The Implacable Hunter (23 page)

‘Did you know Jesus?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘What did he look like?’

‘My son, in asking such a question, always remember this: that he who inspires love is beautiful. Looking at Jesus, then, some might see a nondescript figure of a man, almost
undersized
, not much taller than yourself, standing with his hands behind him, his shoulders stooped like a slave’s waiting for a beating. And another might look at Jesus and see the Son of God with a countenance of glory, hunching himself under the weight of all the wrath of heaven, with only his back between it and the world.’

‘We shall see how you take the weight of the wrath of God tomorrow, charlatan,’ said Paulus.

‘You mean, the weight of the stones? Yes, I am very sorry about that. Still, the wine is the soul of the grape, and you can’t get it without crushing the fruit. A sowing is a kind of funereal interment of seeds, if you choose to regard it in an unenlightened way. The body is nothing in itself, really. Why do you attach so much importance to it?’

‘I?’ cried Paulus.

‘Yes, son. You are taking some pleasure, I see, in
mortifying
your own body. I can tell by your breath – if you will excuse me – that you are fasting. And I see the marks of your nails in your palms. Which comes perilously near the idolatrous vanity of self-mutilation, so rightly prohibited by Moses —’

‘Come, Afranius!’ cried Paulus.

‘Is your name Afranius?’ asked Stephanas, as they turned to go. ‘Allow me to bless you, Afranius.’

‘If it will make you feel any better,’ said Afranius.

‘Thank you,’ said Stephanas, ‘you have a kind face.’

So Stephanas blessed him. Paulus was already on his way down the dark passage. Afranius gave the jailer a piece of silver and said: ‘See to it that the poor gentleman gets a good hot supper, anyway.’

‘Oh, that’s not necessary, sir,’ the jailer said, pouching the coin nevertheless. ‘I generally get ’em something tasty and a jug of wine to see ’em over the River, if they behave
themselves
. Besides, this is the first Nazarene to die for
Nazarenery
, or whatever they call it, so it’s a kind of special
occasion
…. He won’t be wanting any breakfast anyway, sir. Friend of yours, perhaps?’

‘No, just an acquaintance,’ said Afranius. ‘Why?’

The jailer whispered: ‘Because if he was, I know a Greek who sells a Powder for two gold pieces. Take it in a mouthful of wine before you go out, and you don’t feel those stones any more than so many dried beans, sir.’

Afranius hesitated. Then – he never knew why, for it was not on account of lack of money or sympathy – he said: ‘No. He won’t need that.’

Lamely enough, he wrote: ‘There is something base in drugging a man who has made himself ready to die. It is in a way like making a virgin drunk in order to take her to your bed. Do not imagine that I was restrained by any respect for law and order. Touching the matter of which, I am glad to inform you that the dancer Selma – probably by praying in the right quarter with those unequivocal lips she spoke of – has escaped; and I wish her good luck wherever she may be, for she is great of heart!’

He added: ‘Besides, I am sure the jailer was lying – a man must be a damned rascal, or he would not be a jailer. I do not believe there is any such powder. In any case, if a man chooses to face the agony and die like a gentleman, he has the right, the inalienable right … How so be it, poppy was never pricked nor wort uprooted under Saturn that could alleviate such sufferings as were Stephanas’s when they
stoned him next day. Oh bloody, bloody rabble! A man, alone, may be sublime. In a crowd he becomes a component part of a slavering beast. A man apart may sometimes be a man. A thousand men together make nothing human …’

Strange words, these, from the gregarious, liberal-minded Afranius? But he was writing under stress of emotion. The inveterate bystander had been caught by a current and swept into the heart of the affair, and learned that the Voice of the People is the Voice of Chaos. For different kinds of men take the same ideas and passions, much as I, hating the stuff, partake of a dish flavoured with asafetida at a public dinner: to make myself stink as foul as my neighbour so that his breath will not make me sick.

I
REMEMBER
pausing, here, to ask myself: ‘Now exactly why is Afranius so disgusted?’ For disgust involves, in some tortuous way, private shame; there is no such thing as a purely objective disgust. True disgust can exist only in
connection
with guilt – it is a kind of reluctant self-castigation. It is a very personal emotion, for a disgusted man is one who smells in another something of himself that ought to have been buried. Disgust is an uncovering of a nakedness.

