The Last Temptation of Christ (26 page)

Everyone about the pit stood motionless, watching him. Jacob and Barabbas still faced each other, with rolled-up sleeves. Even Magdalene lifted her head and listened. Life? Death? What was this silence? The wind had changed. Suddenly she jumped up, lifted her arms and cried, “Help!”

The man in white heard the voice, recognized it and quivered.

“It’s Magdalene,” he murmured. “Magdalene! I must save her!” He advanced rapidly toward the crowd, his arms spread wide.

The more he approached the people and perceived their anger-filled eyes and the dark, tortured fierceness of their expressions, the more his heart stirred, the more his bowels flooded with deep sympathy and love. These are the people, he reflected. They are all brothers, every one of them, but they do not know it Magdalene and that is why they suffer. If they knew it, what celebrations there would be, what hugging and kissing, what happiness!

He arrived finally and stepped up onto a rock, stretching out his arms to the left and right. One word, one joyful and triumphant word, spurted forth from deep within his bowels: “Brothers!”

The astonished people looked at each other. No one replied.

“Brothers—” the triumphant cry resounded again—“brothers, I am delighted to see you.”

“Well we’re not delighted to see you, cross-maker!” Barabbas answered him, picking up a heavy stone from the ground.

“My boy!” someone shouted in a heart-rending voice, and Mary rushed out and embraced her son. She laughed, wept, caressed him; but he, without speaking, untwisted his mother’s arms from about him and advanced toward Barabbas.

“Barabbas, my brother,” he said, “I’m glad to see you. I am a friend; I bring a message of great joy.”

“Don’t come any closer,” roared Barabbas, and he placed himself in front of Magdalene in order to hide her from the other’s eyes. But she heard the beloved voice and jumped to her feet.

“Jesus,” she screamed, “help!”

A single stride brought Jesus to the pit’s brim. Magdalene had begun to climb up, gripping the rocks with her fingers and toes. Jesus stooped and held out his hand. She grasped it and he pulled her out. She collapsed onto the ground, puffing, and covered with blood.

Barabbas rushed over and stamped his foot down on her back. “She’s mine!” he bellowed, raising the stone which he held in his hand. “I’ll kill her—she polluted the Sabbath. Death!”

“Death! Death!” the people howled in their turn, afraid now that their sacrifice would escape.

“Death!” Zebedee cried out too as he saw the ragamuffins circle the newcomer, doubtlessly filling their heads with fancy ideas. Woe is us if paupers are allowed to do whatever they please. “Death!” he shouted again, banging his club on the ground. “Death!”

Jesus restrained Barabbas’s lifted arm. “Barabbas,” he said, his voice tranquil and sad, “have you never disobeyed one of God’s commandments? In your whole life have you never stolen, murdered, committed adultery or told a lie?”

He turned to the howling multitude and looked at each person, one by one, slowly. “Let him among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone!”

The mass stirred; one by one the people stepped back, struggling to escape this clawing look which was excavating their memories and vital organs. The men recalled all the lies they had uttered during their lifetimes, the acts of injustice they had committed, the wives of others they had bedded; the women lowered their kerchiefs, and the stones they held in their hands slid to the ground.

When old Zebedee saw the rabble about to emerge victorious, he flew into a rage. Once more Jesus turned to the people and stared at them one by one, stared into the very depths of their eyes. “Let him among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone.

“Me,” snapped Zebedee. “Barabbas, give me your stone. Innocence has no fears: I’ll throw it.”

Barabbas was delighted. He gave him the stone and stepped to one side. Zebedee stood over Magdalene, holding the stone in his fist and judging its weight, in order to hit her squarely on the head. She had rolled herself up into a ball at Jesus’ feet and was tranquil, for she felt that here she had no fear of death.

The infuriated ragamuffins looked at old Zebedee, and one of them, the gauntest of the lot, jumped forward.

“Hey, Zebedee,” he shouted, “there’s a God, you know. Your hand will be paralyzed—aren’t you afraid? Think back: you never gobbled up the rights of the poor? You never in your life caused an orphan’s vineyard to be sold at auction? You never stepped into a widow’s house at night?”

As he listened, the old sinner felt the weight of the stone in his hand and restrained himself more and more. Suddenly he uttered a cry, his arm wilted abruptly and fell useless at his side. The large stone rolled out of his grasp and landed on his foot, breaking his toes.

