Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal

Chapter 23

We rode Vana north toward the Silk Road, skirting the great Indian desert that had almost killed Alexander the Great’s forces as they returned to Persia after conquering half of the known world, three centuries before. Although it would have saved a month to cut through the desert, Joshua was not confident about his ability to conjure enough water for Vana. A man should learn the lessons of history, and although I insisted that Alexander’s men had probably been tired from all that conquering, while Josh and I had basically been sitting around at the beach for two years, he insisted we take the less hostile route through Delhi, and north into what is now Pakistan until we joined the Silk Road once again.

A little ways down the Silk Road I thought we received another message from Mary. We had stopped to have a short rest. When we resumed the journey, Vana happened to walk over where she had just done her business and the pile was pressed into the perfect likeness of a woman’s face, dark poo against the light gray dust.

“Look, Josh, there’s another message from your mother.”

Josh glanced and looked away. “That’s not my mother.”

“But look, in the elephant poop, it’s a woman’s face.”

“I know, but it’s not my mother. It’s distorted because of the medium. It doesn’t even look like her. Look at the eyes.”

I had to climb to the back of the elephant to get another angle on it. He was right, it wasn’t his mother. “I guess you’re right. The medium obscured the message.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“I’ll bet it looks like someone’s mom, though.”

With the detour around the desert, we were nearly two months getting to Kabul. Although Vana was an intrepid walker, as I have mentioned, she was a less than agile climber, so we often had to take long detours to get her through the mountains of Afghanistan. Josh and I both knew that we could not take her into the high, rocky desert once we passed Kabul, so we agreed to leave the elephant with Joy, if we could find the erstwhile courtesan.

Once in Kabul we asked around the market for any news of a Chinese woman named Tiny Feet of the Divine Dance of Joyous Orgasm, but no one had heard of her, nor had they seen a woman simply named Joy. After a full day of searching, Joshua and I were about to abandon the search for our friend when I remembered something she had once said to me. I asked a local tea seller.

“Is there a woman who lives around here, a very rich woman perhaps, who calls herself the Dragon Lady or something like that?”

“Oh, yes sir,” the fellow said, and he shuddered as he spoke, as if a bug had run across his neck. “She is called the Cruel and Accursed Dragon Princess.”

“Nice name,” I said to Joy as we rode through the massive stone gates into the courtyard of her palace.

“A woman alone, it helps to have your reputation precede you,” said the Cruel and Accursed Dragon Princess. She looked almost exactly as she had almost nine years ago when we had left, except perhaps that she wore a little more jewelry. She was petite, and delicate, and beautiful. She wore a white silk robe embroidered with dragons and her blue-black hair hung down her back almost to her knees, held in place by a single silver band that just kept it from sweeping around her shoulders when she turned. “Nice elephant,” she added.

“She’s a present,” Joshua said.

“She’s lovely.”

“Do you have a couple of camels you can spare, Joy?” I asked.

“Oh, Biff, I had really hoped that you two would sleep with me tonight.”

“Well, I’d love to, but Josh is still sworn off the muffin.”

“Young men? I have a number of man-boys I keep around for, well, you know.”

“Not those either,” Joshua said.

“Oh Joshua, my poor little Messiah. I’ll bet no one made you Chinese food for your birthday this year either?”

“We had rice,” Joshua said.

“Well, we’ll see what the Accursed Dragon Princess can do to make up for that,” said Joy.

We climbed down from the elephant and exchanged hugs with our old friend, then a stern guard in bronze chain mail led Vana away to the stables and four guards with spears flanked us as Joy led us into the main house.

“A woman alone?” I said, looking at the guards that seemed to stand at every doorway.

“In my heart, darling,” Joy said. “These aren’t friends, family, or lovers, these are employees.”

“Is that the Accursed part of your new title?” Joshua said.

“I could drop it, just be the Cruel Dragon Princess, if you two want to stay on.”

“We can’t. We’ve been called home.”

Joy nodded dolefully and led us into the library (filled with Balthasar’s old books), where coffee was served by young men and women who Joy had obviously brought from China. I thought of all the girls, my friends and my lovers, who had been killed by the demon so long ago, and swallowed my coffee around a lump in my throat.

Joshua was as excited as I had seen him in a long time. It might have been the coffee. “You won’t believe the wonderful things I’ve learned since I left here, Joy. About being the agent of change (change is at the root of belief, you know), and about compassion for everyone because everyone is part of another, and most important, that there is a bit of God in each of us—in India they call it the Divine Spark.”

He rambled on like that for an hour, and eventually my melancholy passed and I was infected by Joshua’s enthusiasm for the things he had learned from the Magi.

“Yes,” I added, “and Josh can climb inside a standard-size wine amphora. You have to bust him out with a hammer, but it’s interesting to watch.”

“And you, Biff?” Joy asked, smiling into her cup.

“Well, after supper I’ll show you a little something I like to call Water Buffalo Teasing the Seeds out of the Pomegranate.”

“That sounds—”

“Don’t worry, it’s not that hard to learn. I have pictures.”

We were four days at Joy’s palace, enjoying comfort, food, and drink such as we hadn’t experienced since we’d last seen her. I could have stayed forever, but on the morning of the fifth day Joshua stood at the entrance to Joy’s bedchamber, his satchel slung over his shoulder. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. We shared breakfast with Joy and she met us at the gate to say good-bye.

“Thanks for the elephant,” she said.

“Thanks for the camels,” Joshua said.

“Thanks for the sex book,” Joy said.

“Thanks for the sex,” I said.

“Oh, I forgot, you owe me a hundred rupees,” Joy said. I had told her about Kashmir. The Cruel and Accursed Dragon Princess grinned at me. “Just kidding. Be well, my friend. Keep that amulet I gave you and remember me, huh?”

“Of course.” I kissed her and climbed on my camel’s back, then coaxed him to his feet.

Joy embraced Joshua and kissed him on the lips, hard and long. He didn’t seem to be trying to push her away.

“Hey, we had better go, Josh,” I said.

Joy held the Messiah at arm’s length and said, “You are always welcome here, you know that?”

Josh nodded, then climbed on his camel. “Go with God, Joy,” he said. As we rode through the gates of the palace the guards shot fire arrows that trailed long tails of sparks over us until they exploded above the road ahead: Joy’s last good-bye to us, a tribute to the friendship and arcane knowledge we had all shared. It scared the bejeezus out of the camels.

After we had been on the road awhile, Joshua asked, “Did you say goodbye to Vana?”

“I intended to, but when I went to the stable she was practicing her yoga and I didn’t want to disturb her.”

“No kidding?”

“Really, she was sitting in one of the postures you taught her.”

Joshua smiled. It didn’t hurt anything for him to believe that.

The journey on the Silk Road through the high deserts took us over a month, but it was fairly uneventful, except for one attack by a small group of bandits. When I caught the first two spears they flung at me and flung them right back, wounding the two who had thrown them, they turned and ran. The weather was mild, or as mild as one can expect in a deadly and brutal desert, but by now Joshua and I had traveled so much in this sort of harsh country that there was little that affected us. Just before we reached Antioch, however, a sandstorm whipped up out of the desert that left us hiding between our camels for two days, breathing through our shirts and washing the mud out of our mouths every time we took a drink. The storm settled enough to travel, and we were at a veritable gallop in the streets of Antioch when Joshua located an inn by impacting with its sign on his forehead. He was knocked back off his camel and sat up in the street with blood streaming down his face.

“Are you hurt badly?” I asked, kneeling beside him. I could barely see in the driving dust.

Joshua looked at the blood on his hands where he had touched his forehead. “I don’t know. It doesn’t hurt that badly, but I can’t tell.”

“Inside,” I said, helping him to his feet and through the door of the inn.

“Shut the door,” the innkeeper shouted as the wind whipped through the room. “Were you born in a barn?”

“Yeah,” said Joshua.

“He was,” I said. “Angels on the roof, though.”

“Shut the damn door,” said the innkeeper.

I left Joshua sitting there by the door while I went out and found shelter for the camels. When I returned Joshua was wiping his face with a linen cloth that someone had handed to him. A couple of men stood over him, eager to help. I handed the cloth to one of them and examined Josh’s wounds. “You’ll live. A big bump and two cuts, but you’ll live. You can’t do the healing thing on—”

Joshua shook his head.

“Hey, look at this,” one of the travelers who had helped Joshua said, holding up the piece of linen Joshua had used to wipe his face. The dust and blood from Josh’s face had left a perfect likeness on the linen, even handprints where he’d gotten blood from his head wound. “Can I keep this?” the fellow said. He was speaking Latin, but with a strange accent.

“Sure,” I said. “Where are you fellahs from?”

“We’re from the Ligurian tribe, from the territories north of Rome. A city on the Po river called Turin. Have you heard of it?”

“No, I haven’t. You know, you fellahs can do what you want with that cloth, but out on my camel I’ve got some erotic drawings from the East that are going to be worth something someday. I can let you have them for a very fair price.”

The Turinians went off holding their pathetic swath of muddy cloth like it was some kind of holy relic. Ignorant bastards wouldn’t know art if you nailed them to it. I bandaged Joshua’s wounds and we checked into the inn for the night.

In the morning we decided to keep our camels and take the land route home through Damascus. As we passed out of the gates of Damascus on the final leg home, Joshua started to worry.

“I’m not ready to be the Messiah, Biff. If I’m being called home to lead our people I don’t even know where to start. I understand the things I want to teach, but I don’t have the words yet. Melchior was right about that. Before anything you have to have the word.”

“Well it’s not just going to come to you in a flash here on the Damascus road, Josh. That sort of thing doesn’t happen. You’re obviously supposed to learn what you need to know in its own time. To everything a season, yada, yada, yada…”

“My father could have made learning all this easier. He could have just told me what I was supposed to do.”

“I wonder how Maggie’s doing. You think she got fat?”

“I’m trying to talk about God here, about the Divine Spark, about bringing the kingdom to our people.”

“I know you are, so am I. Do you want to do all of that without help?”

“I guess not.”

“Well, that’s why I was thinking about Maggie. She was smarter than us before we left, she’s probably smarter than us now.”

“She was smart, wasn’t she? She wanted to be a fisherman,” said Josh, grinning. I could tell that the thought of seeing Maggie tickled him.

“You can’t tell her about all the whores, Josh.”

“I won’t.”

“Or Joy and the girls. Or the old woman with no teeth.”

“I won’t tell her about any of them, not even the yak.”

“There was nothing with the yak. The yak and I weren’t even on speaking terms.”

“You know, she probably has a dozen children by now.”

“I know.” I sighed. “They should be mine.”

“And mine.” Joshua sighed back.

I looked at him as he rode beside me in a sea of gently loping camel waves. He was staring off at the horizon, looking forlorn. “Yours and mine? You think they should be yours and mine?”

“Sure, why not. You know I love all the little—”

“You are such a doofus sometimes.”

“Do you think she’ll remember us? I mean, how we all were back then?”

I thought about it and shuddered. “I hope not.”

No sooner did we pass into Galilee than we began to hear about what John the Baptist was doing in Judea.

“Hundreds have followed him into the desert,” we heard in Gischala.

“Some say he is the Messiah,” one man told us in Baca.

“Herod is afraid of him,” said a woman in Cana.

“He’s another crazy holy man,” said a Roman soldier in Sepphoris. “The Jews breed them like rabbits. I hear he drowns anyone who doesn’t agree with him. First sensible idea I’ve heard since I was sent to this accursed territory.”

“May I have your name, soldier?” I asked.

“Caius Junius, of the Sixth Legion.”

“Thank you. We’ll keep you in mind.” To Josh I said, “Caius Junius: front of the line when we start shoving Romans out of the kingdom into the fiery abyss.”

“What did you say?” said the Roman.

“No, no, don’t thank me, you earned it. Right at the front of the line you go, Caius.”

“Biff!” Josh barked, and once he had my attention he whispered, “Try not to get us thrown into prison before we get home, please.”

I nodded and waved to the legionnaire as we rode away. “Just crazy Jew talk. Pay no attention. Whimper Fidelis,” I said.

“We have to find John after we see our families,” Joshua said.

“Do you think that he’s really claiming to be the Messiah?”

“No, but it sounds like he knows how to get the word out.”

We rode into Nazareth a half hour later.

I suppose we expected more upon our arrival. Cheering maybe, little children running at our heels begging for tales of our great adventures, tears and laughter, kisses and hugs, strong shoulders to bear the conquering heroes through the streets. What we’d forgotten was that while we were traveling, having adventures, and experiencing wonders, the people of Nazareth had been living through the same old day-to-day crap—a lot of days had passed, and a lot of crap. When we rode up to Joshua’s old house, his brother James was working outside under the awning, shaving a piece of olive wood into a strut for a camel saddle. I knew it was James the moment I saw him. He had Joshua’s narrow hooked nose and wide eyes, but his face was more weathered than Josh’s, and his body heavier with muscle. He looked ten years older than Joshua rather than the two years younger that he was.

He put down his spoke shave and stepped out in the sunlight, holding up a hand to shield his eyes.

“Joshua?”

Joshua tapped his camel on the back of his knees with the long riding crop and the beast lowered him to the ground.

“James!” Joshua climbed off the camel and went to his brother, his arms out as if to embrace him, but James stepped back.

“I’ll go tell Mother that her favorite son has returned.” James turned away and I saw the tears literally shoot out of Joshua’s eyes into the dust.

“James,” Joshua was pleading. “I didn’t know. When?”

James turned and looked his half brother in the eye. There was no pity there, no grief, just anger. “Two months ago, Joshua. Joseph died two months ago. He asked for you.”

“I didn’t know,” Joshua said, still holding his arms out for the embrace that wasn’t going to come.

“Go inside. Mother has been waiting for you. She starts every morning wondering if this is the day you’ll return. Go inside.” He turned away as Joshua went past him into the house, then James looked up at me. “The last thing he said was ‘Tell the bastard I love him.’”

“The bastard?” I said as I coaxed my camel to let me down.

“That’s what he always called Joshua. ‘I wonder how the bastard is doing. I wonder where the bastard is today?’ Always talking about the bastard. And Mother yammering on always about how Joshua did this, and Joshua did that, and what great things Joshua would do when he returned. And all the while I’m the one looking out for my brothers and sisters, taking care of them when Father got sick, taking care of my own family. Still, was there any thanks? A kind word? No, I was doing nothing more than paving Joshua’s road. You have no idea what it’s like to always be second to Joshua.”

“Really,” I said. “You’ll have to tell me about that sometime,” I said. “Tell Josh if he needs me I’ll be at my father’s house. My father is still alive, isn’t he?”

“Yes, and your mother too.”

“Oh good, I didn’t want to put one of my brothers through breaking the painful news.” I turned and led my camel away.

“Go with God, Levi,” James said.

I turned. “James, it is written, ‘To the work you are entitled, but not the fruits thereof.’”

“I’ve never heard that. Where is that written?”

“In the Bhagavad Gita, James. It’s a long poem about going into battle, and this warrior’s god tells him not to worry about killing his kinsmen in battle, because they are already dead, they just don’t know it yet. I don’t know what made me think of it.”

My father hugged me until I thought he’d broken my ribs, then he handed me off to my mother, who did the same until she seemed to come to her senses, then she began to cuff me about the head and shoulders with her sandal, which she had whipped off with surprising speed and dexterity for a woman her age.

“Seventeen years you’re gone and you couldn’t write?”

“You don’t know how to read.”

“So you couldn’t send word, smart mouth?”

I fended off the blows by directing their energy away from me, as I had been taught at the monastery, and soon two small boys who I didn’t recognize were catching the brunt of the beating. Fearing lawsuits from small strangers, I caught my mother’s arms and hugged them to her sides as I looked at my father, nodded to the two little ones, and raised my eyebrows as if to say, Who are the squirts?

“Those are your brothers, Moses and Japeth,” my father said. “Moses is six and Japeth is five.”

The little guys grinned. Both were missing front teeth, probably sacrificed to the squirming harpy I was currently holding at bay. My father beamed as if to say, I can still build the aqueduct—lay a little pipe, if you know what I mean—when I need to.

I scowled as if to say, Look, I was barely able to hold on to my respect for you when I found out what you did to make the first three of us; these little fellows are only evidence that you’ve no memory for suffering.

“Mother, if I let you go will you calm down?” I looked over her shoulder at Japeth and Moses. “I used to tell people she was besought by a demon, do you guys do that?” I winked at them.

They giggled as if to say, Please, end our suffering, kill us, kill us now, or kill this bitch that plagues us like the torments of Job. Okay, maybe I was just imagining that’s what they were saying. Maybe they were just giggling.

I let my mother go and she backed off. “Japeth, Moses,” Mother said, “come meet Biff. You’ve heard your father and me talk about our oldest disappointment—well, this is him. Now run and get your other brothers, I’ll go fix something nice.”

My brothers Shem and Lucius brought their families and joined us for dinner and we all lay around the table as Mother served us something nice, I’m not sure what it was. (I know I’ve said that I was the oldest of three brothers, and obviously, with the squirts, it was five, but dammit, by the time I met Japeth and Moses I was too old to have the time to torment them, so they never really paid their dues as brothers. They were more like, oh, pets.) “Mother, I’ve brought you a gift from the East,” I said, running out to the camel to retrieve a package.

“What is it?”

“It’s a breeding mongoose,” I said, tapping on the cage. The little scamp tried to bite the pad off of my finger.

“But there’s only one.”

“Well, there were two, but one escaped, so now there’s one. They’ll attack a snake ten times their size.”

“It looks like a rat.”

I lowered my voice and whispered conspiratorially, “In India, the women train them to sit on their heads like hats. Very fashionable. Of course the fad hasn’t reached Galilee yet, but in Antioch, no self-respecting woman will go out of the house without wearing a mongoose.”

“Really,” said Mother, looking at the mongoose in a new light. She took the cage and stowed it gently away in the corner, as if it contained a delicate egg, rather than a vicious miniature of herself. “So,” said Mother, waving to her two daughters-in-law and the half-dozen grandchildren that loitered near the table, “your brothers married and gave me grandchildren.”

“I’m happy for them, Mother.”

Shem and Lucius hid their grins behind a crust of flatbread the same way they did when we were little and Mother was giving me hell.

“All the places you traveled, you never met a nice girl you could settle down with?”

“No, Mother.”

“You can marry a gentile, you know. It would break my heart, but why did the tribes almost wipe out the Benjamites if it wasn’t so a desperate boy could marry a gentile if he needs to? Not a Samaritan, but, you know, some other gentile. If you have to.”

“Thanks, Mother, I’ll keep that in mind.”

Mother pretended to find some lint or something on my collar, which she picked at while she said, “So your friend Joshua never married either? You heard about his little sister Miriam, didn’t you?” Here her voice went to a conspiratorial whisper. “Started wearing men’s clothes and ran off to the island of Lesbos.” Back to normal nudging tone. “That’s Greek, you know? You boys didn’t go to Greece on your travels, did you?”

“No, Mother, I really have to go.”

I tried to stand and she grabbed me. “It’s because your father has a Greek name, isn’t it? I told you, Alphaeus, change the name, but you said you were proud of it. Well, I hope you’re proud of it now. What’s next, Lucius here will start hanging Jews on crosses like the other Romans?”

“I’m not a Roman, Mother,” Lucius said wearily. “Lots of good Jews have Latin names.”

“Not that it matters, Mother, but how do you think they get more Greeks?”

To my mother’s credit, she stopped for a second to think. I used the lull to escape.

“Nice to see you guys.” I nodded to all of my relatives, old and new. “I’ll come by and visit before I go. I have to go check on Joshua.” And I was out the door.

I threw the door open at Joshua’s old house without even knocking, nearly coldcocking Joshua’s brother Judah in the process. “Josh, you’ve got to bring the kingdom soon or I’m going to have to kill my mother.”

“She still plagued by demons?” asked Judah, who looked exactly as he had when he was four, except for the beard and the receding hairline, but he was as wide-eyed and goofy of smile as he had ever been.

“No, I was just being hopeful when I used to say that.”

