Thirty-two

When she woke, it was light, though still gray, and so not very long after she had lost consciousness--and the first thing she saw as she looked up from the ground where she had fallen was that hideous face etched against the sky, burning itself into her eyes. She screamed and ran.

It seemed to be pursuing her; she would look back and could see it following, almost grinning, as if it were spitting that enormous, ghastly tongue after her. She had the wild fear that if it ever touched her, she would instantly catch fire; and she ran faster and faster, her breath already a flame that seared her throat, and her heart a tiger tearing at the cage of her ribs.

The world had woken by this time, and as she ran, sobbing and panting, she bumped heedless into passers-by, and they pushed her away, cursing, and hit at her; but the face seemed to be gaining upon her, and only spurred her on.

Finally, she collapsed, unable to take another step; and the face came up behind her and enveloped her, and she lost consciousness once again.

Someone kicked her awake. "Out of the roadway, drunk! Do you want to be trampled by the horses?"

She staggered to her feet, not knowing where she was--and then remembered the face and almost started running once again. She stopped and clenched her fists until her palms bled. "No! I will not!" she shouted.

"Not what?" said someone.

"No! Master, help me!"

And it was only then that she realized what she had seen. She had been too late; he was dead. She wept fiercely, uncontrollably, screaming and sobbing, like a child who has seen his parents die and is totally lost. She could not see for the tears, and pushed her way among the throngs that seemed to have crowded wherever it was that she had come to; and as she neared them, they shrank from her as mad; but she did not notice.

After a while, she found herself in a corner where two of the city walls joined to form a little alcove apart from humanity, and sank down and cried herself to exhaustion, beating her fists against the stones in despair.

But like violent thunderstorms, such an expenditure of energy must necessarily be brief, and eventually she found she could weep no more; and she lay there, trying to recover her breath. To her regret, life came back to her--she would gladly have died--and she looked around, seeing nothing.

She was completely without thought. She did not even remember what it was that was such a devastating loss; only that she was no more, nothing but torment; and even this she felt rather than realized.

After a considerable time, it came into her consciousness that she was just outside the city wall, it seemed by the sheep-gate, and, still without any idea what she was doing, she struggled once again to her feet and drunkenly entered the city, being propelled along by the crowd.

They took her to the Antonia: the Roman governor's quarters, where there was a huge, raucous gathering facing the governor, who was outside on the place they called the "pavement," sitting there with another man standing, who looked like a soldier. He was flanked by two other soldiers behind him, and was clearly the center of interest. The crowd was shouting "Crucify him! Crucify him!"

The words brought her to herself with a shock, and she looked up at the standing figure, the soldier beside the governor, who appeared as if he had just come from a bloody battle--and thought that somehow it must be Jesus, and then with horror began to pick out his features from the mangled face. He had seemed to be a soldier because for some reason he had on a red soldier's cloak; but his almost unrecognizable face, hair, and beard were fouled and matted with blood, which was flowing freely from something on his head, a kind of cap of some sort.

The governor, who was greatly agitated--Mary would have said, terrified--raised his hand for silence and waited. When he could be heard, he shouted, "You want me to crucify your King?" and in the uproar that followed, she saw that what was on Jesus's head was a mockery of a crown, and the cloak and the stick he held numbly in his hand was supposed to represent royal robes. Her heart broke, and then broke again as she heard the answering shout begin in a few voices and spread through the whole crowd, "We have no King but Caesar!"

They had done it, then. They had managed to turn the crowd against him--and somehow the governor had twisted it to Rome's advantage. There would be no uprising now; they--the fiercely proud Hebrews--had declared their loyalty to Rome! And sealed the death not only of the King the prophets had longed for, but their God himself in human form! How could he have allowed it? How could he have allowed it? The chant continued, "We have no King but Caesar," coupled with "Crucify him!"

The governor's look of fear gradually became a self-satisfied smirk, almost of triumph. He had evidently turned a potential disaster to his advantage, and at only the expense of the death of a single Hebrew--and one his own people wanted out of the way. To seal his victory, he called for a basin of water and washed his hands before them, declaring that he was not responsible for the death, and the crowd once again broke into a cacophony of shouts and screams.

