Chapter 3 - Desert
I was alone in the desert and dizzy with hunger. I felt light-headed and hadn't eaten anything in three days. During the day, it is hot there. The earth covered with yellow sand, chalk, and gravel smelled hot, and I sought shelter in a cave near a gorge with a spring at the bottom. At night, I slept under the bare sky on a piece of camel skin. Shortly before dawn, I suddenly awoke. In the distance before me could be seen the dark gray outlines of mountains, and the constellation Axis was in predatory anticipation of something, just as in the times of the ancestor Job.
'I must seek solitary seclusion so that nothing can interfere with my prayer,' I had said to people. They were waiting for me an hour's walk west, on the border of the desert, in someone's orchard. Among them were my two new wives. They would soon give birth. I did not know how many children I had at that time. It was a coming and going of women with us.
'One day, this stony earth will be a sphere of love for the people of Israel, and we will discover the unquenchable fire of truth.' What an empty, pompous becoming, I thought, as I gazed up at the night sky, but if you put such things in front of the people, propping them up with the prophecies of the inspired prophets, you can get the crowd in tow for anything, even for yet another revolt against Rome, which was bound to be a fiasco. Amusing.
Just as my round-woven chiton had no seams, so what I told people had to have no weaknesses. I had finally mastered the art of the orator, the chief craft of modern man. The world has changed dramatically recently, and people are yearning for something new. I felt this all the more clearly because I was not in one place but knew what people were saying, the thousands of people throughout the Jewish land.
I had taken a few slices of ginger with raisins to the desert; I broke off some of that occasionally and chewed on it when I couldn't take any more. I had just gotten used to eating my fill and gained a little weight. I paid for virtually nothing; my people bought everything (and occasionally stole). All that was required was maintaining a sense of guilt and willingness to repent. In the process, I had grown a little tired of my regular entourage by now. Moreover, my reputation as a teacher had to be validated not only in verbal duels with scribes but also in deeds, such as a short trip through the desert, which many great teachers did. That is why I was in that desert.
And yet I had a great appetite...
I wondered what David kept himself alive with when hiding from King Saul in the desert.
I started thinking about food. I shouldn't have done that, shouldn't give in to the temptation to dream away at the thought of good food. After all, I had come to the desert to pray. But...
The tender goat meat sizzling on a casserole with saffron, pepper, and shaved nuts...
I thought, to get rid of that goat meat with saffron, direct Thy gaze upon me...! Why is Thou hiding from me? What are Thou waiting for?
But all around, it remained silent; there were no ordinary night sounds because there was no grass growing on the naked stones, no cicadas in them, and no other small creatures. Nor did you hear the cries of birds feasting on these little creatures... A perpetual soundlessness, filled with wisdom, with wisdom that was useless to anyone because it was impossible to fully share it anyway.
There was no sound. If only a jackal had howled! If only ghosts of terrible, unforgotten sins had wandered about.
Suddenly, I developed an irrepressible craving for a simple, fresh meal: finely chopped endive parsley and onion seasoned with honey, salt, vinegar, and oil. Served with a piece of sheep's cheese. And prepared by the tawny hands of a young blue-eyed Jewess from a distinguished family ... from a girl who had joined us but had not yet been spoiled by anyone in my entourage.
I wanted to drink a glass of jain jasjan, a piece of oven-cooked lamb cut off with a thick sauce of grape syrup, like clotted blood. I was craving olives on vinegar...
Or just fresh-baked cereal with oil on top!
The hermits of Qumran spent their entire lives in the desert. Were they not the true ascetics? Then what was I? A pathetic dreamer who pretended to be the herald of truth. But if I could give people hope, I had to.
What was the point of being in the desert just for the salvation of your soul?
Sometimes, I thought with dismay that man's whole life was exclusively subordinated to food as if the chains of exciting events—birth, death, triumph, and love—were only necessary for the periodic appeasing of hunger. Reportedly, even the renowned poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus stated that he lived primarily for growing basil and cabbage.
I lay under the heaven of the prophets and saw smoked beef ribs, bean soup with onions and spices, fruit pies, warm unleavened bread with a honey paste of almonds and pistachios ... one feast after another passed by my mind's eye.