“Will you join us for supper?” said Mary. Thank God she had aged: gone a little thicker around the hips and waist, developed some lines at the corner of her eyes and mouth. Now she was just the second or third most beautiful creature on earth.

“Love to,” I said.

James must have been home with his wife and children, as I guessed were the other sisters and brothers, except for Miriam, and I’d already been apprised of her whereabouts. At the table it was only Mary, Joshua, Judah, his pretty wife, Ruth, and two little redheaded girls that looked like their mother.

I expressed my condolences for the family’s loss, and Joshua filled me in on the timing of events. About the time that I spotted Mary’s portrait on the temple wall in Nicobar, Joseph had taken ill with some disease of the water. He started peeing blood, and in a week he was bedridden. He lingered only a week longer before he died. He’d been buried for two months now. I looked at Joshua as Mary related this part of the story and he shook his head, meaning, too long in the grave, there’s nothing I can do. Mary had known nothing about a message calling us home.

“Even if you two had only been in Damascus you’d have been lucky to get here in time. He went so fast.” She was strong, had recovered somewhat from the loss, but Joshua appeared to still be in shock.

“You have to go find Joshua’s cousin John,” Mary said. “He’s been preaching about the coming of the kingdom, of preparing the way for the Messiah.”

“We’ve heard,” I said.

“I’ll stay here with you, Mother,” Joshua said. “James is right, I have responsibilities. I’ve shirked them too long.”

Mary touched her son’s face and looked in his eyes. “You will leave in the morning and you will find John the Baptist in Judea and you will do what God has ordained you do since he placed you in my womb. Your responsibilities are not to a bitter brother or an old woman.”

Joshua looked at me. “Can you leave in the morning? I know it’s soon after being gone so long.”

“Actually, I thought I’d stay, Josh. Your mother needs someone to look after her, and she’s still a relatively attractive woman. I mean, a guy could do worse.”

Judah aspirated an olive pit and began coughing furiously until Joshua pounded him on the back and the pit shot across the room, leaving Judah gasping and staring at me through watery red eyes.

I put my hand on Joshua and Judah’s shoulders. “I think I can learn to love you both as sons.” I looked at the pretty but shy Ruth, who was tending the little girls. “And you, Ruth, I hope that you can learn to love me as a slightly older, but incredibly attractive close uncle. And you, Mary—”

“Will you go with Joshua to Judea, Biff?” Mary interrupted.

“Sure, first thing in the morning.”

Joshua and Judah were still staring at me as if they’d both been smacked in the face with a large fish. “What?” I said. “How long have you guys known me? Jeez. Grow a sense of humor.”

“Our father died,” said Joshua.

“Yeah, but not today,” I said. “I’ll meet you here in the morning.”

The next morning, as we rode through the square, we passed Bartholomew, the village idiot, who looked no worse or less filthy for the years gone by, and who seemed to have come to some sort of understanding with his doggy friends. Instead of jumping all over him as they always had, now they sat quietly before him in a group, as if listening to a sermon.

“Where have you been?” Bart called to us.

“In the East.”

“Why did you go there?”

“We were looking for the Divine Spark,” Joshua said. “But we didn’t know that when we left.”

“Where are you going?”

“To Judea, to find John the Baptist.”

“He should be easier to find than the Spark. Can I come?”

“Sure,” I said. “Bring your things.”

“I don’t have any things.”

“Then bring your stench.”

“That will follow on its own,” Bartholomew said.

And thus we became three.

Chapter 24

I’ve finally finished reading these stories by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These guys make the whole thing seem like an accident, like five thousand people just showed up on a hill one morning. If that was the case, getting them all there was the miracle, let alone feeding them. We busted our asses to organize sermons like that, and sometimes we even had to put Joshua in a boat and float him offshore while he preached, just to keep him from getting mobbed. That boy was a security nightmare.

And that’s not all, there were two sides to Joshua, his preaching side and his private side. The guy who stood there railing at the Pharisees was not the same guy who would sit around poking Untouchables in the arm because it cracked him up. He planned the sermons, he calculated the parables, although he may have been the only one in our group that understood any of them.

What I’m saying is that these guys, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, they got some of it right, the big stuff, but they missed a lot (like thirty years, for instance). I’ll try to fill it in, which is why, I guess, the angel brought me back from the dead.

And speaking of the angel, I’m about convinced that he’s gone psycho. (No, psycho isn’t a word I had back in my time, but enough television and I’ll have a whole new vocabulary. It applies. I believe, for instance, that “psycho” was the perfect term for John the Baptist. More about him later.) Raziel took me to a place where you wash clothes today. A Laundromat. We were there all day. He wanted to make sure I knew how to wash clothes. I may not be the sharpest arrow in the quiver, but it’s laundry, for Christ’s sake. He quizzed me for an hour about sorting whites and colors. I may never get this story told if the angel keeps deciding to teach me life lessons. Tomorrow, miniature golf. I can only guess that Raziel is trying to prepare me to be an international spy.

Bartholomew and his stench rode one camel while Joshua and I shared the other. We rode south to Jerusalem, then east over the Mount of Olives into Bethany, where we saw a yellow-haired man sitting under a fig tree. I had never seen a yellow-haired person in Israel, other than the angel. I pointed him out to Joshua and we watched the blond man long enough to convince ourselves that he wasn’t one of the heavenly host in disguise. Actually, we pretended to watch him. We were watching each other.

Bartholomew said, “Is there something wrong? You two seem nervous.”

“It’s just that blond kid,” I said, trying to look in the courtyards of the large houses as we passed.

“Maggie lives here with her husband,” Joshua said, looking at me, relieving no tension whatsoever.

“I knew that,” said Bart. “He’s a member of the Sanhedrin. High up, they say.”

The Sanhedrin was a council of priests and Pharisees who made most of the decisions for the Jewish community, as far as the Romans would allow them, anyway. Aside from the Herods and Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, they were the most powerful men in Israel.

“I was really hoping Jakan would die young.”

“They have no children,” Joshua said. What Josh was saying was that it was strange that Jakan hadn’t divorced Maggie for being barren.

“My brother told me,” I said.

“We can’t go see her.”

“I know,” I said, although I wasn’t sure why not.

We finally found John in the desert north of Jericho, preaching on the bank of the Jordan River. His hair was as wild as ever and now he had a beard that was just as out of control. He wore a rough tunic that was belted with a sash of unscraped camel skin. There was a crowd of perhaps five hundred people there, standing in sun so hot that you had to check road signs to make sure you hadn’t accidentally taken the turnoff to hell.

We couldn’t tell what John was talking about from a distance, but as we got closer we heard him say, “No, I’m not the one. I’m just getting things ready. There’s one that’s coming after me, and I’m not qualified to carry his jockstrap.”

“What’s a jockstrap?” Joshua asked.

“It’s an Essene thing,” Bartholomew answered. “They wear them on their manhood, very tightly, to control their sinful urges.”

Then John spotted us over the crowd (we were on camelback). “There!” said John, pointing. “You remember me telling you that one would come. Well, there he is, right there. I’m not kidding, that’s him on the camel. On the left. Behold the Lamb of God!”

The crowd looked back at Josh and me, then laughed politely as if to say, Oh right, he just happened along right when you were talking about him. What, we don’t know from a shill when we see one?

Joshua glanced nervously at me, then at Bart, then at me, then he grinned sheepishly (as one might expect from a lamb) at the crowd. Between gritted teeth he asked, “So am I supposed to give John my jockstrap, or something?”

“Just wave, and say, ‘Go with God,’” Bart said.

“Waving here—waving there,” Josh mumbled through a grin. “Go with God. Thank you very much. Go with God. Nice to see you. Waving—waving.”

“Louder, Josh. We’re the only ones who can hear you.”

Josh turned to us so the crowd couldn’t see his face. “I didn’t know I was going to need a jockstrap! Nobody told me. Jeez, you guys.”

Thus did begin the ministry of Joshua bar Joseph, ish Nazareth, the Lamb of God.

“So, who’s the big guy?” John asked, as we sat around the fire that evening. Night crawled across the desert sky like a black cat with phosphorus dandruff. Bartholomew rolled with his dogs down by the riverbank.

“That’s Bartholomew,” Joshua said. “He’s a Cynic.”

“And the village idiot of Nazareth for over thirty years,” I added. “He gave up his position to follow Joshua.”

“He’s a slut, and he’s the first one baptized in the morning. He stinks. More locusts, Biff?”

“No thanks, I’m full.” I stared down at my bowl of roasted locusts and honey. You were supposed to dip the locusts in the honey for a sweet and nutritious treat. It was all John ate.

“So this Divine Spark, all that time away, that’s what you found?”

“It’s the key to the kingdom, John,” Josh said. “That’s what I learned in the East that I’m supposed to bring to our people, that God is in all of us. We are all brothers in the Divine Spark. I just don’t know how to spread the word.”

“Well, first, you can’t call it the Divine Spark. The people won’t understand it. This thing, it’s in everyone, it’s permanent, it’s a part of God?”

“Not God the creator, my father, the part of God that’s spirit.”

“Holy Ghost,” John said with a shrug. “Call it the Holy Ghost. People understand that a ghost is in you, and they understand that it goes on after you, and you’ll just have to make them believe that it’s God.”

“That’s perfect,” Joshua said, smiling.

“So, this Holy Ghost,” John said, biting a locust in half, “it’s in every Jew, but gentiles don’t have it, right? I mean what’s the point, after the kingdom comes?”

“I was getting to that,” said Josh.

It took John the better part of the night to deal with the fact that Joshua was going to let gentiles into the kingdom, but finally the Baptist accepted it, although he kept looking for exceptions.

“Even sluts?”

“Even sluts,” Joshua said.

“Especially sluts,” I said.

“You’re the one who is cleansing people of their sins so they will be forgiven,” Joshua added.

“I know, but gentile sluts, in the kingdom.” He shook his head, assured now by the Messiah himself that the world was going to hell in a handbasket. Which really shouldn’t have surprised him, since that had been his message for over ten years. That, and identifying sluts. “Let me show you where you’ll be staying.”

Shortly after I had met him on the road to Jerusalem, John had joined the Essenes. You couldn’t be born an Essene, because they were all celibate, even in marriage. They also refrained from intoxicating drink, adhered strictly to Jewish dietary law, and were absolutely maniacal about cleansing themselves, physically, of sin, which had been the big selling point for John. They had a thriving community in the desert outside of Jericho called Qumran, a small city of stone and brick homes, a scriptorium for copying scrolls, and aqueducts that ran out of the mountains to fill their ritual baths. A few of them lived in the caves above the Dead Sea where they stored the jars that held their sacred scrolls, but the most zealous of the Essenes, which included John, didn’t even allow themselves the comfort of a cave. He showed us accommodations near his own.

“It’s a pit!” I screamed.

Three pits, to be exact. I suppose there’s something to be said for having a private pit. Bartholomew, with his many canine pals, was already settling into his new pit.

“Oh, John,” Josh said, “remind me to tell you about karma.”

So, for over a year, while Joshua was learning from John how to say the words that would make people follow him, I lived in a pit.

It makes sense, if you think about it. For seventeen years Joshua had spent his time either studying or sitting around being quiet, so what did he know about communicating? The last message he’d gotten from his father was two words, so he wasn’t getting his speaking skills from that side of the family. On the other hand, John had been preaching for those same seventeen years, and that squirrelly bastard could preach. Standing waist deep in the Jordan, he would wave his arms and roll his eyes and stir the air with a sermon that would make you believe the clouds were going to open and the hand of God Hisownself was going to reach down, grab you by the balls, and shake you till the evil rattled out of you like loose baby teeth. An hour of John’s preaching and you were not only lining up to be baptized, you’d jump right in the river and try to breathe the bottom muck just to be relieved of your own wretchedness.

Joshua watched, and listened, and learned. John was an absolute believer in who Joshua was and what he was going to do, as far as he understood, anyway, but the Baptist worried me. John was attracting the attention of Herod Antipas. Herod had married his brother Philip’s wife, Herodia, without her obtaining a divorce, which was forbidden by Jewish law, an absolute outrage by the more severe laws of the Essenes, and a subject that fit well into John’s pervasive “slut” theme. I was starting to notice soldiers from Herod’s personal guard hovering around the edge of John’s crowds when he preached.

I confronted the Baptist one evening when he came out of the wilderness in one of his evangelical rages to ambush me, Joshua, Bartholomew, and a new guy as we sat around eating our locusts.

“Slut!” John shouted with his “thunder of Elijah” voice, waving a finger under Bart’s nose.

“Yeah, John, Bartholomew’s been getting laid a lot,” I said, evangelizing for sarcasm.

“Almost,” said Bart.

“I mean with another human being, Bart.”

“Oh. Sorry. Never mind.”

John wheeled on the new guy, who put his hands up. “I’m new,” he said.

Thus rebuked, John spun to face Joshua.

“Celibate,” Joshua said. “Always have been, always will be. Not happy about it.”

Finally John turned to me. “Slut!”

“John, I’m cleansed, you baptized me six times today.” Joshua elbowed me in the ribs. “What? It was hot. Point is, I counted fifty soldiers in the crowd today, so ease up a little on the slut talk. You’re backed up or something. You really need to rethink this no marriage, no sex, no fun, ascetic thing.”

“And the honey-and-locust living-in-a pit thing,” said the new guy.

“He’s no different than Melchior or Gaspar,” Joshua said. “They were both ascetics.”

“Melchior and Gaspar weren’t running around calling the provincial governor a slut in front of hundreds of people. It’s a big difference, and it’s going to get him killed.”

“I am cleansed of sin and unafraid,” said John, sitting down by the fire now, some of his verve gone.

“Yeah, are you cleansed of guilt? Because you’re going to have the blood of thousands on your hands when the Romans come to get you. In case you haven’t noticed, they don’t just kill the leaders of a movement. There’s a thousand crosses on the road to Jerusalem where Zealots died, and they weren’t all leaders.”

“I am unafraid.” John hung his head until the ends of his hair were dipping into the honey in his bowl. “Herodia and Herod are sluts. He’s as close as we have to a Jewish king, and he’s a slut.”

Joshua pushed his cousin’s hair out of his eyes and squeezed the wild man’s shoulder. “If it be so, then so be it. As the angel foretold, you were born to preach the truth.”

I stood up and tossed my locusts into the fire, showering sparks over John and Joshua. “I’ve only met two people whose births were announced by angels, and three-quarters of them are loony.” And I stormed off to my pit.

“Amen,” said the new guy.

That night, as I was falling asleep, I heard Joshua scrambling in the pit next to mine, as if a bug or an idea had roused him from his bedroll. “Hey!” he said.

“What?” I replied.

“I just did the math. Three quarters of two is—”

“One and a half,” said the new guy, who had moved into the pit on the other side of Josh. “So John’s either all crazy and you’re half crazy, or you’re three-quarters crazy and John’s three-quarters crazy, or—well—actually it’s a constant ratio, I’d have to graph it out for you.”

“So what are you saying?”

“Nothing,” said the new guy. “I’m new.”

The next morning Joshua leapt out of his pit, shook off the scorpions, and after a long morning whiz, kicked some dirt clods into my pit to thunk me from my slumber.

“This is it,” Joshua said. “Come down to the river, I’m going to have John baptize me today.”

“Which will make it different from yesterday in what way?”

“You’ll see. I have a feeling.” And off he went.

The new guy prairie-dogged up out of his pit. He was tall, the new guy, and the morning sun caught on his bald scalp as he looked around. He noticed some flowers growing where Joshua had just relieved himself. Lush blossoms of a half-dozen vibrant colors stood surrounded by the deadest landscape on the planet. “Hey, were those there yesterday?”

“That always happens,” I said. “We don’t talk about it.”

“Wow,” said the new guy. “Can I tag along with you guys?”

“Sure,” I said.

And thus did we become four.

At the river, John preached to a small gathering as he lowered Joshua into the water. As soon as Joshua went under the water a rift opened across the desert sky, which was still pink with the dawn, and out of the rift came a bird that looked to be fashioned from pure light. And everyone on the riverbank said “ooh” and “ahh,” and a big voice boomed out of the heavens, saying, “This is my son, with whom I am well pleased.” And as quickly as it had come, the spirit was gone. But the gatherers at the riverbank stood with their mouths open in amazement, staring yet into the sky.

And John came to his senses then, and remembered what he was doing, and lifted Joshua out of the water. And Joshua wiped the water out of his eyes, looked at the crowd who stood stunned with mouths hanging open, and he said unto them: “What?”

“No, really, Josh, that’s what the voice said, ‘This is my son, with whom I am well pleased.’”

Joshua shook his head and chewed a breakfast locust. “I can’t believe he couldn’t wait until I came up. You’re sure it was my father?”

“Sounded like him.” The new guy looked at me and I shrugged. Actually it sounded like James Earl Jones, but I didn’t know that back then.

“That’s it,” said Joshua. “I’m going into the desert like Moses did, forty days and forty nights.” Joshua got up and started walking into the desert. “From here on out, I’m fasting until I hear something from my father. That was my last locust.”

“I wish I could say that,” said the new guy.

As soon as Joshua was out of sight I ran to my pit and packed my satchel. I was a half day getting to Bethany, and another hour asking around before someone could direct me to the house of Jakan, prominent Pharisee and member of the Sanhedrin. The house was made of the golden-tinged limestone that marked all of Jerusalem, and there was a high wall around the courtyard. Jakan had done very well for himself, the prick. You could house a dozen families from Nazareth in a house this size. I paid two blind guys a shekel each to stand by the wall so I could climb on their shoulders.

“How much did he say this was?”

“He said it was a shekel.”

“Doesn’t feel like a shekel.”

“Would you guys quit feeling your shekels and stand still, I’m going to fall.”

I peeped over the top of the wall and there, sitting under the shade of an awning, working at a small loom, was Maggie. If she had changed, it was only that she’d become more radiant, more sensuous, more of a woman and less of a girl. I was stunned. I guess I expected some sort of disappointment, thinking that my time and my love might have shaped a memory that the woman could never live up to. Then I thought, perhaps the disappointment was yet to come. She was married to a rich man, a man who, when I knew him, had been a bully and a dolt. And what had always really made Maggie’s memory in my mind was her spirit, her courage, and her wit. I wondered if those things could have survived all these years with Jakan. I started to shake, bad balance or fear, I don’t know, but I put my hand on top of the wall to steady myself and cut myself on some broken pottery that had been set in mortar along the top.

“Ouch, dammit.”

“Biff?” Maggie said, as she looked me in the eye right before I tumbled off the shoulders of the blind guys.

I had just climbed to my feet when Maggie came around the corner and hit me, full-frontal womanhood, full speed, leading with lips. She kissed me so hard that I could taste blood from my cut lips and it was glorious. She smelled the same—cinnamon and lemon and girl sweat—and felt better than memory could ever allow. When she finally relaxed her embrace and held me at arm’s length, there were tears in her eyes. And mine.

“He dead?” said one of the blind men.

“Don’t think so, I can hear him breathing.”

“Sure smells better than he did.”

“Biff, your face cleared up,” Maggie said.

“You recognized me, with the beard and everything.”

“I wasn’t sure at first,” she said, “so I was taking a risk jumping you like that, but in the midst of it all I recognized that.” She pointed to where my tunic had tented out in the front. And then she grabbed that betraying rascal, shirtfront and all, and led me down the wall toward the gate by it.

“Come on in. You can’t stay long, but we can catch up. Are you okay?” she said, looking over her shoulder, giving me a squeeze.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m just trying to think of a metaphor.”

“He got a woman from up there,” I heard one of the old blind guys say.

“Yeah, I heard her drop. Boost me up, I’ll feel around.”

In the courtyard, with Maggie, over wine, I said, “So you really didn’t recognize me?”

“Of course I recognized you. I’ve never done that before. I just hope no one saw me, they still stone women for that.”

“I know. Oh, Maggie, I have so much to tell you.”

She took my hand. “I know.” She looked into my eyes, past my eyes, her blue eyes looking for something beyond me.

“He’s fine,” I said, finally. “He’s gone into the desert to fast and wait for a message from the Lord.”

She smiled. There was a little of my blood in the corners of her mouth, or maybe that was wine. “He’s come home to take his place as the Messiah then?”