The ragamuffins shouted for joy. “Miracle! Miracle! Magdalene is innocent!”

Barabbas went wild; his pock-marked face puffed up fiery red. Darting at the son of Mary, he lifted his hand and slapped him. But Jesus calmly turned the other cheek.

“Hit the other one too, Barabbas, my brother,” he said.

Barabbas’s hand grew numb, and his eyes popped out of his head. Who was this person? What was he—a ghost, a man or a devil? Dumfounded, he stepped back and gazed at Jesus.

“Hit the other cheek, Barabbas, my brother,” the son of Mary incited him once more.

At this point Judas emerged from the shade of the fig tree where he had been standing off to one side, watching. He had seen everything but had not spoken. Whether Magdalene was killed or not made no difference to him, but he was pleased to hear Barabbas and the ragamuffins stand up against Zebedee and declaim his sins. When he saw Jesus appear at the lake shore dressed in his new white robe, his heart had pounded. “Now it will become clear who he is, what he wants and what message he has for men,” he had murmured, cocking his huge ear. But the very start, the very first word—“Brothers”—displeased him, and his expression soured. “He still hasn’t put any sense into his head,” he grumbled. “No, we’re not all brothers. Israelites and Romans are not brothers, nor are Israelites among themselves. The Sadducees who sell themselves to Rome, the village chiefs—as many as cover up for the tyrant—they are not our brothers. No, you’ve got off to a bad start, son of the Carpenter. Look out!” But when he saw Jesus offer the other cheek, without anger and with a superb inhuman sweetness, he became frightened. What is this man? he shouted to himself. This ... this offering of the other cheek: only an angel could do that, only an angel—or a dog.

He reached Barabbas now with one bound and seized him by the arm just as he was about to rush upon the son of Mary.

“Don’t touch him,” he said in a muffled voice. “Go home!”

Barabbas looked at Judas with astonishment. They were both in the same brotherhood; side by side they had often entered villages and cities and killed Israel’s traitors. And now ...

“You, Judas,” he murmured, “you?”

“Yes, me. Go!”

Barabbas continued to hold his ground. Judas was his superior in the brotherhood and he could not oppose him; but his self-respect, on the other hand, did not let him budge.

“Go!” the redbeard commanded once more.

The bandit chief lowered his head and threw a savage glance at the son of Mary. “You won’t get away from me,” he murmured, clenching his fist. “We shall meet again!”

Turning to his followers, he commanded them halfheartedly: “Let’s go.”

THE SUN was about to touch the sky’s foundations. The fever of the day wilted, the wind died down, the lake sparkled rose and blue. Several storks, still hungry, stood on one leg upon the rocks, their eyes pinned on the water.

The ragamuffins fixed their eyes on the son of Mary and waited, not wanting to leave. What were they waiting for? They had forgotten their hunger and nakedness; they had forgotten the malice of the landowners, who had lacked the goodness of heart to leave a few grapes on the vintaged vines in order to sweeten the throat of poverty. They had been going from vineyard to vineyard since the morning, and their baskets remained empty. The same had happened at the reaping: they had gone from field to field, their sacks hanging empty at their sides; and each evening their children waited for them with opened mouths! But now—they did not know why or how—their baskets seemed suddenly to have been filled. They looked at the man in white in front of them and could not bear to leave. They waited. Waited for what? They themselves did not know.

The son of Mary returned their look. He too was waiting; he felt that all these souls were suspended from his neck. What did they want of him? What were they seeking? What could he give them, he who had nothing? He looked at them, looked at them, and for an instant lost courage and wanted to flee again, but was prevented by shame. What would become of Magdalene, who was clinging to his feet? And so many eyes gazing at him with yearning: how could he leave them unconsoled? To leave? But where to go? God was on every side. His grace pushed him where it pleased—no, not his grace, his power, his all-powerful power. The son of Mary now felt that this earth was his home—he had no other home; he felt that men were his desert—he had no other desert.

“Lord, your will be done,” he murmured, bowing his head and surrendering himself to God’s mercy.

An old man stood up among the ragamuffins and spoke. “Son of Mary, we are hungry, but it’s not bread we seek of you. You are poor, like ourselves. Open your mouth, say a kind word to us, and we shall be filled.”

A young man ventured: “Son of Mary, injustice is strangling us; our hearts can bear no more. You said you brought a kind word. Tell us that kind word; bring us justice!”

