Fourteen

The boy spoke to his mother, telling her that he would go home and bathe and dress in decent clothes and then return, and, with another glance at Matthew, he ran off.

Jesus, meanwhile, was telling people to put on a new way of thinking, because the reign of God was about to begin, and was advising them that things were going to be very different from now on. The people were beside themselves, very few actually listening to what Jesus was saying, because they were too busy discussing whether the boy had actually been dead or not, and whether it made any difference one way or the other, since even if he were merely in a coma, Jesus' knowing it and his intervention was clearly miraculous in bringing him out of it.

Some seemed to want to question the mother about his death, but she was obviously distraught, looking off in the distance to see her son return, and Jesus shielded her from questions which would have upset her greatly. Of course, the skeptics saw this, and concluded that Jesus wanted to keep them from uncovering the conspiracy to make him look like a miracle-worker; but even they were afraid to incur Jesus' wrath by trying to approach her.

Matthew, thinking that perhaps Gideon might need him, in spite of how competent he seemed the preceding night, approached Jesus and asked if he would mind if he left to see to the feast on the morrow.

As he was saying this, the boy David came back and overheard him, and said to Jesus, "A feast? Then surely he will need help, Master! Let me go with him; I can do much, and will do it gladly!"

Matthew, somewhat surprised, said that he would not trouble the boy, who turned to him and answered, "There is no trouble, and besides, I would prefer not to have people gawking at me and asking me what it felt like to be dead!"

"If you are certain you would prefer it, then," said Matthew, "I think we might be able to use you. I suppose that my slave Gideon has hired some help, but I imagine that another person would not be unwelcome. I will pay you whatever the others are paid. Gideon knows."

Jesus stroked his bearded chin thoughtfully for a moment--a custom of his--and then nodded approval, and the two turned in the direction of Matthew's house. After traveling in silence for a while, the boy said, "I need no pay, Master."

"God forbid that I should be your master!"

"I meant nothing by it, Sir. It was merely a manner of speaking."

"You do not know that I am the least of this group. I was even a tax-collector until very recently."

The boy's eyes widened. "Indeed? What made you give it up and join with this man?"

Matthew looked at him, unsure how to reply. "Something terrible happened. I cannot speak of it. But let us say that it opened my eyes. I cannot undo what I have done, but Jesus has--let us say, helped me, and perhaps I can make a better life. Perhaps. He seems to have made it worth living."

"Let us hope he can make life worth living without a father, and my mother without a husband."

"You lost your father recently, then."

The boy looked over at him, and after a few moments said, "Yes. That is something I would prefer not to speak of."

"I understand. It is hard. I lost my own father, years and years ago. I was a good deal younger than you."

"Let us not speak of it." And they lapsed into silence for the rest of the trip home.

The dogs seemed to be chained in the back, and when Matthew entered, the house was filled with bustle. Gideon was cleaning and dusting, with the help of two young men a bit older than David, ordering them about considerably more brusquely than Matthew ordered him. When he saw Matthew, he said, "Ah, Master! I had hoped you would come! I must go to the market and make some purchases, but I did not want to leave these two alone in the house."

"It seems that by chance I have brought a third, Gideon. This is David, who has volunteered to help us. I thought you might be able to use him."

"Very good. David, why do you not come with me; you can help me carry things back. You look like a good strong lad. What is the matter with your neck?"

David's face flamed. "Oh, I--I bruised it. It will heal soon."

"It almost looks as if you had hanged yourself!"

Hastily, David said, "Oh, no, nothing of that sort. But I had a kind of accident. But I am quite well now."

"Very good. Jonah, while I am gone, you can continue with this room. Be sure that all of the furniture is shined so that one can see oneself in it, and then pack down the floors with that instrument I showed you. Move some of the chairs into small groups facing each other, but with passages between them so that people can move about. Think at all times that, once people leave the table in the dining room, they will want to move freely though the house, looking at what is there. Philip, you do what Jonah tells you. All of the cups and dishes must be washed. There is water out behind the house--but beware that you do not go near or provoke the dogs; they are vicious beasts, and if I am not by, they might do severe damage, even if they are chained. --But of course, the Master is here. If you have any questions about the disposition of the furniture, by the way, you can ask him. But even if he is here, be sure to give the dogs a wide berth."

He went on for a while giving instructions, while Matthew stood back somewhat dumbfounded. To say that Gideon had everything under control was putting it mildly. When he and David left, Matthew felt completely lost and in the way, and wandered through the house as if it belonged to someone else, while the other two bustled about.

It was no better when Gideon returned. Gideon did not see fit to give his master orders, and when Matthew asked if there were anything he could do to help, he was made to understand that staying out from underfoot was his task in life until the feast began. "I should have stayed with Jesus," he muttered to himself. "I might have known."

Gideon did, however, consult him about various matters: details of the menu, when to serve the wines (he gave Matthew a taste--there were three or four of them--and they were definitely not ordinary), how much water to mix with them, where to put various pieces of furniture, whether to take this or that object and put it out of reach, and so on.