“Yes. But I don’t think the way people think.”

“People think that John might be the Messiah.”

“John is…He’s…”

“He’s really pissing Herod off,” Maggie offered.

“I know.”

“Are you and Josh going to stay with John?”

“I hope not. I want Joshua to leave. I just have to get him away from John long enough to see what’s going on. Maybe this fast…”

The iron lock on the gate to the courtyard rattled, then the whole gate shook. Maggie had locked it behind us after we’d entered. A man cursed. Evidently Jakan was having trouble with his key.

Maggie stood and pulled me to my feet. “Look, I’m going to a wedding in Cana next month with my sister Martha, the week after Tabernacles. Jakan can’t go, he’s got some meeting of the Sanhedrin or something. Come to Cana. Bring Joshua.”

“I’ll try.”

She ran to the closest wall and held her hand in a stirrup. “Over.”

“But, Maggie…”

“Don’t be a wuss. Step, hands—step, shoulders—and over. Be careful of the pottery on top.”

And I ran—did exactly as she’d said: one foot in the stirrup, one on her shoulder, and over the wall before Jakan could get in the gate.

“Got one!” said one of the old blind guys as I tumbled down on top of them.

“Hold her still while I stick it in.”

I was sitting on a boulder, waiting for Joshua when he came out of the desert. I held out my arms to hug him and he fell forward, letting me catch him. I lowered him to the rock where I had been sitting. He had been smart enough to coat all the exposed parts of his skin with mud, probably mixed from his own urine, to protect it from burning, but in a few spots on his forehead and hands the mud had crumbled away and the skin was gone, burned to raw flesh. His arms were as thin as a small girl’s, they swam in the wide sleeves of his tunic.

“You okay?”

He nodded. I handed him a water skin I had been keeping cool in the shade. He drank in little sips, pacing himself.

“Locust?” I said, holding up one of the crispy torments between my thumb and forefinger.

At the sight of it I thought Joshua would vomit the water he had just drunk. “Just kidding,” I said. I whipped open the mouth of my satchel, revealing dates, fresh figs, olives, cheese, a half-dozen flat loaves of bread, and a full wineskin. I’d sent the new guy into Jericho the day before to bring back the food.

Josh looked at the food spilling out of the satchel and grinned, then covered his mouth with his hand. “Ow. Ouch. Ow.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Lips…chapped.”

“Myrrh,” I said, pulling a small jar of the ointment from the satchel and handing it to him.

An hour later the Son of God was refreshed and rejuvenated, and we sat sharing the last of the wine, the first that Joshua had had since we’d come home from India over a year ago.

“So, what did you see in the desert?”

“The Devil.”

“The Devil?”

“Yep. He tempted me. Power, wealth, sex, that sort of thing. I turned him down.”

“What did he look like?”

“He was tall.”

“Tall? The prince of darkness, the serpent of temptation, the source of all corruption and evil, and all you can say about him is he was tall?”

“Pretty tall.”

“Oh, good, I’ll be on the lookout then.”

Joshua said, pointing at the new guy. “He’s tall, too.” I realized then that the Messiah might be a little tipsy.

“Not the Devil, Josh.”

“Well, who is he then?”

“I’m Philip,” said the new guy. “I’m going with you to Cana tomorrow.”

Joshua wheeled around to me and almost fell off his rock. “We’re going to Cana tomorrow?”

“Yes, Maggie’s there, Josh. She’s dying.”

Chapter 25

Philip, who was called the new guy, asked that we go to Cana by way of Bethany, as he had a friend there that he wanted to recruit to follow along with us. “I tried to get him to join with John the Baptist,” Philip said, “but he wouldn’t stand for the eating-locusts, living-in-pits thing. Anyway, he’s from Cana, I’m sure he’d love to have a visit home.”

As we came into the square of Bethany, Philip called out to a blond kid who was sitting under a fig tree. He was the same yellow-haired kid that Joshua and I had seen when we first passed through Bethany over a year ago.

“Hey, Nathaniel,” Philip called. “Come join me and my friends on the way to Cana. They’re from Nazareth. Joshua here might be the Messiah.”

“Might be?” I said.

Nathaniel walked out into the street to look at us, shading his eyes against the sun. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen. He barely had the fuzz of a beard on his chin. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” he said.

“Joshua, Biff, Bartholomew,” Philip said, “this is my friend Nathaniel.”

“I know you,” Joshua said. “I saw you when we last passed through here.”

Then, inexplicably, Nathaniel fell to his knees in front of Joshua’s camel and said, “You are truly the Messiah and the Son of God.”

Joshua looked at me, then at Philip, then at the kid, prostrating himself on camel’s feet. “Because I’ve seen you before you believe that I’m the Messiah, even though a minute ago nothing good could come out of Nazareth?”

“Sure, why not?” said Nathaniel.

And Josh looked at me again, as if I could explain it. Meanwhile Bartholomew, who was on foot along with his pack of doggie followers (whom he had disturbingly begun to refer to as his “disciples”), went over to Nathaniel and helped the boy to his feet. “Stand up, if you’re coming with us.”

Nathaniel prostrated himself before Bartholomew now. “You are truly the Messiah and the Son of God.”

“No, I’m not,” Bart said, lifting the kid to his feet. “He is.” Bart pointed to Joshua. Nathaniel looked to me, for some reason, for confirmation.

“You are truly a babe in the woods,” I said to Nathaniel. “You don’t gamble, do you?”

“Biff!” Joshua said. He shook his head and I shrugged. To Nathaniel he said, “You’re welcome to join us. We share the camels, our food, and what little money we have.” Here Joshua nodded toward Philip, who had been nominated to carry the communal purse because he was good at math.

“Thanks,” said Nathaniel, and he fell in behind us.

And thus we became five.

“Josh,” I said in a harsh whisper, “that kid is as dumb as a stick.”

“He’s not dumb, Biff, he just has a talent for belief.”

“Fine,” I said, turning to Philip. “Don’t let the kid anywhere near the money.”

As we headed out of the square toward the Mount of Olives, Abel and Crustus, the two old blind guys who’d helped me over Maggie’s wall, called out from the gutter. (I’d learned their names after correcting their little gender mistake.)

“Oh son of David, have mercy on us!”

Joshua pulled up on the reins of his camel. “What makes you call me that?”

“You are Joshua of Nazareth, the young preacher who was studying under John?”

“Yes, I am Joshua.”

“We heard the Lord say that you were his son with whom he was well pleased.”

“You heard that?”

“Yes. About five or six weeks ago. Right out of the sky.”

“Dammit, did everyone hear but me?”

“Have mercy on us, Joshua,” said one blind guy.

“Yeah, mercy,” said the other.

Then Joshua climbed down from his camel, laid his hands upon the old men’s eyes, and said, “You have faith in the Lord, and you have heard, as evidently everyone in Judea has, that I am his son with whom he is well pleased.” Then he pulled his hands from their faces and the old men looked around.

“Tell me what you see,” Joshua said.

The old guys sort of looked around, saying nothing.

“So, tell me what you see.”

The blind men looked at each other.

“Something wrong?” Joshua asked. “You can see, can’t you?”

“Well, yeah,” said Abel, “but I thought there’d be more color.”

“Yeah,” said Crustus, “it’s kind of dull.”

I stepped up. “You’re on the edge of the Judean desert, one of the most lifeless, desolate, hostile places on earth, what did you expect?”

“I don’t know.” Crustus shrugged. “More.”

“Yeah, more,” said Abel. “What color is that?”

“That’s brown.”

“How about that one?”

“That would be brown as well.”

“That color over there? Right there?”

“Brown.”

“You’re sure that’s not mauve.”

“Nope, brown.”

“And—”

“Brown,” I said.

The two former blind guys shrugged and walked off mumbling to each other.

“Excellent healing,” said Nathaniel.

“I for one have never seen a better healing,” said Philip, “but then, I’m new.”

Joshua rode off shaking his head.

When we came into Cana we were broke and hungry and more than ready for a feast, at least most of us were. Joshua didn’t know about the feast. The wedding was being held in the courtyard of a very large house. We could hear the drums and singers and smell spiced meat cooking as we approached the gates. It was a large wedding and a couple of kids were waiting outside to tend to our camels. They were curly haired, wiry little guys about ten years old; they reminded me of evil versions of Josh and me at that age.

“Sounds like a wedding going on,” Joshua said.

“Park your camel, sir?” said the camel-parking kid.

“It is a wedding,” said Bart. “I thought we were here to help Maggie.”

“Park your camel, sir?” said the other kid, pulling on the reins of my camel.

Joshua looked at me. “Where is Maggie? You said she was sick?”

“She’s in the wedding,” I said, pulling the reins back from the kid.

“You said she was dying.”

“Well, we all are, aren’t we? I mean, if you think about it.” I grinned.

“You can’t park that camel here, sir.”

“Look, kid, I don’t have any money to tip you. Go away.” I hate handing my camel over to the camel-parking kids. It unnerves me. I’m always sure that I’m never going to see it again, or it’s going to come back with a tooth missing or an eye poked out.

“So Maggie isn’t really dying?”

“Hey, guys,” Maggie said, stepping out of the gate.

“Maggie,” Joshua said, throwing his arms up in surprise. Problem was, he was so intent on looking at her that he forgot to grab on again, and off the camel he went. He hit the ground facedown with a thump and a wheeze. I jumped down from my camel, Bart’s dogs barked, Maggie ran to Josh, rolled him over, and cradled his head in her lap while he tried to get his breath back. Philip and Nathaniel waved to people from the wedding who were peeping through the gate to see what all the commotion was about. Before I had a chance to turn, the two kids had leapt up onto our camels and were galloping around the corner off to Nod, or South Dakota, or some other place I didn’t know the location of.

“Maggie,” Joshua said. “You’re not sick.”

“That depends,” she said, “if there’s any chance of a laying on of hands.”

Joshua smiled and blushed. “I missed you.”

“Me too,” Maggie said. She kissed Joshua on the lips and held him there until I started to squirm and the other disciples started to clear their throats and bark “get a room” under their breaths.

Maggie stood up and helped Joshua to his feet. “Come on in, guys,” she said. “No dogs,” she said to Bart, and the hulking Cynic shrugged and sat down in the street amid his canine disciples.

I was craning my neck to see if I could see where our camels had been taken. “They’re going to run those camels into the ground, and I know they won’t feed or water them.”

“Who?” asked Maggie.

“Those camel-parking boys.”

“Biff, this is my youngest brother’s wedding. He couldn’t even afford wine. He didn’t hire any camel-parking boys.”

Bartholomew stood and rallied his troops. “I’ll find them.” He lumbered off.

Inside we feasted on beef and mutton, all manner of fruits and vegetables, bean and nut pastes, cheese and first-pressed olive oil with bread. There was singing and dancing and if it hadn’t been for a few old guys in the corner looking very cranky, you’d never have known that there wasn’t any wine at the party. When our people danced, they danced in large groups, lines and circles, not couples. There were men’s dances and women’s dances and very few dances where both could participate, which is why people were staring at Joshua and Maggie as they danced. They were definitely dancing together.

I retreated to a corner where I saw Maggie’s sister Martha watching as she nibbled at some bread with goat cheese. She was twenty-five, a shorter, sturdier version of Maggie, with the same auburn hair and blue eyes, but with less tendency to laugh. Her husband had divorced her for “grievous skankage” and now she lived with her older brother Simon in Bethany. I’d gotten to know her when we were little and she took messages to Maggie for me. She offered me a bite of her bread and cheese and I took it.

“She’s going to get herself stoned,” Martha said in a slightly bitter, moderately jealous, younger sister tone. “Jakan is a member of the Sanhedrin.”

“Is he still a bully?”

“Worse, now he’s a bully with power. He’d have her stoned, just to prove that he could do it.”

“For dancing? Not even the Pharisees—”

“If anyone saw her kiss Joshua, then…”

“So how are you?” I said, changing the subject.

“I’m living with my brother Simon now.”

“I heard.”

“He’s a leper.”

“Look, there’s Joshua’s mother. I have to go say hello.”

“There’s no wine at this wedding,” Mary said.

“I know. Strange, isn’t it?”

James stood by scowling as I hugged his mother.

“Joshua is here too?”

“Yes.”

“Oh good, I was afraid that you two might have been arrested along with John.”

“Pardon me?” I stepped back and looked to James for explanation. He seemed the more appropriate bearer of bad news.

“You hadn’t heard? Herod has thrown John in prison for inciting people to revolt. That’s the excuse anyway. It’s Herod’s wife who wanted John silenced. She was tired of having John’s followers refer to her as ‘the slut.’”

I patted Mary’s shoulder as I stepped away. “I’ll tell Joshua that you’re here.”

I found Joshua sitting in a far corner of the courtyard playing with some children. One little girl had brought her pet rabbit to the wedding and Joshua was holding it in his lap, petting its ears.

“Biff, come feel how soft this bunny is.”

“Joshua, John has been arrested.”

Josh slowly handed the bunny back to the little girl and stood. “When?”

“I’m not sure. Shortly after we left, I guess.”

“I shouldn’t have left him. I didn’t even tell him we were leaving.”

“It was bound to happen, Joshua. I told him to lay off Herod, but he wouldn’t listen. You couldn’t have done anything.”

“I’m the Son of God, I could have done something.”

“Yeah, you could have gone to prison with him. Your mother is here. Go talk to her. She’s the one that told me.”

As Joshua embraced Mary, she said, “You’ve got to do something about this wine situation. Where’s the wine?”

James tapped Joshua on the shoulder. “Didn’t bring any wine with you from the lush vineyards of Jericho?” (I didn’t like hearing sarcasm being used by James against Joshua. I had always thought of my invention as being used for good, or at least against people I didn’t like.)

Joshua gently pushed his mother away. “You shall have wine,” he said, then he went off to the side of the house where drinking water was stored in large stone jars. In a few minutes he returned with a pitcher of wine and cups for all of us. A shout went through the party and suddenly everything seemed to step up a level. Pitchers and cups were filled and drained and filled again, and those who had been near the wine jars started declaring a miracle had been performed, that Joshua of Nazareth had turned water into wine. I looked for him, but he was nowhere to be found. Having been free of sin all of his life, Joshua wasn’t very good at dealing with guilt, so he had gone off by himself to try to numb the guilt he felt over John’s arrest.

After a few hours of subterfuge and guile, I was able to get Maggie to sneak out the back gate with me.

“Maggie, come with us. You talked to Joshua. You saw the wine. He’s the one.”

“I’ve always known he was the one, but I can’t come with you. I’m married.”

“I thought you were going to be a fisherman.”

“And I thought you were going to be a village idiot.”

“I’m still looking for a village. Look, get Jakan to divorce you.”

“Anything he can divorce me for he can also kill me for. I’ve seen him pass judgment on people, Biff. I’ve seen him lead the mobs to the stonings. I’m afraid of him.”

“I learned to make poisons in the East.” I raised my eyebrows and grinned. “Huh?”

“I’m not going to poison my husband.”

I sighed, an exasperated sigh that I’d learned from my mother. “Then leave him and come away with us, far from Jerusalem where he can’t reach you. He’ll have to divorce you to save face.”

“Why should I leave, Biff? So I can follow around a man who doesn’t want me and wouldn’t take me if he did?”

I didn’t know what to say, I felt like knives were twisting in fresh wounds in my chest. I looked at my sandals and pretended to have something caught in my throat.

Maggie stepped up, put her arms around me, and laid her head against my chest. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“I know.”

“I missed both of you, but I missed just you too.”

“I know.”

“I’m not going to sleep with you.”

“I know.”

“Then please stop rubbing that against me.”

“Sure,” I said.

Just then Joshua stumbled through the gate and crashed into us. We were able to catch ourselves and him before anyone fell. The Messiah was holding the little girl’s pet bunny, hugging it to his cheek with the big back feet swinging free. He was gloriously drunk. “Know what?” Josh said. “I love bunnies. They toil not, neither do they bark. Henceforth and from now on, I decree that whenever something bad happens to me, there shall be bunnies around. So it shall be written. Go ahead Biff, write it down.” He waved to me under the bunny, then turned and started back through the gate. “Where’s the friggin’ wine? I got a dry bunny over here!”

“See,” I said to Maggie, “you don’t want to miss out on that. Bunnies!”

She laughed. My favorite music.

“I’ll get word to you,” she said. “Where will you be?”

“I have no idea.”

“I’ll get word to you.”

It was midnight. The party had wound down and the disciples and I were sitting in the street outside of the house. Joshua had passed out and Bartholomew had put a small dog under his head for a pillow. Before he had left, James had made it abundantly clear that we weren’t welcome in Nazareth.

“Well?” said Philip. “I guess we can’t go back to John.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t find the camels,” Bartholomew said.

“People teased me about my yellow hair,” said Nathaniel.

“I thought you were from Cana,” I said. “Don’t you have family we can stay with?”

“Plague,” said Nathaniel.

“Plague,” we all said, nodding. It happens.

“You’ll probably be needing these,” came a voice out of the darkness. We all looked up to see a short but powerfully built man walking out of the darkness, leading our camels.

“The camels,” said Nathaniel.

“My apologies,” said the man, “my brother’s sons brought them home to us in Capernaum. I’m sorry it’s taken so long to get them back to you.”

I stood and he handed the camel’s reins to me. “They’ve been fed and watered.” He pointed to Joshua, who was snoring away on his terrier. “Does he always drink like that?”

“Only when a major prophet has been imprisoned.”

The man nodded. “I heard what he did with the wine. They say he also healed a lame man in Cana this afternoon. Is that true?”

We all nodded.

“If you have no place to stay, you can come home with me to Capernaum for a day or two. We owe you at least that for taking your camels.”

“We don’t have any money,” I said.

“Then you’ll feel right at home,” said the man. “My name is Andrew.”

And so we became six.

Chapter 26

You can travel the whole world, but there are always new things to learn. For instance, on the way to Capernaum I learned that if you hang a drunk guy over a camel and slosh him around for about four hours, then pretty much all the poisons will come out one end of him or the other.

“Someone’s going to have to wash that camel before we go into town,” said Andrew.

We were traveling along the shore of the Sea of Galilee (which wasn’t a sea at all). The moon was almost full and it reflected in the lake like a pool of quicksilver. It fell to Nathaniel to clean the camel because he was the official new guy. (Joshua hadn’t really met Andrew, and Andrew hadn’t really agreed to join us, so we couldn’t count him as the official new guy yet.) Since Nathaniel did such a fine job on the camel, we let him clean up Joshua as well. Once he had the Messiah in the water Joshua came out of his stupor long enough to slur something like: “The foxes have their holes and birds have their nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head.”

“That’s so sad,” said Nathaniel.

“Yes, it is,” I said. “Dunk him again. He still has barf on his beard.”

And so, cleansed and slung over a camel damply, Joshua did by moonlight come into Capernaum, where he would be welcomed as if it were his home.

“Out!” screeched the old woman. “Out of the house, out of town, out of Galilee for all I care, you aren’t staying here.”

It was a beautiful dawn over the lake, the sky painted with yellow and orange, gentle waves lapped against the keels of Capernaum’s fishing boats. The village was only a stone’s throw away from the water, and golden sunlight reflected off the waves onto the black stone walls of the houses, making the light appear to dance to the calls of the gulls and songbirds. The houses were built together in two big clusters, sharing common walls, with entries from every which way, and none more than one story tall. There was a small main road through the village between the two clusters of homes. Along the way were a few merchant booths, a blacksmith’s shop, and, on its own little square, a synagogue that looked as if it could contain far more worshipers than the three hundred residents of the village. But villages were thick along the shores of the lake, one running right into the next, and we guessed that perhaps the synagogue served a number of villages. There was no central square around the well as there was in most inland villages, because the people pulled their water from the lake or a spring nearby that bubbled clean chilly water into the air as high as two men.

Andrew had deposited us at his brother Peter’s house, and we had fallen asleep in the great room among the children only a few hours before Peter’s mother-in-law awoke to chase us out of the house. Joshua was holding his head with both hands as if to keep it from falling off his neck.

