The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ Part 8

But the room was small and stuffy, and Christ needed fresh air. He wrapped his cloak around himself and went out into the streets. He walked towards the temple, and then away again; he walked towards the Damascus gate, and then turned to one side, whether left or right he didn't know; and presently he found himself at the pool of Bethesda. This was a place where invalids of every kind came in the hope of being healed. The pool was surrounded by a colonnade under which some of the sick slept all night, though they were supposed to come only during the hours of daylight.

Christ made his way quietly under the colonnade and sat on the steps that led down to the pool. The moon was nearly full, but clouds covered the sky, and Christ could not see much apart from the pale stone and the dark water. He hadn't been there for more than a minute when he heard a shuffling sound, and turned in alarm to see something coming towards him: a man whose legs were paralysed pulling himself laboriously over the stone pavement.

Christ got up, ready to move away, but the man said, 'Wait, sir, wait for me.'

Christ sat down again. He wanted to be alone, but he remembered the angel's description of the good work that would be done by that church they both wanted to see; could he possibly turn away from this poor man? Or could the beggar in some unimaginable way be the ram that would be sacrificed instead of Jesus?

'How can I help you?' Christ said quietly.

'Just stay and talk to me for a minute or two, sir. That's all I want.'

The crippled man pulled himself up next to Christ and lay there breathing heavily.

'How long have you been waiting for a cure?' said Christ.

'Twelve years, sir.'

'Will no one help you to the water? Shall I help you now?'

'No good now, sir. What happens is that an angel comes every so often and stirs the water up, and the first one in the pool afterwards gets cured. I can't move so quickly, as you may have noticed.'

'How do you live? What do you eat? Have you got friends or a family to look after you?'

'There's some people who come along sometimes and give us a bit of food.'

'Why do they do that? Who are they?'

'I don't know who they are. They do it because . . . I don't know why they do it. Maybe they're just good.'

'Don't be stupid,' said another voice in the darkness. 'No one's good. It's not natural to be good. They do it so's other people will think more highly of them. They wouldn't do it otherwise.'

'You don't know nothing,' said a third voice from under the colonnade. 'People can earn high opinions in quicker ways than doing good. They do it because they're frightened.'

'Frightened of what?' said the second voice.

'Frightened of h.e.l.l, you blind fool. They think they can buy their way out of it by doing good.'

'Doesn't matter why they do it,' said the lame man, 'as long as they do it. Anyway, some people are just good.'

'Some people are just soft, like you, you worm,' said the third voice. 'Why's no one helped you down to the water in twelve years? Eh? Because you're filthy, that's why. You stink, like we all do. They'll throw a bit of bread your way, but they won't touch you. That's how good they are. You know what real charity would be? It wouldn't be bread. They don't miss bread. They can buy more bread whenever they want. Real charity would be a pretty young wh.o.r.e coming down here and giving us a good time for nothing. Can you imagine a sweet-faced girl with skin like silk coming and laying herself down in my arms, with my sores oozing pus all over her and stinking like a dungheap? If you can imagine that, you can imagine real goodness. I'm d.a.m.ned if I can. I could live a thousand years and never see goodness like that.'

'Because it wouldn't be goodness,' said the blind man. 'It'd be wickedness and fornication, and she'd be punished and so would you.'

'There's old Sarah,' said the lame man. 'She come down here last week. She does it for nothing.'

'Because she's mad and full of drink,' said the leper. 'Mad enough to lie with you, anyway. But even she wouldn't lie with me.'

'Even a dead wh.o.r.e wouldn't lie with you, you filthy leper,' said the blind man. 'She'd get out of her grave and crawl away in her bones sooner than that.'

'You tell me what goodness is, then,' said the leper.

'You want to know what goodness is? I'll tell you what goodness is. Goodness would be to take a sharp knife and go round the city by night and cut the throats of all the rich men, and their wives and their children, and their servants too, and every living thing in their houses. That'd be an act of supreme goodness.'

'You can't say that'd be good,' said the lame man. 'That'd be murder, rich men or not. That's forbidden. You know it is.'

'You're ignorant. You don't know the scriptures. When King Sennacherib was besieging Jerusalem the angel of the Lord came down in the night and slew one hundred and eighty-five thousand of his soldiers while they was all asleep. That was a good deed. It's righteous and holy to slay the oppressor always has been. You tell me if we poor people aren't oppressed by the rich. If I was a rich man I'd have servants to fetch and carry for me, I'd have a wife to lie with me, I'd have children to honour my name, I'd have harpists and singers to make sweet music for me, I'd have stewards to look after my money and manage my fields and livestock, I'd have every convenient thing to make life easy for a blind man. The high priest would call on me, I'd be praised in the synagogues, I'd be respected all through Judea, blind or not.'

