Fifth Gospel(57)

What now?

Jesus made to stand. His face was framed by the dark sky full of stars and she remembered two boys sitting beneath a fig tree, arm in arm, two boys who many years ago had left their mothers to ascend the Temple steps in the broad light of a sun-full day.

They gave her one last glance now over their shoulders, and left to make their way into the night. With her heart near breaking, she watched them go, for the third time.





26


FISH AND FISHERMEN




Simon was a fisherman and he lived in a city on the ancient trade route called the Via Maris. Here, on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee stood a city called Beth-saida, meaning House of the Fishes. It was so called because seven springs flowed into the waters of Galilee at this point, attracting fish and creating a lucrative trade for those who did not mind hard work.

The Sea of Galilee was little affected by tide, so its waters were profoundly clear and for this reason the best fishing was not conducted in the day, but after sunset.

Each night Simon and his brother Andrew would rise from their beds, take a meal, and walk the dark path from their modest home near the eucalyptus forest to the shores of the inland sea where waited those who worked with them in the cooperative: Philip, and Zebedee and his two sons, James and John.

In conditions favourable or unfavourable the fishermen would set off on their boats, travelling by the light of flares made from oily rags which were kept in iron cages suspended from their bows. They journeyed forth into the sea’s wide expanse with the air in their lateen sails, heading for the deeps and the best catch. Here the weighted trammel nets were thrown between the boats to encircle the fish. A great number of fish of every size and quality could be ensnared this way and when the nets were full the men would drag them to the shore and pull them onto the sand to sort the clean fish from those that were deemed unclean.

Backwards and forwards from the sea to the shore the boats came and went through the night until the full-bodied baskets were brimming with fresh catch and the sun’s pink herald stained the margins of the mountains.

At sunrise came the townsfolk and merchants to buy fish. When all was sold and the crowds were gone, the daily work truly began for the men had many tasks yet: picking off the weed and dead creatures of the sea that had become entangled in the nets, repairing any tears, sorting the hooks and lines, liming the hulls of the boats and mending the sails.

These moments made ample time for conversation and companionship and the men spoke as they worked.

Simon was slow to speak, but in his mind he thought much. While the others talked he listened to their words and thought his own thoughts, for when they spoke of fish, and sky, and lake, they spoke as any man might. But Simon saw other things.

He saw the interplay of the sun’s gold-shimmer with the lake’s smooth surface; he saw the dance of the dark water with the moon’s lustre and the interaction of mountain and plain, lightning and earth. He saw the sea transform itself before his eyes into a celestial womb that was fertilised by the light of the sun. For what is a fish if not a drop of sun gleaming beneath the surface of the water? And what is a man, if not a drop of the eternal, a collection of sunbeams gathered up and born into the passing moment of life’s stream?

These, he knew, were strange thoughts and philosophies and so he did not speak them out loud but only thought them and he was thinking them this day as he knotted a rope, when James tore him from his ruminations.

‘In the market this morning the people spoke of the pascha and their journey to Judea with such excitement,’ he said, ‘I wish that I could go!’

Andrew, Simon’s brother, looked up from his work and said, ‘Don’t waste your wishes! They say the airs of Judea are full of death and that the rocks have a magic in them that can send a man mad.’

Of all the men gathered together on the sandy beach, Philip was the only one to have been to Jerusalem and he raised his dark head from his work with an air of wisdom. ‘Nonsense! I have been there, and I am not dead or mad! But it is true, the land is like stale bread gone hard…the people are hard also…and when the rabbis speak, their voices are like a cold wind.’

‘How do they speak?’ said young John, leaving his liming to listen.

‘With words like pointed arrows that pierce the head!’ Philip said sourly.

‘Ah, but your head is soft, Philip!’ Andrew said, merrily. ‘It wouldn’t take much to pierce it!’

All around there were smiles and soft chuckles.

James did not laugh or smile. He seemed despondent for it, and spoke almost to himself, ‘We should not speak disapprovingly of the priests!’ He cut a length of rope with his teeth. ‘They are closer to heaven you know…closer at least than we are, it stands to reason that we don’t understand them.’