Iscariot: A Novel of Judas (7 page)

I arrived early to be among those waiting when the great doors opened. To hear the first singing of the Levites as the morning offering was brought to the altar--including the first of two daily sacrifices on behalf of the Roman emperor's welfare. I watched the smoke of it coil into a formerly flawless sky.

"We sacrifice for those who enslave us," a familiar voice murmured behind me.

Simon. My closest friend. On his way, no doubt, to sit at the feet of his teacher in the porticoes.

I turned, brows lifted. "Ah, but perhaps today is the day that the Lord, moved by our keeping of the law, drives them from our land."

"I fasted yesterday. If today isn't the day, it must be your sin holding us back,"

he said, straight-faced.

"Well now you have an opportunity to pray for Rome."

His droll expression slipped away. "For Rome! When did you go mad?"

"Haven't you read the scrolls? Even in exile our forefathers were commanded to pray for those who enslaved them."

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Not that I had any intention of praying for Rome. No, never. But Simon, I knew, relied on me to give him what he loved best: a good debate.

He argued why we must not pray for Rome in low tones as we passed through the outer court. The place was in chaos since the High Priest Caiaphas had brought in several vendors from the market outside the city.

The Pharisees had condemned the move, as offended by the smell of dung as by the commerce within the Temple courts. Simon ranted about it regularly and I, too, bristled every time I saw--and smelled--it. But today nothing could touch me.

Finally I said with a laugh, "Enough! What can I say to you? You are the best of us."

Simon stopped, frowned. "Will you let me go so easily? You disappoint me, Judas."

I gestured across the courtyard. "Do you see those workers coming in? Not all of us can spend the day debating the law and dining with Pharisees.

Some of us have to work."

"Yes, you go work. I will be zealous for the both of us. Again." He kissed me and left. Simon the Zealot.

In a small subterranean room off the Wood Chamber, I prepared for the day.

For nearly a decade I had overseen the payment of stonecutters, carpenters, and artisans beneath the auspices of the treasury and an old Levite named Elias. The Temple not only employed the most skilled workers of all kinds, but was the most steady and best employer in the city. The most steady, because it was perpetually under construction all these years since its near-destruction the year of Herod's death. The best, because it paid well and at each day's end.

I, too, had been paid well all the years I had worked in my 52

office off the Wood Chamber, but as soon as my son was born I would leave my work here. Susanna's family owned an olive press and had recently begun importing olives from Perea. It was not a big venture, but successful enough for me to help her father turn additional profit with the making of several loans at interest--something I had learned from the transactions of the Temple itself. It was not something we were open about, as many considered it thievery. But it would become a good living for us both--and one day for my son.

I was content.

By mid-morning the workers were dispatched with the tokens by which they would claim their wages. The outer court was full of Jews and non-Jews alike, pilgrims buying the best animals they could afford to sacrifice, tourists simply gawking at the beauty of Herod's Temple.

I turned and looked up at the dressed stones of the sanctuary, gleaming white in the mid-morning sun. See the gold spikes along the top? I would say to my son one day. See the gold vines adorning the columns of the Temple porch? Right then I decided that as soon as my son was born I would buy a gold leaf in the market to be hung over the entrance to the sanctuary. Then, one day when he was old enough, I would point out which one was his and he would know he was a part of the most beautiful building in the world.

I fetched my mantle, ready to go home--less for the midday meal than to seek out my wife, if only to bare her shoulders and caress her swelling breasts. I would ask nothing of her in this last month of her pregnancy, and immerse later, if I must.

I had just emerged into the outer court when my young friends 53

Isaac and Levi came striding toward me. I knew the purposeful tread of that gait and groaned inwardly.

Levi grabbed my hand and kissed it--the greeting one gave a rabbi. "Blessed is the womb that bore you, Judas." I laughed and pushed him away.

Isaac kissed me in the usual way, eyes shining with the kind of zeal that only comes with youth. "Judas, you must advise us," he said.

"I must?"

"Yes," he said. "You are the most learned of all of us."

"Don't tell me. You want to know whether it's lawful to divorce your wife."

"What? No!"

"The school of Hillel says yes. The school of Shammai says no. You are a student of Shammai, so that means no for you."

Levi grinned.

Isaac sputtered, "But that's not what we want to ask you."

"It's not? And I just got those two points straight. Well then, what is it? Make it quick. I have a particularly beautiful wife to get home to."

"Tell us, Judas. What must we do to bring the coming kingdom? What must we do to be saved?"

A strange anxiety sliced through me. I glanced back at the gate--it had worn a golden eagle once. Looking back now, I half-expected to see one there again, gleaming in the sun.

Isaac pressed the question before I could respond. "Indulge us. One teacher says one thing, another something else. But what do you say, Judas? How are we to rid ourselves of Rome and be saved?"

He was staring at me, the sun ripening the fruit of his cheeks, 54

keen light in his eyes. I wondered what they would say if they knew that I resided a full week once in a grave. That my father bore the curse of one who hangs on a tree. What my mother had done to keep shelter over my head and food in my mouth. Or that she lay with a strange discharge now for months, requiring me to immerse daily so that I might be pure enough to come into the Temple at all. It was the reason I had moved us to a house with a mikva.

My whole life, bathed in impurity--I, who had once wanted to be a teacher of God's law and whom they looked to almost as the sage I had always hoped to be. I glanced down, pretended to adjust my mantle.

"Well?" Isaac said.

"You know the law as well as I. What does the Shema say?"

"That you will love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and might."

"What do the sages say?"

