Testament (20 page)

Often now it was just the two of them who stayed late on the beach when the rest of us had gone, or who sat apart and talked in a way we others couldn’t follow or of things we didn’t know. It hurt me then to see Yeshua smile or put a hand on Yihuda’s shoulder, as if he had not understood how Yihuda drove us apart. I thought surely the others must take offence, but even in this Yihuda was cunning, for one by one he had begun to win the rest of the twelve over to him—first the innocents such as Andreas and the young Yohanan and those like Thomas and Thaddaios who were weak-spirited, but then even Philip who was sharp-witted, but who more and more admired him and took his side. When he saw that it was only the women who still opposed him, he began to deride us in front of the others and bring up the old arguments against our inclusion, until it began to seem he would prevail against us.

I went to my father then.

He wants to destroy us, I said, and listed all the ways he had gained power over us.

But my father, no doubt still remembering how I had misadvised him when Yeshua had returned from Tyre, said we couldn’t make accusations merely from appearances.

It’s only that you dislike his manner, he said, and warned me of turning the blame to Yihuda, when I was the one who could not accept him.

I might simply have resigned myself then, since I had exhausted every means, if Shelomah hadn’t come to me and said there were rumours in Kinneret that Yihuda had sought a pact with our enemy Aram. So it seemed I hadn’t been mistaken in him, and he indeed wished to ruin us. I resolved at once that I wouldn’t see us destroyed and so went to Aram, secretly.

If you plot with Yihuda, I said, though he swore he hadn’t yet met with him, I’ll surely turn you in as a traitor, and he knew I would do it.

It was clear to me by now that I couldn’t rest easy until I had found the way to rid us of Yihuda for good. So it was that I came to do a thing that brought danger not only to me but to all of us, and that went against the teachings of the scriptures and of Yeshua himself.

As a child, I had only once been to the town of my mother, during a time when my father had thought to divorce her for refusing to accept his beliefs. But it was there I learned the ways of the pagans, for my mother’s people, who were called Martu or Amurru, did not worship the god of the Jews, but Asherah and Baal. We hadn’t been there long before my father missed us and came to reclaim us. But afterwards I remembered my time there as if it formed part of some different life I had led, so awed was I by the place and so different was it from what I had known. I had never been in the mountains before and felt as if someone had caged me, since everywhere were trees and bush and in every direction peaks that cut off your view. The houses were like
caves carved out of the mountain face, and there was always the smell of blood from the sacrifices and of smoke, but not like the smoke of our smoking sheds, more acrid and sickly and stale.

There was a priest in the place, whom the Jews would have called a sorcerer, who every morning killed an animal on an altar just above the village. He himself dressed only in skins, and smeared himself with the blood of his sacrifices, and often spoke in a language that none of the villagers understood and that was said to be the language of their gods. His eyes would turn upwards then and his body shake like a thing possessed, and it frightened me to look at him though many in the village would join him in his fits as if they too had been taken over.

During the time that I was there it happened that a leopard came to curse the place, carrying off several children and leaving the remains of one for all to see in a clearing just outside the village. The priest said the leopard was the spirit of an enemy who had come for revenge, and required the villagers to find the beast’s excrement and bring it to him. When this was done he mixed it with blood from a sacrifice and other things, including poisons and the sting of a scorpion. Three days later, the animal was found dead in the forest. The priest’s acolytes brought the carcass into the village to show us that there was no mark on it, and hence that it had fallen dead only through the priest’s power.

These were the things I remembered and that came to me now, clouding my mind. So it was that I began to go before dawn to Kefar Nahum, telling my father that I had been called to make the morning meal for the twelve, and to wait secretly outside the latrine near the harbour gate until finally once I
saw Yihuda come to it. When he had gone I so debased myself, though it turned my stomach, as to retrieve his waste from among the rest, knowing it by its heat. I wrapped it in leaves and buried it along the beach, and then after our meal I carried it home and hid it beneath a stone in our courtyard.