Food! The enjoyment of food! Even Moses sang about the honey that oozed from a rock and the oil from a cliff of flint before his death. And also about the foaming juice of the grape.
I heard a kind of slapping and gurgling, the growling of a tame leopard and the tinkling of its chain; I saw naked slaves carrying baskets of rose petals to scatter them on the marble floor between the pillars, and there, in the clouds of these petals, began a frenzied sexual intercourse, with the rapid succession of prodigious asses, buttery well-being. And immediately to the noisy outpouring, eating, eating...
A boys' choir sang to me!
No, no, it was the dead reverberation of the desert. No wonder Elijah wanted to die of despair, sitting under a juniper bush.
"My God! I shouted with all my might. 'I am here, alive, I am honest, Lord! I am a real person, don't you understand that? What is this curse? Why doesn't anything change? Open my eyes!
How many of these cries had not swallowed up the desert of Judea? But I stood resolutely on my mat and went down on my knees, hands folded on my chest in prayer. I was convinced that something would be revealed to me here and now.
I peered tensely ahead of me and upward, awaiting the divine presence, when suddenly the stony desert lit up. However, the sky remained dark, and the moon extinguished as if Apophis had swallowed her. Out of nowhere appeared a creature that looked like a human being coarsely sculpted out of dough. Or like a white-bloated mummy. Its head looked like a ball of curved glass instead of a face, in which my little mirror image flashed. The mummy moved unusually slowly, lingering in the air for a moment after each step, carrying in her hand a thin rod with a rectangular piece of cloth with purple and white stripes and stars on it on a deep blue background, but not with six points, as in ornaments of the Temple, but with five rays.
I stiffened, trying not to give myself away. I experienced no fear, and the mummy paid no attention to me, or she did not see me, which was more likely. She planted her staff before me among the stones, the enigmatic, colorful fabric curiously retaining its sprawling state despite no wind. The mummy began to move away with fluid steps as if weightless. Attached to her back was a kind of white box. I looked after her, and it seemed to me curiously that the whole world was suddenly an extinct mass of stone, as on the second day of creation.
The fifth day in the desert dawned. Across the naked hills, I walked back to the people; I could no longer stick there; I might go mad or be captured by Bedouins who would enslave me. I might weaken so much that I would find no strength to return... I might prey on the disciples who could turn up in these parts.
My people would naturally look for me,
But would they find me, too?
What did my nightly vision mean? Has it been a dream? Of which no trace had been left in the dust? Who was this noiseless being, swollen up like a drowning man? It had meant no harm to me and had done its thing but for the sake of what forces? But it was a good sign. Maybe you can't call it a true revelation, but this wasn't bad either. What this white, elegantly floating mummy had done was reminiscent of ... the affirmation of victory. Perhaps it was the triumph of the spirit over the body?
The sun rose higher, and the shadows of the rocks grew slower and shorter, obeying the eternal rhythm that made all that lived dance to the inexorable whistle of death. I walked to the west, across the barren, barren earth. Still, once a year, even there, the miracle took place: on those rare days in spring, when it rained on the heights near Jerusalem, the desert underwent a transformation, the racket of life sounded from the gorges, then streams of water rushed forth, and the whole area was covered for a short time by tender greenery.
Likewise, once the heavenly floodgates open, we, vagabonds and troublemakers of the soul, become the ones they are. We discover ourselves, and to our glory, the fragrant vapors rise. We are with ourselves; alone is the glory of all the world's kingdoms. We need only a splash, a drop of boldness, and the rocks around us turn into loaves, and on the withered wood of soulful faith, the white and pink flowers sprout.
On my return from the desert, I learned that my fiery friend John, who had stirred up the waters of the Jordan, had been taken into protective custody by order of King Herod and was in prison at the fortress of Macheron. It saddened me, but I had to hand it to his oppressor, Herod, who had long stood idly by. Why had John publicly accused the king of seducing his brother's wife and marrying her after sending his wife into the forest? What did we have to do with such passions? Herod was a weak king with no real power, enslaved by his dependence on Rome, and made his history with his wives. Now, have to be hung on the great bell? Every day, things happen in Palestine, and the mere thought was horrifying, but God's wrath had been directed at poor Herod through John. That was as obtuse as lashing out with a sword at the rooster who gave his chickens a turn.