"To keep the law, but--"

"You see? You know as much as I." I forced an apologetic smile. "Now, if you will forgive me, my friends, I am far too distracted by thoughts of my wife, waiting for me."

I hurried home, but my desire had left me.

I returned to the Temple after eating to work through the afternoon. The last sacrifices of the day were on the fire when I left for home again that evening.

I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I didn't notice the figure that fell into step with me until he clasped me by the arm. Startled, I found myself looking up into the face of Levi for the second time that day. His mantle was up over his head, and though I had known him for years, there was an unfamiliar air about him.

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"Come with me, Judas."

"Thank you friend, but I must get home."

"It won't take long. Please."

Now curious, I followed Levi to his house where his young daughters, Huldah and Mary, came running to meet him. I watched the way he scooped them up, their faces pressed against his cheek, little Mary's hair curling in his beard as he kissed her.

"Tell your mother we have a guest, that the man from Kerioth is visiting," he said.

He did not lead me up to the roof even though it was still warm enough, but into one of the back rooms where his wife brought us wine and olives.

Though beautiful, she seemed somehow wasting compared to Susanna, so lush with life even to the tips of her swollen toes. At the thought of Susanna, the desire that deserted me earlier returned.

I determined to make this visit brief.

But then, something strange: Levi got to his feet and prayed. It was not the typical prayer for wine, but the Amidah, which we prayed three times a day.

Sound the great shofar for our freedom . . . May all the enemies of Your people be destroyed . . . Blessed are You, Lord, who causes salvation to flourish.

For an instant I recalled the face of Isaac wavering before me earlier that day. How must we be saved?

"Judas, what I am going to tell you must remain between us. You must agree to this now before I speak."

"So solemn, Levi? Are you luring me into debate? Or do you mean to scold me for teasing Isaac?"

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"No," he said quietly. "No debate, and Isaac is the purest of any of us. Men like him will bring the favor of the Lord long after men like you and me are gone. No, what I'm about to tell you I could be killed for. Even hung on a tree."

I hesitated.

"Then perhaps you should not say it."

"I must. We have more in common than you can know. Swear, Judas, to keep this between us. I'm placing my life in your hands."

Curiosity. The same unrest that had gripped me earlier . . . either of these might have compelled me to answer as I did.

"I swear."

He nodded.

"What is this about?"

"A confession."

"A confession of what?"

"Judas . . . I knew you--of you--before we were friends."

"My reputation precedes me?" I said with an uneasy laugh.

He chuckled. "Yes, there is that. You are known for your scholar's mind, and even more so because you aren't affiliated with any school. You should have been a Pharisee or a teacher. What an anomaly you are! But I mean something else."

"I'm afraid you'll have to be more plain, my friend."

"Then here it is. They might call you the man from Kerioth, but I know that you came from Sepphoris before that. And that your father conspired with Judas bar Hezekiah."

Anything. He might have said anything and I would have expected it.

Anything--but that.

Was he an informant of Herod's son Antipas? Of the High Priest, 57

or the Sadducees? I stared at him, the familiar angles of his face suddenly those of a stranger.

"My father was a man of God," I said, trying to control the sudden tremor in my hands.

"I know he was."

A rivulet of sweat slipped down the inside of my tunic.

"I know, because I belong to a brotherhood born of the legacy of men like your father."

"What?"

He leaned forward, peered intently into my face. "Listen to me. The Essenes believe we are closer now to the ultimate stage of history than ever. And we believe it, too, Judas. We believe Rome's days in Israel to be numbered. We are committed to it. The time is coming."

"Who is this 'we'?"

"The Sons of the Teacher."

"Which teacher?"

Fire sparked in his eyes. "The one for whom strict adherence to the law requires rebellion. 'No Lord but God.' "

No Lord but God. It had been the war cry of Judas bar Hezekiah in his last rebellion--the same one I had meant to join so many years ago. The philosophy had been called a school. And because of it, Judas bar Hezekiah had been called in the years before his death, "Teacher."

Levi himself was a Galilean, only recently come to study in Jerusalem. It all came into place.

"The teaching lives on, Judas. In many men."

"How many rebels are there? Who is your leader?"

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Levi shook his head. "That I could not tell you even if you laid a sword against my throat. None of us knows more than a few others among us--

namely, the one we immediately report to. But I dare not even tell you his name, for his protection as much as yours. But I will tell you there are key figures among us, I do know that. This is the brotherhood that will complete the work of men like Judas bar Hezekiah, and of your father. The time is nearly here. Join us, Judas!"

I sat back and tried to calm myself. To digest Levi's revelation along with the wine that had since soured in my stomach.

"You're right. What you say could get us both killed," I said. "What makes you think I welcome this knowledge?"

"Don't you think I've seen the way you look toward the Temple, always? The way you break your back keeping the law, praying for the day that Israel is free? But there are those of us who are willing to do more than pray for it.

Your father was such a man. We, too, are committed to the coming Day of the Lord. Join us, Judas, and together we will see Israel free from Rome!"

I had never spoken of my boyhood since laying foot in Jerusalem nearly twenty years ago. Now, to have it all laid bare by a man I had known only a few short years, to have it brought to me like dung from the side of the road, like a thing flayed open to reveal the maggots inside . . .

I was trembling as I said, very quietly, "My father was killed for this cause, my brother hauled away to the slave block. That life is behind me. And now I have a son of my own on the way. I won't consign him to the same fatherless fate!"

"Judas--"

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I got to my feet, cut him short with a gesture. "I will keep your secret. But never speak to me of this again."

On the walk to my house, did the shadows turn to stare, did they chase me down the alleyway?

At home, I bolted the door. Fell back against it, sucked in a long and steady