Seven

'Yes, well,' said Nathanael, "I am--somewhat--of a new man, as I said. At least, I am learning."

"He must be a miracle-worker!"

"Oh, he is, Thomas. He is."

"But then if he saves me--" He paused. He looked as if he were not all that sure he wished to be saved. From Samuel, perhaps, but from the drink? Just as Nathanael wished to be saved from his fears--or at least not let them dominate him--but not if it meant going through this again. He could never go through this again. He wondered if he would wake up screaming on the morrow, as he had done so often as a child.

"I know," he said, "It is frightening."

"I cannot do it, Nathanael. Bring me back and let me die! I do not deserve to live--worthless."

"Thomas, Thomas, be not afraid. You are not worthless; you may be worth much. You have an acute mind. You may do great things yet."

"Great things? I? Absurd! Need drink!"

"It will not be much farther, and then we can get you some water."

"Not water! Wine. Magic liquid!"

"Magic liquid?"

Thomas suddenly became conspiratorially quiet. "Ssh! Secret!"

"I know not what you are saying, Thomas."

"Secret. Forget I spoke. Need wine."

"I cannot give you wine, Thomas. It will kill you."

"I know. Want it. Need it. Want to die."

"Speak not thus. All will be well; you will see."

Thomas began to laugh. "All well? How? Bring back Samuel--but not thus!" he pointed. "Bring back father, mother, boat!" He broke down in tears. "No father, no mother, no brother--no twin--and all will be well? Cannot even fish! Can do nothing! All well?" And he cried and cried.

Absurd. Absurd. But was there hope? "I know not how, Thomas, but he does, I am sure. Why would he have sent me to you if it were not so?" Oh, let it not be absurd. Let this glimmer of hope not be a delusion!

Thomas now began to struggle in a feeble way, trying to turn back, but Nathanael held him too close and kept, as gently as he could, prodding him on. The crying gradually subsided. "You need but see him, and you can leave if you choose. He will not force you. What have you to lose?"

"Lose? Nothing. Except my life--Except my life. Except my life."

"You will certainly lose your life if you stay here."

"Want to lose my life!" He struggled more violently.

Nathanael, in desperation said, "You will not lose Samuel haunting you! And it will grow worse."

"Saml? No! No Saml!"

"Then come with me to see Jesus. It is but a few steps more." Thomas relented somewhat and let himself be led stumblingly on, until they reached a house.

"He is staying at the moment with Simon Barjona," said Nathanael, "who met him in Judea somewhere. Simon is out fishing, I believe, but the Master told me he himself would be here."

He knocked, and a woman beyond middle-age, but not yet really old, answered the door. "Is Jesus within?" asked Nathanael. "I bring him Thomas, as he--as he requested."

The woman waved them inside, with a strange look at Thomas, who, though he was clean and dressed more elegantly than he had ever been in his life, still gave the impression of extreme dissipation. This was accentuated as Thomas screamed in horror while he watched Samuel float in beside them through the wall. The woman, put her hand in front of her mouth, and, without a word, disappeared into the recesses of the house.

There emerged to greet them a man in the very prime of life, rather taller than most, and very muscular, as if he had spent his life up until recently in hard work. He was not striking in appearance, good-looking but not remarkably handsome. The most striking thing about him was his air of being in complete control of himself, and--one got the impression, somehow--in control of whatever he surveyed. He smiled at Nathanael, and said, "So soon? Well done."

"Ezra knew where he was," Nathanael answered.

"Yes, Ezra would do so. He is not with you?"

"He will be here soon. He is clearing up the place where Thomas stayed."

"Ah." He turned to Thomas, "And so you are the twin."

"He stands there beside you!" said Thomas, pointing.

"Thomas," said Jesus, "you cannot think in the state you are in, especially with that deception your mind places on you. I would have you follow me if you would be willing, but for you to choose, you must be free. Would you have me free you from the curse you have brought on yourself?"

"I wish to die."

"I can tell you that that would not free you from the curse, but only make it a thousand times worse. Let me free you from Samuel and heal your mind, and then we can talk."

"I am afraid. I cannot--" and his voice trailed off. Nathanael looked over at him as he vacillated--and thought of his own vacillation as Samuel lay under the boat.

"Fear not. Trust in me. Can you trust in me?"

Thomas, who was trembling less now, could not meet his eyes at first, but finally looked up. "You can send Samuel away? In truth?"

"In truth."