'And would you give charity to a poor cripple by the pool of Bethesda?' said the lame man.

'No, I wouldn't. Not a penny. And why not? Because I'd still be blind, and I wouldn't be able to see you, and if anyone tried to tell me about you, I wouldn't listen. Because I'd be rich. You wouldn't matter to me.'

'Well, you'd deserve to have your throat cut, then,' said the leper.

'That's what I'm saying, isn't it?'

Christ said, 'There's a man called Jesus. A holy man, a healer. If he came here-'

'Waste of time,' said the leper. 'There's a dozen or more beggars who come here every day, pretending to be cripples, hiring themselves out to the holy men. A couple of drachmas and they'll swear they've been crippled or blind for years and then stage a b.l.o.o.d.y miraculous recovery. Holy men? Healers? Don't make me laugh.'

'But this man is different,' said Christ.

'I remember him,' said the blind man. 'Jesus. He come here on the sabbath, like a fool. The priests wouldn't let him heal anyone on the sabbath. He should've known that.'

'But he did heal someone,' said the lame man. 'Old Hiram. You remember that. He told him to take up his bed and walk.'

'b.l.o.o.d.y rubbish,' said the blind man. 'Hiram went as far as the temple gate, then he lay down and went on begging. Old Sarah told me. He said what was the use of taking his living away? Begging was the only thing he knew how to do. You and your blether about goodness,' he said, turning to Christ, 'where's the goodness in throwing an old man out into the street without a trade, without a home, without a penny? Eh? That Jesus is asking too much of people.'

'But he was was good,' said the lame man. 'I don't care what you say. You could feel it, you could see it in his eyes.' good,' said the lame man. 'I don't care what you say. You could feel it, you could see it in his eyes.'

'I never saw it,' said the blind man.

Christ said to the lame man, 'And what do you think goodness is?'

'Just a little human companionship, sir. A poor man has got little to enjoy in this life, and a cripple even less. The touch of a kindly hand is worth gold to me, sir. If you was to embrace me, sir, just put your arms around me for a moment and kiss me, I'd treasure that, sir. That would be real goodness.'

The man stank. The smell of faeces, urine, vomit, and years of acc.u.mulated filth rose from him in a cloud. Christ leant down and tried to embrace him, and had to turn away, and retched, and tried again. There was a moment of clumsiness as the lame man's arms tried to embrace him in return, and then the smell became too much, and Christ had to kiss him very quickly and then push him away and stand up.

A short laugh came from the darkness under the colonnade.

Christ hurried outside and away, breathing the cold air deeply, and only when he had pa.s.sed the great tower at the corner of the temple complex did he discover that during their clumsy embrace the lame man had stolen the purse that hung from his girdle.

He sat down trembling in a corner of the wall and wept for himself, for the money he'd lost, for the three men by the pool of Bethesda, for his brother Jesus, for the prost.i.tute with the cancer, for all the poor people in the world, for his mother and father, for his own childhood, when it had been so easy to be good. Things could not go on like this.

When he had recovered he went to meet the angel at the house of Caiaphas, but he could not stop trembling.

Caiaphas.

When Christ arrived he found the angel waiting in the courtyard, and the two of them were shown into the high priest's presence at once. They found him rising from prayer. He had dismissed all his advisers, saying that he needed to ponder their words; but he greeted the angel as if he were a valued counsellor.

'This is the man,' said the angel, indicating Christ.

'It is very good of you to come. May I offer you some refreshment?' said Caiaphas.

But Christ and the angel refused.

'Better so, perhaps,' said Caiaphas. 'This is an unhappy business. I do not want to know your name. Your friend will have told you what we require. The guards who will arrest Jesus have been drafted in from elsewhere, and don't know what he looks like, so we need someone who can point him out. You are willing to do this?'

'Yes,' said Christ. 'But why have you had to draft in extra guards?'

'There is considerable disagreement I am being very frank not only in our council, but among the people in general, and the guards are not immune to this. Those who have seen and heard Jesus are excited, volatile, unstable; some love him and some deplore him. I have to send a squad I can rely on not to argue among themselves. This is a very delicate situation.'

'Have you yourself seen and heard him?' said Christ.

'Unfortunately I haven't had the opportunity. Naturally, I've heard full reports of his words and deeds. If times were easier I would greatly enjoy meeting him and discussing matters of common interest. But I have to maintain a very difficult balance. My overriding concern is to keep the body of the faithful together. There are factions that would like to split away entirely and join with the Zealots; there are others that would like nothing better than for me to rally all the Jews in open defiance of the Romans; there are others that urge me to maintain good relations with the governor, on the grounds that our greatest duty is to preserve the peace and the lives of our people. I have to satisfy as many of these demands as I can, while not alienating those who have to be disappointed, and above all, as I say, keeping some kind of unity. It's hard to get the balance right. But the Lord has placed this burden on my shoulders, and I must bear it as best I can.'