I read on:

A rumour that Tiberius was dead had got abroad in Jerusalem, Afranius wrote, and there were whispers –
propagated
by Paulus himself, he believed – that because of the Nazarenes and their ‘King’ Jesus, the wrath of the new Caesar would fall on the Jews. He was quoted as having said: ‘King Jesus, is it? Why, then, I’ll give these croaking frogs a King Stork – I’ll swallow them whole, the
malcontents
!’

Street-corner analysts foresaw ruinous taxation, forced labour, another Captivity. Nobody knew who this new Caesar was supposed to be, but the rumour took hold and overnight Jerusalem seethed like a cauldron. A rabbi of the tolerant school was pelted with refuse in the market-place. One group, with the tacit encouragement of some zealot nationalist rabbis, called for the blood of Gamaliel himself.

But artful, benevolent old Hagith remonstrated: ‘Good Jews, in God’s holy name, who has stolen away your reason? Pharisee, Scribe, Sadducee, Nazarene, Galilean, Jerusalemite – whatever you be, all are Jews to Rome, bless her! And to Rome this is nothing but another Jewish sectarian squabble. For your own sakes, keep the peace, and save your stones for Stephanas!’

And that is how the cry, ‘Save your stones for Stephen!’ originated, and it is used to this day in admonition, when acrimonious dissension breaks out among the sects. It was one of those little catch-phrases which, cried at the right moment, work wonders: all the terror and anger in Jerusalem seemed to run into one hot flood which directed itself against Stephanas. He, as Hagith must have reasoned, was doomed to die anyway; and the catharsis of his stoning would leave the populace flaccid for a while. Hence, with three words, he pacified a city, pleased Rome and the Temple alike and, at the same time, averted the mob’s blind rage from the
Nazarenes
and their supporters – for everyone who did not call for a general massacre of the Nazarenes was suspected of being in league with them, in Jerusalem at that time. People said: ‘We are deep enough in God’s bad books for the sins of our fathers, without incurring something extra for
condoning
blasphemy.’

So, Stephanas was taken out to be stoned.

Afranius, riding with the soldiers, felt that he was being carried, hip deep, through a clinging swill of humanity, a hot lentil pottage of round covered heads, bobbing and steaming
before and behind him; and that if he should chance to fall, only his boiled bones would be found after the mass had bubbled and hissed away. There was a strong guard at the waste-ground which was the place of execution: one of those patches of barrenness that defy both god and man,
treacherous
to the feet and murderous to the back of the wayfarer; too shifty to build upon, too shallow to till and not worth watering; perfidious by night, treacherous by daylight – a spiny, spiky, flinty place in a shallow hollow.

And here, while Paulus stood with his hands in his sleeves, the executioner Little Azrael took charge of the practical details of the business. He had a voice, when he chose to use it, like the sound of a cracked horn, and he carried with him, in addition to his air of absolute authority, all the fascination of death. The people listened, breathless, while he spoke to them in a peremptory tone:

‘Many of you here will never have attended a stoning before. Such of you as may have done so are not likely to have seen the operation performed with the control and skill it calls for. Stoning is a good thing, wisely ordained: strangling, beheading and burning are for the gentlefolk, but stoning is the
People
’
s
punishment!

‘As I hope to see it, every one of you will go home to his family and be able to say with perfect truth, “This day,
I
have slain an accursed blasphemer” … ay, even if there be ten thousand of you! –’ his tone, wrote Afranius, was
grotesquely
like that of a hardened old sergeant trying to put the pride of the Regiment into a group of raw recruits ‘– I’ll give you an example, good people,’ he went on.

‘When I was only a boy I went to see a woman being stoned for adultery. Now an adultery stoning generally draws a fairly savage crowd of men – every one of them thinks of his own good lady, and lays on accordingly. It’s lucky, by the way, that women do not customarily come to stonings –
they’d
think of their own virtue, or otherwise, and do the
the business with their fingernails. I say, I went to see this girl stoned. Now you know, ninety-nine times out of a
hundred
, a woman stripped naked in public tries to cover her breasts and her privates with her hands, and lets her head hang down so that her face is covered by her hair. The nearest target, therefore, is the top of her head. Half a dozen fools in the front of the crowd went for this target like the blind oxen they were, with rocks as big as your two fists. Result? The adulteress was dead before you could count twenty, and all the rest of the crowd could do was stone her corpse – and much
it
cared!

