The Kingdom of the Wicked Page 3

  ‘I think,’ Gamaliel said, ‘that you underestimate the Roman appetite for power. I see no sign of debility in Pontius Pilatus. His Syrian troops would rush in and eat your Zealots for breakfast.’

  ‘Some say,’ Stephen said, ‘that he saw the light.’

  ‘If you mean the Galilean,’ Caleb said, ‘it was a very short-lived light.’

  ‘A short-lived light for all his followers.’ This was Saul, a young man already growing bald, his eyes in dark caves, the frontal lobes unnaturally bulging. ‘We’ve had a succession of these false prophets, almost one a year in the last ten or so. Most of them knew the scriptures, I’ll say that. The scriptures drove them mad. But this one was an ignorant carpenter burbling about love.’

  ‘A carpenter’s trade,’ Gamaliel said slyly, ‘is not inferior to a tentmaker’s.’

  ‘If I make tents,’ Saul said, ‘it is in accordance with our Jewish tradition. We must all work with our hands. But I think of myself first as a scholar.’

  ‘He was a scholar too,’ Stephen said. ‘The scriptures were never out of his mouth. And what was wrong with burbling about love, as you put it?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what was wrong and what is wrong,’ Caleb said. ‘By love he meant submission, turning the other cheek, putting up with foreign injustice. He countenanced tyranny. He said nothing about a free Israel.’

  ‘Caleb, my son,’ Gamaliel said, ‘admit there was something in what he preached. We must change ourselves before we change our systems of secular rule. Man’s soul comes first.’

  ‘A soul in chains,’ Caleb said, as was to be expected, bitterly.

  ‘The chains are personal sin, not foreign oppression. Don’t disparage love. Love is a thing we all have to learn, and through hardship and bitterness too. On a practical level, it may well be that love will save us. We Jews play into Roman hands by hating each other – Pharisee against Sadducee, Zealot against both. Sect against sect, tribe against tribe, division not unity.’

  ‘So you,’ Saul said, ‘are becoming a Galilean?’

  ‘Like you, Saul,’ Gamaliel said, ‘I belong to the Pharisees. At least I accept the doctrine of resurrection. As for the narrowness, the xenophobia of small farmers – that’s another matter. But God forbid that I should approve the blasphemy of his desperate claim to be—the very thought of the words makes me shudder – I cannot utter them.’

  ‘The Son of God,’ Stephen said. ‘The Messiah. Well, a Messiah was prophesied.’

  ‘Is, Stephen,’ Saul said. ‘Is prophesied.’

  ‘An endless is, I see. We believe in the coming of the Messiah, but anyone who claims to be the Messiah is condemned and put to death. Must it always be so?’

  ‘Yes,’ Caleb said. ‘So long as you live under a foreign power that puts down free speech. So long as the holy Jewish council is in the control of a sect that loves the Romans.’

  ‘You will take that back,’ Seth said with heat. ‘That is a lie and a calumny. That is a gross insult to the guardians of the faith—’

  ‘Enough, enough,’ Gamaliel said mildly. ‘Can we discuss nothing in rational calm? Let us think always in terms of the things that unite, not divide. We are all Jews and we must stop these dissensions. You may sneer at love as you sneer at compromise – but find me some other answer.’ And he dismissed the class.

  The class became a little mob of high-spirited youths as soon as it touched the secular life of the street – a roaring camel, a donkey bonneted in flies, hucksters. Seth and Caleb wrangled still, however. Caleb said: ‘You licker of Roman arses. God bless the Emperor Tiberius and all the little boys that he buggers. Kick us, your exalted divinity, lay it on real hard.’

  ‘That’s stupid, and you know it,’ Seth said. ‘Do you really think I like these foreign louts with their spears and eagles and hairy legs? I stand for a free Israel too, but we won’t get it by spitting at their shadows—’

  ‘May the Roman eagle spread its wings,’ Caleb jeered.

  ‘Till it splits its—’

  ‘Sycophantic Sadducee.’

  ‘Xenophobic Zealot.’

  And then they began to push each other in high good humour. They started to wrestle. Saul held their coats, cheering on neither. A weary non-commissioned officer from the Italia legion in Caesarea, posted to Jerusalem to keep the Syrian troops in order, paused with his dusty maniple to watch the wrestling match. Disturbance. Jewish noise. One of those two Jewboys had got the other on the ground in the dust. What they called public disorder. There were onlookers roaring and cheering. Time to step in. He stepped in.

  ‘All right, enough of that,’ he said in bad Aramaic. ‘If you Jews want to fight join the Roman army. Not that we’d have you. Come on, get off home. You, get up.’

