How Best to Avoid Dying (19 page)

When I was dying Mary sat with me through the night. She dipped a cloth in water and cooled my forehead. I was sick with fever, often asleep, but each time I opened my eyes, Mary was there. “Shhh, brother. Peace,” she had said. How I wish she would say this now. Cool my head now. But I was no longer her brother. I could see that in her fear. I looked down at my hands, my blue skin. I hated it. I wanted to be dead. I wanted to be mourned, not feared.

I waited without moving. She didn't move either. Then I screamed. She fell to her knees and covered her face. She didn't see me leave.

That night I tried to die. I tied a rope around my neck and hung myself from a tree. I choked and spat, but I did not die. Thieves came and stole my sandals. I kicked at them and tried to yell, but the rope only allowed me to croak. They laughed and pushed me. They left me swinging. At dawn the rope snapped and I dropped to the dust. I wept because I could not die. The dying part of me had died the first time. So I went for Jesus. I wanted him to undo what he had done. He would grant me that.

I asked wherever I went, but people were afraid. Of me and my mold. Of the Romans and the priests.

I was lonely. I bought some time in a woman's tent. The air was thick with oils. She rolled over me. I didn't move. She kissed and rubbed. She moaned like a goat but with no help from me. I asked if I could leave.

“Still the same price.”

I dropped a coin and crawled over pillows to the door. But turned before I left.

“Did you see the Master when he passed through?” I asked.

“Which one?

“Jesus of Nazareth.”

“The one they killed? Yes. I saw him. His disciples kept me busy for days.”

“Him as well?”

“Once. But he was like you.”

I cannot remember all the things he said. Sitting on mats, talking into the dark until even Mary would yawn. Something about a kingdom and bread. Something about losing and finding, about a bad son forgiven, and a nagging widow, and buildings crumbling and stars falling and all things made new.

I came to Jerusalem, crowded and tall. I wore long robes to hide my skin. I found rumors. Jesus and Isaiah had been seen perched on the Temple's top, crying for the city. Peter had performed miracles in the name of Roman gods. The priests had stolen the Master's body and keep it in crypts under the Temple.

Many had claimed to see him.

“We saw him,” one man told me. A man I knew from before. “But we didn't know it was him until he was gone.”

“He has changed?”

“Yes, but…but not like you. He is
less
flesh now.”

Peter could be found preaching loudly in city squares. I went to hear him and ask him to tell where Jesus was, but when I saw him I was frightened. Too bold for me to trust. He argued with everyone. His words, all his words, were flavored with argument.

I traveled for two days to Nazareth, hoping Jesus might be there with his mother. Dew forming on my beard at night. Sun in my eyes at day. I had once loved dawn, loved the gold in the palms. Nothing now.

Jesus' mother met me at the door. I knew her, but she didn't seem to know me. Too sad to know anyone. She was old. She had never been old before.

“I'm looking for your son,” I said. She nodded and covered her nose. She led me to an inner room. There, scribbling by a weak candle, was John.

“Your son?” I asked her again. She nodded again and left. John looked up and let his eyes focus. He smiled. “She's my mother now, Lazarus. A gift from the Lord to her and to me.”

Poor Mary. John was no Jesus. Thin, weak, and with a sad beard. Once at my home, before the deaths, Peter had slapped John's back and laughed loudly. “Looks as if an old dog has shed on your chin.” All the disciples had laughed. John had smiled slightly. He was the youngest of Jesus' men. He kept close to Peter, listening as much as Peter talked. But this John was different.

“I need to find the Master,” I said.

“I would have thought you'd come sooner.”

“Where is he?”

“He knew you were sick. Did you know that? He waited. Said it was for God's glory. We said he should hurry.”

“Please tell me how to find him.” My voice was stern.

“He let you die. You have a reason.” I moved close to him. “He is gone,” John said.

“Where?”

“Into the sky. To Heaven to prepare a place for us. He'll return. You may wait with me, if you wish.”

I turned to leave.

“I have a reason too,” he said. But I didn't stay.

I was hungry for death. Life felt wrong. I needed to feast on what I had only tasted. I knew I couldn't have my own, but I could be close to others'. I returned to Jerusalem and watched the crucifixions outside the city wall. Sat near as they tied the men to the beams. Moved closer after the crowds left. Horrible. But I wanted it.

For a time I met with the church in Ephesus. Sipped wine with them. Sang hymns. Listened as they retold stories and argued about what each meant. I tried to find hope where they found hope. I could not. When Jerusalem had a famine, I volunteered to help. I wanted to see more dying. Wanted death.

I saw the city fall forty years after he called me from the cave. Everything burning and the Temple falling. I thought that this must be the end. His return. All things would be made new. But he did not return.

It's raining in New York. I stand by the window and listen, gently pulling teeth from my mouth. John will stay in the rain. He will raise his voice over thunder and speak of a love. He will return and bring me food. He eats and expects me to as well. He, like me, doesn't need food any more than he needs sleep. But John believes this is how one should live.

“John, you are so dull,” I told him. “Why did Jesus put up with you?”

“He loved me.”

“So you keep saying, but why?”

“Because he did.”

Below the window children are playing in the puddles. My mouth does not bleed.

After Jerusalem fell, the Romans tried to burn me. I felt the pain, but my skin only bubbled. It did not burn. So they set me out on the sea with no sail and no supplies. The sea didn't kill me either. For days and months I floated, watching the blue above and the blue below until my eyes changed hue. Eventually my boat fell to planks and I floated free, on my back, up and down on waves like small mountains. Staring at the sun, which crossed the sky as if blown by the wind. Fish kissed my palms and jumped over my face. Always waves in my ears and salt in my skin.