Mary turned away, sickened, as Jesus was shoved back into the headquarters to be given the crossbar to drag up to the Skull Hill, where all the criminals were crucified. Some in the crowd around her began speculating whether he would now disappear as he had done in the past; but they were scoffed into silence by a man standing to her left, who said, "Do you think that if he could have escaped, we would have seen him in that condition? He is nothing but a fraud, a madman, and we are well rid of him! After all, he claimed to be God himself. I heard him."

Shortly afterward--it must have been somewhat after noon--the crowd surged over to the lower door of the fortress, where Jesus would emerge. Mary tried to extricate herself, but found she could not press through, and was carried along. She saw the door open, and three boards, obviously on the backs of stooping men, coming out; but she could not make out over the throng who they were. But Jesus must have been one of them, because people were pointing him out--some, it must be said, wailing and shouting his innocence, and others cursing. In general, the tone of the crowd was one of hatred. People asked who the others were, and there seemed to be agreement that they were thieves who had been condemned the day before, and were to be crucified today, before the Passover, on which there could be no executions.

The boards bobbed up and down as the men struggled with them, making very slow progress through the thick crowd, which, like a liquid, flowed in behind as soon as they moved forward. Mary could see the heads and shoulders of the soldiers as, cursing, they forced a way for the crucified men. Mary tried to get nearer to see, but could not make her way through.

One of the boards disappeared, and the horrible procession stopped. The word came through, "He cannot carry it," at which some answered, "Cannot carry it? He was a carpenter, was he not?" This was received with, "Did you see him up there on the Pavement? Could you carry anything in that state? What had they been doing to him last night?"

The board reappeared, its end higher than before. "They found someone to carry it for him," said one, turning around; he received the answer, "Then thank God we were not able to go closer!" Progress was still excruciatingly slow, largely because of the crowd; but evidently the other two who were carrying their own boards were not in much better condition.

"What did he say?" asked one.

"Something about weeping for ourselves, not him."

"He is crazy!"

Finally, the men reached the hill, and Mary could see the backs of the three as they struggled upward--actually, the backs of the four, since one of them, staggering and stumbling--and falling and being kicked to his feet--was unencumbered. She prayed that this one, the one without the cross, who looked as if he would die before he arrived at the site, was not Jesus. But it looked like his robe.

At last they were there, and stopped. Mary still could not see for the crowd, though she kept trying to shoulder her way through. She knew that they were stripping them and then laying them against the boards they had carried. She heard the sounds of the spikes being driven, all but drowned out by the hideous screams of the men and the jeers and even the laughter of those in front.

And then she could see them, because the ropes had been attached to the boards and the men, writhing and being pulled up by their nailed wrists, were being hoisted into place, their feet perhaps half a cubit above the ground. As soon as they were in position, the soldiers took a spike and nailed the two feet, one over the other, to the upright. And the men, naked before all, and now even bloodier than ever, shrieked in agony, trying to find the least hellish position, now hanging from their wrists, now taking the weight on their pierced feet.

The other two, one on either side of Jesus, were wasting their energy in loud wails, while Jesus was making small grunting sounds, struggling to find some intermediate position which would not be completely intolerable; but he obviously could not, and occasionally would relax the effort, at which his whole weight was put on his wrists, which gushed blood as he sank in exhaustion. Mary could not bear it, but could not take her eyes from him.

It had begun to grow dark.

The crowd began noticing this, and looking up at the clear sky, in which the sun seemed to be weakening. The mockery and laughter dimmed, and people began turning away, looking over their shoulders at the sun, some beating their breasts. Mary found she could now make her way through--and there at the foot of the cross, she saw his mother, standing beside John. She thought she recognized some of the other students standing about also. She looked briefly for Matthew, but did not see him.

