Fifth Gospel(15)

‘Then give me your hand!’

Jesus put out his palm and winced.

‘The knife is sharp, it will not hurt.’

Yeshua made a swift cut and the boy stared at the blood now flowing from the wound in his hand with appreciation.

‘It did not hurt!’ he said amazed.

‘Your blood,’ Yeshua told him with a serious voice, ‘is also Demut, the likeness of God…Now, when I bring my blood, my soul, together with your blood, your soul, like this…’ he joined his hand to Jesus’ hand in a clasp and held it firmly, ‘it means that we are the same. Do you understand? We share the same likeness of God in our bodies. This means more than just brothers in the blood of Abraham, Jesus! Even though I share in the same blood with my brothers, my spirit is not in Jacob, nor is it in Jude, or Simon or Jose, and theirs is not in me. But you and I, we are one now, and this means they can never come between us. Do you know what else, Jesus?’

‘What else?’

‘It means that if I die, my spirit will still live in you…because we now share the same likeness of God, the same soul.’

They let go.

Jesus’ eyes grew soft and distant, and he seemed to be fitting this idea to his mind as he nursed his wound.

Yeshua wiped the blood away from his hand and watched it ooze from the cut and spread into every crevice and line. He sucked the wound and said, ‘Now you must tell me the meaning of my dream, because we are brothers.’

Jesus looked at him with a blank face. ‘I would tell you, because we are brothers, Yeshua, but in becoming brothers the meaning has winged away from my mind!’

Yeshua sighed and rolled over on his back again. ‘You goose! You have lost too much blood!’

The freshening breeze came and Yeshua felt a strangeness creep over him. He turned his eyes to the old road, and saw a caravan making its slow way in the valley. ‘I feel something will soon change, Jesus. Perhaps this is the meaning of the dream? It may happen when we go to Jerusalem, to celebrate our coming of age ceremonies…Do you know the first thing that I shall do in Jerusalem?’

Jesus took up his flute. ‘What will you do in Jerusalem?’

‘I will go to the priests to ask them why they shed the blood of sheep and goats and doves, and why they burn them for sacrifices, when Isaiah and David tell us we must not bring burnt offerings to God…’

Jesus began to play and Yeshua was not surprised, for talk of cruel things, of temples and kings, never entered into his knowing. They were like the breezes that moved over this ridge on which they sat. They did not go deep, but brushed past and moved on towards other mountains, and other boys sitting with their sheep.

Yeshua watched the shivering leaves. ‘I think we shall be awakened at the Temple to something new, you and I.’

Jesus paused then. ‘When our eyes open, because we are one, shall you see through mine and I through yours?’

These words made an impression on Yeshua. All day his dream had made him feel something in his heart, and now that something sat on the lip of his mind, perched just so - near enough for him to taste, but too far from his reach to be grasped. It was tantalising and frustrating, this remembering, and he was so taken with it that he barely noticed Jesus begin to play another tune. And in this way they remained for a time, listening to God in the wind that carried the spring-song, God in the bleating of the sheep and in the chewing of the goats, until the sun began to fall towards the mountains and from below there came the sound of a woman’s voice, calling them for dinner.

They stood together then, as one, and descended the hill to their homes, arms over shoulders.

They spoke no more of their newly won brotherhood, or of the future that awaited them.





7


THE PROCURATOR




Annius Rufus sat stiffly in his litter. He looked beyond the handful of centurions that made up his retinue scrutinising the small army that preceded him into the gardens and villas of the new suburb of Bethesda, outside Jerusalem, and sighed, feeling the rising of an evil humour.

He was a procurator, a representative of Rome and so his soldiers carried the standard of power augmented by the sword, signifying to all and sundry that he had the authority not only to imprison and to torture but also to put to death any man, be that his will.

He burped and reached for a bowl of nuts and chewed them, tasting nothing, watching with a disdainful eye as his litter emerged through Jerusalem’s northern gate, and the bulk of his soldiery proceeded to the Fortress of Antonia. His back ached and his head was heavy from the heat and so his mind turned to the comforts he had left behind at Caesarea. But he was also reminded then of his wife, a dry, twig of a woman from the upper classes of Roman Society, and to think on her mollified his torment, for if nothing else, this journey would give him some respite from her endless, petty rasping, and her ignoble concerns.