When they arrived at the River it was lower and broader than usual, but filled with people as always, and from a high place, the Pharisees and the Sadducees stood on a high pile of rocks in black robes and white ones, the great fringed sashes of the Pharisees belts twisting in the breeze.
In the middle of the river John stood waist deep, pouring water on those who came to him and singing:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
And all people will see God’s salvation.”
Now, Lev cried out: “Are you the Christ? Are you the Messiah?”
It was the best way to end all questions. Certainly this mad man, which he remembered vaguely in his youth, would answer yes, but instead Yochanon returned:
“I am not the Messiah.”
Lev and Joshua asked: “Then who are you?”
“Are you Elijah?”
Without sparing them a glance, between blessings and baptizing, Yochanon cried, “I am not.”
Nicodemus, not liking how this was going, called down, “Teacher, are you the Prophet?”
“Teacher?” John shouted up with a snarl, and then gave a dazzling smile, his teeth burning in his dark skin and answered, “No.”
Finally Lev, climbing down from the crag, coming closer to the water, demanded, “Who are you?”
“Yes! Yes! Who are you?”
“Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us.”
“What do you say about yourself?”
The river and the shore had become quieter, even the rushing of the waters seemed to quiet, and Yochanon crossed the water, almost like one walkng on it, so he could be closer to the priests and the Pharisees, so they could hear him.
“I am—” he began using the words of Isaiah the Prophet, “the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”
But Simon, Marta and Lazaros’s neighbor, could not stop himself from asking: “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”
The tall, hairy man, burned by the sun and belted in a tunic of camel hair as matted and sun blonded as his own, squatted and knelt in the water. As he stood, water trickled through his long fingers.
“I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among us stands one you do not know. He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”
And when he said this, there was a murmuring, all looking around, the Pharisees and Sadducees included, as if they expected the Christ to jump out from their midst.
“You look disturbed, Magdalene,” John said to her one day.
The camp of men and the camp of holy women had become one. They came together in the evening to eat and Mary moved between them.
“It is only that I am so happy, and so free, more happy and freer than I’ve ever been, and yet I cannot imagine things staying this way.”
“It is the very same feeling I have had,” the long faced man Abihu said. “It is hearing one shoe drop and waiting for the other.”
“It is more than that,” Magdalene said. “It is knowing that nothing can happen, nothing worth speaking of. Until that shoe drops.”
“Already there were rumors that Herod Antipater, who ruled Perea on whose shore they lived, had heard of John’s gathering of followers and wished to push them north, or into Judea. As the original children of Israel could not remain on the other side of the Jordan forever, neither could they.
More came every day. Some scoffed, many were baptized and went back home, John supposed, to live new lives. John was surprised to see shaggy Andrew, the fisherman from Bethsaiada, show up one day and stand, shoulders gripped by the Baptist.. He was dipped in the water, and then never left the Baptist’s side, and when, finally, some days later, John spoke to him, Andrew said, “Well, where else would I be than at his side?”
“I never reasoned that I could,” John said.
“Well, stop reasoning out things,” Andrew said, “and let them be.”
And from then on, John, and then Magdalene, joined the number of those who walked beside the Baptist in the day, and slept at his side in the night.
With his students Yochanon was gentle. He did not shout, and often did not say, but rather sang, and in time, they sang back to him.
“Who will be the guardian of the house, as far as the enclosure of the worlds? Tell me, upon what is the bed of the great and powerful Intellect supported? Excellencies sit to the right of the great and powerful Intellect? Tell me, how many thousands of excellencies sit to the left of the great and powerful Intellect? Tell me, how many thousands of excellencies stand before the great and powerful Intellect? Tell me, how many thousands of thousands. Tell me, what are the names of the three robes of splendor, light, and glory? excellencies in their settlements? Tell me, who revealed speech and hearing to the excellencies takes the incense holder, Tell me, who among the and brings it before Intellect? excellencies accepts prayer and praise Tell me…”
That night, wrapped in black to the point of his helmet, which was wrapped in a black turban, a soldier rode swiftly into their encampment. He dismounted and gave his horse to a red haired woman who looked far too glamorous for the encampment and went straight to Yochanon. They held conference for a while, and Yochanon thanked him. As he left, the prophet said, “In the morning we head for the North. Herod is nervous of us here. He is sending troops.”
“We could head south,” said Andrew.
“Into the Salt Sea?” said another. “Where there is no life.”
“Or into the brooks of Judea.”
“Something Pilate or Caiaphas would be none too pleased with.”
“We will travel north,” Yochanon said again. “We will stay between Judea and Gerasa.”
News spread all through the camp, and some said they were not prepared to leave, had placed too much of their lives in these caves.
“It is good that some stay,” Yochanon said. “The Kingdom must spread thusly.”
But John was sure that he would always stay close to Yochanon, almost proud of being so close to him. There was nothing he needed to cling to. He almost cast off the copper bangle Jesus had given him, but stopped just short of that. He was on his own way. As his cousin had disappeared in Sidon and gone off on his own. If bitterness appeared in his heart remembering this, John put it away and concentrated on following his master.
In the night, John sang:
“I shall tell you the truth, and explain to you just as it was. Twelve thousand leagues is the width of the earth. Twelve thousand leagues is the distance from the earth to the vault of heaven. Adam was made from clay. His wife Eve came from her own source. This Oil, White Sesame’s son, came from the settlement of Splendid Yusmir. These are living waters; they come from the reservoir of the Jordan.”
And this, Magdalene understood, even if John did not, was why they could not leave these waters.