'What will the Romans do to Jesus?'

'I . . . ' Caiaphas spread his hands wide. 'They will do what they will do. It wouldn't be long before they picked him up themselves in any case. And that's another of our problems; if the religious authorities don't take steps to deal with this man, it will seem as if we're supporting him, and that will put all the Jews in danger. I must look after my people. The governor, alas, is a brutal man. If I could save this man Jesus, if I could perform a miracle and transport him in a moment to Babylon or to Athens, I would do it at once. But we are constrained by circ.u.mstances. There is nothing else I can do.'

Christ bowed his head. He could see that Caiaphas was a good and honest man, and that his position was impossible.

The high priest turned away and picked up a little bag of money.

'Now you must let me pay you for your trouble,' he said.

And Christ remembered that his purse had been stolen, and that he owed money for the rent of his room. At the same time, he felt ashamed to take this money from Caiaphas. He knew that the angel saw he was hesitating, and he turned to explain.

'My purse was-'

But the angel held up a hand in understanding. 'No need to explain,' he said. 'Take the money. It's offered in perfect honesty.'

So Christ took it, and felt sick again.

Caiaphas said goodbye to the two of them, and summoned the captain of the guard.

Jesus in the Garden at Gethsemane.

Now all that evening Jesus had been sitting with his disciples and talking with them, but at midnight he said, 'I'm going out. Peter, James, John, come with me; the rest of you can stay and sleep.'

They left the others and walked towards the nearest gate in the city wall.

Peter said, 'Master, be careful tonight. There's a rumour that they're reinforcing the temple guards. And the governor's looking for an excuse to crack down everyone's talking about it.'

'Why would they do that?'

'Things like this,' said John, pointing to the mud-daubed words KING JESUS on the nearest wall.

'Did you write that there?' said Jesus.

'Of course not.'

'Well, it doesn't concern you, then. Ignore it.'

John knew that it concerned them all, but he said nothing. He stayed to brush the words off and then hurried after the others.

Jesus went across the valley to a garden on the slopes of the Mount of Olives.

'Wait here,' he said. 'Keep watch. Let me know if anyone comes.'

They sat down under an olive tree and wrapped their cloaks around them, because the night was cold. Jesus went apart a little way and knelt down.

'You're not listening,' he whispered. 'I've been speaking to you all my life and all I've heard back is silence. Where are you? Are you out there among the stars? Is that it? Busy making another world, perhaps, because you're sick of this one? You've gone away, haven't you, you've abandoned us.

'You're making a liar out of me, you realise that. I don't want to tell lies. I try to tell the truth. But I tell them you're a loving father watching over them all, and you're not; you're blind as well as deaf, as far as I can tell. You can't see, or you just don't want to look? Which is it?

'No answer. Not interested.

'If you were listening, you'd know what I meant by truth. I'm not one of these logic-choppers, these fastidious philosophers, with their scented Greek rubbish about a pure world of spiritual forms where everything is perfect, and which is the only place where the real truth is, unlike this filthy material world which is corrupt and gross and full of untruth and imperfection . . . Have you heard them? Stupid question. You're not interested in slander either.

'And slander's what it is; you made this world, and it's lovely, every inch of it. When I think of the things I've loved I find myself choking with happiness, or maybe sorrow, I don't know; and every one of them has been something in this world that you made. If anyone can smell frying fish on an evening by the lake, or feel a cool breeze on a hot day, or see a little animal trying to run around and tumbling over and getting up again, or kiss a pair of soft and willing lips, if anyone can feel those things and still maintain they're nothing but crude imperfect copies of something much better in another world, they are slandering you, Lord, as surely as words mean anything at all. But then they don't think words do mean anything; they're just tokens to play sophisticated games with. Truth is this, and truth is that, and what is truth anyway, and on and on they go, these bloodless phantoms.

'The psalm says, "The fool has said in his heart, There is no G.o.d." Well, I understand that fool. You treated him as you're treating me, didn't you? If that makes me a fool, I'm one with all the fools you made. I love that fool, even if you don't. The poor sod whispered to you night after night, and heard nothing in response. Even Job, for all the trouble he had, got an answer from you. But the fool and I might as well be talking into an empty pot, except that even an empty pot makes a sound like the wind, if you hold it over your ear. That's an answer of sorts.

