Chapter 24 - The Clergy

I led a quiet life in Capernaum, but the wild rumors about me did not quiet down. It was as if something like a fairy spirit was riding along the roads and doing something every day in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. People poured in from Dekapolis, Judea, Phoenicia, Macheron, and Massada. They came riding on donkeys or approaching in boats.

Most of the people, of course, came from Galilee and neighboring Samaria. And almost all of them wanted to get something. Bring something. Pocket healing, and for the rest, the whole treacherous healthy world bubble disappears into Tannin's meal. Aprim, my teacher of medicine, was right when he said that a man in his sickness was either holy law or thinking only of himself and willing to strangle his neighbor for his betterment. Usually the latter, of course.

I understood that my name was beginning to take on a life in people's imaginations. Still, the Jewish people should have known for once how I sometimes hated those same people.

Somewhere beyond Gegresa, beyond the mountain range, not the via Regia that led from Egypt to Damascus and beyond, to the ancient city of Retsef. One time, my timer came with a tall Ethiopian hotshot with a neglected tumor in his abdomen. Slaves had lugged him a thousand and a half stadia; he came to me from the kingdom of Aksum across the sea from Eritrea. Much of the Rijsbosch traveled with the ship now waiting for them in the port of Etsion-Hevera.

He was so weakened that he could barely speak, and the heavy gold signet rings fell from his barren brown fingers.

Through an interpreter, he told me that he was a descendant of King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (and thus was from the same tribe as me). But that was hard to believe, looking at his black, wrinkled face with floppy ears—just like the irony of an old monkey. The only thing was that his skin was slightly lighter than that of most Ethiopians.

I could no longer help him. His servants carried him to the city; a few days later, he was dead, having found a last refuge among the fishermen and gardeners of Capernaum.

How had he heard of me? Probably from a Jewish merchant who visited tracts of land in search of cheap elm bone, leopard skins, ebony, and rare olfactory substances.

One time, they arrived with a young man with progeria. Reportedly, with this disease, you rarely made it to 10 years old, but this one was 20. His body was aging at breakneck speed, and he looked like a pilgrim from another star where time had gone faster. I rubbed his forehead and hands with aromatic oil, which was all I could do. Old age is incurable, even if it is premature.

Often, people came with dying children. I only came to save a few, and one of them was a heavy-breathing whitehead from the north; his throat was inflamed, and therefore, a fish had formed in it that I pierced with my finger. But always when I saved a child, even though it happened so rarely, I felt guilty because I was condemning it to life: perhaps God had sent this soul to earth for one last time by way of punishment, and then I made sure that this punishment continued to the end, so that these people learn the endless pain of the world, drank this goblet to the bottom.

After all, the most surprising thing that existed in Macon was the realization of the reality of your own flesh and blood striving regardless of your will for only one thing, to disintegrate into atoms and sink into the Apeiron, into the impersonal over substance, as defined by Democritus of Abdera, at least if the copy of this teacher's Greek text that I got my hands on had been faithfully copied.

And, of course, the old people of Capernaum shuffled in daily, one with pain in his back, another suffering from insomnia. Against these and other trivial ailments, herbs offered relief. I picked them in the meadows around Capernaum, went to dry them in the barn, rubbed them, and mixed them. Wild marjoram against Asthma. A decoction of zoeta worked soothingly. Of withania at the loss of male vigor... Fenugreek, mint, poppy seeds...

Sunlight had harmful effects on many plants, so they had to be dried in the shade. In contrast, hyosciamus, thorn apple, and belladonna had to be picked even at night to not lose their properties.

From the dried offshoots of the plum tree, silver fir, and pine, rubbed with garlic and drawn on wine, you come to make good poultices against sores and warts.

Trying to compose the new medicines from pulverized stones, organs, and animal blood, I figured out that the powder of dried black cockroaches was unbeatable for dropsy, while the powder of ladybugs was for toothache.

Beeswax healed burns, but only if it was fresh, of a yellow color; old, darkened wax proved unsuitable.

For people with joint pain, I recommend taking the boat to the healing hot springs of Hamat-Gader. It is a half-day boat ride from Capernaum with wind.