Sometimes I was afraid. The sky seemed to be moving farther and father away. At night I would hear howling and see shadows rise up larger than the Temple. I believed all the world was again flooded. No one but me remained.

Other times my fear was like awe. Sky, sea, and stars. I sang Psalms and worshipped. The stars were like souls. The children of Abraham. The salt in my eyes and the spray in the air would catch moonlight and make it seem as if perhaps the stars were finally falling. I had been promised they would fall and all things would be made new.

The stars did not fall. They don't fall. They fade. Every
morning, they fade. For two thousand years, they do nothing but fade.

After a year I floated on to a green coast. Light skinned people found me, carried me to a bed with wool blankets. Dried my skin and poured oil over my scalp. They spoke, but I didn't understand. One woman, wearing fur, took warm water and washed my face. She hummed and I knew the melody. A Psalm. And behind her stood John.

“John?” I asked.

“God is good. He has brought us here.”

“God is God. And I am no man to judge if he is good.”

“Your eyes have changed, Lazarus.”

“It was the sea.”

“Nothing has changed with me.”

I stayed with him in Gaul. He the vocal, the minister; I the quiet, the monk. Both serving. It was good. But after many years we both felt driven to move on. For John it was too much to stay a generation and watch each baby born grow old and die. For me, it was the old hunger. John went looking for life. I sought death.

“There is a reason you and I do not die,” he told me as we said goodbye. “We are chosen to witness. ‘He will not let his servant know the corruption of the grave.'”

“My heart is not like your heart, John.”

“We will find each other again. We always will. Like brothers. You and I are children of the same miracle.”

By the wall where I sit, John has a box of tiny green bibles that he hands out to neighbors and schoolchildren. He gave me a
bible once. A large one with a leather binding. John said that the engraving on the front was my name. I can't read.

“Tell me again how he died,” I asked, rubbing the leather along the spine with my thumbs.

“Confusion, people screaming at him. He spoke kindness even then.”

“Was there much blood?”

“Yes,” he said and cringed. “He asked God to forgive them.”

“Could you see his pain? Tell me about that.”

“Why do you ask these things? And be careful with your bible. You're twisting it,” he said.

“Did you see him after?” I asked. “When the tomb was empty?”

“Once. From a distance. He was on shore. I was in Peter's boat.”

“That's it?” I felt the spine of that bible thin in my hands. It would snap easily.

“Others saw him.”

“Oh, John.”

The children are still playing below the window. I would throw bibles at them until they run away. They'd return with eggs. This happens nearly every day. But today I am letting go of each speck of skin, each mote of dust. I let go. It is slow. Life holds on and I am still here. I would like John to come home and find only a puddle. What have I not let go? What am I holding?

After Gaul, John went to the living. Spoke of Christ to crowds. Sowed mercy. Built churches in each town that would let him. People marveled at his patience, his long suffering.

I went to the dying. Leper colonies, battlefields, hospices. People believed me merciful.

“He stays with them to the end,” they said of me. “Holds their hands, strokes their hair. A saint.”

I once helped a child die. I was tending the sick and dying in a plague clinic. Hungry to be close to their death since I was so far from my own. This child, a boy, had a growth in his neck that was closing his throat. A slow strangle. Pain with every moment. Killing him seemed like it would be such a tiny act. I would steal some days, maybe hours, from him, that's all. I tried believing it was mercy. I put my hand over his nose and mouth. He kicked and watched me. Then he closed his eyes tight and I flicked his forehead with my finger saying, “Open them, open them,” until he did.

God did not stop me. I had expected he would still my hand. But God stayed away. He would not let me die, but he allowed me to kill. Worse. In the sickness of the act, God had hidden pleasure. It brought me no closer to death. It was more like life.

I cursed God that day. I went to cities so that He would not find me.

I saw the Church grow. Heard John's name, Peter's name, even my own. Wood churches became stone. Stone churches became cathedrals. I visited these to see images of my sisters in clothes and landscapes they had never seen. There, too, was Jesus. Beaten, bloody, and royal. But I saw no sign of his kingdom. I saw Jews murdered in Prague. Blacks sold in London. Women raped in Istanbul. Rome was called holy. Rome was never holy.

In Paris a thief with one eye beat me, wanting me dead. He stabbed me and cried when I didn't bleed. I told him I was
sorry. In other cities, at other times, I had whips against my back. Stones tied to my legs. My survival meant nothing.

I watched cities fill the air with smoke. Buildings stab clouds.

I made my way to New York and was living under a bridge watching old drunks die of cold. I sat by them, counted their last breaths, watched the mist above their lips. Some reached for my hand. Some pretended I was their father. I was known. They came from all over the city, like the pilgrims had come before. But they had no questions. Just wanted someone near to help with the dying. You see, I believed I desired dying. But dying is an act for the living. I desire death.

“Like falling asleep,” I told them. “As easy as that.”

I kept the bodies in a hole cut into the banks of the river. When the hole was nearly full I crawled in among them and imagined I had found Sheol. I lay flat. In the day there was light enough to see the faces. Drawn, rotting, bearded. I spoke to them as if these were my ancestors.
Here we are. Here we are
. But I did not die. I did not change. At night I laid still and made no noise. When it rained, muddy water dripped from the soil above and the wind groaned.

John found me there, playing dead. Pulled me by my feet into the air. I tried to crawl back in. But John held my legs. I refused to use my muscles, so he lifted me like a child. Strong arms for a man so thin. He carried me onto a bus. I kept my eyes closed, but could hear the doors open, the engine rumble below us. He hummed a little. Said my name into my ear. The heat of his breath, the heat of others on the bus burned more than the Roman flames.