‘That was not a stoning. The louts who handled those boulders deserved to be punished themselves – who named
them
executioners? That woman belonged to the People. Those uncontrolled stone-throwers assumed pre-emptory rights over the People.

‘Bear this in mind: you serve the Law, and the Law is God’s own Word. Whoso pre-empts you, the People, therefore pre-empts the Lord God Almighty Himself. Should himself be stoned, therefore. Got it?

‘Right.

‘Now listen to me, all of you, while they bring the
condemned
man up. If the Law says that a man shall be stoned, stoned that man shall be! The Law doesn’t say that a man’s dead body shall be stoned. Quite right too, for there is no sense in that.
That
person
shall be stoned, and he or she is a person only as long as life remains in that person. Do I make myself clear?

‘Right.

‘Now I see some of you have picked up heavy stones. Well, I know how you must feel. But drop them, drop them at once!’

There was a clatter of large pebbles falling to the hard ground.

‘Good,’ said Little Azrael. ‘Now take small stones. I’ll have
no individual pushing himself forward here. Fair play! Lord, if I had my way, I’d have every man, woman and child in the land throw a grain of grit, I would! But I haven’t, and I can’t have. Still, I’ll see order. Now, here comes your man.
Man,
I said, do you hear? And, as such, he’ll cover his genitals and his eyes as soon as I’ve stripped him. Don’t mind that. Use small stones, as I just said, and aim carefully for the elbows and shoulders: do it with a will, and God will guide you, my lads! But on no account hit him in the head. You hear that? For a stoning should be a kind of architectural job, so to speak, in reverse – little stones first, big stones last,
and
the
head
always
free,
never forget that. You’re not here to kill the blasphemer, only to crush him. A man, artistically stoned, should live several hours after the last stone has dropped – long after you’ve all gone home to your suppers. Now, it is to be one at a time, Children of Israel, after I have peeled the dog and cast the first stone.’

The crowd was silent. Steadily and methodically, Little Azrael stripped Stephanas of his clothes. The condemned man asked, ‘Must I be quite naked?’

‘Yes.’

‘It makes no difference,’ said Stephanas.

‘More shame for you,’ said Little Azrael, feeling the cloth as it came loose in his hands. He laid the garments at Paulus’s feet. Paulus drew back from them a pace or two. And now Afranius, standing to one side, heard some bewildered voices in the crowd:

‘Is
that
the one we are to stone?’

‘It seems so.’

‘I thought it was the little pale one.’

‘So did I …’

‘I did, too, for a minute …’

‘Fools, that is the gentleman from Tarsus!’

‘The tax-man, Saul.’

‘Saul, Paul – a Commissioner, an Official!’

‘Eh? Is there someone who has not heard of Saul of Tarsus? A man of God —’

‘Struck down a giant as big as Goliath with one finger!’

‘The Spirit of the Lord came upon him at a banquet of noble Romans, and he struck them all dead with a drop of wine!’

‘A Judge, a Prophet, a person in good standing!’

‘What’s the argument? The one they strip, that’s the
blasphemer
– stone the one they strip. The one they strip, stone. Stone!’

‘What’s his name?’

‘You should worry! Name! Do you want to write him a letter?’

Stephanas said to Paulus: ‘I’m very sorry for you, son. I forgive you, for what that is worth. Now you forgive me, and let us call it quits, eh?’

Paulus cried to Little Azrael: ‘Send him on his way!’ – and stood aside with Afranius.

Stephanas was all alone now. He did not cover his eyes, but used both hands to make a kind of apron, while he cried in his strong, persuasive, cheerful voice: ‘Look you, all you kind people – be comforted. Not one in five of you has the desire to throw a stone at me. I know it. The Lord Jesus —’

Then Little Azrael threw his stone, a carefully-chosen kidney-shaped pebble; threw it with accuracy and force as if to make it skip seven times on a pond. It struck Stephanas in the elbow, so that his right arm fell nerveless.