Bruises, fractures. It was nice when a bid at a fracture wasn't exposed. Dislocated arms and legs I lasted back, broken bones I splattered with two planks that I tied together with a rope. Some stupid healers worked fractures with a powder made of animal bones, but that had never helped anyone and only worsened the healing process, so I never did that.

I had copper sticks with a hook at the end with which I pulled teeth and molars and a small sharp Egyptian knife with a handle of nephrite with which I opened and cleaned wounds. I always held these instruments over the fire before use to remove the dirt from them, including dust and grease particles, from touching my hands.

Sometimes, I caught frogs, burned them in a campfire, and sold the frog ash to women, who used it to remove unwanted hair on legs and other body parts. I also advised women to drink an infusion of parsley for irregular cycles.

Against hemorrhoids, candle wax made from equal parts gray Egyptian salt, bovine bone marrow, figs, and olibanum helped.

I knew for sure that medicine was the ability to adopt the beneficial effects of nature. Therefore, if you want to succeed in it, you should emulate nature and not people, even if they are reputed to be excellent physicians. 'Ask the cattle, and it teaches you, to the birds of the sky, and it announces it to you,' said a Jew in ancient times, and he was right.

We no longer traded KIF because we owed Venedad 10 starters, were in no hurry to return them, and had nowhere else to get KIF.

One warm day, I was lounging by the lake under a pistachio tree, trying to read the words that floated before me in various directions: they were the fragments of human lives, of specific complaints and allegations, fragments of ecstatic prayers, pleas for help, inscrutable commentaries on sacred texts, cures previously unknown to me using poisons, and long passionate letters from the living and the dead, filled with pain. I understand the perfect language in which everything was revealed; this is how he had to have been before the Migdan bavel. Then I suddenly realized that I also saw my own life, expressed in numbers and letters; I eagerly sent after it and saw the Hellenic word kopssav with the Indian numeral 13 next to it (this counting wise I had learned from a wandering Brahmin from Benares). The Hellenic word flared a red light, the number three began to move, his curls resembled a human outline, and I understood it was the venerable high priest Joseph Caiaphas himself. The 1 in his hand appeared to be a staff of black wood.

At that moment, Simon woke me up. He reported that two clergymen from Jerusalem wanted to speak to me.

'They are waiting for you in the synagogue, Jesus,' said Simon excitedly, 'and they have a bodyguard. It's better if you don't go. Let's take the boat and experience; after all, you don't have to expect anything good from Jerusalem.'

I reasoned that if they had wanted to pick me up, they would have come to the lakeside unexpectedly while they were now sitting neatly in the synagogue; therefore, it was foolish to flee. Without much pleasure, I went after these guests, asking myself why Caiaphas, whom I had never seen before, had appeared so clearly in my dreams. I remembered his face, with an attractive, well-fed beauty capable of ennobling any vice.

Andrew and Philip were not there; Judas only helped the fishermen cast their nets from the boat. Simon and Matthew went with me to the synagogue.

Incidentally, third parties did not let them in. The clergymen wanted to speak to me without witnesses present; only Rabbi Avdon was allowed to be present, and he could hardly hide his joy as the spiritual authorities finally took an interest in me, for it was clear that the visit did not bode well for me.

The clergy had brought their servants and bodyguards. This Avdon-decorated delegation had taken up residence near the synagogue, where important guests were usually accommodated. There was also a horse stable there. From the house, a beautiful shrub-lined path led through the garden to the mikva.

My disciples and the four warriors accompanying the cleric remained in the synagogue courtyard.

The two clergymen were waiting for me, seated behind a table covered with a colorful cloth specially carried into the synagogue for that purpose. Avdon stood beside them, trying to guess every desire of his guests. Their names were Elisiah and Hanoch, and they were nagids and helpers of the high priest. They enjoyed great power, especially in Jerusalem and its environs. Elisha was mature and stately and had an unusual beard, brown with an even gray in the middle, just a white streak that had just been applied to a lime solution. She said his long, expensive robe of sky blue, in his silver necklace with 12 sky blue stones, after the number of the tribes of Israel, gave him a royal allure. Still, in the hidden uncertainty, his gaze did not escape me, indicating that this sensual and probably shrewd man had arrived at his high office by chance. After all, kings and clerics were not supposed to have doubts, not about their greatness and not about their rightness, or else things would end badly for them.