  He meant Caleb, but Caleb had twisted his ankle and made the ascent slowly and in pain. The non-commissioned officer grabbed him by the collar of his sweaty robe. Caleb spoke unwisely. He said:

  ‘Keep your filthy Roman paws off, you uncircumcised pig.’

  ‘Uncircum—whatever it was. Pig I know. Chasir means sus, doesn’t it? Nasty, very. Dirty lot, you Jews, aren’t you?’

  Caleb unwisely hit out. He was encouraged by the sight of a little gang of known Zealots in the crowd. Action. You had to act sometime, no good just talking about action.

  ‘All right. You’re under arrest. Disaffection, disorder, insult to the occupying forces. Come on.’ Saul intervened. Saul said:

  ‘Excuse me, officer – he’s a little overwrought. See, he’s in pain. Surely an apology would be enough.’

  ‘And who and what are you?’

  ‘Who doesn’t matter. But I’m a Roman citizen.’

  ‘You’re a Jew.’

  ‘Yes, a Jew. But also a citizen of Rome. Lucius Saul Paulus, if you must know my name. The name is enrolled in the praetorium—’

  ‘Look, sir, if that’s what you’re to be called, we have our duty. This one has to be taught a lesson. He’ll learn it while he’s looking down from that hill up there. Come on, you.’

  As he started to drag Caleb off, the little gang of Zealots thought they might as well erupt now. Five Syrian privates and a fattish red-haired Roman. Seven Jews more than a match. Then a bucina grated from the watchtower. Reinforcements on their way. Fists and clubs against swords and spears. A rangy Zealot clubbed the non-commissioned officer briefly. Then a panting maniple got its spears to work. A quieted riot, not much of a riot.

  ‘You’re here in time for some rough justice, sir,’ Quintilius said. Pilate had just arrived from Caesarea. Dusty, hot, tired, he took a swig from the winejug kept cooled under a statue of Mercury, patron of thieves. ‘A Jewish riot to celebrate your arrival.’

  ‘Started again, have they? Been suspiciously quiet for too long.’

  ‘A synagogue student spat on the uniform, used insulting language, blasphemed against the Emperor, resisted arrest. Then it started. None killed. But a Roman soldier severely wounded.’

  ‘Yes yes yes yes yes yes. That last letter from the island of Capri said something about our skill in maintaining tranquillity in Palestine. Have we, in your informed opinion, Quintilius, shown such skill?’

  They surveyed each other without warmth. Pilate had to go carefully with his deputy, who was, Pilate knew, intriguing in long letters for the governorship of Syria. Too friendly with the Jews, to be construed as a capacity for cooperating with men of compromise who would help keep down a growing dissidence. A bribetaker, but one who regarded a bribe as a gratuity for which he would do nothing in return. The givers of bribes retained their innocence, hopelessly believed you could bargain with Rome. He, Pontius Pilatus, had been a protégé of the late Sejanus. He had written friendly letters to Sejanus, wishing him all that he wished himself. Those letters would be on file. He, Pilate, had not made himself indispensable. The procuratorship of Judaea was no plum. He was due for retirement soon. He wished to resign into a sinecure, a numinous Roman presence in a mild climate, one who did not even have to sign papers.
He felt hopeless. Quintilius was, as ever, smiling and foxy, saying:

  ‘Well, procurator, there’s been no call to bring in reinforcements from Syria. It’s been a matter more of policing than of invoking martial law. Of course, the ill-smelling gentlemen of the Sanhedrin have helped—’

  ‘Not from any love of Rome. Those Jewish priests like a quiet life. They know where the best wine comes from. They like their seaside villas.’

  ‘A foxy lot,’ Quintilius said foxily. ‘The best of both worlds.’

  ‘We played into their hands,’ Pilate said. ‘Over that Jesus of Nazareth affair. That still rankles. They made us crucify the wrong man. It won’t happen again.’

  ‘Assuredly not, procurator. About these Zealots—’

  ‘There’s a Jewish feast coming up, isn’t there? Pentecost. A Greek name for a Jewish carnival.’

  ‘Hardly a carnival. Feast of the first fruits or something. Pentecost means fifty days after the Passover.’

  ‘I know what it means, Quintilius. I think it might be a good time for reminding them where the power lies. They had three crucifixions for Passover. We let one of those damned Zealots go. Because the people wanted it that way. Then he murdered one of ours.’

  ‘Lucius Publius Strabo.’

  ‘Never mind the name. It was one of our people. This time we’ll nail up three Zealots. And if the mob howls, let it.’

  ‘Including this Caleb bar something? He’s no more than a boy, procurator.’