Still, Matthew felt enough in the way that he told Gideon that he would be outside with the dogs, Naomi and Ruth, which he had not had much chance to see, and he left. They seemed nervous, since they knew that something strange was going on--not least that their secondary master, so to speak, was out with them.

Matthew patted them on the back and scratched them behind the ears, which they tolerated with as good a grace as they were able. They knew that Matthew was not the enemy who was to be chewed to shreds, but they were not quite certain that he was actually their friend. Besides, Matthew's own unease communicated itself to them. It was as well that Matthew had no fear of them, since in the state they were in, they might sense it and attack him.

Eventually, they became bored, and lay down and dozed. Matthew stared off at the Galilean hills with their patchwork patterns of grass, dirt, and rocks, wildflowers showing purples and orange here and there. The clouds were making their own patterns of shadow and light while they moved over them, and Matthew idly attempted the hopeless task of matching shadows with the clouds that made them. Since the sun was at an angle, the cloud's profile from the sun's point of view looked entirely different from the way the cloud presented itself to Matthew on the ground.

The day passed eventually, and that evening, Matthew went in to ask for David, to take him back to his mother, who said that she was going to stay with Jesus--which meant camping with him out on the fields that night in a place Matthew had ascertained beforehand. But David said, "Let us not lose time going and having to return tomorrow morning. I will be able to help Gideon before the two hired hands arrive if I stay the night here; and if I go there, it will only be to sleep and return. It makes no sense."

"But your mother will be concerned, will she not?"

"She will understand. I have left before for days with my friends when we had work in the fields."

"Are you certain? After all, she only just got you back. Now that I think of it, I should never have taken you from her."

"Do not worry yourself. I asked to accompany you, actually, because I could not bear the thought of her fussing over me. Perhaps with a day or two to think, she will forget to pry into what it was like being dead. I cannot face thinking about it, and she would insist and insist. I had to get away."

Matthew thought of himself after his father had died, how he could not bear to face his own mother, and, after some hesitation, acquiesced. He wondered idly where his mother was and how she was faring--but he still was not sure he ever wanted to see her again.

David and Gideon conferred, and a makeshift bed was made up in a room no one ever used near Matthew's bedroom, and, after the two hired hands had been dismissed for the night with strict instructions on when to return on the morrow, Gideon let the dogs loose to guard the property, and they went to bed.

In the middle of the night, Matthew half woke, with the feeling that someone was standing over him looking down at him. He sat up, and for an instant thought he saw a shadow move; but on a closer look, there did not seem to be anything amiss. "Besides, there are the dogs. I am safe. It is simply the newness of everything," he said to himself, and turned over and went to sleep again.

The next day for Matthew was a repetition of the last, except that as the time drew closer, he was consulted on details rather more often. The day before Matthew and David arrived Gideon had sent the two hired hands to the four or five people Matthew had invited, and learned that they all would be coming; they were curious as to what this Roman villa actually looked like from the inside. They seemed, however, to evince no interest in Jesus--which was not surprising, since it was to be assumed that he would not approve of what they were doing; but no doubt there would be a certain curiosity nonetheless, that he might confront a cripple and make him walk, or some such feat of magic.

Matthew had misgivings about how good a host he would be, but then considered that none of them had any love for each other, and if they did not like his hospitality, that was their problem, not his. He did not worry about Jesus, who he was sure would be kind to him and not point out any blunders, and his followers--except perhaps Thomas--would not dare to find fault either. "And if they do, what of it? They ought to know that I have no practice in such things."

Of course, speaking to himself in such a sensible way did not save him from becoming more and more nervous as the moment neared, and finally he began to feel almost like a bridegroom with the bride about to be brought to him--except that the anticipation had no pleasure connected with it but that of seeing how the people reacted to the riches of the feast. Because it was rich. Gideon was remarkably skilled, and had outdone himself, Matthew discovered, as he sampled the dishes offered to him for approval.

Finally, everyone arrived, and Matthew greeted them. He noticed that David was smothered by his mother as soon as she saw him, and glanced ruefully at Matthew from her embrace. But of course, he was saved by the fact that all the other guests were there, and the mother could not take him off into a corner and cross-examine him.

After formally greeting everyone, Matthew led them into the dining-room, and they lay on the dining-couches at the table, Jesus to Matthew's right, able to lean back onto his chest so the two could converse easily. Young John was in front of Jesus, and Simon, not the one they called the "Revolutionary," but the other Simon, the brother of Andrew, in the second place of honor, immediately behind Matthew. Matthew thought it a bit odd, but did not question the arrangement. The others mingled in with the guests Matthew had invited, and arranged themselves down the two legs of the U.

