Sixteen

Of course, it was one thing to decide not to think of it, and it was quite another to put it out of her mind. Her body immediately shrieked that no one could be that absorbed; he must have felt her. But in that case, his acting as if he had not touched her was deliberate, and he wanted her, he expected her to come after him!

But this had to be absurd. Judas, of all people, approaching her furtively in the night, here in the woods, like some Pharisee in the old days, making an assignation with her!

--Yet it seemed so much like what might have happened in the old days. She would make a slight startled noise, and he would turn and apologize; they would look into each other's eyes, and he would ask if he had injured her, and she would say that she could not see the spot, and he would ask if she would permit him--enough!

Besides, he despised her, did he not? She remembered her shame at the look he gave her when she sat down beside Matthew that very evening.

But did it not begin with a kind of surprised, questioning glance, and could it not have been the case that he did not want Matthew to see that there was anything between--enough! Enough! Anything between them? What could be between them? All there was between them was her insane desire!

Still, as she lay down that night, and her mind would drift away from her control, she pictured him planning to follow her into the woods, because--and she could not think of a reason, so the sequence would pause and then start once again. And he would brush past her because he so longed to touch her, as she longed to touch him, and he could not prevent it, but he contrived to do it so that it would appear as merely accidental, that he did not even notice it.

But to what end? And she would come back into consciousness, only to lapse into the reverie once more.

But now she imagined herself doing the same to him one night; following him as he walked in the woods--as, she had noticed, he was increasingly doing, probably because of his preoccupation with Jesus--and then she woke with a start to realize that her own walks in the woods were not to give herself solitude to puzzle through what to do with Judith, but were on the chance that she just might happen upon Judas there!

She turned over once again, and threw her blanket from her burning body. The cool air soothed her, and the leaves beneath her rustled a lullaby, and--she saw herself now meeting him, as would be bound to happen one of these days, and mentioning, as if casually, that he had walked by once close enough to touch her; and he, in the waking dream, asked where, and she explained, and he looked up at her, and she said that she did not mind, and then he admitted that he had done it deliberately, that he could not help himself, and then--and then he asked her to marry him.

She laughed aloud.

Susanna, lying beside her, stirred in her sleep, and Mary froze, still as the grave.

But in spite of the rush of heat that came at fear of waking Susanna, and in spite of the fact that the absurd end of the little drama had shattered the whole thing, her fatigue plagued her into fruitlessly beginning to sleep once again, starting the whole process from the beginning. But daydreams are like stories; there must be enough plausibility in them to inspire belief, however unreal they may be in themselves. If one thinks they could be true, even if one knows they never would actually happen, one can pursue them; but if they run into an impossibility, then they vanish like the bubbles Judith used to raise when she used the mixture of lye and fat when washing clothes.

She would picture his signaling to her, and this came before her mind because her own desire made her long to signal to him, and she could picture him as tempted, because she was also tempted, and she knew well that she was tempting--and she could picture him yielding, he would think harmlessly, to the temptation, as so many others had done to their peril. And she could now picture the same for herself, God have mercy on her! But with her there would be no illusions.

But the mental playwright lost inspiration at this point, and as one and another ending came to her, she would wake only to begin again. She tried having both say that it would be wonderful, but was not to be, and going away nobler and enriched, though sad. But this also broke into shards; it was even more ridiculous than Judas's asking for her hand. Since she was what she was, there was only one reason Judas would have approached her at all, and noble phrases and sentiments--and self-restraint--had nothing to do with it.

There was, of course, the one believable outcome; but when her imagination led her down that path, it opened onto the vortices behind the Master's eyes, and infinite black flame; and she would be fully awake once more.

But that would solve nothing, of course, and as soon as she began to feel sleep approach, the dreary preliminaries that had no end would begin once again.

During her increasingly exhausted waking life in these few days, the fantasies with Judas disappeared, only to be replaced with preoccupations with Judith and a vague dread about Jesus and his fate. She would have to see him to find out if it were wise for her to leave now; she could not continue much longer in this fashion--and Judith was becoming worse also, she could see.

One afternoon, as she was wandering by herself fruitlessly ruminating over the troubles in her life, she noticed that it was growing late, and that she had better go back to the group. They had crossed over the "sea" of Galilee from Capernaum, because Jesus had been so pressed by the crowds that he decided that they should have a little time by themselves; they would return on the morrow.

But when she went up the path to the hill, where she had been told that he was going, emerging from the woods to a large field, she saw huge crowds of people seated everywhere--who had evidently divined what Jesus had intended--with Jesus and the students up above, eating some bread and fish that they had brought. The people were also eating, and she wondered idly how they had all had the foresight to bring food to this lonely spot, when Simon the Revolutionary passed her, and said, "Have you received any as yet?" and when she answered No, he took a piece of barley bread he had, broke some off, and handed it to her.