“I won’t have freeloaders and scalawags in my house,” the old woman shouted as she threw my satchel out after us.

“Ouch,” said Joshua, flinching from the noise.

“We’re in Capernaum, Josh,” I said. “A man named Andrew brought us here because his nephews stole our camels.”

“You said Maggie was dying,” Joshua said.

“Would you have left John if I’d told you that Maggie wanted to see you?”

“No.” He smiled dreamily. “It was good to see Maggie.” Then the smile turned to a scowl. “Alive.”

“John wouldn’t listen, Joshua. You were in the desert all last month, you didn’t see all of the soldiers, even scribes hiding in the crowd, writing down what John was saying. This was bound to happen.”

“Then you should have warned John!”

“I warned John! Every day I warned John. He didn’t listen to reason any more than you would have.”

“We have to go back to Judea. John’s followers—”

“Will become your followers. No more preparation, Josh.”

Joshua nodded, looking at the ground in front of him. “It’s time. Where are the others?”

“I’ve sent Philip and Nathaniel to Sepphoris to sell the camels. Bartholomew is sleeping in the reeds with the dogs.”

“We’re going to need more disciples,” Joshua said.

“We’re broke, Josh. We’re going to need disciples with jobs.”

An hour later we stood on the shore near where Andrew and his brother were casting nets. Peter was taller and leaner than his brother, and he had a head of gray hair wilder than even John the Baptist’s, while Andrew pushed his dark hair back and tied it with a cord so it stayed out of his face when he was in the water. They were both naked, which is how men fished the lake when they were close to the shore.

I had mixed a headache remedy for Joshua out of tree bark, and I could tell it was working, but perhaps not quite enough. I pushed Joshua toward the shore.

“I’m not ready for this. I feel terrible.”

“Ask them.”

“Andrew,” Joshua called. “Thank you for bringing us home with you. And you too, Peter.”

“Did my mother-in-law toss you out?” asked Peter. He cast his net and waited for it to settle, then dove into the lake and gathered the net in his arms. There was one tiny fish inside. He reached in and pulled it out, then tossed it back into the lake. “Grow,” he said.

“You know who I am?” said Joshua.

“I’ve heard,” said Peter. “Andrew says you turned water into wine. And you cured the blind and the lame. He thinks that you are going to bring the kingdom.”

“What do you think?”

“I think my little brother is smarter than I am, so I believe what he says.”

“Come with us. We’re going to tell people of the kingdom. We need help.”

“What can we do?” said Andrew. “We’re only fishermen.”

“Come with me and I’ll make you fishers of men.”

Andrew looked at his brother who was still standing in the water. Peter shrugged and shook his head. Andrew looked at me, shrugged, and shook his head.

“They don’t get it,” I said to Joshua.

Thus, after Joshua had some food and a nap and explained what in the hell he meant by “fishers of men,” we became seven.

“These guys are our partners,” Peter said, hurrying us along the shore. “They own the ships that Andrew and I work on. We can’t go spread the good news unless they are in on it too.”

We came to another small village and Peter pointed out two brothers who were fitting a new oarlock into the gunwale of a fishing boat. One was lean and angular, with jet-black hair and a beard trimmed into wicked points: James. The other was older, bigger, softer, with big shoulders and chest, but small hands and thin wrists, a fringe of brown hair shot with gray around a sunburned bald pate: John.

“Just a suggestion,” Peter said to Joshua. “Don’t say the fisher-of-men thing. It’s going to be dark soon; you won’t have time for the explanation if we want to make it home in time for supper.”

“Yeah,” I said, “just tell them about the miracles, the kingdom, a little about your Holy Ghost thing, but stay easy on that until they agree to join up.”

“I still don’t get the Holy Ghost thing,” said Peter.

“It’s okay, we’ll go over it tomorrow,” I said.

As we moved down the shore toward the brothers, there was a rustling in some nearby bushes and three piles of rags moved into our path.

“Have mercy on us, Rabbi,” said one of the piles.

Lepers.

(I need to say something right here: Joshua taught me about the power of love and all of that stuff, and I know that the Divine Spark in them is the same one that is in me, so I should have not let the presence of lepers bother me. I know that announcing them unclean under the Law was as unjust as the Brahmans shunning the Untouchables. I know that even now, having watched enough television, you probably wouldn’t even refer to them as lepers so as to spare their feelings. You probably call them “parts-dropping-off challenged,” or something. I know all that. But that said, no matter how many healings I saw, lepers always gave me what we Hebrews call the willies. I never got over it.)

“What is it you want?” Joshua asked them.

“Help ease our suffering,” said a female-sounding pile.

“I’ll be over there looking at the water, Josh,” I said.

“He’ll probably need some help,” Peter said.

“Come to me,” Joshua said to the lepers.

They oozed on over. Joshua put his hands on the lepers and spoke to them very quietly. After a few minutes had passed, while Peter and I had seriously studied a frog that we noticed on the shore, I heard Joshua say, “Now go, and tell the priests that you are no longer unclean and should be allowed in the Temple. And tell them who sent you.”

The lepers threw off their rags and praised Joshua as they backed away. They looked like perfectly normal people who just happened to be all wrapped up in tattered rags.

By the time Peter and I got back to Joshua, James and John were already at his side.

“I have touched those who they said were unclean,” Joshua said to the brothers. By Mosaic Law, Joshua would be unclean as well.

James stepped forward and grabbed Joshua’s forearm in the style of the Romans. “One of those men used to be our brother.”

“Come with us,” I said, “and we will make you oarlock makers of men.”

“What?” said Joshua.

“That’s what they were doing when we came up. Making an oarlock. Now you see how stupid that sounds?”

“It’s not the same.”

And thus we did become nine.

Philip and Nathaniel returned with enough money from the sale of the camels to feed the disciples and all of Peter’s family as well, so Peter’s screeching mother-in-law, who was named Esther, allowed us to stay, providing Bartholomew and the dogs slept outside. Capernaum became our base of operations and from there we would take one- or two-day trips, swinging through Galilee as Joshua preached and performed healings. The news of the coming of the kingdom spread through Galilee, and after only a few months, crowds began to gather to hear Joshua speak. We tried always to be back in Capernaum on the Sabbath so that Joshua could teach at the synagogue. It was that habit that first attracted the wrong sort of attention.

A Roman soldier stopped Joshua as he was making the short walk to the synagogue on Sabbath morning. (No Jew was permitted to make a journey of more than a thousand steps from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday—all at once, that is. One way. You didn’t have to add up your steps all day and just stop when you got to a thousand. There would have been Jews standing all over the place waiting for Saturday sundown if that were the case. It would have been awkward. Suddenly I’m thankful that the Pharisees never thought of that.)

The Roman was no mere legionnaire, but a centurion, with the full crested helmet and eagle on his breastplate of a legion commander. He led a tall white horse that looked as if it had been bred for combat. He was old for a soldier, perhaps sixty, and his hair was completely white when he removed his helmet, but he looked strong and the wasp-waisted short sword at his waist looked dangerous. I didn’t recognize him until he spoke to Joshua, in perfect, unaccented Aramaic.

“Joshua of Nazareth,” the Roman said. “Do you remember me?”

“Justus,” Joshua said. “From Sepphoris.”

“Gaius Justus Gallicus,” said the soldier. “And I’m at Tiberius now, and no longer an under-commander. The Sixth Legion is mine. I need your help, Joshua bar Joseph of Nazareth.”

“What can I do?” Joshua looked around. All of the disciples except Bartholomew and me had managed to sneak away when the Roman walked up.

“I saw you make a dead man walk and talk. I’ve heard of the things you’ve done all over Galilee, the healings, the miracles. I have a servant who is sick. Tortured with palsy. He can barely breathe and I can’t watch him suffer. I don’t ask that you break your Sabbath by coming to Tiberius, but I believe you can heal him, even from here.”

Justus dropped to his knee and kneeled in front of Joshua, something I never saw any Roman do to any Jew, before or since. “This man is my friend,” he said.

Joshua touched the Roman’s temple and I watched the fear drain out of the soldier’s face as I had so many others.

“You believe it to be, so be it,” said Joshua. “It’s done. Stand up, Gaius Justus Gallicus.”

The soldier smiled, then stood and looked Joshua in the eye. “I would have crucified your father to root out the killer of that soldier.”

“I know,” said Joshua.

“Thank you,” Justus said.

The centurion put on his helmet and climbed on his horse. Then looked at me for the first time. “What happened to that pretty little heartbreaker you two were always with?”

“Broke our hearts,” I said.

Justus laughed. “Be careful, Joshua of Nazareth,” he said. He reined the horse around and rode away.

“Go with God,” Joshua said.

“Good, Josh, that’s the way to show the Romans what’s going to happen to them come the kingdom.”

“Shut up, Biff.”

“Oh, so you bluffed him. He’s going to get home and his friend will still be messed up.”

“Remember what I told you at the gates of Gaspar’s monastery, Biff? That if someone knocked, I’d let them in?”

“Ack! Parables. I hate parables.”

Tiberius was only an hour’s fast ride from Capernaum, so by morning word had come back from the garrison: Justus’s servant had been healed. Before we had even finished our breakfast there were four Pharisees outside of Peter’s house looking for Joshua.

“You performed a healing on the Sabbath?” the oldest of them asked. He was white-bearded and wore his prayer shawl and phylacteries wrapped about his upper arms and forehead. (What a jamoke. Sure, we all had phylacteries, every man got them when he turned thirteen, but you pretended that they were lost after a few weeks, you didn’t wear them. You might as well wear a sign that said: “Hi, I’m a pious geek.” The one he wore on his forehead was a little leather box, about the size of a fist, that held parchments inscribed with prayers and looked—well—as if someone had strapped a little leather box to his head. Need I say more?)

“Nice phylacteries,” I said.

The disciples laughed. Nathaniel made an excellent donkey braying noise.

“You broke the Sabbath,” said the Pharisee.

“I’m allowed,” said Josh. “I’m the Son of God.”

“Oh fuck,” Philip said.

“Way to ease them into the idea, Josh,” I said.

The following Sabbath a man with a withered hand came to the synagogue while Joshua was preaching and after the sermon, while fifty Pharisees who had gathered at Capernaum just in case something like this happened looked on, Joshua told the man that his sins were forgiven, then healed the withered hand.

Like vultures to carrion they came to Peter’s house the next morning.

“No one but God can forgive sins,” said the one they had elected as their speaker.

“Really,” said Joshua. “So you can’t forgive someone who sins against you?”

“No one but God.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Joshua. “Now unless you are here to hear the good news, go away.” And Joshua went into Peter’s house and closed the door.

The Pharisee shouted at the door, “You blaspheme, Joshua bar Joseph, you—”

And I was standing there in front of him, and I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I popped him. Not in the mouth or anything, but right in the phylacteries. The little leather box exploded with the impact and the strips of parchment slowly settled to the ground. I’d hit him so fast that I think he thought it was a supernatural event. A cry went up from the group behind him, protesting—shouting that I couldn’t do such a thing, that I deserved stoning, scourging, et cetera, and my Buddhist tolerance just wore a little thin.

So I popped him again. In the nose.

This time he went down. Two of his pals caught him, and another one at the front of the crowd started to reach into his sash for something. I knew that they could quickly overrun me if they wanted to, but I didn’t think they would. The cowards. I grabbed the man who was pulling the knife, twisted it away from him, shoved the iron blade between the stones of Peter’s house and snapped it off, then handed the hilt back to him. “Go away,” I said to him, very softly.

He went away, and all of his pals went with him. I went inside to see how Joshua and the others were getting along.

“You know, Josh,” I said. “I think it’s time to expand the ministry. You have a lot of followers here. Maybe we should go to the other side of the lake. Out of Galilee for a while.”

“Preach to the gentiles?” Nathaniel asked.

“He’s right,” said Joshua. “Biff is right.”

“So it shall be written,” I said.

James and John only owned one ship that was large enough to hold all of us and Bartholomew’s dogs, and it was anchored at Magdala, two hours’ walk south of Capernaum, so we made the trip very early one morning to avoid being stopped in the villages on the way. Joshua had decided to take the good news to the gentiles, so we were going to go across the lake to the town of Gadarene in the state of Decapolis. They kept gentiles there.

As we waited on the shore at Magdala, a crowd of women who had come to the lake to wash clothes gathered around Joshua and begged him to tell them of the kingdom. I noticed a young tax collector who was sitting nearby at his table in the shade of a reed umbrella. He was listening to Joshua, but I could also see his eyes following the behinds of the women. I sidled over.

“He’s amazing, isn’t he?” I said.

“Yes. Amazing,” said the tax collector. He was perhaps twenty, thin, with soft brown hair, a light beard, and light brown eyes.

“What’s your name, publican?”

“Matthew,” he said. “Son of Alphaeus.”

“No kidding, that’s my father’s name too. Look, Matthew, I assume you can read, write, things like that?”

“Oh yes.”

“You’re not married, are you?”

“No, I was betrothed, but before the wedding was to happen, her parents let her marry a rich widower.”

“Sad. You’re probably heartbroken. That’s sad. You see those women? There’s women like that all the time around Joshua. And here’s the best part, he’s celibate. He doesn’t want any of them. He’s just interested in saving mankind and bringing the kingdom of God to earth, which we all are, of course. But the women, well, I think you can see.”

“That must be wonderful.”

“Yeah, it’s swell. We’re going to Decapolis. Why don’t you come with us?”

“I couldn’t. I’ve been entrusted to collect taxes for this whole coast.”

“He’s the Messiah, Matthew. The Messiah. Think of it. You, and the Messiah.”

“I don’t know.”

“Women. The kingdom. You heard about him turning water into wine.”

“I really have to—”

“Have you ever tasted bacon, Matthew?”

“Bacon? Isn’t that from pigs? Unclean?”

“Joshua’s the Messiah, the Messiah says it’s okay. It’s the best thing you’ve ever eaten, Matthew. Women love it. We eat bacon every morning, with the women. Really.”

“I’ll need to finish up here,” Matthew said.

“You do that. Here, I’d like you to mark something for me,” I looked over his shoulder at his ledger and pointed to a few names. “Meet us at the ship when you’re ready, Matthew.”

I went back over to the shore, where James and John had pulled the ship in close enough for us to wade out to. Joshua finished up blessing the women and sent them back to their laundry with a parable about stains.

“Gentlemen,” I called. “Excuse me, James, John, you too Peter, Andrew. You will not need to worry about your taxes this season. They’ve been taken care of.”

“What?” said Peter. “Where did you get the money—”

I turned and waved toward Matthew, who was running toward the shore. “This good fellow is the publican Matthew. He’s here to join us.”

Matthew ran up beside me and stood grinning like an idiot while trying to catch his breath. “Hey,” he said, waving weakly to the disciples.

“Welcome, Matthew,” Joshua said. “All are welcome in the kingdom.” Joshua shook his head, turned, and waded out to the ship.

“He loves you, kid,” I said. “Loves you.”

Thus we did become ten.

Joshua fell asleep on a pile of nets with Peter’s wide straw fishing hat over his face. Before I settled down to be rocked to sleep myself, I sent Philip to the back of the boat to explain the kingdom and the Holy Ghost to Matthew. (I figured that Philip’s acumen with numbers might help out when talking to a tax collector.) The two sets of brothers sailed the ship, which was wide of beam and small of sail and very, very slow. About halfway across the lake I heard Peter say, “I don’t like it. It looks like a tempest.”

I sat bolt upright and looked at the sky, and indeed, there were black clouds coming over the hills to the east, low and fast, clawing at the trees with lightning as they passed. Before I had a chance to sit up, a wave broke over the shallow gunwale and soaked me to the core.

“I don’t like this, we should go back,” said Peter, as a curtain of rain whipped across us. “The ship’s too full and the draft too shallow to weather a storm.”

“Not good. Not good. Not good,” chanted Nathaniel.

Bartholomew’s dogs barked and howled at the wind. James and Andrew trimmed the sail and put the oars in the water. Peter moved to the stern to help John with the long steering oar. Another wave broke over the gunwale, washing away one of Bartholomew’s disciples, a mangy terrier type.

Water was mid-shin deep in the bottom of the boat. I grabbed a bucket and began bailing and signaled Philip to help, but he had succumbed to the most rapid case of seasickness I had ever even heard of and was retching over the side.

Lightning struck the mast, turning everything a phosphorus white. The explosion was instant and left my ears ringing. One of Joshua’s sandals floated by me in the bottom of the boat.

“We’re doomed!” wailed Bart. “Doomed!”

Joshua pushed the fishing hat back on his head and looked at the chaos around him. “O ye of little faith,” he said. He waved his hand across the sky and the storm stopped. Just like that. Black clouds were sucked back over the hills, the water settled to a gentle swell, and the sun shone down bright and hot enough to raise steam off our clothes. I reached over the side and snatched the swimming doggy out of the waves.

Joshua had laid back down with the hat over his face. “Is the new kid looking?” he whispered to me.

“Yeah,” I said.

“He impressed?”

“His mouth is hanging open. He looks sort of stricken.”

“Great. Wake me when we get there.”

I woke him a little before we reached Gadarene because there was a huge madman waiting for us on the shore, foaming at the mouth, screaming, throwing rocks, and eating the occasional handful of dirt.

“Hold up there, Peter,” I said. The sails were down again and we were rowing in.

“I should wake the master,” said Peter.

“No, it’s okay, I have the stop-for-foaming-madmen authority.” Nevertheless, I kicked the Messiah gently. “Josh, you might want to take a look at this guy.”

“Look, Peter,” said Andrew, pointing to the madman, “he has hair just like yours.”

Joshua sat up, pushed back Peter’s hat and glanced to the shore. “Onward,” he said.

“You sure?” Rocks were starting to land in the boat.

“Oh yeah,” said Joshua.

“He’s very large,” said Matthew, clarifying the already clear.

“And mad,” said Nathaniel, not to be outdone in stating the obvious.

“He is suffering,” said Joshua. “Onward.”

A rock as big as my head thudded into the mast and bounced into the water. “I’ll rip your legs off and kick you in the head as you crawl around bleeding to death,” said the madman.

“Sure you don’t want to swim in from here?” Peter said, dodging a rock.

“Nice refreshing swim after a nap?” said James.

Matthew stood up in the back of the boat and cleared his throat. “What is one tormented man compared to the calming of a storm? Were you all in the same boat I was?”

“Onward,” Peter said, and onward we went, the big boat full of Joshua and Matthew and the eight faithless pieces of shit that were the rest of us.

Joshua was out of the boat as soon as we hit the beach. He walked straight up to the madman, who looked as if he could crush the Messiah’s head in one of his hands. Filthy rags hung in tatters on him and his teeth were broken and bleeding from eating dirt. His face contorted and bubbled as if there were great worms under the skin searching for an escape. His hair was wild and stuck out in a great grayish tangle, and it did sort of look like Peter’s hair.

“Have mercy on me,” said the madman. His voice buzzed in his throat like a chorus of locusts.

I slid out of the boat and the others followed me quietly up behind Joshua.

“What is your name, Demon?” Joshua asked.

“What would you like it to be?” said the demon.

“You know, I’ve always been partial to the name Harvey,” Joshua said.

“Well, isn’t that a coincidence?” said the demon. “My name just happens to be Harvey.”

“You’re just messing with me, aren’t you?” said Josh.

“Yeah, I am,” said the demon, busted. “My name is Legion, for there are a bunch of us in here.”

“Out, Legion,” Joshua commanded. “Out of this big guy.”

There was a herd of pigs nearby, doing piggy things. (I don’t know what they were doing. I’m a Jew, what do I know from pigs, except that I like bacon?) A great green glow came out of Legion’s mouth, whipped through the air like smoke, then came down on the heard of pigs like a cloud. In a second it was sucked into the pigs’ nostrils and they began foaming and making locust noises.

“Be gone,” said Joshua. With that the pigs all ran into the sea, sucked huge lungfuls of water, and after only a little kicking, drowned. Perhaps fifty dead pigs bobbed in the swell.

“How can I thank you?” said the big foaming guy, who had stopped foaming, but was still big.