Gideon and the two hired hands first washed off the guests' feet, which protruded over the edge of the couches, and then took the food into the center of the U and laid it in front of the banqueters, pouring the wine into shallow bowls. David's mother insisted on joining in with them in serving. David, however, a guest now, was lying at the very foot of the table, since he was but a lad, and the group's most recent acquisition.

The talk was rather stilted at first, but the followers of Jesus soon loosened up, helped by the excellent wine--which at the beginning had rather less water diluting it than customary. This was Gideon's idea. "If they are not friendly beforehand, we must assist them. You will see," he had told Matthew. After not very long, some of Jesus' followers began to ask questions of the tax-collectors Matthew had invited, and they, surprised that anyone would be interested in what they were doing, answered gladly, and the conversation became general.

Matthew felt that the feast had definitely been a success, when the people had all rinsed off their hands and dried them on the napkins the servers provided. People still kept their bowls of wine, but began to rise from the table and wander through the house and out onto the grounds. Matthew warned them to stay away from the dogs, which were not friendly and might be nervous at all the commotion.

There were still some at the table, Jesus among them, when after a while, he suddenly leaped up and, letting out a piercing whistle, dashed out the back door. Matthew sprang up and followed.

"Ruth!" shouted Jesus. "Stop!" The dog had looked up (evidently at the whistle) from a man lying on his back beneath her, where she had been just about to take a--certainly fatal--bite out of his neck. His clothes and skin were all torn, and he looked half-dead already. "Back!" said Jesus, and the dog, with her tail between her legs, dragging half her chain, retreated to the doghouse to join her companion, who looked more ashamed and sheepish than Ruth, if possible.

Jesus went up to the man, who was gasping on the ground, and ran his hand over him, at which his wounds closed and his clothes restored themselves. "You will say nothing of this, if you please," he said to the man, who was Zadok, one of the tax-collectors that Matthew had invited. "Nothing. It will be as if nothing happened."

The man was too stupefied to speak. "You had better compose yourself and go back inside," said Jesus, and the man left, opening and closing his mouth like a fish.

Others, who had heard the commotion, came out to greet him as he entered, and asked him what had happened, and all he could say was, "Nothing. It was nothing. I came out and then decided that I had best go back inside. No, it was nothing." No one believed him, of course.

Jesus then went back to the dogs, and Matthew cried "Master! No!" since he knew that at least Ruth was free. But Jesus answered, "Fear not; she knows me." He felt the dog's neck, which had been bloodied by the tremendous pull she had made on her collar when she broke the chain, and there too the wounds were instantly healed. He fondled the dog's head a bit and she actually licked his face and wagged her tail! She had never done that before, not even to Gideon. He then grasped the chain and ran his hand along it, and joined it to the part that was fastened to the house, and the chain was intact.

"He provoked them," said Jesus. "But he will not do it again--ever." He ran his hand along Naomi's chain also, and healed the bruises on her neck. "Do not be hard on them," he added, to Matthew, "They only did what they were trained to do. And did it very well." he said to the dogs, as he fondled the two of them. "You could not know that this was the wrong person."

Matthew was speechless, not only at how he had healed the man and the dogs (and the chains), but at how he had absolute control over these vicious beasts. They loved him, and he acted as if he loved them also.

"But let us go back inside. I would not have this known, if at all possible; it would do no one any good, and it is too early in my time."

A little later, Nathanael came up to Matthew and in a low voice asked, "Did I see correctly out of the window? That the dog broke loose and attacked that man? And the Master healed him?"

"He asked me not to speak of it, and so it would be as well if you did not repeat the story either. He said that it was too early in his time, whatever that meant."

"I see," was the thoughtful answer. "Something like this happened at the very beginning, you know--also at a feast, come to think of it. We had been invited to a wedding party, and it seemed the host did not expect so many with us and the Master, and the wine ran out. His mother mentioned it to him, and the Master very quietly told the servers to fill up the water jars--you know, the ones they use for washing--with water, and they took it out, and began serving it, because it was wine. But the reason I mention it is that when his mother told him about the lack of wine, he said, 'But what is that to me, Madam, or to you? My time has not come yet.' I heard him. He seems to have his wonders planned out in some sort of sequence, for some purpose of his; but he is willing to respond to emergencies, apparently."

Matthew was grateful of that. He did not think that he could bear being responsible for another corpse. He sought out Zadok, feeling that he had to, since Zadok might have seen him out there with Jesus, and asked him how he was feeling.

"I?" said Zadok, still wide-eyed with terror. "I am well. Nothing happened. Nothing untoward, that is. It was a very--(he paused, not able to think of a word)--feast, Levi. But I really believe I ought to be getting home. Er--thank you for inviting me." Matthew gave a little bow, and he left.

As soon as he was gone, everyone was buzzing with the story, but they could not verify it, since only Matthew and Nathanael had actually seen what had actually happened. Others had been outside, but they were in the front of the house, confronting a number of Pharisees and law-experts at the fence who were trying to discover if it were really the case that Jesus was "feasting with tax-collectors and sinners."