Hanoch was small in stature but as much as twice as broad as Elisja, with a beard of dark copper and unusually full eyebrows from under which a pair of small and indifferent eyes peeped out as of a lizard. This man had obviously never known any doubt when he acted on behalf of Israel, which spoke from all of his stocky, white-clad stature. His face was reminiscent of a hired bailiff. Around his wrists are thin gold bracelets.

Both their heads were adorned by a kidar with many cages and in it with a sky blue thread the embroidered words "God's Sanctuary. Both were members of the holy order,

Disobedience to his judgment was punishable by death, and I understood immediately that there was no point in these people opening my veins and making me feel blood. Enough blood had flowed at their request; they were used to it.

'I welcome you, venerable nagides. You wished to see me? I asked, sitting on the east wall's small stone, rug-covered bench.

"What do you think, Jesus? Why have we been on our way here for two days? Asked Elisja.

"Just to have a little chat with the pagans of Galilee? I answered cheerfully.

Mightily slipped a hint of annoyance across Elisja's face; Hanoch's remained unfazed.

'Jesus,' Elisja said, 'I know how you can prank illiterate people, but seriously now. Your fate is being decided. Recently you have simultaneously committed some crimes in several cities; from Virsavia, you have stolen money from the congregation, and Banias, you have publicly offered a sacrifice next to the road to the damned pagan God Pan, saying that it was he who had sent you to this world with glad tidings; in the process, you have insulted the clergy. In Hebron, you held a criminal prayer meeting for Genios, threw olibanum into the fire, and made predictions based on the smoke and power of the fire. In Ejn-Gedi, you mixed an afarsemon liquor with wine, got some women drunk with it at night, and had intercourse with them in the name of the Messiah, right in the synagogue, in the process relieving and tying up the rabbi who tried to stop you. And that is only a tiny part of your crimes. We are here to hold you accountable.

'Highly honored nagides,' I said, 'you contradict yourself. You say that I did all that simultaneously in different cities. Then how could I have done that?'

'And you also summoned deaths throughout Judea and displayed your magic skills. And called for disturbances, for the overthrow of the Roman government,' Hanoch said, ignoring my question, and he added stealthily, 'Of this also High Priest Joseph has been notified, and he has sent us here.'

I was out of it, thinking they were making fun of me. We all shut up for a while, and all you could hear was the snort of the handsome Hanoch. I had to think involuntarily that he was probably playing the game of love with his wife without changing the stony expression on his face, or rather, she would ride him, given his awkward physique, and then he would lie there on his back without further participation, like a statue.

Rabbi Avdon looked at me like a hyena, intending to say something. Still, he dared not insert himself into the conversation and coughed into his fist.

'And now listen carefully Jesus,' Elisja said solemnly, satisfied that he had better impress me. 'From all this, it follows that your cream does not belong to you and harms Israel. We bet that you did not commit the crimes previously laid out and that certain crooks simply used your name. However, you are, in my eyes, an equally pathetic crook, but your fame is the chimera of a rabid bull. And that bull is you, Jesus. And what does one do with a bull gone mad...? Don't you say anything? No, because you do know that mammals must be put to death.'

Hanoch nodded in agreement as I looked past me. I had to think of a dignified answer, a justification, for this was one of those cases where words decided one's fate. I understood (and that gave me hope) that the navies did not have a ready-made verdict against me; they did not yet know what awaited me, that the Sanhedrin would have to decide the case based on the report they would make.

'Good, so let me be here then,' I said, 'but I have my own voice. I am a talking bull. You cannot deny that if only because I am speaking to you.'

'Yes,' Elisja spoke thoughtfully. 'You can't deny that. So?

