields, but Jesus came toward them.
“Hey, what’s this?” one of the half asleep guards said.
“What’s this. You? What are you up to?”
Jesus stood at the foot of the crosses, and now, chastened from her first response, Mary stood with him. The others held back but, at last, Magdalene came to, and the guards, nervous, demanded, “Go on about your business. Go on, or you’ll be next.”
“Water?” one of the men rasped, “water.”
“You heard him,” the first guard said to another, who reached for a sponge on a stick that was soaking in an old metal bucket and lifted it to press to the man’s lips. He was baked in the sun and exhausted with life and he nearly spat.
“Water.”
“Get on with you all.”
“We have water,” Mary said.
“I said—”the soldier began.
“We have water,” Mary repeated, “if you have a bucket.”
Something in the soldier changed, and he said, “Yes, Lady.”
Mary poured water into a bucket, and Jesus rang out the vinegar soaked sponge, and together they lifted it to the first of the four men, and then went back and forth between each.
“They’ll be dead at the end of the day,” the soldier said. “We’ll crack the legs.”
He unsnapped his helmet and looked away.
“We weren’t meant for shit like this, you know? No one became a soldier so they could tie other men to bits of wood, nail them down and listen to them scream all day while their wives, and their kids look at us like we were monsters. No one ever wanted that.”
Jesus said not a word, but he and Mary continued to give the dying men water, and finally the man said, “You all had better leave. We’re going to…” he cleared his throat. “We’re going to end it now.”
Jesus nodded, and the man who was sucking water from his sponge murmured, “Thank you…. Thank you.”
“Where are their families?” Mary wondered, raising her veil, for it had fallen, and her hair was escaping.
“Fled, Lady,” the guard said.
“Well,” Mary shook her head, “we will be their families today.”
“Lady,” the guard said, “I beg you, look away.”
And because he had begged her, she did.
They moved a distance from the road, but Mary nearly retched while she heard the legs crack.
Those who could not endure this, Jesus and Mary had sent away. In the right moment, or rather the wrong one, they all knew this could happen to them. This suffering awoke too many nightmares in many, and to some extent they still believed that only evil men experienced evil things. So it was Jesus, Mary, John and Magdalene who remained close by, hearing the cracking of legs, the pain that brought the release of death, the suffocating bodies sinking, no longer able to rise up on their crosses and breathe. All of them heard, but only Jesus saw.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?
My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, but I find no rest.
It had been Jesus speaking, but now he turned to his mother.
“We can go now,” he said. “It is finished.”
“Someone should go to him,” Matthew said.
They were all sitting around the fire in the caravanserai yard, looking one to the other and, at alast, Magdalene looked to John and he got up. He went through the gate and out of the little town and found Jesus by the brook, walking back and forth under the tree, his white robe grey in the night.
“What is the point of it?” he said.
“What is the point in any of it? When in the end there are men on crosses, men dying in awful ways. And soldiers living awful lives. Men forced to kill men. Then what does any of it matter, water and wine, miraculous fishes? Rain? If that even was a thing. What’s it matter?”
“You gave those men mercy,” John said after a moment. Jesus was walking ahead of him, lost in his own mind, and John grasped his hand.
“Look at me,” John demanded.
“You gave them mercy, water on their lips, the knowledge that someone in this world gave a shit about their supposedly worthless lives. And you even gave mercy to those guards.”
“What the hell is mercy?” Jesus demanded. “It isn’t anything.”
“Sometimes it’s the only thing.”
“Jonni,” Jesus said after a time.
“You and I… We haven’t been close as usual.”
“You… changed.”
“I didn’t.”
“Well, then I thought you did. I thought… with everything, you might not need me.”
“Is that why you went to Sebastian?”
“I went to Sebastian because he’s my friend. But, yes, partially. I… I did with him what I wasn’t sure if I was free to do with you. I think we both did.”
“Do with him what you like,” Jesus said. “He’s a good man. And there is no jealousy in me.”
“I’m not sure if I can say the same about me.”
“However,” Jesus said, “what you do with him, you can do with me.”
“I don’t want to leave you alone. I thought I had to. That now you are what you are you must be alone. But Matthew…. He saw what you were, and what you needed, and what you longed for. And…”
“Stay with me, Jonni. I am tired and confused and lonely, and need my friend.”
John nodded. Their hands were still clasped, and he came forward and pressed his face into Jesus’s chest.
“Yes,” he said.
When they arrived in Arimathea, Andrew said, “We can hardly expect Master Joseph not to already be in Jerusalem,” but Lazaros said, “Well, now it never hurts to see.”
The house of Joseph, with its fantastic courtyard filled with fountains and the a balcony looking down on the those who were graciously hosted, was bustling as usual, but Joseph was not there. Nicodemos, his younger friend, was however.
“The Master!” he exclaimed. “The one with such words! And things have been coming down south about you.”
“About me?” Jesus said, honestly surprised.
“Water to wine? Fish from the sea? Well, now fish do come from the sea. But I heard you made a miraculous catch, and that all over the north men have been coming to you?”
“Hopefully that is not all you heard?” Jesus said, standing in the midst of the busy house.
“Who can forget your words!” Nicodemos said.
“Truthfully, if I had not remembered your presence, remembered the things you had said to me, I would remember none of the signs.
“And now you are off to the South.”
“For the great Feast.”
“Only for the Feast? Not to deliver your message?”
“A man can do both.”
“Yes,” Nicodemos nodded in agreedment. “Yes. A man can. “
At this, a man came out and, clasping his hands together, he said, “Rabbi, the house is more than large enough, and Master Joseph would be pleased if you stayed the night. I can find you rooms.”
The man began to speak again, but said, “Are you alright, Master?”
“Judas?” Jesus said.
What game was this? His Judas of Kerioth, whom he had not seen for over a year—or was it two now?—whom he had experienced such things with in Syria, but who had returned home.
Judas of the little moustache and green eyes and broad shoulders grinned and said, “Oh, you know him?”
“Know…” Jesus began.
“I have a brother Judas. My twin.”
“Are you from Kerioth?”
“I am, sir. My name is Thomas Iscariot, though I am called Didymus, for Judas and I are twins.”
Jesus was caught up short by his memory of smiling Judas in the temple of Eshmun, and this smiling Judas who was not Judas, right here. His skin recalled Judas’s body linking to his, the moment where Judas entered his mouth, swelling larger and larger, becoming hard as a pillar.
“Would you stay the night?” light eyed Thomas asked.
Dumbly, Jesus nodded.
For not the last time, the person and presence of Judas blindsided Jesus, taking away his sharpness, and leaving him in confusion.