The son of Mary looked at the people. He heard the voice of freedom and hunger, and rejoiced. He felt that he had been awaiting this voice for years, this voice which had now come and called him by name. He turned to the people, his arms spread wide. “Brothers,” he said, “let us go!”

All at once, as though they too had been awaiting this call for years and had heard their true name for the first time, the people rejoiced and bellowed: “Let us go! In God’s name!”

The son of Mary took the lead; the rest moved off in one body. Next to the lake front was a pitted hill, still pale green despite the fiery heat of the summer sun, which beat down on it all day long. Now, in the sweetness of the evening, it was perfumed with thyme and savory. Its summit must have been the site of some ancient heathen temple, for fragments of several carved capitals of columns still lay on the ground. The clairvoyant fishermen, while fishing in the lake at night, regularly saw a white ghost sitting on the marble, and one night old Jonah even heard it weep. ... It was toward this hill that they all marched as if in a trance, the son of Mary in front, and behind, the great family of the poor.

Old Salome turned to her younger son. “Carry me in your arms. We’ll go too.” She took Mary’s hand. “Don’t cry, Mary,” she said. “Didn’t you see a glow around your son’s face?”

“I have no son, I have no son,” the mother replied, beginning to sob convulsively. “All those ragamuffins have sons, and I have none.” She started toward the hill, wailing and lamenting. Now she was sure: her son had abandoned her forever. When she ran to embrace him and take him home with her, he had looked at her with astonishment as though he did not know her; and when she said to him, “I am your mother,” he had put out his hand and pushed her away.

Old Zebedee saw his wife mount the hill with the multitude. Scowling, he grabbed his club, turned to his son Jacob and his son’s two companions, Philip and Nathanael, and pointed to the noisy, agitated mob. “They’re famished wolves, damn them all! We’d better howl along with them so they won’t take us for sheep and eat us. Let’s follow behind—but remember, no matter what that windmill son of Mary tells them, we’ll boo him. Do you hear! We mustn’t let him get the upper hand. Forward, all together, and look sharp!”

This said, he too started to climb the hill, as slow as a lame donkey.

Just then Jonah’s two sons appeared. Peter held his brother by the arm and spoke to him tranquilly, tenderly, in order not to infuriate him. But the other was disturbed and kept his eyes on the swarms of people that were mounting, and on the man in white who led them.

“Who are they? Where are they going?” Peter asked Judas, who still stood in the street, unable to come to a decision.

“The son of Mary,” the redbeard sneered.

“And the troop behind him?”

“The poor who glean the grapes after the vintage. They took one look and attached themselves to him. I think he’s going up there to talk to them.”

“What can he say? He couldn’t even divide up hay for a pair of donkeys.”

Judas shrugged his shoulders. “We’ll see,” he growled, and he too started up the hill.

Two swarthy amazons were returning from the vineyards, exhausted and overheated, each with a large basket of grapes balanced on her head. Envying the camaraderie of the others, they decided to join them to pass the time, and attached themselves to the rear of the procession.

Old Jonah, his net on his shoulders, was dragging himself toward his shack. He was hungry, and impatient to arrive. When he saw his sons and the crowd mounting the hill, he stopped, open-mouthed, and gazed at them with round, fishlike eyes. He did not think of anything; he did not ask himself who had died, who was getting married, or where so many people were going all in a group. He did not think of anything; he simply stared with gaping mouth.

“Come on, fish-prophet Jonah, let’s go,” Zebedee called to him. “It’s a party! Seems like Mary Magdalene’s getting married. Come on, let’s go and have a good time!”

Jonah moved his thick lips. He was about to speak, but changed his mind. Giving a heave with his shoulder to adjust the net on his back, he went off toward his neighborhood with heavy steps. A considerable time later, as he was at last nearing his hut, his mind, after many labor pains, finally gave birth: “Go to the devil, Zebedee, you blockhead!” he grumbled; then, kicking open the door, he went in.

When Zebedee and his companions reached the top of the hill, Jesus was sitting cross-legged on the capital of a column. He had not opened his mouth yet; he seemed to be waiting for them. The crowd of paupers was in front of him, the men cross-legged on the ground, the women standing in back, looking at him. The sun had set, but Mount Hebron, to the north, still held the light at its summit and did not allow it to flee.