Testament (25 page)

Then some time after Yeshua’s departure we heard that Chizkijah, who had not been seen for many weeks, had appeared again in his hometown of Bersaba, wearing finery and boasting of how he had been rewarded by the king for ridding the Galilee of a false prophet. We didn’t believe this could be so, that he could be so brazen. But Yaqob and Shimon set off at once for the town to confront him. Sure
enough, they found him drunk in a tavern, telling stories of how he had tricked Yeshua’s followers and spread his slanders. Seeing Shimon and Yaqob, he didn’t balk as he might have but called them to him openly, as if to take them into his confidence.

I’ve done you a service, he said, to free you of a charlatan.

Yaqob was ready to strike the man but Shimon restrained him.

If he was a charlatan, you wouldn’t have needed lies to accuse him, Shimon said.

But I only told what was true, Chizkijah said. I only praised his good works. And he seemed pleased beyond measure at his own trickery.

We began to see now what his intentions had been—he had merely sought to return to his town in glory, decked out in fine clothes and with silver in his purse, so that he might lord it over those who had had contempt for him. In his pride he was quick to boast of what he had done, not seeing how he thus vindicated us; but in Bersaba and in many of the towns in those parts it was indeed regarded as a tremendous good work that he had brought Yeshua down, since he was seen as a menace.

In the end, however, it was Chizkijah’s pride that undid him, for one morning some of our own disciples found him lying near the road outside Bersaba, mortally wounded. Their first thought was to leave him there and say nothing, since they believed God had justly punished him for his evil. But then they saw that he still clung to life and that he pleaded with them for their mercy, and so they took pity on him and carried him to the town. Because they were known as
Yeshua’s followers, they were promptly accused as the ones who had brought him to his state. But it was Chizkijah himself who absolved them, declaring before witnesses that it wasn’t any of Yeshua’s people who had injured him but his own associates from the court, who had waylaid him on the road the previous night and beaten him with clubs before leaving him for dead in the woods. He said Herod had sent the men to teach him a lesson because with his boasting he had begun to send people’s sympathies back to Yeshua, and so risked undoing all the work he had been paid for.

Would to God I had been honest when I claimed to be won to him, Chizkijah said, since he is truly a great man and I am a worthless one.

With that he died, though everyone who had heard him was very moved by his words.

It didn’t take long for the news of Chizkijah’s recantation to spread. Those who had turned against Yeshua on his account now saw their mistake, and were reminded again of Yeshua’s eminence, that even someone like Chizkijah had truly been won to him in the end. To the twelve, however, Shimon said, Don’t go around boasting like Chizkijah did, but follow Yeshua’s example and hold your tongue. So we didn’t vaunt that we’d been vindicated, but rather let people come to us of their own accord to admit their mistake; and this worked to our credit, as Shimon had foreseen, since we didn’t come accusing or laying blame, but ready to accept all those who presented themselves. Several women who had been among those who had looked askance at me came to my home now to beg forgiveness, bringing gifts of oil and such. Remembering my own guilt with regard to Ribqah, I didn’t feel any bitterness towards them as I might have, but rather felt moved that
they had come to me so open-handedly, when I myself wasn’t certain that I could have so swallowed my pride.

Thus Yeshua’s followers gradually returned to the fold, and every calumny that had been spoken against him was withdrawn. Yet our victory felt hollow because Yeshua himself was still gone, nor had we had any word of his return. A few of the twelve travelled north to Kefar Dan, where there were many Jews, to see if he had passed through there or if anyone had any news of him. But to their surprise no one had even so much as heard of him there, though the town was little more than a day’s journey from Kefar Nahum.