They traveled two days north to where the waters were wide and blue and flowed broad. Green trees and the bright sky reflected themselves in the waves of the Jordan, and Yochanon said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?”
Though further from Jerusalem and in the bosom of Samaria, still men came out from that city to see what John was saying or even to argue with him. Magdalene noticed that more often than not, that friend of her brother’s Nicodemus was there with the man Joseph from Arimathea.
“ Produce fruit in keeping with repentance!” Yochanon shouted to those who came to him. “And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.”
There were women and men, the rich and the hopeless. Those out of work with nothing else to do but chase a prophet, Pharisees beside whores, and the Yochanon so quiet at night, was full of passion in the day.
“The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”
“What should we do then?” the crowd asked, one woman in desperation, but many in exasperation.
Yochanon answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”
One day a man stood sobbing before Yochanon. His clothes should have been fine but they were soaked by the Jordan, and Yochanon held him by the shoulders and said, “Friend, “what ails you?”
“God is far from me.”
“God is not far from you,” Yochanon said. “He is not far from any of us. If you take but one step in his direction he is there.”
“I have robbed. I have extorted. I am hateful to my whole family.”
“He’s a tax gatherer,” one murmured behind the man, almost more to help him than to expose him, and the man nodded, weeping.
“Teacher,” he asked, “what should I do? What should we do?”
“Don’t collect any more than you are required to,” Yochanon said.
The man blinked at him.
“That’s it?”
“Do you need more?” Yochanon asked.
“The recipe to goodness is simple. It is the following that is hard.”
The man nodded fervently as Yochanon lowered him into the waters, murmuring:
“Barukh atah Adonay Eloheynu melekh ha-olam, asher kidshanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu al ha-t’vilah”
Blessed are you, Eternal God, ruler of the universe, who sanctifies us through mitzvoth and has commanded that we be immersed.
John thrust him into the water again, praying:
“Barukh atah Adonay, Eloheynu melekh ha-olam, shehekheyanu, v’kiy’manu, v’higianu, la-z’man ha-zeh.
Blessed is the Eternal, the God of all creation, who has blessed me with life, sustained me, and enabled me to reach this moment.
And then while water steamed from the man’s hair and his robes were plastered to his chest, Yochanon thrust him into the Jordan again and brought him up, dripping, as he prayed:
“Sh’ma Yisrael, Adonay Eloheynu, Adonay ekhad!”
Magdalene appeared at Yochanon’s side, and she touched the weeping man’s arm.
“Stay with us,” she said.
Yochanon looked at her, a little startled. He had not been planning on saying this.
“Your heart is hurting, you’ve lived a bad life by yourself, and you don’t know how to start a good one,” Magdalene said.
“Stay with us.”
“Yes,” Yochanon said, pouring more water over the man, “stay with us,”
And wading with him through the waters to the shore of their makeshift encampment, Magdalene led the man away.
Even soldiers came. The first time it happened, they were afraid, and in the dust it was hard to tell a Roman from one of Herod’s men, and impossible to draw a line between those from Syria or those from here. Close up they were beaten down and tired and Magdalene, though she knew she was foolish for this, pitied them.
“And what should we do?” one of them asked.
“Don’t extort money,” Yochanon said. “And don’t accuse people falsely—be content with your pay.”
“Teacher,” that first soldier said, and he looked like a boy almost, “that is not enough. The world is broken. The whole fucking world is broken.”
“But you cannot mend the whole world. You can begin with the brokenness in you.”
“And what then?”
Yochanon groaned and threw back his head. He recited:
“Here is My Servant, whom I uphold,
My Chosen One, in whom My soul delights.
I will put My Spirit on Him,
and He will bring justice to the nations.
He will not cry out or raise His voice,
nor make His voice heard in the streets.
A bruised reed He will not break
and a smoldering wick He will not extinguish;
He will faithfully bring forth justice.
He will not grow weak or discouraged
before He has established justice on the earth.
In His law the islands will put their hope.”
Then Yochanon said, “I don’t know. I’m not him. I am not he. I am the token. I am not the Teacher. I am waiting for him. This is not the New World. We are only planting the seed for the New World. We are only preparing a house for the Lord when he comes.”
And the soldier groaned and tore off his metal and leather helmet, tossing it to the shore, Before everyone, he took off the heavy cloak, and then the cuirass of boiled leather. He took off his sword belt and and then his greaves and now his tunic He took everything off until Magdalene wanted to weep for the beauty of his nakedness and how nakedly worn out, battered and tired he was. Trembling, the boy whose skin was reddened and bruised by the armor, stepped chest deep into the water, and then he knelt till he disappeared. Three times John lifted him up and at last, while his friends watched, he said, “I will stay here.”
“You cannot stay here,” one of his friends said. “That’s desertion.”
“It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. I’m waiting for the New World.”
“It will matter,” said another of his friends, “if your deserting causes a centurion to come into the camp and arrest these people. Did you not hear what the teacher was saying? This is not the time to think of yourself. We have to think of each other now.”
The boy, chest deep in water, nodded and as he came from the water, his friends shielding him while he dressed.
“You all are so close to God,” Yochanon marveled.
“Whoever thought this would be said of a Gentile,” someone commented.
Yochanon did not hear it. Magdalene saw that tears were in his eyes.
“All of us,” he said, his words little more than a breath, “so close.”
WHEN WE RETURN, WE WILL BEGIN THE LONG FORESTALLED CONCLUSION OF NIGHTS IN WHITE SATIN
