Thirty-One

Instead of returning to Peraea, Jesus decided that they would go north of Jerusalem into the deserted country around Ephraim, presumably to be more available to enter Jerusalem during the Passover, a month or so off. They also did nothing much during that time; Jesus evidently felt that his teaching was coming to an end. If the people did not believe now, there was nothing more he could say to convince them. Perhaps he was letting the news about Lazarus sink in.

Perhaps.

Nathanael knew nothing any more. He still took his nightly walks in the woods, finding them now calming his fevered musings rather than terrifying him. "At least I have accomplished that!" he thought, feeling rather proud of himself.

The second night of their stay there, Judas crossed his path, and Nathanael turned to avoid him. Judas, however, came up to him, and said, "And have you recovered from the tarantula bite?"

Nathanael almost could not speak from loathing, and finally managed to say, "It did not bite me."

"Indeed? From your reaction, I assumed you had had a nasty encounter with it."

"I did have a 'nasty encounter,' as you put it. I hate those things!" he spat.

"Obviously. Well, I am happy to hear that no damage was done." This was said in such a complacent, sneering tone that Nathanael could not stand it, and he blurted. "I know that you put it there!"

"Oh, did your slave tell you this? Slaves lie, you know. All the time."

"He is not my slave! And he does not lie!"

"Then you are saying that I lie?" And he suddenly reached out with his open hand and gave Nathanael a resounding slap across the face.

Nathanael stood there, frozen with surprise, pain, and rage.

"Suppose I did put it there. I have done you a favor. Now you know that a little spider cannot hurt you. Now you know that you need not be afraid, like a woman."

Nathanael stood there, boiling with hate.

"Come!" said Judas. "Did I insult you? Fight me! Come! Do you dare?"

Nathanael stood there.

"Oh, I see. You would turn the other cheek?" And he slapped him with the back of his hand, so hard that Nathanael's head bobbed. "Like a good student of the Master. But we know what is behind this act of 'virtue,' do we not? You are afraid, you coward! You are afraid you might get hurt, just as you were afraid of a little spider! And afraid of getting wet when Thomas's brother died! Bah!" And he spat on the ground and walked off.

Everything within Nathanael was screaming at him to dive after him and, come what may, beat him within an inch of his life. But he stood there, unable to move.

Finally, he sat on a rock, with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands, and sobbed and screamed like a child whose sweetmeat has been torn from him. The horrible truth was that Judas was right; he was afraid to fight him. What did he know of fighting, who was intimidated by sheep and who could not even sit on a horse! His father was right! He was totally worthless! And that devil had to be the one to point it out to him!

He could not face going back to the camp. He simply sat there and cried his heart out until he could cry no more, and lay down behind the rock, and slept from exhaustion.

It was still night, and he woke to someone standing over him. "We missed you," said Jesus.

"I cannot go on. I cannot."

"Yes you can. You have been relying on yourself. Trust in me, remember?"

"Master, I am no good! I am worthless! I am a worm!"

"And I happen to be fond of this worthless worm, because this worthless worm is going to do great things. He will learn where to put his trust. The little mustard plant has sprouted, but it takes time to become a huge bush."

"It just withered and died!"

"Nonsense. The wind blew on it, that is all. No, no; it has deep roots; I can see them, even if you cannot. Let me tell you that not one of you--not one--is worth anything by himself. God loves you--I love you--because I love you, simply because you are. You are one of my sheep, and it has survived--yes it has! I know!--an attack by a wolf. And it will survive much worse."

"Oh, Master! I cannot do it!"

"True, you cannot. But I can do it in you. Even if I seem to leave you, I will be with you. And in you. I told you that if you eat the meat of my body and drink my blood, you will live through me. You will see soon what that meant."

"What did it mean, Master? Everyone is crazy to know!"

"You will see. It will not be long. But in the meantime, pay attention to Lazarus. Now let us go back to the others."

To Lazarus? So whatever he told Thomas was not over. Dazed, Nathanael followed Jesus, and lay down with the rest--except that he did not see either Judas or Ezra.

In the days that followed, Nathanael realized that he was by no means alone in brooding. Everyone was morose, occupied with their own problems. And everyone was alone, in the midst of all the others. Matthew was pondering and shaking his head, and even David was on pins and needles about something. After a week or so, he asked Matthew if he could leave for a while. Perhaps to see Judith. But then he returned, and was apparently as full of despair as everyone else.

Then, after had been there quite some time, almost three weeks, Judith came running up, panting, "Master! Master!" Jesus came over, and she gasped, "Martha told me to tell you to co--come at once! She said that raising Lazarus was noth--nothing in comparison with this!"

Was this what Jesus was referring to? "Pay attention to Lazarus."

Jesus put his hands on her shoulders as she tried desperately to breathe, and said in a calm voice, "I understand what is the matter. Be not distressed. You may tell them that my time has arrived, and that I will come to dinner there in two days, and that you should invite some friends of Lazarus, as you had planned. And you must assure them that there is no cause for concern."

"I do not understand. Invite? Planned?"

"They will know."

