John (19 page)

The disciples turn and walk away. When they are gone, the old fisherman rises and takes the table.

Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.

You said.

Gather up the fragments that remain.

The Apostle keeps his word to teach to Papias. When Ioseph leaves, he walks first with the young disciple down the sand in silence. The bright wind blows, the sea tumbles near. This news of Simon must cause him suffering, but Papias sees it not. There is only this calm, this exterior of serene acceptance. He is the manifest of faith, Papias thinks. This
is
faith, this quiet in grief, this coming of knowledge, understanding of divine ordinance. He can learn this from the Master. He can learn to shorten the bridge between suffering and acceptance, to surrender himself, to understand. In the Apostle there must be sorrow. He must have thought to return one day, if not with Matthias and the others, then at least with Prochorus, with Simon, with Ioseph. But now there will be only the few. It must wound him, but he bears it so.

They step into the prints of themselves moving, where an apron of surf melts into sand. Above, seabirds hang like banners on the wind.

'Great work is ahead for us, Papias,'John says at last. His voice is almost without tone. There is no excitement or anticipation, but an even sounding as if the words are stones placed carefully to step a stream. 'In Ephesus we will begin a new time of the Lord. We will bring the Word of the truth.'

'The glory is at hand, Master,' Papias says.

Still they walk. The tide touches their ankles.

'Yes, Papias. But such will not be simple. We will meet with opposition. The world may not be ready.'

The blind apostle stops. He turns towards the youngest of them, in whom lies his greatest hope. He touches the air with his hand. Papias thinks to take it, but thinks better of it. He offers only the sleeved arm. For some moments there is this wordless bridge-way between them, frail transport of love and hope and faith.

'There are others gone before us. You know this, Papias.'

'Yes, Master.'

'There will be many Antichrists who will deny that Jesus is
the
Christ, is
the
Son of the Father.'

'I know.'

'But now, Papias, now it is the last time. And though we will sojourn in a place of mistrust, of jealousy, though we will be despised and by some hated, we will know one another.' His voice has a sudden quiver in it. In his lost eyes there moves perhaps the future. Perhaps in an inner white domain he can witness their coming, see them, the Christians, and how they will be received. His hand holds tightly the other's arm.

'Papias, we will know one another. We will know one another by love. For this is his Word. We will abide in him, that when he shall appear we will have confidence. Remember this. Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knows us not, because it knew him not, Papias.'

The phrase is as a thorn at his eye. The Apostle winces.
Because it knew him not.
Through the deep layering of acceptance sings this oldest of wounds: that the world did not see. It is in him yet, this piercing. The world
knew him not.
And if it had? What history then there might have unfolded? What time of love and forgiveness? What if all had embraced him, allowed that the Father had sent his Son? What world might have been? In his mind John cannot white away the images of the thousands crucified, the roads marked with them, the thin, head-hung figures crying out from crosses in the darkening sky.
Because it knew him not.

It is the grief of love: that in finding your heart blown open, in seeing the wonder and miracle of another, that this is not perceived by all. The love was not shared. The multitude that followed the signs was turned aside. They spat on him John loved. The wound leaks an old bitterness. The blind man tastes it rise and is quiet.

The seabirds come close to the two still figures, reclaiming their shore.

'We will abide in him,' Papias says. In his voice is a tremor, seeing a first glimpse of what lies ahead.

20

You are coming.

We go to meet you.

To prepare the time, for it is near now.

Truly, you are coming.

What turned before will turn back again. The multitude that was by the shores of the Sea of Galilee. The great number calling out your name that would have taken you and made you their king. When you left them and crossed the sea, they came after by shipping to the temple at Capernaum. They came, though already for healing on the Sabbath the Pharisees had spoken against you.

They came, their number great, their voices loud. We twelve about you in a circle. I, full of pride and love, not knowing they would turn.

I thought: your time is come. I thought: your glory has already begun.

Then said some from Jerusalem: 'Is not this he whom they seek to kill?'