“Tell the people of your land what has happened,” Joshua said. “Tell them the Son of God has come to bring them the good news of the Holy Ghost.”

“Clean up a little before you tell them,” I said.

And off he went, a lumbering monster, bigger even than our own Bartholomew, and smelling worse, which I hadn’t thought possible. We sat down on the beach and were sharing some bread and wine when we heard the crowd approaching through the hills.

“The good news travels quickly,” said Matthew, whose fresh-faced enthusiasm was starting to irritate me a little now.

“Who killed our pigs?”

The crowd was carrying rakes and pitchforks and scythes and they didn’t look at all like they were there to receive the Gospel.

“You fuckers!”

“Kill them!”

“In the boat,” said Josh.

“O ye of little—” Matthew’s comment was cut short by Bart grabbing him by the collar and dragging him down the beach to the boat.

The brothers had already pushed off and were up to their chests in the water. They pulled themselves in and James and John helped set the oars as Peter and Andrew pulled us into the boat. We fished Bart’s disciples out of the waves by the scruffs of their necks and set sail just as the rocks began to rain down on us.

We all looked at Joshua. “What?” he said. “If they’d been Jews that pig thing would have gone over great. I’m new at gentiles.”

There was a messenger waiting for us when we reached Magdala. Philip unrolled the scroll and read. “It’s an invitation to come to dinner in Bethany during Passover week, Joshua. A ranking member of the Sanhedrin requests your presence at dinner at his home to discuss your wonderful ministry. It’s signed Jakan bar Iban ish Nazareth.”

Maggie’s husband. The creep.

I said, “Good first day, huh, Matthew?”

Chapter 27

The angel and I watched Star Wars for the second time on television last night, and I just had to ask. “You’ve been in God’s presence, right, Raziel?”

“Of course.”

“Do you think he sounds like James Earl Jones?”

“Who’s that?”

“Darth Vader.”

Raziel listened for a moment while Darth Vader threatened someone. “Sure, a little. He doesn’t breathe that heavy though.”

“And you’ve seen God’s face.”

“Yes.”

“Is he black?”

“I’m not allowed to say.”

“He is, isn’t he? If he wasn’t you’d just say he wasn’t.”

“I’m not allowed to say.”

“He is.”

“He doesn’t wear a hat like that,” said Raziel.

“Ah-ha!”

“All I’m saying is no hat. That’s all I’m saying.”

“I knew it.”

“I don’t want to watch this anymore.” Raziel switched the channel. God (or someone who sounded like him) said, “This is CNN.”

We came up to Jerusalem, in the gate at Bethsaida called the Eye of the Needle, where you had to duck down to pass through, out the Golden Gate, through the Kidron Valley, and over the Mount of Olives into Bethany.

We had left the brothers and Matthew behind because they had jobs, and Bartholomew because he stank. His lack of cleanliness had started to draw attention lately from the local Pharisees in Capernaum and we didn’t want to push the issue since we were walking into the lair of the enemy. Philip and Nathaniel joined us on our journey, but stayed behind on the Mount of Olives at a clearing called Gethsemane, where there was a small cave and an olive press. Joshua tried to convince me to stay with them, but I insisted.

“I’ll be fine,” Joshua said. “It’s not my time. Jakan won’t try anything, it’s just dinner.”

“I’m not worried about your safety, Josh, I just want to see Maggie.” I did want to see Maggie, but I was worried about Joshua’s safety as well. Either way, I wasn’t staying behind.

Jakan met us at the gate wearing a new white tunic belted with a blue sash. He was stocky, but not as fat as I expected him to be, and almost exactly my height. His beard was black and long, but had been cut straight across about the level of his collarbone. He wore the pointed linen cap worn by many of the Pharisees, so I couldn’t tell if he’d lost any of his hair. The fringe that hung down was dark brown, as were his eyes. The most frightening and perhaps the most surprising thing about him was that there was a spark of intelligence in his eyes. That hadn’t been there when we were children. Perhaps seventeen years with Maggie had rubbed off on him.

“Come in, fellow Nazarenes. Welcome to my home. There are some friends inside who wanted to meet you.”

He led us through the door into a large great room, large enough in fact to fit any two of the houses we shared at Capernaum. The floor was paved in tile with turquoise and red mosaic spirals in the corners of the room (no pictures, of course). There was a long Roman-style table at which five other men, all dressed like Jakan, sat. (In Jewish households the tables were close to the ground and diners reclined on cushions or on the floor around them.) I didn’t see Maggie anywhere, but a serving girl brought in large pitchers of water and bowls for us to wash our hands in.

“Let this water stay water, will you, Joshua?” Jakan said, smiling. “We can’t wash in wine.”

Jakan introduced us to each of the men, adding some sort of elaborate title to each of their names that I didn’t catch, but which indicated, I’m sure, that they were all members of the Sanhedrin as well as the Council of Pharisees. Ambush. They received us curtly, then made their way to the water bowls to wash their hands before dinner, all of them watching as Joshua and I washed and offered prayer. This, after all, was part of the test.

We sat. The water pitchers and bowls were taken away by the serving girl, who then brought pitchers of wine.

“So,” said the eldest of the Pharisees, “I hear you have been casting demons out of the afflicted in Galilee.”

“Yes, we’re having a lovely Passover week,” I said. “And you?”

Joshua kicked me under the table. “Yes,” he said. “By the power of my father I have relieved the suffering of some who were plagued by demons.”

When Joshua said “my father” every one of them squirmed. I noticed movement in one of the doorways to Jakan’s back. It was Maggie, making signals and signs like a madwoman, but then Jakan spoke. Attention turned to him and Maggie ducked out of sight.

Jakan leaned forward. “Some have said that you banish these demons by the power of Beelzebub.”

“And how could I do that?” Joshua said, getting a little angry. “How could I turn Beelzebub against himself? How can I battle Satan with Satan? A house divided can’t stand.”

“Boy, I’m starving,” I said. “Bring on the eats.”

“With the spirit of God I cast out demons, that’s how you know the kingdom has come.”

They didn’t want to hear that. Hell, I didn’t want to hear that, not here. If Joshua claimed to bring the kingdom, then he was claiming to be the Messiah, which by their way of thinking could be blasphemy, a crime punishable by death. It was one thing for them to hear it secondhand, it was quite another to have Joshua say it to their faces. But he, as usual, was unafraid.

“Some say John the Baptist is the Messiah,” said Jakan.

“There’s nobody better than John,” Joshua said. “But John doesn’t baptize with the Holy Ghost. I do.”

They all looked at each other. They had no idea what he was talking about. Joshua had been preaching the Divine Spark—the Holy Ghost—for two years, but it was a new way of looking at God and the kingdom: it was a change. These legalists had worked hard to find their place of power; they weren’t interested in change.

Food was put on the table and prayers offered again, then we ate in silence for a while. Maggie was in the doorway behind Jakan again, gesturing with one hand walking over the other, mouthing words that I was supposed to understand. I had something I wanted to give her, but I had to see her in private. It was obvious that Jakan had forbidden her to enter the room.

“Your disciples do not wash their hands before they eat!” said one of the Pharisees, a fat man with a scar over his eye.

Bart, I thought.

“It’s not what goes into a man that defiles him,” Joshua said, “it’s what comes out.” He broke off some of the flatbread and dipped it into a bowl of oil.

“He means lies,” I said.

“I know,” said the old Pharisee.

“You were thinking something disgusting, don’t lie.”

The Pharisees passed the “no, your turn, no, it’s your turn” look around the room.

Joshua chewed his bread slowly, then said, “Why wash the outside of the urn, if there’s decay on the inside?”

“Yeah, like you rotting hypocrites!” I added, with more enthusiasm than was probably called for.

“Quit helping!” Josh said.

“Sorry. Nice wine. Manischewitz?”

My shouting evidently stirred them out of their malaise. The old Pharisee said, “You consort with demons, Joshua of Nazareth. This Levi was seen to cause blood to come from a Pharisee’s nose and a knife to break of its own, and no one even saw him move.”

Joshua looked at me, then at them, then at me again. “You forget to tell me something?”

“He was being an emrod, so I popped him.” (“Emrod” is the biblical term for hemorrhoid.) I heard Maggie’s giggling from the other room.

Joshua turned back to the creeps. “Levi who is called Biff has studied the art of the soldier in the East,” Joshua said. “He can move swiftly, but he is not a demon.”

I stood up. “The invitation was for dinner, not a trial.”

“This is no trial,” said Jakan, calmly. “We have heard of Joshua’s miracles, and we have heard that he breaks the Law. We simply want to ask him by whose authority he does these things. This is dinner, otherwise, why would you be here?”

I was wondering that myself, but Joshua answered me by pushing me down in my seat and proceeding to answer their accusations for another two hours, crafting parables and throwing their own piety back in their faces. While Joshua spoke the word of God, I did sleight-of-hand tricks with the bread and the vegetables, just to mess with them. Maggie came to the doorway and signaled me, pointing frantically to the front door and making threatening, head-bashing gestures which I took to be the consequences for my not understanding her this time.

“Well, I’ve got to go see a man about a camel, if you’ll excuse me.”

I stepped out the front door. As soon as I closed it behind me I was hit with the spraying girl-spit of a violently whispering woman.

“YoustupidsonofabitchwhatthefuckdidyouthinkIwastryingtosaytoyou?” She punched me in the arm. Hard.

“No kiss?” I whispered.

“Where can I meet you, after?”

“You can’t. Here, take this.” I handed her a small leather pouch. “There’s a parchment inside to tell you what to do.”

“I want to see you two.”

“You will. Do what the note says. I have to go back in.”

“You bastard.” Punch in the arm. Hard.

I forgot what I was doing and entered the house still rubbing my bruised shoulder.

“Levi, have you injured yourself?”

“No, Jakan, but sometimes I strain a shoulder muscle just shaking this monster off.”

The Pharisees hated that one. I realized that they were waiting for me to request water so I could go through the whole hand-washing ritual before I sat down to the table again. I stood there, thinking about it, rubbing my shoulder, waiting. How long could it possibly take to read a note? It seemed like a long time, with them staring at me, but I’m sure it was only a few minutes. Then it came, the scream. Maggie let go from the next room, long and high and loud, a virtuoso scream of terror and panic and madness.

I bent over and whispered into Joshua’s ear, “Just follow my lead. No, just don’t do anything. Nothing.”

“But—”

The Pharisees all looked like someone had dropped hot coals into their laps as the scream went on, and on. Maggie had great sustain. Before Jakan could get up to investigate, there came my girl—still shrieking, I might add—a lovely green foam running out of her mouth, her dress torn and hanging in shreds on her blood-streaked body and blood running from the corners of her eyes. She screamed in Jakan’s face and rolled her eyes, then leapt onto the table and growled as she kicked every piece of crockery off onto the floor where it shattered. The servant girl ran through screaming, “Demons have taken her, demons have taken her!” then bolted out the front door. Maggie started screeching again, then ran up and down the length of the table, urinating as she went. (Nice touch, I would never have thought of that.)

The Pharisees had backed up against the wall, including Jakan, as Maggie fell on her back on the table, thrashing and growling and screaming obscenities while splattering the front of their white cloaks with green foam, urine, and blood.

“Devils! She’s been possessed by devils. Lots of them,” I shouted.

“Seven,” Maggie said between growls.

“Looks like seven,” I said. “Doesn’t it, Josh?”

I grabbed the back of Joshua’s hair and sort of made him nod in agreement. No one was really watching him anyway, as Maggie was now spouting impressive fountains of green foam both out of her mouth and from between her legs. (Again, a nice touch I wouldn’t have thought of.) She settled into a vibrating fit rhythm, with barking and obscenities for counterpoint.

“Well, Jakan,” I said politely, “thank you for dinner. It’s been lovely but we have to be going.” I pulled Joshua to his feet by his collar. He was a little perplexed himself. Not terrified like our host, but perplexed.

“Wait,” Jakan said.

“Festering dog penis!” Maggie snarled to no one in particular, but I think everyone knew who she meant.

“Oh, all right, we’ll try to help her,” I said. “Joshua, grab an arm.” I pushed him forward and Maggie grabbed his wrist. I went around to the other side of the table and got hold of her other arm. “We have to get her out of this house of defilement.”

Maggie’s fingernails bit into my arm as I lifted her up and she pulled herself along on Josh’s wrist, pretending to thrash and fight. I dragged her out the front door and into the courtyard. “Make an effort, Joshua, would you,” Maggie whispered.

Jakan and the Pharisees bunched at the door. “We need to take her into the wilderness to safely cast out the devils,” I shouted. I dragged her, and Joshua for that matter, into the street and kicked the heavy gate closed.

Maggie relaxed and stood up. A mound of green foam cascaded off of her chest. “Don’t relax yet, Maggie. When we’re farther away.”

“Pork-eating goat fucker!”

“That’s the spirit.”

“Hi, Maggie,” Joshua said, taking her arm and finally helping me drag.

“I think it went really well for short notice,” I said. “You know, Pharisees make the best witnesses.”

“Let’s go to my brother’s house,” she whispered. “We can send word that I’m incurable from there.

“Rat molester!”

“It’s okay, Maggie, we’re out of range now.”

“I know. I was talking to you. Why’d you take seventeen years to get me out of there?”

“You’re beautiful in green, did I ever tell you that?”

“I’ve got to think that that was unethical,” Joshua said.

“Josh, faking demonic possession is like a mustard seed.”

“How is it like a mustard seed?”

“You don’t know, do you? Doesn’t seem at all like a mustard seed, does it? Now you see how we all feel when you liken things unto a mustard seed? Huh?”

At Simon the Leper’s house Joshua went to the door first by himself so Maggie’s appearance didn’t scare the humus out of her brother and sister. Martha answered the door. “Shalom, Martha. I’m Joshua bar Joseph, of Nazareth. Remember me from the wedding in Cana? I’ve brought your sister Maggie.”

“Let me see.” Martha tapped her fingernail on her chin while she searched her memory in the night sky. “Were you the one who changed the water into wine? Son of God, was it?”

“There’s no need to be that way,” Joshua said.

I popped my head around Josh’s shoulder. “I gave your sister a powder that sort of foamed her up all red and green. She’s a bit nasty-looking right now.”

“I’m sure that becomes her,” said Martha, with an exasperated sigh. “Come in.” She led us inside. I stood by the door while Joshua sat on the floor by the table. Martha took Maggie to the back of the house to help her clean up. It was a large house by our country standards, but not nearly as big as Jakan’s. Still, Simon had done well for the son of a blacksmith. I didn’t see Simon anywhere.

“Come sit at the table,” Joshua said.

“Nope, I’m fine by the door here.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Do you know whose house this is?”

“Of course, Maggie’s brother Simon’s.”

I lowered my voice. “imon-Say the eper-Lay.”

“Come sit down. I’ll watch over you.”

“Nope. I’m fine here.”

Just then Simon came in from the other room carrying a pitcher of wine and a tray of cups in his rag-wrapped hands. White linen covered his face except for his eyes, which were as clear and blue as Maggie’s.

“Welcome, Joshua, Levi—it’s been a long time.”

We’d known Simon as boys, spending as much time as we did hanging around Maggie’s father’s shop, but he had been older, learning his father’s craft then, and far too serious to be associating with boys. In my memory he was strong and tall, but now the leprosy had bent him over like an old woman.

Simon set the cups down and poured for the three of us. I remained against the wall by the door. “Martha doesn’t take well to serving,” Simon said, by way of apologizing for doing the serving himself. “She tells me that you turned water into wine at the wedding in Cana.”

“Simon,” Joshua said, “I can heal your affliction, if you’ll allow me.”

“What affliction?” He lay down at the table across from Joshua. “Biff, come sit with us.” He patted a cushion next to him and I ducked in the event that fingers started flying. “I understand that Jakan used my sister as bait for a trap for you two.”

“Not much of a trap,” Joshua said.

“You expected that?” I asked.

“I thought there would be more, the whole Pharisee council perhaps. I wanted to answer them directly, not have my words passed through a dozen spies and rumormongers. I also wanted to see if there would be any Sadducees there.”

Just then I realized what Joshua had already figured out: the Sadducees, the priests, weren’t involved in Jakan’s little surprise inquisition. They had been born to their power, and were not as easily threatened as the working-class Pharisees. And the Sadducees were the more powerful half of the Sanhedrin, the ones who commanded the soldiers of the Temple guard. Without the priests, the Pharisees were vipers without fangs, for now anyway.

“I hope we haven’t brought the judgment of the Pharisees down on your head, Simon,” Joshua said.

Simon waved a hand in dismissal. “Not to worry. There’ll be no Pharisees coming here. Jakan is terrified of me, and if he really believes that Maggie is possessed, and if his friends believe it, well, I’d bet he’s divorced her already.”

“She can come back to Galilee with us,” I said, looking at Joshua, who looked at Simon, as if to ask permission.

“She may do as she wishes.”

“What I wish is to get out of Bethany before Jakan comes to his senses,” Maggie said, coming from the other room. She wore a simple woolen dress and her hair was still dripping. There was still green goo on her sandals. She came across the room, knelt down, and gave her brother a huge hug, then a kiss on the eyebrow. “If he comes by or sends word, you’ll tell him I’m still here.”

I sensed Simon was smiling under the veil. “You don’t think he’ll want to come in and look around?”

“The coward,” Maggie spat.

“Amen,” I said. “How did you stay with a creep like that all of these years?”

“After the first year he didn’t want to be anywhere near me. Unclean, don’t you know? I told him I was bleeding.”

“For all those years?”

“Sure. Do you think he would embarrass himself among the members of the Pharisee council by asking them about their own wives?”

Joshua said, “I can heal you of that affliction, if you’ll allow me, Maggie.”

“What affliction?”

“You should go,” Simon said. “I’ll send word about what Jakan has done as soon as I know. If he hasn’t done it already, I have a friend who will plant the idea that if he doesn’t divorce Maggie his place on the Sanhedrin might be questioned.”

Simon and Martha waved to us from the doorway, Martha looking like a compact ghost of her older sister and Simon just looking like a ghost.

And thus did we become eleven.

There was a full moon and a sky full of stars thrown over us as we walked back to Gethsemane. From the top of the Mount of Olives we could see across the Kidron Valley to the Temple. Black smoke streamed into the sky from the sacrificial fires which the priests tended day and night. I held Maggie’s hand as we walked through the grove of ancient olive trees and out into the clearing near the oil press where we camped. Philip and Nathaniel had built a fire and there were two strangers sitting by it with them. They all stood up as we approached. Philip glared at me, which baffled me until I remembered that he’d been with us at Cana, and seen Joshua and Maggie dancing at the wedding. He thought I was trying to steal Joshua’s girl. I let her hand go.

“Master,” said Nathaniel, tossing his yellow hair, “new disciples. These are Thaddeus and Thomas the Twins.”

Thaddaeus stepped up to Joshua. He was about my height and age, and wore a tattered woolen tunic and looked especially gaunt, as if he might be starving. His hair was cut short like a Roman’s, but it looked as if someone had cut it with a dull piece of flint. Somehow he looked familiar.

“Rabbi, I heard you preach when you were with John. I have been with him for two years.”

A follower of John, that’s where I knew him from, although I didn’t remember meeting him. That explained the hungry look as well.

“Welcome, Thaddaeus,” Joshua said. “These are Biff and Mary Magdalene, disciples and friends.”

“Call me Maggie,” Maggie said.

Joshua stepped over to Thomas the Twins, who was only one guy, younger, perhaps twenty, his beard still like soft down in places, his clothes finer than any of ours. “And Thomas.”

“Don’t, you’re standing on Thomas Two,” Thomas squealed.

Nathaniel pushed Joshua aside and whispered in his ear a little too loudly. “He sees his twin but no one else can. You said to show mercy, so I haven’t told him that he’s mad.”

“And so you shall be shown mercy, Nathaniel,” Joshua said.

“So we won’t tell you that you’re a ninny,” I added.

“Welcome, Thomas,” Joshua said, embracing the boy.

“And Thomas Two,” Thomas said.

“Forgive me. Welcome, Thomas Two, as well,” said Joshua to a perfectly empty spot in space. “Come to Galilee and help us spread the good news.”