Judas, who had returned a day earlier and had been listening as soon as he caught sight of Judith, said, "Are we all to accompany you, Master?" He seemed a bit nervous.

"The Twelve, I should think," said Jesus. They could not suffer an invasion of all of us." He looked over at Chusa's Joanna as he said this, and she reddened and fled when he caught her eye. Just as Nathanael suspected; she must have been the one who told Lazarus about Mary, and that must have precipitated the death of Lazarus. But what was this new development?

Jesus said to Judith, "Tell them to be ready in two days. It is little enough time for them to prepare, but if I know Martha, it will suffice; and I think it not prudent to delay longer. Now go when you have caught your breath; they will be wanting news as soon as possible."

Judith did not wait, but ran off before she had fully recovered. David looked after her with a mixture of desire and contempt, and then looked, his eyes narrowed, over at Judas. There was something there.

Ezra, who had also returned (of course) came to Thomas, who happened to be by himself, and said something in an undertone, to which Thomas answered, "He what? Who?"

They continued talking softly for a considerable time, and finally Ezra left him and came to Nathanael, and said, "I saw what he did to you my friend. I would have killed him then and there, except that Jesus walked by."

"He did? He would."

"That is what I thought. But I saw more. You notice that I was not here for a while. I was watching him. He raped Mary."

"No!"

"Indeed he did. And again I could do nothing. I have been cursing myself ever since! And I was torn between following him back here and seeing what Mary would do. She loves him, desperately, though she fought him."

"Judith's message must have something to do with this."

"And clearly, he knows. He knows more than Judith. And did you notice Judas? He is a trifle nervous to think that the Twelve are going back there. And he dare not not accompany them."

"Dear God! What kind of confrontation will there be?"

"Well, you will find out. I, of course, will not be going, because it is only you twelve. But it should be very interesting."

And shortly afterward, Jesus and the Twelve set off for Bethany, and for some reason did not collect a crowd as they traveled. Perhaps the people were busying themselves with preparing for the Passover, which was to take place in six days. Or perhaps when Jesus did not want to be accompanied, no one somehow noticed him and his followers.

As they arrived, a number of people from Jerusalem were already there, friends of Lazarus, talking with him and pointedly avoiding mention of the event that had happened, but simply making small talk, which Lazarus took almost no part in, merely giving one-word answers when he had to speak. He was obviously in the depths of despair--a fact which was as manifest and as ignored by everyone as his death and return to life--and was finding it a supreme effort behave with even minimal politeness. Fortunately, the people surrounding him were of the upper class in Jerusalem, and, given Lazarus's personality, he could not insult them by ignoring them or appearing too morose.

Martha, who was in the room, was looking with concern and pride at his effort. Mary, as usual, was not visible.

As soon as everyone saw the Twelve and Jesus, the atmosphere, if possible, grew even more tense. Though Martha had evidently made careful selection among the guests from Jerusalem to be certain that there was no one who would immediately rush out and denounce Jesus on sight, it was still common knowledge that his whereabouts was to be reported to the authorities as soon as he set foot in Judean territory, and there was always a danger that someone might do something untoward. But no one made a move. Martha had been most judicious.

Lazarus greeted Jesus politely--what else could he do?--but since Jesus was not high society, he looked at him with a loathing that made his position on resurrection perfectly clear, and nodded perfunctorily to the twelve Emissaries (to whom he had always paid scant attention in any case), and then turned back to one of his banking companions from the city, evidently resolved to act as if Jesus were not there, and letting Martha who was responsible for this debacle, make the best of it she could. Martha's attitude indicated that what she wanted was for the Emissaries to be present for some reason, and she evidently had those from Jerusalem in order to prevent Lazarus from rushing away as he might well have done in other circumstances.

Fortunately, neither Jesus nor--what was more perilous--any of his Emissaries started any controversial conversation; and the others put a face on things whenever it was necessary for any in the two groups to mingle, which they did as little and as briefly as possible. There was a certain bemusement on both sides that the two groups would have been invited together; both thought it was a social blunder on Mary's part, who presumably had wanted to unite those who had come to the tomb with Lazarus' savior, not realizing that what had happened at the tomb was as forbidden as mentioning the name of the One who had effected the deed.

Mary had come in, rather shyly, around this time, and helped Martha to place the guests on the dining-couches , with those from Jerusalem lying at all the high places around the outside of the U of the table (the serving was done from inside)--to the left and right of Lazarus, who would, of course, as the master of the house, be at the center of the curve. Jesus and the Twelve were seated in the lowest places at the table, but given what Jesus had taught about such things, they were not in much of a position to complain.

At least Jesus was lying at the arm of the table in front of Lazarus (though it meant that he had to tip his head to look at him); it would have been a distinct insult if Lazarus had not been facing in his direction. Thomas was beside Matthew on the low end of the other side, Nathanael opposite him, beside James the Owl.

Martha and Judith with the servants served the dinner; and again Mary absented herself. Matthew had tried to catch her eye earlier, but she had been very preoccupied with something-or-other, and left as soon as she decently could.