"Is that enough?" he asked. "Take another." And he tore off another rather larger chunk of bread from the piece he had and gave it to her. "Have some fish also," he said, and took a piece of cooked fish he was carrying with the bread, broke it in two, and gave her half. "Is it not amazing?" he said, half to her and half to some people seated nearby.

"Is what amazing?" asked Mary.

"Look!" he said. "I gave you two large pieces of bread, and half of my fish, and see what I have left! What I started with! I have been trying to see when it grew back, and I cannot! It is just there when I want more! Is it not astonishing?"

It certainly was. Mary was about to make some remark, but Simon passed along to the group, asking everyone he met whether they wanted more, and saying, "You see? Your King is feeding you! With five loaves of bread and two little fish! And there are thousands of you! I have been counting. You must be five thousand or more! And all of you are being fed on these five loaves by your King! Or is Caesar your King? Or who is?"

And as he passed from group to group in the throng, the word "King" began to swell from the crowd like a chorus, and when finally the students came around with baskets to collect the leftovers and eventually filled twelve with what people no longer wanted, the cry of "King!" became a roar, as the people stood up, evidently to go up to Jesus and lift him on their shoulders and take him--to Jerusalem, to anywhere, they knew not; they were simply inflamed with enthusiasm.

But quickly the swell of hosannas turned into a confused, "Where is he?" and Simon began running among them, from one student to the next, asking who had seen Jesus last. The most that could be gleaned was that he had been there, but had slipped away while everyone was distracted with collecting the marvelous harvest from the five loaves. "But he cannot have gone!" screamed Simon in anguish. "It is the perfect moment! Where is he?"

Nathanael put a long hand on his shoulder and turned him around. "Obviously," he said, "he does not want to be King."

"What do you mean, 'does not want to be'? He is our King."

"Then where is he?"

"That is what I want to know!" he shouted, and broke free. He ran off into the woods at the top of the hill, where Jesus must have gone; and after a short while came back, protesting and sputtering for people to help him look for the Master. But the others said that the Master knew what he was doing, and that if he wanted to be made King, he would appear and allow himself to be proclaimed King; but if he did not, everyone here could search the whole hill, and he would be nowhere to be found.

Simon would not calm down for a considerable time, well after the crowd had thinned out a great deal, and night had begun to fall; and even then, all he did was hang sulking about the periphery of the little band of students.

They, on the other hand, were ebullient. "Did you see Philip's face," laughed John's brother James, "when the Master asked him how we were to buy bread to feed all these people?"

"Well how was I to know what he planned to do?" said Philip, evoking a roar of laughter in everyone, who continued teasing him unmercifully in their joy, while some related anecdotes about the people in the crowd, how everyone tried to find out how the bread multiplied itself--and no one, not even the students, could fathom it; there simply always was more. Like everything Jesus did, it was perfectly simple, and perfectly impossible to understand.

But night was falling apace, and Jesus was still somewhere on the hill--or nowhere, or perhaps already in Capernaum. "What shall we do?" they asked each other. "He told us we were to be in Capernaum tomorrow. Shall we wait, or get into the boat now?"

"There is only the one boat," said Simon Rock, "and"--looking at Mary--"there are more of us now than when we came over. Will we all fit in?"

"Do not concern yourself," said Thomas. "It is a fine night, though it looks as if there might be a wind later. You go ahead in the boat if you think you want to risk it, in case he has somehow gone ahead of us. I will walk, and see you there probably around noon." He asked if anyone wanted to accompany him, and Simon the Revolutionary, who was not very interested in chitchat, volunteered, as did Mary and a few others, including women who were driving donkeys with bundles of the group's nomadic provisions.

It was not a very cheerful band they made, with Thomas, who naturally tended toward cynicism, and Simon, whose hopes were shattered, not making above three or four remarks the whole night of the walk. It was clear that Thomas was almost as disappointed as his companion; and Mary, beset, it seemed, from all sides, was not inclined to do anything but chew the cud of her various problems, even if one of the men had deigned to notice her.

Around midnight, the squall that Thomas had predicted arose; the wind suddenly picked up, followed by flashes of lightning and a drenching rain, which left them all cold and miserable. Thomas looked up at the sky, and over at the churning lake, and said, "I hope they are all all right out there." Nothing could be seen through the rain.

"I suppose the Master knows of it," said Simon, "and if he does, he will take care of them. You remember how he scolded us that night we woke him when a storm came up." Thomas looked back out at the angry water, and shook his head.

After about an hour, the wind and the rain dropped as suddenly as they had begun, and the students decided to stop and dry off and rest. There was plenty of time to have a short sleep and to arrive in Capernaum around noon. The women opened their bundles and removed some dry clothing, and they found a cave with a dry floor, where they built a small fire and slept until the sun came through the entrance, about an hour after dawn.

At noon the next day, as they entered Capernaum, they found Jesus already in the synagogue, preaching. He was saying, "--you, Moses did not give you bread from heaven. But my Father will give you bread that really does come from heaven. God's bread is the one who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."

"Then give us this bread, Master, all the time," said someone in the congregation.