'Is that what you're saying to me? That when I hear the wind, I hear your voice? When I look at the stars I see your writing, or in the bark of a tree, or the ripples on the sand at the edge of the water? Lovely things, yes, all of them, no doubt about that, but why did you make them so hard to read? Who can translate them for us? You conceal yourself in enigmas and riddles. Can I believe that the Lord G.o.d would behave like one of those philosophers and say things in order to baffle and confuse? No, I can't believe it. Why do you treat your people like this? The G.o.d who made water to be clear and sweet and fresh wouldn't fill it with mud before giving it to his children to drink. So, what's the answer? These things are full of your words, and we just have to persevere till we can read them? Or they're blank and meaningless? Which is it?

'No answer, naturally. Listen to that silence. Not a breath of wind; the little insects scratching away in the gra.s.ses; Peter snoring over there under the olives; a dog barking on some farm out behind me in the hills; an owl down in the valley; and the infinite silence under it all. You're not in the sounds, are you. There might be some help in that. I love those little insects. That's a good dog out there; he's trustworthy; he'd die to look after the farm. The owl is beautiful and cares for her young. Even Peter's full of kindness, for all the noise and the bl.u.s.ter. If I thought you were in those sounds, I could love you with all my heart, even if those were the only sounds you made. But you're in the silence. You say nothing.

'G.o.d, is there any difference between saying that and saying you're not there at all? I can imagine some philosophical smarta.r.s.e of a priest in years to come pulling the wool over his poor followers' eyes: "G.o.d's great absence is, of course, the very sign of his presence", or some such drivel. The people will hear his words, and think how clever he is to say such things, and they'll try and believe it; and they'll go home puzzled and hungry, because it makes no sense at all. That priest is worse than the fool in the psalm, who at least is an honest man. When the fool prays to you and gets no answer, he decides that G.o.d's great absence means he's not b.l.o.o.d.y well there.

'What am I going to tell the people tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that? Am I going to go on telling them things I can't believe? My heart will grow weary of it; my belly will churn with sickness; my mouth will be full of ash and my throat will burn with gall. There'll come a day when I'll say to some poor leper that his sins are forgiven and his sores will heal and he'll say, "But they're as bad as they ever were. Where is this healing you promised?"

'And the Kingdom . . .

'Have I been deluding myself as well as everyone else? What have I been doing, telling them that it's going to come, that there are people alive now who will see the coming of G.o.d's Kingdom? I can see us waiting, and waiting, and waiting . . . Was my brother right when he talked of this great organisation, this church of his that was going to serve as the vehicle for the Kingdom on earth? No, he was wrong, he was wrong. My whole heart and mind and body revolted against that. They still do.

'Because I can see just what would happen if that kind of thing came about. The devil would rub his hands with glee. As soon as men who believe they're doing G.o.d's will get hold of power, whether it's in a household or a village or in Jerusalem or in Rome itself, the devil enters into them. It isn't long before they start drawing up lists of punishments for all kinds of innocent activities, sentencing people to be flogged or stoned in the name of G.o.d for wearing this or eating that or believing the other. And the privileged ones will build great palaces and temples to strut around in, and levy taxes on the poor to pay for their luxuries; and they'll start keeping the very scriptures secret, saying there are some truths too holy to be revealed to the ordinary people, so that only the priests' interpretation will be allowed, and they'll torture and kill anyone who wants to make the word of G.o.d clear and plain to all; and with every day that pa.s.ses they'll become more and more fearful, because the more power they have the less they'll trust anyone, so they'll have spies and betrayals and denunciations and secret tribunals, and put the poor harmless heretics they flush out to horrible public deaths, to terrify the rest into obedience.

'And from time to time, to distract the people from their miseries and fire them with anger against someone else, the governors of this church will declare that such-and-such a nation or such-and-such a people is evil and ought to be destroyed, and they'll gather great armies and set off to kill and burn and loot and rape and plunder, and they'll raise their standard over the smoking ruins of what was once a fair and prosperous land and declare that G.o.d's Kingdom is so much the larger and more magnificent as a result.

'But any priest who wants to indulge his secret appet.i.tes, his greed, his l.u.s.t, his cruelty, will find himself like a wolf in a field of lambs where the shepherd is bound and gagged and blinded. No one will even think of questioning the rightness of what this holy man does in private; and his little victims will cry to heaven for pity, and their tears will wet his hands, and he'll wipe them on his robe and press them together piously and cast his eyes upwards and the people will say what a fine thing it is to have such a holy man as priest, how well he takes care of the children . . .

'And where will you be? Will you look down and strike these blaspheming serpents with a thunderbolt? Will you strike the governors off their thrones and smash their palaces to rubble?

'To ask the question and wait for the answer is to know that there will be no answer.