In the hills outside Bet Ma’on lived a pagan named Simon who was called the Canaanite and who was known to sell remedies and spells. The local people, though they were mainly Jews, nonetheless tolerated him, because they thought him harmless and because many of them came to him for his cures. His house was little more than a hovel, a crude thing of sticks and mud hardly more substantial than the huts we built at Tabernacles, and even from the road gave off the same stench I remembered from my mother’s village, of animal skins and smoke and old blood. He had cleared a bit of field that he farmed for his food and his medicines, and bartered his cures. But beyond that he lived in the bush, hunting like the people of old and living not much above the station of the animals that he killed.

I went to him one morning, veiled so he wouldn’t know me, and found him working in his field. The look of him frightened me, for he was unkempt and wild-eyed, though from the distance he kept from me it seemed his own apprehension was equal to mine. I couldn’t find the way to explain to him my purpose but somehow he divined it, for he said if I wished someone killed, he wouldn’t do it, since it was not his way to use his magic to such ends. From his words I came suddenly to understand the gravity of what I’d undertaken, and made clear to him that it was not my intention to murder, which was against my own law as well, but only to drive someone away.

I showed him what I had brought from Yihuda and also two drachmas I had taken from my father’s purse. He motioned me inside his hovel and had me set my parcel on a sort of table or altar there, where he inspected it. Besides the doorway, the house had but a single opening, at the peak of the ceiling, and all the walls were blackened with smoke and the smell of the place was overwhelming. There were little figures of clay arranged on the table and on the floor—of his gods, I imagined. I felt sick at the sight of them, for it was profanement for me to be among them and surely no good could come of it. But he said the thing could be done. Since I couldn’t bear to remain with him one moment longer I said I would leave the matter to him and go my way. For payment, he took just a single one of the drachmas I had brought. This surprised me, for I hadn’t expected him to be honest.

I told no one of what I’d done. But in the following days it happened that Simon’s measures took effect, for first it came about that Yihuda moved his quarters from the home of Shimon to that of Yaqob and Yohanan and then that he left us entirely. Both these changes, however, caused such tension and discord among us that whatever good they might have promised was quickly belied. In the case of Yihuda’s move to Yaqob’s house, the matter was handled with such a degree of informality and haste that Shimon took great affront at the insult to his hospitality. He put the blame at first on Yaqob, so that for several days there was enmity between them, until it grew clear that Yohanan had made the invitation, though it was hardly his place to decide on his household’s comings and goings.

The incident ought to have been a sign to us of Yihuda’s growing power over Yohanan. In any event, his bad influence
was soon clear enough, for we awoke one day to discover the two of them had run off together. We’d been given no warning of their departure and so I understood it was the Canaanite’s bewitchment that must be at play, but also that only evil could come of evil, for we had lost Yohanan who was innocent and still not much more than a child. It was amazing to me that Yihuda hadn’t also made off with the common purse—Yaqob found it on his bed, though how much had been pilfered from it, no one could say.

When Yeshua learned of the thing he seemed shaken in a way we had never before seen. Zabdi, the father of Yohanan, came to us at Shimon’s house and charged that Yeshua had led his son into corruption; and when he had gone Yeshua bemoaned the humiliation we had brought onto him.

One of the twelve said, But it was you who brought Yihuda among us.

And so my own poverty is revealed to me, Yeshua said, if he who understands is the one who leaves and you, who do not, remain.

Astounded, Yaqob said, We’ve always followed you in your teachings, when Yihuda did not. Even now, though my brother is gone, I’m here.

So you too blame your brother’s loss on me, Yeshua said.

I blame it on his weakness.

I stood in fear of my life then at the pact I had made with the Canaanite, sure that it lay behind our derangement. As soon as we had disbanded I set off at once for Bet Ma’on, praying to the Lord that what had been done could be undone.

When I arrived at Simon’s house, however, I found him deathly ill and delirious, lying in his own filth in his blackened hovel. For a moment, in my desperation, I thought simply to
leave him there to die, and thus free us of his spell. But by now it was clear to me that evil only fed on itself, and that even Simon’s illness must be part of the evil I myself had planted in him. I ministered to him in what way I could, washing the filth from him and feeding him a crust of bread that I found. Then I returned to Kefar Nahum with all due speed to fetch Yeshua to cure him, travelling without once stopping to rest though the sun was at its height.