'Think back, wise nagides, to the none said in the parable of the bull who had one voice in life, but after his death was given seven: His two horns became trumpets, the bones of two legs became flutes, his house was made into a drum, his large intestine turned into the strings of a harp, while his small intestines became those of the zither... I only want to say that my death will excite the people even more; new crowds will flock together from among the people who see me as a teacher who has innocently sounded the slaughter. This is the way people are: only an ordinary man has to die, and he becomes thrice pious; no one says anything ugly about him, but only a prophet has to die, or he turns into a deity. So, by condemning me to death, the Sanhedrin makes sure that this whole music sounds right up and thereby gives the venerable Caiaphas a lousy night's sleep.

When I had spoken, it occurred to me that I saw very briefly something of satisfaction on Elisja's face, which incidentally immediately gave way again to the earlier distrustful grimace. Hanoch stared unfazed before him as if he could see the unworthy outside world through the synagogue's walls.

Elisha turned his head to the local rabbi and, in a commanding tone, "Avdon, out.

The rabbi took a bow, slowly backed away toward the exit, and pulled the door firmly shut behind him.

'I will be frank with you, Jesus,' Elisja said, and his voice now sounded almost jovial. 'On the eve of Passover, you organized a pogrom at the Temple. That was you, not one of the people who spent themselves before you. You promised to destroy the Temple. Do you understand what is happening in Israel? Around us are the enemies; among us are the enemies. Prefect Pontius has ordered the accursed pagan banners of the Roman legions to be brought inside the city; he wants to confiscate possession of the temple. The crowned antipa sent a protest to Emperor Tiberius. The protest was granted, but how many Jews died in the clashes with the legionaries! To strangle us by any means possible, the prefect has introduced taxes on everything, even the sale of fruit! He still has not given up surveillance of the high priest's robe, and he justifies this with his fear that it will be stolen, but in reality it is a judicial investigation! And then you come up, a Jew, and then you said as a traitor the seed of rebellion... Destroy the temple! That was built for 46 years! And which has not yet been completed! Which even without you is already on the brink of destruction! You had better promise to finish it! Not then, come on, call it off with your own powers, Jesus, you are the Messiah after all. No, you're not a Messiah, you're betraying your homeland! The faith of your fathers! You are a blasphemer! Because the temple is all we have! And then you come, a puny, self-absorbed man... A haughty one... That is equally devastating... We have no respect for you, but people have picked up your name. And three days ago, a little boy threw himself on a legionnaire and was stabbed to death before my eyes! Of ways to lead like you! And who listens to you? Martyrs, sinners, and penitents of various kinds! You dance on until you are put to death, hung on the cross, like Shaul from Emmaus, the sorcerer and heretic!

At the end of this impassioned speech, he stood up, shook his fist in the air, and sat down again, staring ahead and up, at the round window of the North Wall, as if to call the heavens to witnesses, and I thought he had made a very bad mistake with that stabbed to death little boy bell. Unlike the sikarians, I had never called for murder, on anyone, even if the world had only not gone to ground because it still counted repentant murderers.

'Honored nagids,' I said as humbly as I could. 'God witnessed that cattle near the walls of the temple had defiled a holy place. I foolishly grabbed a leash and chased it away from there. After all, that was not even a herd for sacrifice, but for sale. So sit there so hard pressed for merit while the pilgrims selflessly brought their coins to the treasury of the temple day and night? And as for the destruction of the temple, yes, I said that. And I regret that. I was too hot-tempered, I don't want to destroy the temple, forgive me.

"Be sincere," Hanoch said, "explain to us why you said that!

And they stared at me like hyenas booty trying to get away. Silence comes, that would only increase my guilt, but my answer had to ring highly sensible, preferably in words from Scripture.

'The pace is magnificent, wise nagides, yet it is made with hands,' I spoke with a sigh. "We ourselves created our temple, which is the cornerstone of my doubt. It is no wonder it is being built on for so long. I spoke of destruction, because I have not forgotten the words of the prophet Isaiah, who said that surely God is nothing to be replaced: a graven image is the maker of the artist, and the goldsmith covers it with gold and furnishes it with silver chains, and do you really not grasp, from the foundations of the earth, that it is He who sits enthroned on the circle of the earth, and that His inhabiting Her is like the locust? He has made the firmament like a canvas and cast it out like a tent to dwell in... But who does not listen to the prophet, by investing our temple with gold, we decorate it and are like the locust in it. Therefore do we seek in it earthly beauty and earthly treasures, when we have been given the great temple of the universe, the most magnificent tent to dwell in, one that needs no adornment at all?