Then one day a prince of Sidon passed through Migdal, on his way, he said, to worship the god of the Jews at Jerusalem. He bore a large retinue of servants, and a gilded litter that carried his young daughter; and, as we learned, he owed a profound debt to our Lord since his daughter had been brought back from the clutches of death by a holy man of the Jews. We didn’t need to ask more than a word from him to know that it was Yeshua he spoke of, for as he said the cure had seemed a miracle, seeing that all his own healers and priests, whether by potions or burnt offerings, had been able to do nothing for her. The girl herself was a thing of amazing beauty, with the palest skin and garments of purple and gold. When she discovered that my father and I were followers of Yeshua, she came to us and kissed our hands, which was a deep abasement of herself, and said that truly our god was a glorious one if he worked through such men as our master.

We learned from the prince that Yeshua had taken himself to Mount Hermon, which surprised us, since the Jews considered it profane. But we were overjoyed to have some word of him, and that he still lived and followed his mission.
It was in our minds to send a delegation to him at once to call him back to Galilee, now that Chizkijah had recanted. But even before we had the time to make our plans we had better news of him, for the word arrived that he had been seen on the road on his way to Kefar Nahum.

This time when my father arranged for a general feast at the gates of the town, I didn’t try to dissuade him, but rather built up the cooking fires with the other women and helped to give out bread and fish to all who requested them. As it happened, however, Yeshua didn’t come to the town that night but rather stopped some miles beyond it, held up by all those who had come out to greet him. Shimon and a few of the others went out to him, but it was dark by then so we women stayed behind. I was happy enough to wait until the light of day to lay eyes on him again, remembering the awkwardness of his return from Tyre and how much a stranger he had seemed then.

In the morning I left Migdal before dawn in order to be in Kefar Nahum when he arrived. Then, not long after sunrise, he appeared in the street outside Shimon’s house with those of the twelve who had slept with him in the open and a band of others following behind. With his retinue he looked like some beggar king, his clothes nearly rags and his hair and beard grown matted and thick. There was hardly more flesh to him than there had been when he had first come to us out of the desert; yet he was not the same man that he’d been then, but changed in a hundred ways I knew but could not quite have named. It seemed he trailed a shadow now that he hadn’t then, which was the shape of all we’d been through, something dark and looming so that he seemed larger and more estimable and more hidden.

At Shimon’s house he merely asked for food and said he would go at once to the hill above the town to be with his followers there. There were several of us who were there to greet him, including the other women and some of the twelve; and so I didn’t put myself forward. But he saw me there among the others.

How is your family, he said, and I answered for them. Then he took my hand and he kissed it, only that, and I had to hold my breath against my tears.

He spent the rest of the day on the hill with his followers, preaching at first, and then when the wind off the lake made it impossible for him to be heard, simply moving among the crowd to exchange a word with those he knew and give his greetings. All day people continued to come in twos and threes to pay their respects, even Ventidius from the Roman camp; and so it seemed that the slanders we had suffered under Chizkijah were all but forgotten. It was not until evening that Yeshua was able to sit alone with the twelve, on the hillside there, sharing some supper with us that we cooked in the open.

We were afraid you wouldn’t return, Shimon said, and could not bring himself to look at Yeshua for emotion.

It was only now once we were all gathered together that we noticed Yihuda wasn’t among us. We sent a boy in search of him but he returned without news.

He’s only gone to catch us some fish, Yeshua said, to make a joke of the thing, since we had understood by then it was fear of the water that had always kept Yihuda from joining the men while they fished. Yet a note of heaviness hung among us because of his absence, as if it foreboded ill.

It was Shimon who told Yeshua what had fallen out with regard to Chizkijah. But Yeshua said he had learned of his death on the road the previous day and had mourned it, and would not say any more on the matter. The truth was that even in the midst of our troubles Yeshua had not suffered us to say any word against Chizkijah, as if he were simply some follower who had strayed rather than a man bent on our destruction. At the time we hadn’t understood him; but now it seemed as if all along he had seen the truest course, that it was not by enmity that Chizkijah would be won to us in the end but by our example.