"I am the bread that gives life," said Jesus. "A person who comes to me will never be hungry, and anyone who believes in me will never feel thirst. I told you: you already saw the sign, and you still do not believe it. But everyone the Father has given me comes to me, and I will not turn my back on anyone who comes to me, because I came to do my Father's will, not what I please.

"And this is my Father's will: for me not to lose anything he has given me, and for me to bring it to life on the last day. It is the will of my Father that anyone who sees the Son and believes in him will have eternal life; and I will bring him to life on the last day."

This took on a new tone to Mary, after what she had heard from Judas. What did he mean, 'bring him to life'? And when was this 'last day'? Did he honestly believe that his followers would die and then come back to life at some future time? That he could do this? True, he could do wonders, but this?

She was not alone. She heard various grumblings from the congregation which had packed the little synagogue; but in the main, they were complaints that he was claiming to be bread that came down from heaven--evidently, from what they said, some of them were those who had eaten the magic bread on the other side of the lake; they must have found boats and followed him here. "Is this not the Jesus that is Joseph's son?" asked a man beside her to his companion on the other side. "We know his father and mother. How can he claim that he 'came down from heaven'?"

"What are you complaining about?" said Jesus. "No one can come to me unless he is drawn by the Father who sent me--and then I will bring him to life on the last day. There is a prophesy, 'They will all be instructed by God.' Everyone who has listened to the Father and learned from--"

"Do you know what happened last night?" said Matthew, suddenly at her side. He had apparently been looking for her. "He came to us during the storm, walking on top of the water! And he got Simon Rock to do it also, but Simon became--"

"Be still! We cannot hear!" hissed several people.

Jesus was saying "--except the one who is at God's side. He has seen the Father."

There it was. She looked at Matthew and felt fear rise within her as she thought that he really believed that he had been with God before he was born, and had seen him. Matthew looked back, equally troubled. But so far, this could at least be construed in some kind of a benign sense; but would he restrain himself?

"--has eternal life." he was saying. "I am bread for life. Your ancestors ate manna in the desert and died; but this is bread that comes down from heaven for people to eat and not die. I am living bread that comes down from heaven, and if anyone eats this bread, he will live forever." He paused, seemed to be inspired by an idea, and then continued, "And the bread I am to give you is the meat of my body, for the life of the world."

Mary heard the collective intake of breath, and then the cry of disgust. "How can this man give us the meat of his body to eat?" said the people to each other. She covered her eyes with her hands.

Jesus evidently heard them, but instead of explaining himself, he went on, "Amen amen I tell you that if you do not eat the meat which is the Son of Man's body--and drink his blood!--" The congregation gasped once again, "--you will not have life in you!" Jesus seemed more intense--insane?--than Mary had ever remembered him. He sounded as if he knew he were sealing his doom, but he could not help himself and must make sure that everyone understood. Matthew was staring at him, open-mouthed.

"--out of the grave on the last day, because the meat which is my body is real food, and my blood is real drink. Anyone who eats the meat of my body and drinks my blood lives in me and I in him. Just as my living Father sent me and I live through the Father, anyone who eats me will live through me. This is the bread that comes down from heaven. Not what your ancestors ate. They died. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever!"

There was consternation. Mary and Matthew again looked at each other. Matthew took her hand and held it as both contemplated Jesus in horror. People were saying, "That is disgusting! How can anyone listen to it?"

Jesus looked around at all of them, as they murmured to one another in their outrage. "You find that difficult to accept, do you not? What if you were to see the Son of Man rise up to where he was before? Spirit is what gives life; matter is of no use at all; and what I have told you is spirit and life, and there are some of you who do not believe it!"

Some of them? There was not one of them who believed it. How could anyone? What was he to do? Break off his arm and give it to them to cook? It was not merely disgusting, it was totally unthinkable. She looked at Matthew, who was shaking his head in sorrow.

"--why I said that no one can come to me unless he is given the power to do it by my Father."

But Jesus was now talking to the backs of the congregation, who were streaming out the doors saying that he might be able to cure the sick, but he was mad, and anyone who listened to him was as mad as he.

Finally, there were left merely the Twelve and one or two others. Jesus looked at them, as they gazed expectantly at him, hoping--praying--for an explanation, such as those he would give them privately about his stories. But Jesus said, with infinite sorrow, "Do you wish to go away too?"

There was a dead silence, and a few shuffled their feet. Judas was among them; he had had his eyes fixed on the mosaic at his feet from the first moment Mary had caught sight of him; it was clear that he felt no triumph at the fulfillment of his prediction.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Simon Rock spoke up, with tears in his voice. "Master, to whom would we go? We know that what you say is eternal life, and--and we have believed that you are the Holy One of God. We--we know this."

Jesus smiled poignantly at the masterful effort. "Did I not choose you twelve?" he said. Then his eyes lifted themselves to the mountains on the other side of the lake and beyond them to the infinity he thought he had come from, and he added, "And one of you is a devil!"

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