She came up to Jesus' mother, who was unconsciously breathing in rhythm with her son, very near collapse, and being supported by John, who had a look of supreme agony aging his young face thirty years. Mary stood beside her, on the side opposite John; she reached out her hand, which Mary took, and they looked at Jesus, each wishing that they could have taken his place and spared him, and each understanding nothing whatever about why this was happening. The thought occurred to her that at least he would not have to undergo days of this; they would not let him remain on the cross during the Sabbath.

It grew still darker.

It was quite noticeable now. Several in the crowd began wondering aloud if, not being able to save himself, he was going to destroy the world which had destroyed him. No one scoffed. The crowd became still thinner, as the light became more and more strange.

Jesus looked up through what was now twilight and seemed to see them standing there. He made an effort to speak, and said, "Madam--thatis--your--son!" nodding at John. And then, after panting for some moments, he said again, "Thatisyour--mother!" The two looked at each other.

By now there were only the soldiers and a few spectators--mostly Jesus's students, who had gradually crept forward, now that no one was paying attention; Mary could see all the Twelve, including Matthew--except that there were only eleven now. That brought the image of Judas's face before her, and she grunted as if she had been struck. The mother looked over at her, and squeezed her hand, gently. Shame covered her; that she should be being comforted by the one her own sins had forced to suffer thus!

One of the other crucified men cursed Jesus for not saving himself and them; but the other remonstrated with him. Jesus said something to the second man, but Mary could not make it out.

It was very dark.

Jesus looked at the landscape as if he were a runner who saw the goal ahead, and then said to the soldiers, "I--am thir--thirsty." His voice was now so feeble that they disputed among themselves what he had said, and finally one of them, in a panic, soaked a sponge in the bucket of wine they had brought and put it on a stick and raised it to his lips. The others, also panic-stricken, were shouting something incoherent, trying to prevent him.

When he tasted the sour wine, Jesus said in a voice in which agony and relief were mixed, "It is over!" and swallowed the wine--and coughed and died.

"You see! You see!" said one soldier to the one who was still holding the stick. "I told you! If they try to drink anything after being in that position, they choke to death! You killed him!"

"No! No!" screamed the soldier, "I gave him something to drink, that is--"

And the ground shook beneath them. Everyone screamed in terror and fell on their faces and covered their heads with their hands, expecting that the end of the world had come and that the stars--which moments before began to be able to be seen--would be falling from the sky.

After a few moments, the ground stopped quaking. The people remained where they were, too frightened to move; and then it suddenly became light again. One by one, they got up, finding that the world looked normal--but that its King had left. Jesus was dead. The few remaining who were not students of Jesus went away, shaking their heads, and laughing in embarrassed relief, saying that it was nothing but an earthquake, and that for a moment they had thought that his claims about himself were true.

Mary and Jesus's mother, with his students, waited to see what would now be done, since evening was nearing. A soldier came up, evidently from the governor, with orders, and they approached the crosses from either side, breaking the legs of the two who had been crucified with Jesus, who tried to scream in agony, but who themselves choked now that their bodies dropped and shut off their wind. Death came swiftly, but with intense agony, as they writhed on the crosses.

But when they reached Jesus and found that he was already dead, one of the soldiers, instead of breaking his legs, opened his side with his lance--and two liquids, one red and one clear, flowed out of the wound. "I told you he was dead," said the one with the lance; "blood separates thus after death."

The four soldiers looked up at him. The one who had pierced him said, "I hate this part of this work. Battles I understand, and the blood and pain, and I suppose this must be done. But I hate it."

"What is it that he did?" said another. "I have not seen such hatred in a crowd for years."

"It is there on the sign above him."

"I cannot read."

"The Latin says, 'Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.' I suppose the Greek and Hebrew say the same thing."

"And they hate him for that? The world is indeed upside down. Are the Hebrews to become friends of the Romans now?"

"I would not count on it. Some say he was a god. For a moment there, I thought so myself."

"I suppose that was the reason. These Hebrews and their religion!"

As they stood there contemplating him, John whispered to his mother, "Does it not say somewhere, 'They will look on the one they have pierced'?"

"I was thinking of what David said, 'They have pierced my hands and my feet'--and did you notice that they did divide his clothes and play at dice for his robe?"