It was clear, however, that there was something changed in Yeshua as a result of what we’d been through, some small hardening in him as in iron that had passed through the fire. Simon the Canaanite told how he had seen huge ghosts in Yeshua’s company on Mount Hermon, and how Yeshua himself had stood transfigured and white as if the very light of the Lord had glowed inside him. But I thought that the Lord’s light could also be the dark one of a smithy, and his crucible searing. So we had passed through a difficult trial and survived, and proved our worth. Yet it seemed also that a great deal had been lost to us or taken away, and with little solace.

It wasn’t long before we discovered that Yihuda had truly left us. A stranger had come in search of him, as we heard, putting himself out as one of his family; and they had set off together on the southern road. Then the days and the weeks went by, and we had no news of him. We knew this was his way, to come and go as he pleased without any word to us. Yet there seemed a finality to his departure, for it had been many months now that he had not been comfortable among us.

I was surprised that we didn’t feel any great relief at his going. But while it was the case that none of us had come to love him, still we had grown accustomed to him. Through Yeshua’s eyes we saw how it was a defeat for us that he’d gone.

We won’t fill the place he has left, he said, to remind us always of the one we couldn’t win over.

And though we were more at ease now and freer in our questions, since we didn’t have Yihuda to show up our ignorance, we also understood more clearly, from the general agreement among us and the lack of debate, how unreflecting and small we often were in our own thoughts.

Now that Yeshua had been vindicated his followers were anxious to make amends with him. So the crowds began to approach their former size, and those who had avoided him tried to find the way to show their love. But Yeshua held back, and often when he came to a town, he came quietly so that instead of preaching to the crowd he might go to some small gathering of those who he remembered had stayed true to him even in adversity. It was also at this time that he began to travel across the lake into the Decapolis, finding the people there, both the pagans and the Jews, less obstinate and more open-hearted than the Galileans. He went to Gergesa and Hippus and even as far as Gadara and the villages thereabouts; and the crowds would come down from the hills at the sight of his boat to await him on the shore. Many there were like children in their beliefs, for even the Jews of those parts had fallen into superstitions and worshipped Baal or Augustus, as the Romans had decreed. Thus Yeshua’s words were a tonic to them, and many people were converted. Some had never heard of the one true God, and were amazed to learn of him, and it seemed to me that these were the
ones that Yeshua held most dear, those pagans who were won over from black ignorance.

Then one day a teacher came to us from Judea, a certain Yehoceph of Ramathaim, who said he had heard talk of Yeshua and wished to see him with his own eyes. He was an old man long gone grey and, as we heard, much respected in his town and in Jerusalem, where he taught and where he had known the teacher Hillel. He spent many days with us, going around to the towns as Yeshua preached and often talking with him at the lakeshore into the night until the rest of us had fallen asleep or returned to our homes. He put questions to Yeshua that those of us among the twelve could hardly fathom, about God and our will and on points of law. It humbled me when I heard them—I had never given any thought to the matters they spoke of though they seemed of such importance, and I understood then how we too were like children for Yeshua, and how he missed Yihuda, for he had been the only one of us who could challenge him.

After Yehoceph had been with us for many days, he came to some of us among the twelve and said our master was graced by God, and would prove a great leader for the Jews.

Philip said, What do the people say of him in Jerusalem.

They hardly know of him in Jerusalem, Yehoceph said, which again surprised us.

As Yehoceph put it, the Judeans paid no attention to what happened in the Galilee, because they believed nothing good came from there. But it was an evil time now in Judea, since the people no longer respected the priests, who thought only of their own gain, and so followed leaders who bent them on madness or worse.

So you must lead Yeshua to us, he said, to spread his own mission there.

How can we lead him when he always follows his own mind, Shimon said.

You have to find the way.

We didn’t know what to make of Yehoceph’s request. Clearly he had also put it to Yeshua and Yeshua had refused him, or he would not have come to us to sway him. But we were loath to be the instruments by which Yeshua would be sent away from us. Shimon said it was selfishness to think in this way, and that we must find every means for spreading Yeshua’s teaching. Yet even in his own voice we saw that he couldn’t bear that Yeshua should leave us.