"Then why are you wearing a gold signet ring, Jesus? Asked Elisja.

'That is a gift from a good man,' I explained, 'I wear it not for beauty on my finger, but as a prayer, in memory of this man. I did not sell the ring, even when I was very distressed... You requested me to be honest, and I am speaking openly to you, most righteous nagids. In my mind echo like songs the truths of the holy prophecies. And why that little boy threw himself on the legionnaire, I do not know. Probably, God is saving Israel from suicides that way.

The nagids take one look at each other, apparently not immediately seeing how God's grace was reflected in this. But after all, they knew as well as I did that the Creator's word must sometimes bear more resemblance to a flat stone than to unleavened bread with lamb, on that the pain of broken teeth and molars gave men food for thought, for the thoughtless had no need of it. What sense from above cared for a sleeping vessel? Or to sleep?

"Did you hear us? Asked Elisja.

'Yes,' I said.

'Then, if you want to continue to live, get rid of your name. Then perhaps Israel will not come to get rid of you. Remember none has been said: the man who is sad, without obeying the cleric, this man will die, and thus evil will be driven out of Israel.'

Then Hanoch began a long and monotonous far yet, as if he were publicly reciting the Torah at the Feast of Tabernacles, about humility and humility, but his words were lifeless and dead dull.

Thus ended our conversation. In my exchange of thoughts with the nagids, I found further confirmation of the fact that the whole world was made up of words, that they were made only of different materials: of bone, of metal, of glass and salt, and the fate of each person depended only on how successfully he could combine these or those substances at his service, in search of the absolute matter, the password to all other words, the key to eternal life. The main thing was to get that in time before the grass grew right through you.

Further, I understand that words could not be falsehood, only strong or weak, like the various animals, poisonous like the mandrake, and useless like the vine of sodom, but absolute falsehood did not exist, because the lie that emanated from the heart always became truth. And if anyone anywhere pretended to be me and brought undeniable evil to people, I had to Leiden for his sins. What else was I supposed to do?

When I came out of the synagogue, I shared the content of my conversation with Simon and Matthew. All this time they had been standing peacefully chatting with the clergy's bodyguards; they had common acquaintances in Jerusalem.

We returned to the lake, to our barn. It was a warm evening, nor did the night promise coolness, and I installed myself for sleep in an old fishing net hung between two willows. That lay snug, and from the lake came a small, yet refreshing breeze. The shore swallows crossed, the Golden tones of the sunset giving way to brown. I wiped a strand of hair from my face, thinking that I was making this hand movement without the participation of my mind. But what did that mean? I watched the branches of the trees above me point, and I understood that the movement of my hand was as thoughtless as the movement of the willow branch. What then governs me, if I could move my hand unmindfully? I suddenly understood with a shudder that everything around was moving rhythmically, subject to the training of the strings of the cosmic harp.

'On the rivers of Babylon we sat weeping, on the willows we hung our harps,' mourned the sons of Israel proudly, but that was naïve nonsense, for no one was with Martin to silence the music of life, even if he were the Richter Samegar if need be because this music did not emanate from our harps at all, it was always there and it would always be there, even the deaf heard it. My body only shook under its dance while reason tried to watch it, looking for words. In the same way, the leg of a lamb being slaughtered shook when the butcher's heels once hit a tendon. Similarly, the wings of a dead, decaying bird deceived by the wind trembled.

In the beginning of time, God threw the harp on the earth and fell asleep like a log, but its strings sounded through itself and permeated everything. Don't wait for him to awaken. He has drunk too much for the night, enjoyed all kinds of drinks mixed together, and wakes up with evil drunkenness, and then everyone will be worse off, so let him sleep forever.

Sometimes, it was as if we could influence the world, that we had a voice or a lot of voices. Still, no matter what man did or what sacred height he ascended to in the service of his neighbor, he still would not change the sound of the sad world music, for this great man would never even understand what was happening to him. That's why he looked at that star? That's why he cratered behind his ears? That's why he closed his eyes.