Martha had just taken in some dish to serve, when Mary, with a look of anguish and sorrow, rushed into the room, looked about as if distraught, and said, "Master! Forgive me!" and rushed to his feet, which, like everyone's, were hanging over the outside edge of the dining-couch on which he was lying. She broke the neck of a bottle of nard and poured it over them, kneeling and wiping them with her hair. Everyone, Matthew especially, was paralyzed with shock. This was a reenactment, for some reason, of what they all knew had happened at the house of Simon the Pharisee in Magdala.

What was she doing? Did she want forgiveness for what Judas had done to her, thinking that she had cooperated with it? Judas had a way with him, did he not? He played on Nathanael's fears, and he toyed with Mary's lust, while he had his way both times. Nathanael wanted to stand up and denounce him.

But he was too much of a coward to do anything but watch the melodrama. Mary seemed to be acting at first, which puzzled Nathanael, but then it became real, as if she had suddenly wondered whether she had been as unwilling for Judas to have her as she had thought at first, and really needed Jesus's forgiveness all over again.

The scent of the perfume filled the whole room, as it must have done in Magdala, and there was total, stunned silence, except for her weeping, as he had been told there had been then.

"Why this waste?" came a scornful voice, shattering the stillness. It was Judas. What? Would he brazen it out?

Mary froze and now there was not a sound at all.

Apparently he would."Why was this perfume not sold?" he went on. "It would have brought three hundred denarii, and we could have given the money to the poor."

Jesus looked over at him, with a momentary flash of disdain, swiftly overcome. Then he said, in a gentle voice, "Let her alone. Why are you pestering her? She has done a me a great kindness." He looked down at her. "She is preparing me for my burial. You always have the poor with you; you will not always have me." Then he looked around the room. "Amen I tell you, whenever the good news about me is reported in the whole world, what she has done this day will be told in memory of her."

As he was speaking, there was a sudden stirring. Mary looked up, and everyone's eyes focused on Lazarus, his face ashen, rising from the table and rushing out of the room. Mary leaped up and ran after him. In the room, people began getting up and there was general consternation.

There was a movement to try to follow him, and then people began to think better of it, and a few blocked the door. And then, from the other room, suddenly there were women's screams and sounds of fighting, which went on for a considerable time. Judith had apparently attacked Mary, from what could be gathered, and Martha had joined in the melee.

After what seemed an hour, but was probably only a few minutes, Lazarus' voice rose above the tumult. "Judith! Judith! Judith! Stop! Stop!"

Immediately, everything ceased. There was a dead silence both in the room where the fighting had been going on and in the dining room.

Lazarus' voice came again, too soft for words to be audible, and then there was the sound of Judith sobbing and muffled words, as if she were speaking into cloth.

After another, rather briefer silence, Lazarus spoke again and she answered, more distinctly now but still too faint to for anyone to understand what was being said. :Lazarus said something else, rather more at length, and then she replied, with something that sounded like, "Dear dear Lazarus, I did not dare!"

Judith? "Dear Lazarus?"

Nathanael was stunned. Judith was in love with Lazarus, of all people, and Lazarus evidently had deigned to notice her! Perhaps this was what he should pay attention to! This might be the straight line that was made with the crooked ones! Lazarus's death has not brought him to his senses, but this had! This bizarre farce, with all sorts of levels of meaning!

--Well, as it turned out, at least somewhat more to his senses than he had been. To make Lazarus a rational individual would be to create a completely different person. To be sure, the Lazarus who emerged after a short interval was in some sense an entirely different person either from the one who had entered that room of mayhem or the one they had seen earlier in the day. But he was still recognizably Lazarus. He was--of all things--secretly elated about something--obviously about Judith's caring for him, calling him "dear dear Lazarus." Lazarus, smitten with someone else beside himself!

He announced to all that he was sorry to have disturbed the party, but that there had been a slight accident that he had been able to take care of, and now everything would be all right; that no one was really hurt, but that it was better, all things considered, for the women to remain in seclusion for the rest of the day--and, in short, he begged their pardon for suggesting that it might be well to put an end to the festivities.

They all pronounced that they understood perfectly, though not one of them--except Nathanael and possibly Thomas--could make head or tail of it. What bewildered them most of all was the contrast to what he had been just moments before. All, including Jesus and his Emissaries, left with a minimum of fuss, a few of the banking friends asking Lazarus when they would see him in Jerusalem, to which he replied, "Soon. Soon. Very soon, in fact." They seemed gratified with his response.

They went back to the camp at Ephraim, where Ezra came over, all eagerness to find out what happened. When Thomas told him, he called Nathanael over and laughed a great laugh, and said, "He certainly has a wonderful sense of humor, has he not, in addition to all his other qualities! Thomas, there is hope for you yet! There is hope for all of us!"

"Dear God! I hope I will not be made a laughing-stock!"

"Never fear. If you are, you will enjoy it as much as everyone else. Wait and see."

Talk about miracle-worker! Perhaps he would become King after all! If he could do this, he could do anything! And he had rebuked Judas, and let him know that he knew, but implied that he was willing to forgive him. Perhaps he could even turn Judas's perverted mind around!

Amazing! Incredible! Wondrous! There might be hope after all!