In my distress I was prepared to confess to Yeshua my entire crime and to throw myself at his mercy. But though he knew what nature of man Simon was, he did not ask what my business with him had been or how I had found myself at his home, but merely followed me without question. From Kefar Nahum it was a two hours’ journey back to Bet Ma’on, and it would have been longer still had we not gone by the back ways, since it was impossible now for Yeshua to step from his gate without being surrounded by supplicants. Nonetheless he and I hardly spoke, nor in the end did I dare to breathe any word of the truth to him since he seemed still in the temper in which we had left him earlier in the day.

When we arrived at Simon’s house Yeshua promptly set to work to cure the man, cooling him with damp cloths and making a brew for him from herbs he found in Simon’s own garden. Of the filth in which Simon lived, and of the idols strewn throughout his house and even in his field, Yeshua said nothing, nor of the parcels wrapped in cloth or leaves, one of which I now recognized as my own, that lay in crude niches in the wall.

Yeshua sent me into town to fetch food from one of the houses where we were known. However, when Yeshua’s followers heard he was nearby they insisted on accompanying
me back to him. They were surprised when I stopped at the house of the Canaanite, and refused to come close.

Yeshua came out to the doorway and, seeing how his followers hung back, said, Your faith must be weak if you think merely breathing the air of a heathen’s house will corrupt you. A moment later, to my amazement, Simon himself appeared in the door, pale but standing, when I had left him delirious not a half-hour before.

I said to the others, He has cured him.

But my first thought was, Now my crime will be known. Simon, however, looked at me and didn’t seem to recognize me, and in a moment returned to his bed.

I made some food for him and he ate it, then fell deep into sleep. It was nearly dark by this time. I said to Yeshua that he should spend the night at my father’s house in Migdal, which was close, and he agreed to this, leaving Simon to the care of one of his followers from Bet Ma’on. So I thought that I had escaped with my crime undetected. But the following morning Simon, completely cured now, appeared at my father’s gate not long after dawn, having tracked us down. When Yeshua came out to him he immediately fell prostrate, calling out every sort of thanks and praise to Yeshua for having saved his life and offering to serve him in whatever way he wished.

Get up, Yeshua said, but Simon remained at his feet, even kissing them. My father said, He is a pagan, not wanting Yeshua to be profaned, and Yeshua reprimanded him, saying, Isn’t your own wife a pagan, who has never profaned me but shown me respect. At this my father held his tongue. But I knew he had meant that Simon was a sorcerer, and that what he praised in Yeshua was not the
glory of God but only what he understood as the greater power of Yeshua’s magic.

Because Simon refused to leave Yeshua’s side, Yeshua ended by bringing him with us to Kefar Nahum to meet with the twelve. Those we passed on the road were startled to see Yeshua in the company of a pagan and a sorcerer. Then when we were with the twelve, Yeshua said, See how this one offers me everything though I’ve only cured him of a fever, when my own men can’t stay with me though I promise them eternal life.

Yaqob said again, We are here, and Yeshua relented.

Then accept this man as one of us, he said, since he has shown great faith.

We didn’t understand if he meant us to accept Simon only as a disciple or also as one of the twelve, which we couldn’t fathom, since surely he knew of Simon’s ways and that he didn’t follow the one God. But because of Yeshua’s mood we didn’t dare to question him.

For my part, I stood in terror of the moment that Simon would reveal me to the others, for I was sure he had finally recognized me now. But he said nothing, and was timid with me as if he were the one held in threat. So a day passed, and another, and it seemed things would go well with us, since Yeshua was pleased to have converted Simon and had him sleep with him at the house of Shimon in the spot Yihuda had once had.

Then, to our joy, Yohanan returned to us, much repentant. He told us he had only wished to see the city of Sepphoris, putting no blame on Yihuda for his departure; yet neither did he say anything in his favour, from which we understood that though Yihuda had tempted him, in the end
he had come to his senses. Yeshua instantly forgave him, saying it was left to Yohanan to know what sins he’d committed; and even his father was quick to pardon him, because the matter was not yet known in the town and so he’d been spared any dishonour. Thus the conversion of Simon to our cause appeared a good omen, since it had brought Yohanan back to us and kept Yihuda away. But still I couldn’t rest easy with Simon among us.