“He’s over there,” said Thomas, pointing to a different spot, equally empty.

And thus did we become thirteen.

On the trip back to Capernaum Maggie told us about her life, about the dreams she had set aside, and about a child that had died in the first year of her marriage. I could see Joshua was shaken when he heard of the child, and I knew he was thinking that if we hadn’t taken off to the East, he would have been there to save it.

“After that,” Maggie said, “Jakan didn’t come near me. There was bleeding right after the baby died, and as far as he knew it never stopped. He’s always been afraid that someone might think that there’s a curse on his house, so my duties as a wife were public only. It’s a double-edged sword for him. In order to appear dutiful I had to go to the synagogue and to the women’s court in the Temple, but if they thought I was going there while I was bleeding I would have been driven out, maybe stoned, and Jakan would have been shamed. Who knows what he’ll do now.”

“He’ll divorce you,” I said. “He’ll have to if he wants to save face with the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin.”

Strangely enough, it was Joshua who I had trouble consoling about Maggie’s lost child. She’d lived with the loss for years, cried over it, allowed it to heal as much as it would, but the wound was fresh for Joshua. He walked far behind us, shunning the new disciples who pranced around him like excited puppies. I could tell that he was talking to his father, and it didn’t seem to be going well.

“Go talk to him,” Maggie said. “It wasn’t his fault. It was God’s will.”

“That’s why he feels responsible,” I said. We hadn’t explained to Maggie about the Holy Ghost, the kingdom, all the changes that Joshua wanted to bring to mankind, and how those were at odds, at times, with the Torah.

“Go talk to him,” she said.

I fell back in our column, past Philip and Thaddaeus, who were trying to explain to Nathaniel that it was his own voice he heard when he put his fingers in his ears and spoke, and not the voice of God, and past Thomas, who was having an animated discussion with empty air.

I walked along beside Joshua for a while before I spoke, and then I tried to sound matter-of-fact. “You had to go to the East, Joshua. You know that now.”

“I didn’t have to go right then. That was cowardly. Would it have been so bad to watch her marry Jakan? To see her child born?”

“Yes, it would have. You can’t save everyone.”

“Have you been asleep these last twenty years?”

“Have you? Unless you can change the past, you’re wasting the present on this guilt. If you don’t use what you learned in the East then maybe we shouldn’t have gone. Maybe leaving Israel was cowardly.”

I felt my face go numb as if the blood had drained from it. Had I said that? So, we walked along for a while in silence, not looking at each other. I counted birds, listened to the murmur of the disciples’ voices ahead, watched Maggie’s ass move under her dress as she walked, not really enjoying the elegance of it.

“Well, I, for one, feel better,” said Joshua finally. “Thanks for cheering me up.”

“Glad to help,” I said.

We arrived in Capernaum on the morning of the fifth day after leaving Bethany. Peter and the others had been preaching the good news to the people on the shore of Galilee and there was a crowd of perhaps five hundred people waiting for us. The tension had passed between Joshua and me and the rest of the journey had been pleasant, if for no other reason than we got to hear Maggie laugh and tease us. My jealousy of Joshua returned, but somehow it wasn’t bitter. It was more like familiar grief for a distant loss, not the sword-in-the-heart, rending-of-flesh agony of a heartbreak. I could actually leave the two of them alone and talk to other people—think of other things. Maggie loved Joshua, that was assured, but she loved me as well, and there was no way to divine how that might manifest. By following Joshua we had already divorced ourselves of the expectations of normal existence. Marriage, home, family: they were not part of the life we had chosen, Joshua made that clear to all of his disciples. Yes, some of them were married, and some even preached with their wives at their sides, but what set them apart from the multitudes who would follow Joshua was that they had stepped off the path of their own lives to spread the Word. It was to the Word that I lost Maggie, not to Joshua.

As exhausted as he was, as hungry, Joshua preached to them. They had been waiting for us and he wouldn’t disappoint them. He climbed into one of Peter’s boats, rowed out from the shore far enough for the crowd to be able to see him, and he preached to them about the kingdom for two hours.

When he had finished, and had sent the crowd on their way, two newcomers waited among the disciples. They were both compact, strong-looking men in their mid-twenties. One was clean-shaven and wore his hair cut short, so that it formed a helmet of ringlets on his head; the other had long hair with his beard plaited and curled in the style I had seen on some Greeks. Although they wore no jewelry, and their clothes were no more fancy than my own, there was an air of wealth about them both. I thought it might have been power, but if it was, it wasn’t the self-conscious power of the Pharisees. If nothing else, they were self-assured.

The one with the long hair approached Joshua and kneeled before him. “Rabbi, we’ve heard you speak of the coming of the kingdom and we want to join you. We want to help spread the Word.”

Joshua looked at the man for a long time, smiling to himself, before he spoke. He took the man by the shoulders and lifted him. “Stand up. You are welcome, friends.”

The stranger seemed baffled. He looked back at his friend, then at me, as if I had some answer to his confusion. “This is Simon,” he said, nodding toward his friend. “My name is Judas Iscariot.”

“I know who you are,” Joshua said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

And so we became fifteen: Joshua, Maggie, and me; Bartholomew, the Cynic; Peter and Andrew, John and James, the fishermen; Matthew, the tax collector; Nathaniel of Cana, the young nitwit; Philip and Thaddeus, who had been followers of John the Baptist; Thomas the twin, who was a loony; and the Zealots, Simon the Canaanite and Judas Iscariot. Fifteen went out into Galilee to preach the Holy Ghost, the coming of the kingdom, and the good news that the Son of God had arrived.

Chapter 28

Joshua’s ministry was three years of preaching, sometimes three times a day, and although there were some high and low points, I could never remember the sermons word for word, but here’s the gist of almost every sermon I ever heard Joshua give.

You should be nice to people, even creeps.

And if you:

a) believed that Joshua was the Son of God (and)

b) he had come to save you from sin (and)

c) acknowledged the Holy Spirit within you (became as a little child, he would say)(and)

d) didn’t blaspheme the Holy Ghost (see c),

then you would:

e) live forever

f) someplace nice

g) probably heaven.

However, if you:

h) sinned (and/or)

i) were a hypocrite (and/or)

j) valued things over people (and)

k) didn’t do a, b, c, and d,

then you were:

l) fucked

Which is the message that Joshua’s father had given him so many years ago, and which seemed, at the time, succinct to the point of rudeness, but made more sense after you listened to a few hundred sermons.

That’s what he taught, that’s what we learned, that’s what we passed on to the people in the towns of Galilee. Not everybody was good at it, however, and some seemed to miss the point altogether. One day Joshua, Maggie, and I returned from preaching in Cana to find Bartholomew sitting by the synagogue at Capernaum, preaching the Gospel to a semicircle of dogs that sat around him. The dogs seemed spellbound, but then, Bart was wearing a flank steak as a hat, so I’m not sure it was his speaking skills that held their attention.

Joshua snatched the steak off of Bartholomew’s head and tossed it into the street, where a dozen dogs suddenly found their faith. “Bart, Bart, Bart,” Josh said as he shook the big man by the shoulders, “don’t give what’s holy to dogs. Don’t cast your pearls before swine. You’re wasting the Word.”

“I don’t have any pearls. I am slave to no possessions.”

“It’s a metaphor, Bart,” Joshua said, deadpan. “It means don’t give the Word to those who aren’t ready to receive it.”

“You mean like when you drowned the swine in Decapolis? They weren’t ready for it?”

Joshua looked at me for help. I shrugged.

Maggie said, “That’s exactly right, Bart. You got it.”

“Oh, why didn’t you say so?” Bart said. “Okay guys, we’re off to preach the Word in Magdala.” He climbed to his feet and led his pack of disciples toward the lake.

Joshua looked at Maggie. “That’s not what I meant at all.”

“Yes it is,” she said, then she took off to find Johanna and Susanna, two women who had joined us and were learning to preach the gospel.

“That’s not what I meant,” Joshua said to me.

“Have you ever won an argument with her?”

He shook his head.

“Then say amen and let’s go see what Peter’s wife has cooked up.”

The disciples were gathered around outside of Peter’s house, sitting on the logs we had arranged in a circle around a fire pit. They were all looking down and seemed to be caught in some glum prayer. Even Matthew was there, when he should have been at his job collecting taxes in Magdala.

“What’s wrong?” asked Joshua.

“John the Baptist is dead,” said Philip.

“What?” Joshua sat down on the log next to Peter and leaned against him.

“We just saw Bartholomew,” I said. “He didn’t say anything about it.”

“We just found out,” said Andrew. “Matthew just brought the news from Tiberius.”

It was the first time since he’d joined us that I’d seen Matthew without the light of enthusiasm in his face. He might have aged ten years in the last few hours. “Herod had him beheaded,” he said.

“I thought Herod was afraid of John,” I said. It was rumored that Herod had kept John alive because he actually believed him to be the Messiah and was afraid of the wrath of God should the holy man perish.

“It was at the request of his stepdaughter,” said Matthew. “John was killed at the behest of a teenage slut.”

“Well, jeez, if he wasn’t dead already, the irony would have killed him,” I said.

Joshua stared into the dirt before him, thinking or praying, I couldn’t tell. Finally he said, “John’s followers will be like babes in the wilderness.”

“Thirsty?” guessed Nathaniel.

“Hungry?” guessed Peter.

“Horny?” guessed Thomas.

“No, you dumbfucks, lost. They’ll be lost!” I said. “Jeez.”

Joshua stood. “Philip, Thaddeus, go to Judea, tell John’s followers that they are welcome here. Tell them that John’s work is not lost. Bring them here.”

“But master,” Judas said, “John has thousands of followers. If they come here, how will we feed them?”

“He’s new,” I explained.

The next day was the Sabbath, and in the morning as we all headed to the synagogue, an old man in fine clothes ran out of the bushes and threw himself at Joshua’s feet. “Oh, Rabbi,” he wailed, “I am the mayor of Magdala. My youngest daughter has died. People say that you can heal the sick and raise the dead, will you help me?”

Joshua looked around. A half-dozen local Pharisees watched us from different points around the village. Joshua turned to Peter. “Take the Word to the synagogue today. I am going to help this man.”

“Thank you, Rabbi,” the rich man gushed. He hurried off and waved for us to follow.

“Where are you taking us?” I asked.

“Only as far as Magdala,” he said.

To Joshua I said, “That’s farther than a Sabbath’s journey allows.”

“I know,” Joshua said.

As we passed through all of the small villages along the coast on the way to Magdala, people came out of their houses and followed us for as long as they dared on a Sabbath, but I could also see the elders, the Pharisees, watching as we went.

The mayor’s house was large for Magdala, and his daughter had her own sleeping room. He led Joshua into the bedchamber where the girl lay. “Please save her, Rabbi.”

Joshua bent down and examined the girl. “Go out of here,” he said to the old man. “Out of the house.” When the mayor was gone Joshua looked at me. “She’s not dead.”

“What?”

“This girl is sleeping. Maybe they’ve given her some strong wine, or some sleeping powder, but she is not dead.”

“So this is a trap?”

“I didn’t see this one coming either,” Joshua said. “They expect me to claim that I raised her from the dead, healed her, when she’s only sleeping. Blasphemy and healing on the Sabbath.”

“Let me raise her from the dead, then. I mean, I can do this one if she’s only sleeping.”

“They’ll blame me for whatever you do as well. You may be their target too. The local Pharisees didn’t devise this themselves.”

“Jakan?”

Josh nodded. “Go get the old man, and gather as many witnesses as you can, Pharisees as well. Make a ruckus.”

When I had about fifty people gathered in and around the house, Joshua announced, “This girl isn’t dead, she’s sleeping, you foolish old man.” Joshua shook the girl and she sat up rubbing her eyes. “Keep watch on your strong wine, old man. Rejoice that you have not lost your daughter, but grieve that you have broken the Sabbath for your ignorance.”

Then Joshua stormed out and I followed him. When we were a ways down the street he said, “Do you think they bought it?”

“Nope,” I said.

“Me either,” Joshua said.

In the morning a Roman soldier came to Peter’s house with messages. I was still sleeping when I heard the shouting. “I can only speak to Joshua of Nazareth,” someone said in Latin.

“You’ll speak to me or you’ll never speak again,” I heard someone else say. (Obviously someone who had no desire to live a long life.) I was up and running in an instant, my tunic waving unbelted behind me. I rounded the corner at Peter’s house to see Judas facing down a legionnaire. The soldier had partially drawn his short sword.

“Judas!” I barked. “Back down.”

I put myself between them. I knew I could disarm the soldier easily, but not the legion that would follow him if I did. “Who sends you, soldier?”

“I have a message from Gaius Justus Gallicus, commander of the Sixth Legion, for Joshua bar Joseph of Nazareth.” He glared at Judas over my shoulder. “But there is nothing in my orders to keep me from killing this dog while delivering it.”

I turned to face Judas, whose face was on fire with anger. I knew he carried a dagger in his sash, although I hadn’t told Joshua about it. “Justus is a friend, Judas.”

“No Roman is the friend of a Jew,” said Judas, making no effort whatever to whisper.

And at that point, realizing that Joshua hadn’t reached our new Zealot recruit with the message of forgiveness for all men, and that he was going to get himself killed, I quickly reached up under Judas’ tunic, clamped onto his scrotum, squeezed once, rapidly and extremely hard, and after he blasted a mouthful of slobber on my chest, his eyes rolled in his head and he slumped to his knees, unconscious. I caught him and lowered him to the ground so he didn’t hit his head. Then I turned to the Roman.

“Fainting spells,” I said. “Let’s go find Joshua.”

Justus had sent us three messages from Jerusalem: Jakan had indeed divorced Maggie; the Pharisees’ full council had met and they were plotting to kill Joshua; and Herod Antipas had heard of Joshua’s miracles and was afraid that he might be the reincarnation of John the Baptist. Justus’ only personal note was one word: Careful.

“Joshua, you need to hide,” said Maggie. “Leave Herod’s territory until things settle down. Go to Decapolis, preach to the gentiles. Herod Philip has no love for his brother, his soldiers won’t bother you.” Maggie had become a fiercely dedicated preacher herself. It was as if she had channeled her personal passion for Joshua into a passion for the Word.

“Not yet,” said Joshua. “Not until Philip and Thaddeus return with John’s followers. I will not leave them lost. I need a sermon, one that can serve as if it was my last, one that will sustain the lost while I’m gone. Once I deliver it to Galilee, I’ll go to Philip’s territory.”

I looked at Maggie and she nodded, as if to say, Do what you have to, but protect him.

“Let’s write it then,” I said.

Like any great speech, the Sermon on the Mount sounds as if it just happened spontaneously, but actually Joshua and I worked on it for over a week—Joshua dictating and me taking notes on parchment. (I had invented a way of sandwiching a thin piece of charcoal between two pieces of olive wood so that I could write without carrying a quill and inkwell.) We worked in front of Peter’s house, out in the boat, even on the mountainside where he would deliver the sermon. Joshua wanted to devote a long section of the sermon to adultery, largely, I realize now, motivated by my relationship with Maggie. Even though Maggie had resolved to stay celibate and preach the Word, I think Joshua wanted to drive the point home.

Joshua said, “Put in ‘If a man even looks at a woman with lust in his heart, he has committed adultery.’”

“Really, you want to go with that? And this ‘If a divorced woman remarries she commits adultery’?”

“Yeah.”

“Seems a little harsh. A little Pharisee-ish.”

“I had some people in mind. What do you have?”

“‘Verily I say unto you’—I know you like to say ‘verily’ when you’re talking about adultery—anyway, ‘Verily I say unto you, that should a man put oil upon a woman’s naked body, and make her go upon all fours and bark like a dog, while knowing her, if you know what I mean, then he has committed adultery, and surely if a woman do the same thing right back, well she has jumped on the adultery donkey cart herownself. And if a woman should pretend to be a powerful queen, and a man a lowly slave boy, and if she should call him humiliating names and make him lick upon her body, then surely they have sinned like big dogs—and woe unto the man if he pretends to be a powerful queen, and—’”

“That’s enough, Biff.”

“But you want to be specific, don’t you. You don’t want people to walk around wondering, ‘Hey, is this adultery, or what? Maybe you should roll over.’”

“I’m not sure that being that specific is a good idea.”

“Okay, how ’bout this: ‘Should a man or a woman have any goings-on with their mutual naughty bits, then it is more than likely they are committing adultery, or at least they should consider it.’”

“Well, maybe more specific than that.”

“Come on, Josh, this isn’t an easy one like ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Basically, there you got a corpse, you got a sin, right?”

“Yes, adultery can be sticky.”

“Well, yes…Look, a seagull!”

“Biff, I appreciate that you feel obliged to be an advocate for your favorite sins, but that’s not what I need here. What I need is help writing this sermon. How we doing on the Beatitudes?”

“Pardon me?”

“The blesseds.”

“We’ve got: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness; blessed are the poor in spirit, the pure in heart, the whiners, the meek, the—”

“Wait, what are we giving the meek?”

“Let’s see, uh, here: Blessed are the meek, for to them we shall say, ‘attaboy.’”

“A little weak.”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s let the meek inherit the earth.”

“Can’t you give the earth to the whiners?”

“Well then, cut the whiners and give the earth to the meek.”

“Okay. Earth to the meek. Here we go. Blessed are the peacemakers, the mourners, and that’s it.”

“How many is that?”

“Seven.”

“Not enough. We need one more. How about the dumbfucks?”

“No, Josh, not the dumbfucks. You’ve done enough for the dumbfucks. Nathaniel, Thomas—”

“Blessed are the dumbfucks for they, uh—I don’t know—they shall never be disappointed.”

“No, I’m drawing the line at dumbfucks. Come on, Josh, why can’t we have any powerful guys on our team? Why do we have to have the meek, and the poor, the oppressed, and the pissed on? Why can’t we, for once, have blessed are the big powerful rich guys with swords?”

“Because they don’t need us.”

“Okay, but no ‘Blessed are the dumbfucks.’”

“Who then?”

“Sluts?”

“No.”

“How about the wankers? I can think of five or six disciples that would be really blessed.”

“No wankers. I’ve got it: Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.”

“Okay, better. What are you going to give them?”

“A fruit basket.”

“You can’t give the meek the whole earth and these guys a fruit basket.”

“Give them the kingdom of heaven.”

“The poor in spirit got that.”

“Everybody gets some.”

“Okay then, ‘share the Kingdom of Heaven.’” I wrote it down.

“We could give the fruit basket to the dumbfucks.”

“NO DUMBFUCKS!”

“Sorry, I just feel for them.”

“You feel for everyone, Josh. It’s your job.”

“Oh yeah. I forgot.”

We finished writing the sermon only a few hours before Philip and Thaddeus returned from Judea leading three thousand of John’s followers. Joshua had them gather on a hillside above Capernaum, then sent the disciples into the crowd to find the sick and bring them to him. He performed miracles of healing all morning, then coming into the afternoon he gathered us together at the spring below the mountain.

Peter said, “There’s at least another thousand people from Galilee on the hill, Joshua, and they are hungry.”

“How much food do we have?” Joshua asked.

Judas came forward with a basket. “Five loaves and two fish.”

“That will do, but you’ll need more baskets. And about a hundred volunteers to help distribute the food. Nathaniel, you, Bartholomew, and Thomas go into the crowd and find me fifty to a hundred people who have their own baskets. Bring them here. By the time you get back we’ll have the food for them.”

Judas threw down his basket. “We have five loaves, how do you think—”

Joshua held up his hand for silence and the Zealot clammed up. “Judas, today you’ve seen the lame walk, the blind see, and the deaf hear.”

“Not to mention the blind hear and the deaf see,” I added.

Joshua scowled at me. “It will take little more to feed a few of the faithful.”

“There are but five loaves!” shouted Judas.

“Judas, once there was a rich man, who built great barns and granaries so he could save all of the fruits of his wealth long into his old age. But on the very day his barns were finished, the Lord said, “Hey, we need you up here.” And the rich man did say, “Oh shit, I’m dead.” So what good did his stuff do him?”

“Huh?”