"I cannot understand what all this means! It seems it was foretold; but why?"

"It must be what Isaiah said," she answered; "he is our ransom. 'The Master laid on him the iniquity of us all.' I had hoped and prayed that it would not be thus--that it meant something else. But it seems it did not. But this is not the end; it cannot be."

"Oh, I know! I know! He told us last night that when we saw him again, our hearts would be full of joy! But my death and the happiness afterward will not be able to erase this! Ever! I cannot understand it!"

"It is not our task to understand it; merely to bear it." she almost broke down as she said this. Mary could not endure the torment underneath these calm words. She clasped the poor mother to her and held her. She so needed this valiant woman; but she felt that even this valiant woman could be helped by her small effort at comfort.

About two hours later, Joseph from Arimathea appeared along with Nicodemus, who was struggling with jars of ointment, evidently for Jesus's burial. Joseph saw them and said, "I have received permission." He showed a paper to the centurion, who nodded. "The governor has told me that we can have him to bury--and as it happens, the tomb I recently bought for myself is in a garden nearby, and we can lay him in it before the Sabbath begins, if we hasten."

He beckoned to the students who were standing by, and they mounted ladders and removed the spikes, first from Jesus's feet, which remained fixed against the upright. "He has begun to stiffen already," said Nicodemus. "We must take great care. I hope his arms are not stiff."

But the arms collapsed against his body as soon as the nails were removed. "Do not drop him!" shouted Joseph to John and Andrew on the ladders. "Gently." They took down the body, the Rock at the feet and John at the head, with James and Andrew supporting the armpits. "Lay him down here on the shroud," said Nicodemus, "while I pour the spices over him."

"But you cannot leave him thus!" cried Chuza's Joanna. "Let us wash and dress him first!"

"No!" said Nicodemus. "You must not! He--"

"What do you mean, we must not? You cannot bury him thus!"

"We must!" said Nicodemus. You see how he bled from the wrists, and how he is bleeding again from the wound in the side? That is mixed blood; it is mixed with the lifeblood! It must not be removed; it must be buried with him."

"How can you say that? That we cannot even clean his face? He will not have this crown on, at least!" And she ripped the crown from his head.

"Now he is bleeding from the head again! Joanna, please! The Law says that the blood he sheds when dying must be buried with him."

"The Law! The Law! The Law killed him! And he is the most innocent of the innocent! And you would bury him befouled thus because of the Law!"

"Did not he himself say that he came to fulfill the Law, and that not one jot or tittle was to pass away from it until all was over?"

"Well all is over! I will not let you disgrace his poor body in this fashion!"

"Joanna, please. I understand what you say; but we cannot give the authorities reason for saying that he was indeed a lawbreaker. Would you have his death lose every semblance of meaning? If he were here speaking now, he would say that thus it must be."

Jesus's mother spoke for the first time. "He has reason, Joanna. Please--let it be as he says. Perhaps after the Sabbath, it might be time when we could give him a proper burial. But it grows dark now, and they must finish."

Joanna protested, but more weakly, and then said, "Very well; but I will be coming back at dawn as soon as the Sabbath is over; he will not stay thus, if I have anything to do about it."

"Shall I try to straighten his legs?" asked the Rock, as they were laying the body on the lower part of the shroud. His left foot was flat against the cloth. "I would not," said Nicodemus. "We might break them if we tried to lay them straight; and they are not bent enough to make it impossible to lay him out."

"It crushes my heart to see him lying there as if he were still hanging."

"Can we at least fold his hands in front of him?" said John. "Let me anoint his arms and his body," said Nicodemus, "and then you can arrange them." John did so, and said, "At least now he is not exposed for everyone to see."

"Let me fold the shroud over his head now and bring it in front of him, and then we can wind him and tie on the head-cloth; and then, if those of you who took him down could carry him to the tomb over there, we can be home before the Sabbath begins." Without further conversation, they finished wrapping the body, and carried it to the tomb. Four of the men rolled the enormous stone over the entrance of the cave, and everyone left in silence.

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