And another: 'Do the rulers know that this is the very Christ?'

And above the murmuring you cried out: 'Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am; and I am not come of myself, but he that sent me is true, whom ye know not. But I know him, for I am from him, and he has sent me.'

And some pushed in the crowd to lay hands upon you, and I and James and Philip raised our hands to ward them back. But already they had sent officers to take you.

Already there was a turning.

Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go on to him that sent me.

And some said: 'This is the Christ.' But others, 'Can Christ come out of Galilee? Is not this man Jesus son of Joseph the carpenter?'

And the turning was as the sea and we upon it.

In the fall of even we went, the twelve, with you on to the Mount of Olives. But you withdrew further and we sat below and spoke of the unrest. Though the night was still and cool, I did not sleep. I watched where you sat further up on the mount, the stars about.

The early morning we followed you again to the temple, each of us knowing what talk and judgement awaited, what already was said against you. The scribes and the Pharisees brought you the woman taken in adultery, asking if you would break the Law of Moses and not have her stoned. Seeing if they might accuse you.

For now there was hatred and some who sought to kill you.

You judge after the flesh, I judge no man. I am the one who bears witness of myself and the father who sent me.

And they said, 'Where is thy father?'

You neither know me nor my father. Whither I go you cannot come. You are from beneath; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.

If you continue in my word, then are you my disciples. You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

And they cried: 'We are Abraham's seed and were never in bondage to any. How shall we be made free?'

The crowd pressing forward, James and I stepping in front of you lest they try to seize you.

Your voice crying out above the clamour. Those who shouted against you, who pushed against us. One who stepped to the pillar and called, 'See, say we not well that this is a Samaritan and hast a devil?'

The jeering. The mockery. The ones who raised their fists, sought in the ground for stones. One standing on the pillar shouting, pointing. And the first stone coming, and the great surge of the people to seize you. Philip striking out against the head of one; James with both hands outstretched pressing back a number. I pulling down one by the pillar, dragging him by his garment to the ground, falling down upon him amidst the sandalled throng, the sea of anger.

The turning.

That now will turn again.

For you are coming. Your time is at hand.

Facing the sea, John sits against the rock wall, his head back. As light into a cave, memories. Detail, words, voice. They come without summons, vivid, startling. The decades since fall away and he is returned to himself as a youth. He can see each place as if standing there again. In a grove of olive trees. On a road not far from the pool of Siloam. Whole days, sights, weathers, things he did not know he knew, or were ever in his mind. So it comes to him that such were not lost in his memory but
are gifts.
Out of the great length of time he has lived, out of the constancy of his enduring, his body has weakened, his mind been betimes unclear. But now he is lit. All is strangely clarified. He hears the words of Jesus spoken a lifetime since and knows that change is here. He hears them as if in his company again. There is a sense of nearness, and of imminence; he sits by the rock wall and suffers illumination with a pulsing joy. His blind eyes flicker as if at sights.

Papias thinks to visit Simon and Ioseph before leaving. He thinks of the contagion that killed Prochorus and now stops the two eldest from joining them. Is it my fault? Is it of the air or the flesh? Is it me? Should I have told Ioseph I would stay in his place? I should. It was cowardly not to. Why did I not speak up?

In the cave he gathers and wraps in cloth a few precious things they are taking: two chalices, scrolls, three oil lamps.

What stopped my tongue? Why am I so weak?

Is it simply that I fear death?

Is my faith that small?

Or is it just that I want fiercely to go to Ephesus? To be there when he comes? To witness?

Is my vanity that great?

Papias sickens his spirit with questioning. He has so anchored inside him the elemental prime desire — to be good — that his failure twists in his stomach like a rag rope, leaking loathing, sour, fetid. Goodness — not the act of it, not an incidence considered and carried out, but a constant way of being — is his goal. Papias considers this an answer to heaven, a cry of gratitude for his creation; we should live in the image. We should be as near angels. Imperfection is in each of us, but this we can strive against until our flaw is so near to healed as to show the glory of living, what we can become. Goodness, to be good. Can a man not be good all the time? If not, then we are greater flawed and thus the Creator lessened.