"Will go mad if he is not sent away! I am mad!"

"Trust me."

Thomas was silent for a long time, and finally blurted, "Then do it! What choice have I? I will go mad!"

Jesus put his hands on Thomas's head, and the trembling stopped. "He has gone!" he exclaimed. "He has gone! He has gone! O Thank you, Master!"

"I freed you from your curse, Thomas. You will find that you have no need for your 'magic liquid' or wine, but--"

"You know of the magic liquid? How?"

"Let us simply say that I know."

Thomas whirled to Nathanael, "You told him!"

"Thomas, how could I have done? I knew nothing of it until you mentioned it. I still have no idea what it is. How or when could I have told him?"

"Nathanael, would you ask Leah to prepare a little something to eat." said Jesus. "Not much. He has not eaten in a long while, and too much at once would do him harm." Thomas looked as if he just realized how hungry he was.

Nathanael left the room hurriedly, approached the woman, who was behind the doorway, listening with wide eyes, and asked, "Have you anything to eat? Very little, if you please. We do not want to make him ill." She bustled off to the back and, without saying a word, handed him a plate with some fish, a bit of bread--fresh bread--and a cup of water. Thomas, also silent, nodded thanks to Nathanael and Jesus, and gulped down a huge draft of the water, almost choking on it, and then rather gingerly began to eat the bread and fish. The silence lengthened during this time, until all was gone (he still appeared hungry) and he looked up.

"I have freed you from your need for strong drink, Thomas," said Jesus, as if nothing had happened, "but you will still have the desire. It will not overwhelm you if you keep your trust in me, but that does not mean that it will be easy. But know that if you begin to drink strong drink or wine again--unless I expressly permit it--you will once more be where you were but a moment ago. It is poison, and you have been poisoned. The poison has created in you a need to live poisoned. That is what I have taken away. But it will try to tell you that living a life of being poisoned is desirable. It will try to seduce you. Remember Samuel--and trust in me."

Thomas thought once more, and replied, "I suppose. But I cannot do it--I know I cannot. But you can, you say. And you may be right--you must be right--I hope." He thought once more, and then said, "But again, what choice have I?"

"Well, you do have a choice. You can go back. You will always have that choice."

"A choice that is no choice. But what am I? I am a twin that is no twin, a son that has no father or mother, though they live still, a man that, though he looks like a man with these clothes and this scent, has no humanity. I am a contradiction, a nothing that breathes. So why should my choice be a choice?"

Jesus smiled. " You have recovered the power to think, have you not? Trust in me and you will be great. You will be known as far away as the fabled Indies in the east, and people will pray to you until the end of time. And as I told Nathanael, you will see the heavens rip open, and God's angels going up and coming down upon the Son of Man!"

Thomas was somewhat taken aback at this effusion. "But if you know of the magic liquid, then you know that I murdered my brother. How can I--how is it--" His voice dwindled into silence again.

"I can tell you that it was the curse that killed your brother. One day you will understand. One day you will understand much about your brother, and that on the darkest day you will spend in your life--for even now you have not seen what real darkness is. But know for now that it was the curse that made you wish to be free of him--and you did not in truth wish to be free of him; and you do know that. You know it now. But you knew it even then. Why else did you fight it? But the curse made you think it was your real wish, so that it could cheat you into killing yourself also. But the curse is gone now. You are free." Nathanael thought, Then my mother has the curse; it is the curse that is doing what she does. I was right when I thought it was not her fault.

Thomas had given a small laugh. "Free. Ezra and I. But neither of us knows how to be free." None of us does, thought Nathanael. He was certainly not free from fear, though he was free--somewhat--from being incapacitated by it.

"It is not easy to be free. One must learn."

Thomas looked about him for a few moments, in a sort of surprise. "And it is true. I can actually think, for the first time in I know not how long! Amazing! But who am I? I was the twin who drank. Now I am no twin; The twin without a twin. I am nothing."

"There is much that still exists, you will find."

He looked shyly at Jesus. "Please do not think me ungrateful, but--but frankly, I know not yet whether all this is a benefit or--or perhaps merely a different kind of curse."

"Being born a second time is hard."

"It is like being born, I suppose. I feel as if I am struggling out of the womb. I feel as if I know nothing of what life is. Everything is a mystery. The future is--what?"

Nathanael breathed, "Not for you alone,"and Thomas turned to him. "I merely said that you are not the only one."

"Will you follow me?" asked Jesus.