“Don’t worry about what you’re going to eat.”

Nathaniel, Bart, and Thomas started off to their assigned duty, but Maggie grabbed Nathaniel and held him fast. “No,” she said. “No one does anything until you promise us that you’ll go into hiding after this sermon.”

Joshua smiled. “How can I hide, Maggie? Who will spread the Word? Who will heal the sick?”

“We will,” Maggie continued. “Now promise. Go into the land of the gentiles, out of Herod’s reach, just until things calm down. Promise or we don’t move.” Peter and Andrew stepped up behind Maggie to show their support. John and James were nodding as she spoke.

“So be it,” said Joshua. “But now we have hungry people to feed.”

And we fed them. The loaves and the fish were multiplied, jars were brought in from the surrounding villages and filled with water, which was carried to the mountainside, and all the while the local Pharisees watched and growled and spied, but they hadn’t missed the healings, and they didn’t miss the Sermon on the Mount, and word of it went back to Jerusalem with their poison reports.

Afterward, at the spring by the shore, I gathered up the last of the pieces of bread to take home with us. Joshua came down the shore with a basket over his head, then pulled it off when he got to me.

“When we said we wanted you to hide we meant something a little less obvious, Joshua. Great sermon, by the way.”

Joshua started helping me gather up the bread that was strewn around on the ground. “I wanted to talk to you and I couldn’t get away from the crowd without hiding under the basket. I’m having a little trouble preaching humility.”

“You’re so good at that one. People line up to hear the humility sermon.”

“How can I preach that the humble will be exalted and the exalted will be humbled at the same time I’m being exalted by four thousand people?”

“Bodhisattva, Josh. Remember what Gaspar taught you about being a bodhisattva. You don’t have to be humble, because you are denying your own ascension by bringing the good news to other people. You’re out of the humility flow, so to speak.”

“Oh yeah.” He smiled.

“But now that you mention it,” I said, “it does seem a little hypocritical.”

“I’m not proud of that.”

“Then you’re okay.”

That evening, when we had all gathered again in Capernaum, Joshua called us to the fire ring in front of Peter’s house and we watched the last gold of the sunlight reflecting on the lake as Joshua led us in a prayer of thanks.

Then he made the call: “Okay, who wants to be an apostle?”

“I do, I do,” said Nathaniel. “What’s an apostle?”

“That’s a guy who makes drugs,” I said.

“Me, me,” said Nathaniel. “I want to make drugs.”

“I’ll try that,” said John.

“That’s an apothecary,” said Matthew. “An apothecary mixes powders and makes drugs. Apostle means ‘to send off.’”

“Is this kid a whiz, or what,” I said, pointing a thumb at Matthew.

“That’s right,” said Joshua, “messengers. You’ll be sent off to spread the message that the kingdom has come.”

“Isn’t that what we’re doing now?” asked Peter.

“No, now you’re disciples, but I want to appoint apostles who will take the Word into the land. There will be twelve, for the twelve tribes of Israel. I’ll give you power to heal, and power over devils. You’ll be like me, only in a different outfit. You’ll take nothing with you except your clothes. You’ll live only off the charity of those you preach to. You’ll be on your own, like sheep among wolves. People will persecute you and spit on you, and maybe beat you, and if that happens, well, it happens. Shake off the dust and move on. Now, who’s with me?”

And there was a roaring silence among the disciples.

“How about you, Maggie?”

“I’m not much of a traveler, Josh. Makes me nauseous. Disciple’s fine with me.”

“How ’bout you, Biff?”

“I’m good. Thanks.”

Joshua stood up and just counted them off. “Nathaniel, Peter, Andrew, Philip, James, John, Thaddeus, Judas, Matthew, Thomas, Bartholomew, and Simon. You’re the apostles. Now get out there and apostilize.”

And they all looked at each other.

“Spread the good news, the son of man is here! The kingdom is coming. Go! Go! Go!”

They got up and sort of milled around.

“Can we take our wives?” asked James.

“Yes.”

“Or one of the women disciples?” asked Matthew.

“Yes.”

“Can Thomas Two go too?”

“Yes, Thomas Two can go.”

Their questions answered, they milled around some more.

“Biff,” Joshua said. “Will you assign territories for everybody and send them out?”

“Okey-dokey,” I said. “Who wants Samaria? No one? Good. Peter, it’s yours. Give ’em hell. Caesarea? Come on, you weenies, step up…”

Thus were the twelve appointed to their sacred mission.

The next morning seventy of the people who we’d recruited to help feed the multitude came to Joshua when they heard about the appointing of the apostles.

“Why only twelve?” one man asked.

“You all want to cast off what you own, leave your families, and risk persecution and death to spread the good news?” Joshua asked.

“Yes,” they all shouted.

Joshua looked at me as if he himself couldn’t believe it.

“It was a really good sermon,” I said.

“So be it,” said Joshua. “Biff, you and Matthew assign territories. Send no one to his hometown. That doesn’t seem to work very well.”

And so the twelve and the seventy were sent out, and Joshua, Maggie, and I went into Decapolis, which was the territory of Herod’s brother, Philip, and camped and fished and basically hid out. Joshua preached a little, but only to small groups, and although he did heal the sick, he asked them not to tell anyone about the miracles.

After three months hiding in Philip’s territory, word came by boat from across the lake that someone had intervened on Joshua’s behalf with the Pharisees and that the death warrant, which had never really been formal, had been lifted. We went home to Capernaum and waited for the apostles to return. Their enthusiasm had waned some after months in the field.

“It sucks.”

“People are mean.”

“Lepers are creepy.”

Matthew came out of Judea with more news of Joshua’s mysterious benefactor from Jerusalem. “His name is Joseph of Arimathea,” said Matthew. “He’s a wealthy merchant, and he owns ships and vineyards and olive presses. He seems to have the ear of the Pharisees, but he is not one of them. His wealth has given him some influence with the Romans as well. They are considering making him a citizen, I hear.”

“What makes him want to help us?” I asked.

“I talked to him for a long time about the kingdom, and about the Holy Ghost and the rest of Joshua’s message. He believes.” Matthew smiled broadly, obviously proud of his powerful convert. “He wants you to come to his house for dinner, Joshua. In Jerusalem.”

“Are you sure it’s safe for Joshua there?” asked Maggie.

“Joseph has sent this letter guaranteeing Joshua’s safety along with all who accompany him to Jerusalem.” Matthew held out the letter.

Maggie took the scroll and unrolled it. “My name is on this too. And Biff’s.”

“Joseph knew you would be coming, and I told him that Biff sticks to Joshua like a leech.”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, that you accompany the master wherever he travels,” Matthew added quickly.

“But why me?” Maggie asked.

“Your brother Simon who is called Lazarus, he is very sick. Dying. He’s asked for you. Joseph wanted you to know that you would have safe passage.”

Josh grabbed his satchel and started walking that moment. “Let’s go,” he said. “Peter, you are in charge until I return. Biff, Maggie, we need to make Tiberius before dark. I’m going to see if I can borrow some camels there. Matthew, you come too, you know this Joseph. And Thomas, you come along, I want to talk to you.”

So off we went, into what I was sure were the jaws of a trap.

Along the way Joshua called Thomas to walk beside him. Maggie and I walked behind them only a few paces, so we could hear their conversation. Thomas kept stopping to make sure that Thomas Two could keep up with them.

“They all think I’m mad,” Thomas said. “They laugh at me behind my back. Thomas Two has told me.”

“Thomas, you know I can lay my hands upon you and you will be cured. Thomas Two will no longer speak to you. The others won’t laugh at you.”

Thomas walked along for a while without saying anything, but when he looked back at Joshua I could see tears streaking his cheeks. “If Thomas Two goes away, then I’ll be alone.”

“You won’t be alone. You’ll have me.”

“Not for long. You don’t have long with us.”

“How do you know that?”

“Thomas Two told me.”

“We won’t tell the others quite yet, all right, Thomas?”

“Not if you don’t want me to. But you won’t cure me, will you? You won’t make Thomas Two go away?”

“No,” Joshua said. “We may both need an extra friend soon.” He patted Thomas on the shoulder, then turned to walk on ahead to catch up with Matthew.

“Well, don’t step on him!” Thomas shouted.

“Sorry,” said Joshua.

I looked at Maggie. “Did you hear that?”

She nodded. “You can’t let it happen, Biff. He doesn’t seem to care about his own life, but I do, and you do, and if you let harm come to him I’ll never forgive you.”

“But Maggie, everyone is supposed to be forgiven.”

“Not you. Not if something happens to Josh.”

“So be it. So, hey, once Joshua heals your brother, you want to go do something, get some pomegranate juice, or a falafel, or get married or something?”

She stopped in her tracks, so I stopped too. “Are you ever paying attention to anything that goes on around you?”

“I’m sorry, I was overcome by faith there for a moment. What did you say?”

When we got to Bethany, Martha was waiting for us in the street in front of Simon’s house. She went right to Joshua and he held out his arms to embrace her, but when she got to him she pushed him away. “My brother is dead,” she said. “Where were you?”

“I came as soon as I heard.”

Maggie went to Martha and held her as they both cried. The rest of us stood around feeling awkward. The two old blind guys, Crustus and Abel, whom Joshua had once healed, came over from across the street.

“Dead, dead and buried four days,” said Crustus. “He turned a sort of chartreuse at the end.”

“Emerald, it was emerald, not chartreuse,” said Abel.

“My friend Simon truly sleeps, then,” Joshua said.

Thomas came up and put his hand on Joshua’s shoulder. “No, master, he’s dead. Thomas Two thinks it may have been a hairball. Simon was a leopard, you know?”

I couldn’t stand it. “He was a LEPER, you idiot! Not a leopard.”

“Well, he IS dead!” shouted Thomas back. “Not sleeping.”

“Joshua was being figurative, he knows he’s dead.”

“Do you guys think you could be just a little more insensitive?” said Matthew, pointing to the weeping sisters.

“Look, tax collector, when I want your two shekels I’ll ask—”

“Where is he?” Joshua asked, his voice booming over the sobs and protests.

Martha pushed out of her sister’s embrace and looked at Joshua. “He bought a tomb in Kidron,” said Martha.

“Take me there, I need to wake my friend.”

“Dead,” said Thomas. “Dead, dead, dead.”

There was a sparkle of hope amid the tears in Martha’s eyes. “Wake him?”

“Dead as a doornail. Dead as Moses. Mmmph…” Matthew clamped his hand over Thomas’s mouth, which saved me having to render the twin unconscious with a brick.

“You believe that Simon will rise from the dead, don’t you?” asked Joshua.

“In the end, when the kingdom comes, and everyone is raised, yes, I believe.”

“Do you believe I am who I say I am?”

“Of course.”

“Then show me where my friend lies sleeping.”

Martha moved like a sleepwalker, her exhaustion and grief driven back just enough for her to lead us up the road to the Mount of Olives and down into the Kidron Valley. Maggie had been deeply shaken by the news of her brother’s death as well, so Thomas and Matthew helped her along while I walked with Joshua.

“Four days dead, Josh. Four days. Divine Spark or not, the flesh is empty.”

“Simon will walk again if he is but bone,” said Joshua.

“Okey-dokey. But this has never been one of your better miracles.”

When we got to the tomb there was a tall, thin, aristocratic man sitting outside eating a fig. He was clean-shaven and his gray hair was cut short like a Roman’s. If he hadn’t worn the two-striped tunic of a Jew I would have thought him a Roman citizen.

“I thought you would come here,” he said. He knelt before Joshua. “Rabbi, I’m Joseph of Arimathea. I sent word through your disciple Matthew that I wanted to meet with you. How may I serve?”

“Stand up, Joseph. Help roll away this stone.”

As with many of the larger tombs carved into the side of the mountain, there was a large flat stone covering the doorway. Joshua put his arms around Maggie and Martha while the rest of us wrestled with the stone. As soon as the seal was broken I was hit with a stench that gagged me and Thomas actually lost his supper in the dirt.

“He stinks,” said Matthew.

“I thought he would smell more like a cat,” said Thomas.

“Don’t make me come over there, Thomas,” I said.

We pushed the stone as far as it would go, then we ran away gasping for fresh air.

Joshua held his arms out as if waiting to embrace his friend. “Come out, Simon Lazarus, come out into the light.” Nothing but stench came out of the tomb.

“Come forth, Simon. Come out of that tomb,” Joshua commanded.

And absolutely nothing happened.

Joseph of Arimathea shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “I wanted to talk to you about the dinner at my house before you got there, Joshua.”

Joshua held up his hand for silence.

“Simon, dammit, come out of there.”

And ever so weakly, there came a voice from inside the tomb. “No.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’? You have risen from the dead, now come forth. Show these unbelievers that you have risen.”

“I believe,” I said.

“Convinced me,” said Matthew.

“A no is as good as a personal appearance, as far as I’m concerned,” said Joseph of Arimathea.

I’m not sure any of us who had smelled the stench of rotting flesh really wanted to see the source. Even Maggie and Martha seemed a little dubious about their brother’s coming out.

“Simon, get your leprous ass out here,” Joshua commanded.

“But I’m…I’m all icky.”

“We’ve all seen icky before,” said Joshua. “Now come out into the light.”

“My skin is all green, like an unripe olive.”

“Olive green!” declared Crustus, who had followed us into Kidron. “I told you it wasn’t chartreuse.”

“What the hell does he know? He’s dead,” said Abel.

Finally Joshua lowered his arms and stormed into the tomb. “I can’t believe that you bring a guy back from the dead and he doesn’t even have the courtesy to come out—WHOA! HOLY MOLY!” Joshua came backing out of the tomb, stiff-legged. Very calmly and quietly, he said, “We need clean clothes, and some water to wash with, and bandages, lots of bandages. I can heal him, but we have to sort of get all of his parts stuck back together first.”

“Hold on, Simon,” Joshua shouted to the tomb, “we’re getting some supplies, then I’ll come in and heal your affliction.”

“What affliction?” asked Simon.

Chapter 29

When it was all finished, Simon looked great, better than I’d ever seen him look. Joshua had not only raised him from the dead, but also healed his leprosy. Maggie and Martha were ecstatic. The new and improved Simon invited us back to his house to celebrate. Unfortunately, Abel and Crustus had witnessed the resurrection and the healing, and despite our admonishments, they started to spread the story through Bethany and Jerusalem.

Joseph of Arimathea accompanied us to Simon’s house, but he was hardly in a celebratory mood. “This dinner’s not exactly a trap,” he told Joshua, “it’s more like a test.”

“I’ve been to one of their trials by dinner,” said Joshua. “I thought you were a believer.”

“I am,” said Joseph, “especially after what I saw today, but that’s why you have to come to my house and have dinner with the Pharisees from the council. Show them who you are. Explain to them in an informal setting what it is that you are doing.”

“Satan himself once asked me to prove myself,” said Joshua. “What proof do I owe these hypocrites?”

“Please, Joshua. They may be hypocrites, but they have great influence over the people. Because they condemn you the people are afraid to listen to the Word. I know Pontius Pilate, I don’t think anyone would harm you in my home and risk his wrath.”

Joshua sat for a moment, sipping his wine. “Then into the den of vipers I shall go.”

“Don’t do it, Joshua,” I said.

“And you have to come alone,” said Joseph. “You can’t bring any of the apostles.”

“That’s not a problem,” I said. “I’m only a disciple.”

“Especially not him,” said Joseph. “Jakan bar Iban will be there.”

“So I guess it’s another night sitting home for me, too,” said Maggie.

Later we all watched and waved as Joseph and Joshua left to go back to Jerusalem for the dinner at Joseph’s house.

“As soon as they get around the corner you follow them,” Maggie said to me.

“Of course.”

“Stay close enough to hear if he needs you.”

“Absolutely.”

“Come here.” She pulled me inside the door where the others wouldn’t see and gave me one of those Maggie kisses that made me walk into walls and forget my name for a few minutes. It was the first in months. She released me and held me at arm’s length, then, “You know that if there were no Joshua, I wouldn’t love anyone but you,” she said.

“You don’t have to bribe me to watch over him, Maggie.”

“I know. That’s one of the reasons I love you,” she said. “Now go.”

My years of trying to sneak up on the monks in the monastery paid me back as I shadowed Joshua and Joseph through Jerusalem. They had no idea I was following, as I slipped from shadow to shadow, wall to tree, finally to Joseph’s house, which lay south of the city walls, only a stone’s throw from the palace of the high priest, Caiaphas. Joseph of Arimathea’s house was only slightly smaller than the palace itself, but I was able to find a spot on the roof of an adjacent building where I could watch the dinner through a window and still have a view of the front door.

Joshua and Joseph sat in the dining room drinking wine by themselves for a while, then gradually the servants let in the other guests as they arrived in groups of twos and threes. There were a dozen of them by the time dinner was served, all of the Pharisees that had been at the dinner at Jakan’s house, plus five more that I had never seen before, but all were severe and meticulous about washing before dinner and checking each other to make sure that all was in order.

I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I really didn’t care. There seemed to be no immediate threat to Joshua, and that was all I was worried about. He could hold his own on the rhetorical battlefield. Then, when it seemed that it would end without incident, I saw the tall hat and white robe of a priest in the street, and with him two Temple guards carrying their long, bronze-tipped spears. I dropped down off the roof and made my way around the opposite side of the house, arriving just in time to see a servant lead the priest inside.

As soon as Joshua came through the door at Simon’s house Martha and Maggie showered him with kisses as if he had returned from the war, then led him to the table and started interrogating him about the dinner.

“First they yelled at me for having fun, drinking wine, and feasting. Saying that if I was truly a prophet I would fast.”

“And what did you tell them?” I asked, still a little winded from the running to get to Simon’s house ahead of Joshua.

“I said, well, John didn’t eat anything but bugs, and he never drank wine in his life, and he certainly never had any fun, and they didn’t believe him, so what kind of standards were they trying to set, and please pass the tabbouleh.”

“What did they say then?”

“Then they yelled at me for eating with tax collectors and harlots.”

“Hey,” said Matthew.

“Hey,” said Martha.

“They didn’t mean you, Martha, they meant Maggie.”

“Hey,” said Maggie.

“I told them that tax collectors and harlots would see the kingdom of God before they did. Then they yelled at me for healing on the Sabbath, not washing my hands before I eat, being in league with the Devil again, and blaspheming by claiming to be the Son of God.”

“Then what?”

“Then we had dessert. It was some sort of cake made with dates and honey. I liked it. Then a guy came to the door wearing priest’s robes.”

“Uh-oh,” said Matthew.

“Yeah, that was bad,” said Joshua. “He went around whispering in the ears of all the Pharisees, then Jakan asked me by what authority I raised Simon from the dead.”

“And what did you say?”

“I didn’t say anything, not with the Sadducee there. But Joseph told them that Simon hadn’t been dead. He was just sleeping.”

“So what did they say to that?”

“Then they asked me by what authority I woke him up.”

“And what did you say?”

“I got angry then. I said by all the authority of God and the Holy Ghost, by the authority of Moses and Elijah, by the authority of David and Solomon, by the authority of thunder and lightning, by the authority of the sea and the air and the fire in the earth, I told them.”

“And what did they say?”

“They said that Simon must have been a very sound sleeper.”

“Sarcasm is wasted on those guys,” I said.

“Completely wasted,” said Joshua. “Anyway, then I left, and outside there were two guards from the Temple. The shafts of their spears had been broken and they were both unconscious. There was blood on one’s scalp. So I healed them, and when I saw they were coming around, I came here.”

“They don’t think you attacked the guards?” Simon asked.

“No, the priest followed me down. He saw them at the same time that I did.”

“And your healing them didn’t convince him?”

“Hardly.”

“So what do we do now?”

“I think we should go back to Galilee. Joseph will send word if anything comes of the meeting of the council.”

“You know what will come of it,” Maggie said. “You threaten them. And now they have the priests involved. You know what will happen.”

“Yes, I do,” said Joshua. “But you don’t. We’ll leave for Capernaum in the morning.”

Later Maggie came to me in the great room of Simon’s house, where we were all bedded down for the night. She crawled under my blanket and put her lips right next to my ear. As usual, she smelled of lemons and cinnamon. “What did you do to those guards?” she whispered.