In Papias imperfection is a grievous failing. It rises from his spirit on to his skin. He finds an itch behind his left shoulder blade; at a site he cannot see he scratches roughly. In the cool of the cave he feels hot. He needs water. He hurries the readying of the things so he can go outside.

The Apostle sits in reverie. The day is bright and blown stiffly.

'If you do not need me to attend you, I will go to the well and fill water bottles for the journey,' Papias blurts.

The old man turns his sky-tilted head, his pale eyes. Perhaps he already knows the other's inner condition. 'Go, Papias,' he says. 'Go with peace to get the water.'

The sea is high, the waves white. There is the rolling turbulence of spring, the restless energy of the world returned. He hastens along the wind-way, the water bottles on their cords knocking. The furious itch does not quiet. He walks, chin-in-elbow, with his right hand over his shoulder scratching, so it seems from behind he is drawn forward one-handed by an otherwise invisible other. He shortens the route by cutting upwards across the rock slope, needs both hands to clamber forwards over a steep incline, then again scratches as he stands upright on the high point. The island is all below him. And for the first time since the Apostle's announcement, Papias realises he may not see it again. He has been here and nowhere else as a Christian. It has become even a place of comfort, because here the community dwelled as one without significant interference from others. For all its harshness Patmos has been home. He knows its contours, its goat paths and water holes. Ahead there is only the unknown. He might have taken more time to consider this, but his face is hot and flushed, a cold tide of sickness in his stomach. He needs water. Even the wind blowing against him as he crosses the high rock cools him not. What if I, too, have the contagion? What if it is in me and I gave it to the others and now bring it with us to Ephesus? What if I pass disease to the Apostle, bring about the death of all of us, the end of Christians?

Thrice he strikes his hand hard against the itch in his back and shouts out against its persistence and intensity. He flails at the itch with his nails. What heats so in my blood? Is there a bite? Vividly he sees a night serpent cross the cave floor to his bed mat, stealth and slither, the head finding access in the low back of his robe.

'There was no snake. This is not a snake. Don't be a fool, Papias,' Papias says aloud. He licks at his dry lips, palms a pasty sweat from his forehead, and suddenly feels pulsing pain where his ear has been bitten. He touches it tenderly, as if its healing is turned backward and the ear grows raw and bloody again. As if what goodness was in him is now overcome. He begins to run.

He runs across the top of the island like one who would take flight if not for the absence of wings. He runs against the wind, his long legs clapping his sandals against the rock. He comes breathless and wild to the water hole. It is a dark cleft. A bucket is left. He throws down the water bottles and falls to his knees. He scratches furiously over his shoulder, then takes the bucket and dips it. He draws it back quickly; it cannot come quickly enough. His eyes are blurred. The thing that eats at his left shoulder ravages away, and his head is so hot he thinks in a moment it will flame. He moans with defeat, clasps the bucket, and brings it full to his face. He pours the water into his mouth so it fills and overflows and washes past him down his throat and chest as he gulps. He empties the bucket on to and into himself, drops it and draws it again. His hands are trembling, his arms; the whole of him pitches in shakes. Papias takes the next and again drinks furiously. He is awash in water, his knees in pool. He opens his mouth a wide chalice and fills it, letting overrun before drinking. He cannot drink enough. The water hole itself he will empty. He wants to be inundated, to have all that is within him sluiced, laved. Again and again he drops the bucket to the water. Again and again, from his position on his knees he pours it into and over him. His face and hair, his chest and torso drip. He pulls back the opening of his robe and then roughly draws it off him. He is naked in the wind. The bucket he fills once more. Once more he gulps, his throat aches under the deluge, but he cares not. He tilts the bucket into him. Is there end to what man can take of water? Papias thinks not. His eyes weep it, his body bucks with the assault, but still his thirst. It will not be slaked.