‘Now, then!’ Little Azrael shouted, and the crowd moved in closer to take better aim. The stones began to fly, now, in volleys, and Stephanas began to bleed. But he still stood
foursquare
, seeming to talk to the sky. Afranius heard him say:

‘Who am I to tell you, Lord, that they are mad, they do not know what they are doing. They will be sorry, so
forgive
them for poor Stephanas’s sake. They are children. Their hearts will ache tomorrow, or the day after.’

Paulus cried: ‘Are these stones, or puff-balls? Is this a stoning, or a mockery? Throw, curse you, throw!’

The stones came thicker and faster. Little Azrael shouted: ‘Let those who have thrown make place for those who have not! Fair play for all!’

Something snapped, and Stephanas went down on his knees.

Paulus said, between his teeth: ‘Is there none of these flabby dogs that can get me a cry out of this man?’

As if he had overheard, Stephanas called cheerfully to Paulus: ‘You see, young man, you are hurting yourself more than you are hurting me! Now is it worth it, to break your heart against my poor bones?’ Then a rib cracked, and he fell forward on his face. Little Azrael held up a hand, and the stoning stopped while he turned Stephanas over so that he lay on his back, and made a kind of pillow for his head with a heap of sharp grit.

‘If their heads are downwards, the blood rushes there when the rib-cage goes, and they are done too soon,’ he said. ‘If a man is to be stoned, let him
know
it.’

The stoning then continued as Stephanas lay on the ground. He called out, in a voice untouched by pain: ‘You see, good people, you cannot hurt a man from the outside. Only from within may he be destroyed.’

He was covered with stones to the armpits, now, and Little Azrael called for the large stones, which a man had to use both hands to lift, shouting: ‘Don’t try to throw them, now! Place them, smack them down firmly, but on no account try to throw, or you upset the balance of everything! Now!’

He stood guard over Stephanas’s head while, under his direction, a symmetrical mound of rock took shape upon the battered body; for the principle was, to break every bone and crush every organ without letting life depart. But still Stephanas uttered no cry.

Paulus had been shuffling and tapping his feet in
impatience
.
Now, to Afranius’s horror, the shuffling and
tapping
quickened: Paulus was dancing, from the knees down – dancing without knowing that he was dancing, while his body stayed motionless and his face rigid. A nightmarish sight, said Afranius, to see him thus in that awful
waste-ground
which was now cleared of loose stones, dancing by that grisly pylon under a sky of wet wool dotted with
hovering
carrion kites, the menacing walls of the city before him and the surly, secretive hills behind!

In time, the last man dropped the last stone, and the crowd broke like dry earth and trickled away. Only the guards remained, like men of metal, leaning on their spears; and Paulus, unconsciously dancing, while Afranius watched with sick eyes and Little Azrael stood back complacent, covered with meat-flies, and Ada the Mourner and
It
behind him. Threads of blood came from Stephanas’s eyes and ears, nostrils and mouth, but he still lived. Neatly buried to the chin under two cartloads of jagged stones.

Paulus stopped dancing, and came to look at him. As he bent over, Stephanas’s eyes opened and his lips moved. Paulus started. He called to Little Azrael: ‘Cover me that face!’

‘My lord,’ said Little Azrael, ‘this way he will last until the dogs come out after dark to eat his head.’

‘I say, cover his face!’ screamed Paulus.

There was a great boulder near-by, half as big as a man. Little Azrael lifted this without effort, poised it, aimed it, and let it fall. Stephanas’s head smashed like a gourd with a crack and a milky splash. ‘Is the Will of the Almighty done?’ asked Little Azrael.

‘It is done,’ said Paulus.

Little Azrael stooped and picked up the dead man’s clothes, which were his perquisites. Paulus told him: ‘
Someone
will offer you a high price for those garments. Sell them, and report the buyer: he will be a Nazarene.’

‘Yes, Master.’

Then Ada the Mourner cried: ‘Oh, Azrael, my love, my lord, my lion! Azrael, Azrael, take me, take me – why will you never take me?’ – and fell into a fit, chewing her tongue and thrusting with her fleshless belly in vile convulsions.
It
put a stick between her teeth and sat with her. Little Azrael turned and walked away.