Страница 33 из 132
“Watch out, lads,” said old Zebedee. “I bet my bones he’s the prophet Jonah. Two of you had better go help him now that Peter’s away. Otherwise, who knows what will happen to us?”
Two great colossi got up and addressed him, half joking, half afraid. “Zebedee, we hold you responsible for the consequences. The prophets are wild beasts. They open their mouths out of the blue and gobble you up to the last bone! All right, let’s go. Farewell!”
Old Zebedee stretched with satisfaction-he had managed well with the prophet. Now he turned to the remaining adopted sons. “Look alive, men, step lively, load the fish into the hampers and go around to all the villages. But be careful, the peasants are foxy; they’re not like us fishermen-we’re God’s own! Give the least number of fish you possibly can and take the greatest possible amount of wheat (even if it’s last year’s), and of oil, wine, chickens, rabbits. Do you understand? Two and two make four.”
The adopted sons jumped up and began to fill the hampers.
In the distance, behind the rocks, a man appeared mounted on a racing camel. Old Zebedee shaded his eyes with his hand and looked.
“Hey, men,” he cried, “here, have a look-do you think it’s John, my son?”
The rider was now passing over the fine sand and approaching them.
“It’s him, it’s him!” the fishermen shouted. “Welcome to your son!”
Now the rider was passing in front of them, waving his hand to greet them.
“John,” cried the old father, “why in such a rush? Where are you going? Stop a minute and let us see you!”
“The Abbot is dying; I haven’t time.”
“What’s the matter with him?”
“He doesn’t want to eat; he wants to die.”
“Why? Why?”
But the rider’s words were lost in the air.
Old Zebedee coughed, thought for a moment and then shook his head. “The Lord preserve us from sainthood,” he said.
The son of Mary watched Jacob descend with angry strides toward Capernaum; then he collapsed to the ground, legs crossed, his heart filled with grievance. Why did he, who yearned so much to love and be loved, why did he awaken so much hatred in the hearts of men? It was his own fault; not God’s, not men’s, but his own. Why did he behave so cowardly, why did he choose a road to follow and then lack the courage to pursue it to its end? He was a cripple, a pitiful coward. Why didn’t he dare take Magdalene as his wife, to save her from shame and death; and when God clawed him and commanded him to rise, why did he cling to the ground and refuse to get up? And now, why was he governed by fear and going to the desert to hide? Did he think God would not find him there as well as anywhere else?
The sun stood nearly above his head. The lamentation for the wheat had stopped. These tormented people were already used to calamities: they recalled that their wailing had never brought a cure, and were quiet. For thousands of years they had suffered injustice, gone hungry, been tossed about by forces both visible and invisible. But somehow they limped through life, always managing to make ends meet-and this had taught them patience.
A green lizard emerged from a squat bush. It had come out to sun itself. When it saw this terrifying man-beast above it, its heart took fright and began to thump, just below the neck; but the reptile nerved itself, glued the whole length of its body to the warm rock, shifted its round, jet-black eye and gazed with confidence at the son of Mary, as though welcoming him or saying, I saw you were alone, so I came to keep you company. Rejoicing, the son of Mary held his breath so that he would not frighten the visitor; but while he watched it, feeling his own heart thump like the lizard’s, two fuzzy butterflies, both black and splashed with red, fluttered down between them and flew back and forth from one to the other, not wanting to leave. They danced gleefully, frolicking in the sun, and at the very last alighted on the man’s bloodied kerchief with their proboscises over the red spots, as though they wished to suck up the blood. Feeling their caress on the top of his head, he recalled God’s talons, and it seemed to him that these and the butterfly wings brought him the identical message. Ah, if only God could always descend to man not as a thunderbolt or a clawing vulture but as a butterfly!
And just as he joined butterflies and God in his mind, he felt something tickle the soles of his feet. He looked down and saw a preoccupied swarm of fat yellow-black ants filing hurriedly under his arches. Working in groups of twos or threes, they were carrying away the wheat in their roomy mandibles, one grain at a time. They had stolen it from the plain, right out of the mouths of men, and were transporting it now to their anthill, all the while praising God the Great Ant, who, ever solicitous for his Chosen People the ants, sent floods to the plain at precisely the right moment, just when the wheat was stacked upon the threshing floors.
The son of Mary sighed. Ants are God’s creatures too, he reflected, and so are men, and lizards, and the grasshoppers I hear in the olive grove and the jackals who howl during the night, and floods, and hunger…
He heard someone puffing behind him. Terror took hold of him. He had forgotten her for such a long time, but she had not forgotten him. He could now feel her in back of him, seated cross-legged like himself and breathing heavily.
“The Curse is God’s creature too,” he murmured.
He felt completely enveloped in God’s breath. It blew over him, sometimes warm and benevolent, sometimes savage, merciless. Lizard, butterflies, ants, Curse-all were God.
Hearing voices and bells along the road, he turned. A long camel caravan laden with expensive merchandise was passing by, led by a humble donkey. This caravan must have started from Nineveh and Babylon, the rich river valley of the patriarch Abraham, and come across desert transporting silks, spices, ivory and perhaps male and female slaves to the many-colored ships of the Great Sea.
The procession filed by; it seemed to have no end. What riches these people have, the son of Mary thought, what marvels! Finally, at the caravan’s tail, the rich black-bearded merchants appeared with their golden earrings, their green turbans and flowing white jellabs. They were passing in front of him now, rolling and pitching with the swaying jog of the camels.
The son of Mary shuddered. It suddenly occurred to him that they would stop at Magdala. Magdalene’s door is open day and night and they will enter, he said to himself. I must save you, Magdalene-oh, if I could only do it!-you, Magdalene, not the race of Israel: that I ca
He looked up to see when the sun was going to set. He wanted to continue on in darkness so that he could get past Capernaum without being seen by a soul and then go around the lake and enter the desert. He was growing more and more anxious to arrive.
“Oh, if I could only walk over the waters and go directly across the lake!” he murmured, sighing once more.
The lizard was still su