“I surprised them. I thought they might be there to arrest Joshua.”

“You might have gotten him arrested.”

“Look, have you done this before? Because if you have some sort of plan, please let me in on it. Personally, I’m making this up as I go along.”

“You did good,” she whispered. She kissed my ear. “Thank you.”

I reached for her and she shimmied away.

“And I’m still not going to sleep with you,” she said.

The messenger must have ridden through several nights to get ahead of us, but when we got back to Capernaum there was already a message waiting from Joseph of Arimathea.

Joshua:

Pharisee council condemned you to death for blasphemy. Herod concurs. No official death warrant issued, but suggest you take disciples into Herod Philip’s territory until things settle down. No word from the priests yet, which is good. Enjoyed having you at dinner, please drop by next time you’re in town.

Your friend,

Joseph of Arimathea

Joshua read the message aloud to all of us, then pointed to a deserted mountaintop on the northern shore of the lake near Bethsaida. “Before we leave Galilee again, I am going up that mountain. I will stay there until all in Galilee who wish to hear the good news have come. Only then will I leave to go to Philip’s territory. Go out now and find the faithful. Tell them where to find me.”

“Joshua,” Peter said, “there are already two or three hundred sick and lame waiting at the synagogue for you to heal them. They’ve been gathering for all the days you’ve been gone.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Well, Bartholomew greeted them and took their names, then we told them that you’d be with them as soon as you got the chance. They’re fine.”

“I lead the dogs back and forth by them occasionally so we look busy,” said Bart.

Joshua stormed off to the synagogue waving his hands in the air as if asking God why he had been plagued by a gang of dimwits, but then, I might have been reading that into his gesture. The rest of us spread out into Galilee to announce that Joshua was going to be preaching a great sermon on a mountain north of Capernaum. Maggie and I traveled together, along with Simon the Canaanite and Maggie’s friends Johanna and Susanna. We decided to take three days and walk a circle through northern Galilee that would take us through a dozen towns and bring us back to the mountain just in time to help direct the pilgrims that would be gathering. The first night we camped in a sheltered valley outside a town called Jamnith. We ate bread and cheese by the fire and afterward Simon and I shared wine while the women went off to sleep. It was the first time I’d ever had a chance to talk to the Zealot without his friend Judas around.

“I hope Joshua can bring the kingdom down on their heads now,” Simon said. “Otherwise I may have to look for another prophet to pledge my sword to.”

I nearly choked on my wine, and handed him the wineskin as I fought for breath.

“Simon,” I said, “do you believe he’s the Son of God?”

“No.”

“You don’t, and you’re still following him?”

“I am not saying he’s not a great prophet, but the Christ? the Son of God? I don’t know.”

“You’ve traveled with him. Heard him speak. Seen his power over demons, over people. You’ve seen him heal people. Feed people. And what does he ask?”

“Nothing. A place to sleep. Some food. Some wine.”

“And if you could do those things, what would you have?”

Here Simon leaned back and looked into the stars, as he let his imagination unroll. “I would have villages full of women in my bed. I’d have a fine palace, and slaves to bathe me. I would have the finest food and wine and kings would travel from far away just to look at my gold. I would be glorious.”

“But Joshua has only his cloak and his sandals.”

Simon seemed to snap out of his reverie, and he wasn’t happy about it. “Just because I am weak does not make him the Christ.”

“That’s exactly what makes him the Christ.”

“Maybe he’s just naive.”

“Count on it,” I said. I stood and handed him the wineskin. “You can finish it. I’m going to sleep.”

Simon raised his eyebrows. “The Magdalene, she’s a luscious woman. A man could lose himself there.”

I took a deep breath and thought about defending Maggie’s honor, or even warning Simon about making advances on her, but then I thought better of it. The Zealot needed to learn a lesson that I wasn’t qualified to teach. But Maggie was.

“Good night, Simon,” I said.

In the morning I found Simon sitting by the cold ashes of the fire, cradling his head in his hands. “Simon?” I inquired.

He looked up at me and I saw a huge purple goose egg on his forehead, just below the bangs of his Roman haircut. A spot of blood seeped out of the middle. His right eye was nearly swollen shut.

“Ouch,” I said. “How did you do that?”

Just then Maggie came out from behind a bush. “He accidentally crawled into Susanna’s bedroll last night,” Maggie said. “I thought he was an attacker, so naturally, I brained him with a rock.”

“Naturally,” I said.

“I’m so sorry, Simon,” Maggie said. I could hear Susanna and Johanna giggling behind the bush.

“It was an honest mistake,” said Simon. I couldn’t tell whether he meant his or Maggie’s, but either way he was lying.

“Good thing you’re an apostle,” I said. “You’ll have that healed up by noon.”

We finished our loop of northern Galilee without incident, and indeed, Simon was nearly healed by the time we returned to the mountain above Bethsaida, where Joshua awaited us with over five thousand followers.

“I can’t get away from them long enough to find baskets,” Peter complained.

“Everywhere I go there are fifty people following me,” said Judas. “How do they expect us to bring them food if they won’t let us work?”

I had heard similar complaints from Matthew, James, and Andrew, and even Thomas was whining that people were stepping all over Thomas Two. Joshua had multiplied seven loaves into enough to feed the multitude, but no one could get to the food to distribute it. Maggie and I finally fought our way to the top of the mountain where we found Joshua preaching. He signaled the crowd that he was going to take a break, then came over to us.

“This is excellent,” he said. “So many of the faithful.”

“Uh, Josh…”

“I know,” he said. “You two go to Magdala. Get the big ship and bring it to Bethsaida. Once we feed the faithful I’ll send the disciples down to you. Go out into the lake and wait for me.”

We managed to pull John out of the crowd and took him with us to Magdala to help sail the ship back up the coast. Neither Maggie nor I felt confident enough to handle the big boat without one of the fishermen on board. A half-day later we docked in Bethsaida, where the other apostles were waiting for us.

“He’s led them to the other side of the mountain,” Peter said. “He’ll deliver a blessing then send them on their way. Hopefully they’ll go home and he can meet us.”

“Did you see any soldiers in the crowd?” I asked.

“Not yet, but we should have been out of Herod’s territory by now. The Pharisees are hanging on the edge of the crowd like they know something is going to happen.”

We assumed that he would be swimming or rowing out in one of the small boats, but when he finally came down to the shore the multitude was still following him, and he just kept walking, right across the surface of the water to the boat. The crowd stopped at the shore and cheered. Even we were astounded by this new miracle, and we sat in the boat with our mouths hanging open as Joshua approached.

“What?” he said. “What? What? What?”

“Master, you’re walking on the water,” said Peter.

“I just ate,” Joshua said. “You can’t go into the water for an hour after you eat. You could get a cramp. What, none of you guys have mothers?”

“It’s a miracle,” shouted Peter.

“It’s no big deal,” Joshua said, dismissing the miracle with the wave of a hand. “It’s easy. Really, Peter, you should try it.”

Peter stood up in the boat tentatively.

“Really, try it.”

Peter started to take off his tunic.

“Keep that on,” said Joshua. “And your sandals too.”

“But Lord, this is a new tunic.”

“Then keep it dry, Peter. Come to me. Step upon the water.”

Peter put one foot over the side and into the water.

“Trust your faith, Peter,” I yelled. “If you doubt you won’t be able to do it.”

Then Peter stepped with both feet onto the surface of the water, and for a split second he stood there. And we were all amazed. “Hey, I’m—” Then he sank like a stone. He came up sputtering. We were all doubled over giggling, and even Joshua had sunk up to his ankles, he was laughing so hard.

“I can’t believe you fell for that,” said Joshua. He ran across the water and helped us pull Peter into the boat. “Peter, you’re as dumb as a box of rocks. But what amazing faith you have. I’m going to build my church on this box of rocks.”

“You would have Peter build your church?” asked Philip. “Because he tried to walk on the water.”

“Would you have tried it?” asked Joshua.

“Of course not,” said Philip. “I can’t swim.”

“Then who has the greater faith?” Joshua climbed into the boat and shook the water off of his sandals, then tousled Peter’s wet hair. “Someone will have to carry on the church when I’m gone, and I’m going to be gone soon. In the spring we’ll go to Jerusalem for the Passover, and there I will be judged by the scribes and the priests, and there I will be tortured and put to death. But three days from the day of my death, I shall rise, and be with you again.”

As Joshua spoke Maggie had latched onto my arm. By the time he was finished speaking her nails had drawn blood from my biceps. A shadow of grief seemed to pass over the faces of the disciples. We looked not at each other, and neither at the ground, but at a place in space a few feet from our faces, where I suppose one looks for a clear answer to appear out of undefined shock.

“Well, that sucks,” someone said.

We landed at the town of Hippos, on the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, directly across the lake from Tiberius. Joshua had preached here before when we had come over to hide the first time, and there were people in the town who would receive the apostles into their homes until Joshua sent them out again.

We’d brought many baskets of the broken bread from Bethsaida, and Judas and Simon helped me unload them from the ship, wading in and out of the shallows where we anchored, as Hippos had no dock.

“The bread stood piled like small mountains,” Judas said. “Much more than when we fed the five thousand. A Jewish army could fight long days on that kind of supply. If the Romans have taught us anything it’s that an army fights on its stomach.”

I stopped schlepping and looked at him.

Simon, who stood next to me, set his basket down on the beach, then lifted the edge of his sash to show me the hilt of his dagger. “The kingdom will be ours only when we take it by the sword. We’ve had no problem spilling Roman blood. No master but God.”

I reached over and gently pulled Simon’s sash back over the hilt of his dagger. “Have you ever heard Joshua talk about doing harm to anyone? Even an enemy?”

“No,” Judas said. “He can’t speak openly about taking the kingdom until he’s ready to strike. That’s why he always speaks in parables.”

“That is a crock of rancid yak butter,” said a voice from the ship. Joshua sat up, a net hung over his head like a tattered prayer shawl. He’d been sleeping in the bow of the ship and we’d completely forgotten about him. “Biff, call everyone together, here on the beach. I haven’t made myself clear to everyone, evidently.”

I dropped my basket and ran into town to get the others. In less than an hour we were all seated on the beach and Joshua paced before us.

“The kingdom is open to everyone,” Joshua said. “Ev-ree-one, get it?”

Everyone nodded.

“Even Romans.”

Everyone stopped nodding.

“The kingdom of God is upon us, but the Romans will remain in Israel. The kingdom of God has nothing to do with the kingdom of Israel, do you all understand that?”

“But the Messiah is supposed to lead our people to freedom,” Judas shouted.

“No master but God!” Simon added.

“Shut up!” said Joshua. “I was not sent to deliver wrath. We will be delivered into the kingdom by forgiveness, not conquest. People, we have been over this, what have I not made clear?”

“How we are to cast the Romans out of the kingdom?” shouted Nathaniel.

“You should know better,” Joshua said to Nathaniel, “you yellow-haired freak. One more time, we can’t cast the Romans out of the kingdom because the kingdom is open to all.”

And I think they were getting it, at least the two Zealots were getting it, because they looked profoundly disappointed. They’d waited their whole life for the Messiah to come along and establish the kingdom by crushing the Romans, now he was telling them in his own divine words that it wasn’t going to happen. But then Joshua started with the parables.

“The kingdom is like a wheat field with tares, you can’t pull out the tares without destroying the grain.”

Blank stares. Doubly blank from the fishermen, who didn’t know squat from farming metaphors.

“A tare is a rye grass,” Joshua explained. “It weaves its roots amid the roots of wheat or barley, and there’s no way to pull them out without ruining the crop.”

Nobody got it.

“Okay,” Joshua continued. “The children of heaven are the good people, and the tares are the bad ones. You get both. And when you’re all done, the angels pick out the wicked and burn them.”

“Not getting it,” said Peter. He shook his head, and his gray mane whipped around his face like a confused lion trying to shake off the sight of a flying wildebeest.

“How do you guys preach this stuff if you don’t understand it? Okay, try this: the kingdom of heaven is like, uh, a merchant seeking pearls.”

“Like before swine,” said Bartholomew.

“Yes! Bart! Yes! Only no swine this time, same pearls though.”

Three hours later, Joshua was still at it, and he was starting to run out of things to liken the kingdom to, his favorite, the mustard seed, having failed in three different tries.

“Okay, the kingdom is like a monkey.” Joshua was hoarse and his voice was breaking.

“How?”

“A Jewish monkey, right?”

“Is it like a monkey eating a mustard seed?”

I stood up and went to Joshua and put my arm around his shoulder. “Josh, take a break.” I led him down the beach toward the village.

He shook his head. “Those are the dumbest sons of bitches on earth.”

“They’ve become like little children, as you told them to.”

“Stupid little children,” Joshua said.

I heard light footsteps on the sand behind us and Maggie threw her arms around our necks. She kissed Joshua on the forehead, making a loud wet smacking sound, then looked as if she was going to do the same to me so I shied away.

“You two are the ninnies here. You both rail on them about their intelligence, when that doesn’t have anything to do with why they’re here. Have either one of you heard them preach? I have. Peter can heal the sick now. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen James make the lame walk. Faith isn’t an act of intelligence, it’s an act of imagination. Every time you give them a new metaphor for the kingdom they see the metaphor, a mustard seed, a field, a garden, a vineyard, it’s like pointing something out to a cat—the cat looks at your finger, not at what you’re pointing at. They don’t need to understand it, they only need to believe, and they do. They imagine the kingdom as they need it to be, they don’t need to grasp it, it’s there already, they can let it be. Imagination, not intellect.”

Maggie let go of our necks, then stood there grinning like a madwoman. Joshua looked at her, then at me.

I shrugged. “I told you she was smarter than both of us.”

“I know,” Joshua said. “I don’t know if I can stand you both being right in the same day. I need some time to think and pray.”

“Go on then,” Maggie said, waving him on. I stopped and watched my friend walk into the village, having absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do. I turned back to Maggie.

“You heard the Passover prediction?”

She nodded. “I take it you didn’t confront him.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“We need to talk him out of it. If he knows what awaits him in Jerusalem, why go? Why don’t we go into Phoenicia or Syria? He could even take the good news to Greece and be perfectly safe. They have people running all over the place preaching different ideas—look at Bartholomew and his Cynics.”

“When we were in India, we saw a festival in the city of their goddess Kali. She’s a goddess of destruction, Maggie. It was the bloodiest thing I’ve ever seen, thousands of animals slaughtered, hundreds of men beheaded. The whole world seemed slick with blood. Joshua and I saved some children from being flayed alive, but when it was over, Joshua kept saying, no more sacrifices. No more.”

Maggie looked at me as if she expected more. “So? It was horrible, what did you expect him to say?”

“He wasn’t talking to me, Maggie. He was talking to God. And I don’t think he was making a request.”

“Are you saying that he thinks his father wants to kill him for trying to change things, so he can’t avoid it because it’s the will of God?”

“No, I’m saying that he’s going to allow himself to be killed to show his father that things need to be changed. He’s not going to try to avoid it at all.”

For three months we begged, we pleaded, we reasoned, and we wept, but we could not talk Joshua out of going to Jerusalem for Passover. Joseph of Arimathea had sent word that the Pharisees and Sadducees were still plotting against Joshua, that Jakan had been speaking out against Joshua’s followers in the Court of the Gentiles, outside the Temple. But the threats only seemed to strengthen Joshua’s resolve. A couple of times Maggie and I managed to tie Joshua up and stash him in the bottom of a boat, using knots that we had learned from the sailor brothers Peter and Andrew, but both times Joshua appeared a few minutes later holding the cords that had bound him, saying things like, “Good knots, but not quite good enough, were they?”

Maggie and I worried together for days before we left for Jerusalem. “He could be wrong about the execution,” I said.

“Yes, he could be,” Maggie agreed.

“Do you think he is? Wrong about it, I mean?”

“I think I’m going to throw up.”

“I don’t see how that’s going to stop him.”

And it didn’t. The next day we left for Jerusalem. On the way we stopped to rest along the road at a town along the Jordan River called Beth Shemesh. We were sitting there, feeling somber and helpless, watching the column of pilgrims move along the riverbank, when an old woman emerged from the column and beat her way through the reclining apostles with a walking staff.

“Out of the way, I need to talk to this fellow. Move, you oaf, you need to take a bath.” She bonked Bartholomew on the head as she passed and his doggy pals nipped at her heels. “Look out there, I’m an old woman, I need to see this Joshua of Nazareth.”

“Oh no, Mother,” John wailed.

James got up to stop her and she threatened him with the staff.

“What can I help you with, Old Mother?” Joshua asked.

“I’m the wife of Zebedee, mother of these two.” She pointed her staff to James and John. “I hear that you’re going to the kingdom soon.”

“If it be so, so be it,” said Joshua.

“Well, my late husband, Zebedee, God rest his soul, left these boys a perfectly good business, and since they’ve been following you around they’ve run it into the ground.” She turned to her sons. “Into the ground!”

Joshua put his hand on her arm, but instead of the usual calm that I saw come over people when he touched them, Mrs. Zebedee pulled away and swung her staff at him, barely missing his head. “Don’t try to bamboozle me, Mr. Smooth Talker. My boys have ruined their father’s business for you, so I want your assurance that in return they get to sit on either side of the throne in the kingdom. It’s only fair. They’re good boys.” She turned to James and John. “If your father was alive it would kill him to see what you two have done.”

“But Old Mother, it’s not up to me who will sit next to the throne.”

“Who is it up to?”

“Well, it’s up to the Lord, my father.”

“Well then go ask him.” She leaned on her staff and tapped a foot. “I’ll wait.”

“But…”

“You would deny a dying woman her last request?”

“You’re not dying.”

“You’re killing me here. Go check. Go.”

Joshua looked at us all sheepishly. We all looked away, cowards that we were. It’s not as if any of us had ever learned to deal with a Jewish mother either.

“I’ll go up on that mountain and check,” Joshua said, pointing to the highest peak in the area.

“Well go, then. You want I should be late for the Passover?”

“Right. Okay, then, I’ll go check, right now.” Josh backed away slowly, sort of sidled toward the mountain. Mount Tabor, I think it was.

Mrs. Zebedee went after her sons like she was shooing chickens out of the garden. “What are you, pillars of salt? Go with him.”

Peter laughed and she whirled around with her staff ready to brain him. Peter pretended to cough. “I’d better go along, uh, just in case they need a witness.” He scurried after Joshua and the other two.

The old woman glared at me. “What are you looking at? You think the pain of childbirth ends when they move away? What do you know? Does a broken heart know from a different neighborhood?”

They were gone all night, a very long night in which we all got to hear about John and James’ father, Zebedee, who evidently had possessed the courage of Daniel, the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Samson, the devotion of Abraham, the good looks of David, and the tackle of Goliath, God rest his soul. (Funny, James had always described his father as a wormy little guy with a lisp.) When the four came back over the hill we all leapt to our feet and ran to greet them—I would have carried them back on my shoulders if it would have shut the old woman up.

“Well?” she said.

“It was amazing,” Peter said to us all, ignoring the old woman. “We saw three thrones. Moses was on one, Elijah was on another, and the third was ready for Joshua. And a huge voice came out of the sky, saying, ‘This is my son, with whom I am well pleased.’”

“Oh yeah, he said that before,” I said.

“I heard it this time,” Joshua said, smiling.

“Just the three chairs then?” said Mrs. Zebedee. She looked at her two sons, who were cowering behind Joshua. “No place for you two, of course.” She started to stagger away from them, a hand clutched to her heart. “I suppose one can be happy for the mothers of Moses and Elijah and this Nazareth boy, then. They don’t have to know what it is to have a spike in the heart.”

Down the riverbank she limped, off toward Jerusalem.

Joshua squeezed the brothers’ shoulders. “I’ll fix it.” He ran after Mrs. Zebedee.

Maggie elbowed me and when I looked around at her there were tears in her eyes. “He’s not wrong,” she said.

“That’s it,” I said. “Well, ask his mother to talk him out of it. No one can resist her—I mean, I can’t. I mean, she’s not you, but…Look! Is that a seagull?”