"I know not what 'follow' means," said Thomas, and then after some silent thought, "but what else can I do? Yes, I will follow you--if I can."

"As will I," said Nathanael. "I have already taken the first step, as you see." A rather faltering first step, truth be told.

"You will find that you cannot follow me if you trust yourselves to do so. With men it is impossible. But fear not; with God everything is possible."

At this point Ezra entered, ushered in by the woman--apparently Leah--who had on her face an expression, if anything, of even more shock at seeing a black man than she evinced at first seeing Thomas. But this apparition at least did not scream, and spoke politely, if with a slight accent to his Aramaic.

"Master Thomas!" he exclaimed. "You have come back!" He beamed as he looked at him, and then turned to Jesus. "I knew you could do it."

Jesus answered, "He was just remarking that both you and he had been set free, but neither of you knew quite what to make of it."

Ezra's teeth gleamed in another of his brilliant smiles, "That is true. One dreams of it and dreams of it, but once it happens, one wonders if perhaps the old life was not more comfortable."

"It is always easier," said Jesus, "not to have responsibility for one's actions, and to have someone else to blame when something goes wrong."

"You have introduced me to a world of worry. Shall I do this? Shall I not? What happens if I do? Who am I? I now must be someone. Yesterday, I was but a--dog. A well-fed, rather pampered dog, but not really someone. When I thought of that, I wanted to run away, so that I could be someone--a person. And now that I have become a person, I know not what to do with myself."

Nathanael looked at him with surprise, "Did I in truth treat you like a dog?"

"I cast no blame on you; you could not help it, and you treated me well. You never abused me, as many masters abuse their slaves. Of course, I always did what you asked, and did it well."

"That is certainly true," said Nathanael.

"What I meant was, that I was simply--there. To do what you wanted done. Why should you have thought that I might have desires of my own, and even ambitions? I was your slave; I existed to do what you wished." Nathanael remembered Ezra looking over his shoulder as he taught Thomas to read.

But then he was struck by the implications of it; before, he had merely been amused at Ezra's attempt to keep it secret. But the man had ambitions!. "It never occurred to me!" he exclaimed.

"Of course. Why should it? A slave is a slave, not someone whose wishes should be taken into account. He is not a person; he is an animal one owns and trains. A good man does not mistreat animals, and he does not mistreat slaves. He may even have affection for them; but he does not--how shall I say it?--consult a slave, even when he seeks advice from him. Perhaps I can explain myself in this way: when Master Thomas is standing there beside you, you would never speak of him to someone else as if he were not even there, and describe him as you would speak of your donkey."

"Did I act thus?" Nathanael's face flamed with astonished shame.

"As I said, I do not blame you for it--now. If I put myself in your place, I see that I might do the same thing. And, if it is any comfort to you, it is no easier if we happened to be the same color; I was a slave in Ethiopia also for a number of years--your father bought me from my black owner--and he, of course, had the same attitude. One cannot treat a slave as a person and still own him as a slave, because if he is a person, then his own desires and ambitions matter, and that automatically means he is not one's slave. One must ignore the will of the slave in order for him to be a slave."

"Please accept my apologies," said Nathanael. "It was in ignorance I acted--There is so much of my life that I now hate!--and I find that I must learn to become acquainted with this stranger that I thought I knew! (looking at Ezra, who looked back as if to say, "Fear not; I forgive you--now.") Not to mention that I must learn to become acquainted with myself!"

"Becoming one's true self," said Jesus, "always involves rejecting and repudiating what one thought was his true self. You cannot find yourself until you cast yourself aside."

"That certainly seems to be the case," said Nathanael after some reflection, and both others nodded agreement. "But it is not merely that. I had no idea, Ezra, that you were so intelligent. I knew you were clever, but not that you were such a philosopher!"

"We all have much to learn, I think," answered Ezra.

"And Aristotle wrote that slaves were like children!" said Nathanael. "Nature made them a lower form of humanity, he said."

"Well, I know many slaves who are like children," replied Ezra, "because, since their masters never think they have minds of their own, they begin to act as if they have no minds of their own, and certainly no will of their own, because it is easier, since otherwise they are rebels, and rebellious slaves live lives of misery. So they make themselves into animals because it is what is expected of them. I was fortunate in that I was convinced I was as much of a man as anyone else, despite my condition--and my color--even if I never acted rebelliously. The Lord knew."

"He did indeed," said Jesus.

"But still, I am now an infant, learning to live."