  ‘A student, you said. All the better. Get them young. Destroy them in the egg. Which reminds me that I’m hungry. Shall we dine together?’

  ‘I’m invited out, procurator.’

  ‘By Jews?’

  ‘The maintenance of good relations with the subject people. You taught me the importance of that, sir.’

  ‘Don’t get too close, Quintilius. Remember who we are, what we are.’ Saying it, he felt hopeless.

  ‘Oh, I never forget that, procurator.’

  Pilate grunted and went off to his quarters. Quintilius looked out from the terrace to the street, where a Jew of wealthy appearance was hurrying, as if late for an appointment. Busy people, a busy town. They believed in money. They sometimes seemed more solid, somehow, than the Roman Empire. It was sustained by soldiers, and soldiers didn’t make much money.

  In the upper room where that last supper had been eaten, in retrospect it appeared with little appetite, but the mutton had been carved to the bone and the last of the sour herb sauce scooped up with the last of the hard bread, the eleven were assembled. Simon, Peter and Matthew, once the sorely taxed and the sorely taxing, stood with Thomas, the dour North Galilean given to scepticism, hard to please and pessimistic. Philip hummed a tune and Thaddeus breathed it on his flute, so that Thomas said: ‘Ach, for the Lord’s sake—’ Bartholomew silently nursed his dyspepsia, big James, called Little, performed the muscle flexings of the country wrestler he had been. The other James was biting a hangnail. Andrew and John and Simon, who had been a Zealot, were talking quietly to a nervous man named Joseph Barnabas, Simon saying: ‘Well, if he doesn’t come the place is yours, that stands to reason—’ But then they heard feet arriving rapidly up the outside wooden stairway and then the door opened and the Jew of wealthy appearance whom Quintilius had been idly watching came in, breathless.

  ‘I’m sorry to be so late. My nephew – Caleb – he’s under arrest. I was trying to make an appointment to see the procurator—’

  ‘Well now, master,’ Little James said to Peter, ‘we can start.’

  ‘Don’t call me master, Little James. I am no master.’

  ‘Peter. Here are the—Are we right to use them?’ Peter took them in his left hand and clicked them together. He then addressed the assembly with some diffidence, saying:

  ‘Friends, brothers, when the master was with us he had many followers but only twelve disciples. He chose that number as you know because it is the number of the tribes of Israel. One of the twelve died – shamefully, by his own hand. He is buried in the potter’s field that is now the burial ground for strangers who die in Jerusalem. The Field of Blood, it is called. I will not mention his name. Nor, so I may hope, will his name ever again be mentioned when we are met together. Well, today we are met together for a happy purpose. It is to complete our number, choosing between Matthias and Joseph Barnabas, equally good men, equally worthy – though who of any among us can be called worthy?’ He bowed his head as though to wait for a cock to crow, but they were far from any fowl-run. ‘We may add only one to the inner brotherhood. Chance, they sometimes say, is one of the toys of God. Toys are for children, but the master told us we had to become like children. Chance shall choose for us then. We have dice.’ He showed them. ‘I think you all know where they come from. A certain Roman soldier diced for a certain garment and regretted what he did. Joseph Barnabas, take the dice and roll.’

  Joseph Barnabas was a swart young man with a round trimmed beard. His eyes were large and liquid. He took the dice timorously and shook them in the cup of his right hand. He threw. All looked at the table surface. Three and two.

  ‘Matthias.’

  Matthias rolled in both hands, shaking their clasp in what looked like premature self-congratulation. He let fall rather than threw. Two and four.

  ‘There is almost nothing in it,’ Peter said. ‘Welcome, Matthias, to our midst.’ Joseph Barnabas was good-humoured in defeat. A matter of luck only. Matthias was taken to various bosoms and thumped on his back like a baby with wind. He was, they all noted, the first as well as the last of the well-dressed disciples: a gold chain round his neck and his beard not only trimmed but oiled, his single long garment embroidered at neck and hem with a Greek key pattern. Well, he would have to become ragged and unkempt as befitted one close to the Lord God. They could certainly use his money, solid clean money made out of land.

  ‘We will sit round the table,’ Peter said. ‘And if Little James will be so good as to go down to the cookshop and fetch up our dinner, not forgetting the wine, we can have the first feast of our new our new—’

  ‘Dispensation?’ Bartholomew suggested.

  ‘I was going to say something like lonely responsibility,’ Peter said. ‘I’m not good at words, as you know, and we’re all going to have to spout a lot of words. Look, Joseph Barnabas, there’s no need to fidget as though you shouldn’t be here. If one of us gets picked up by the Romans or the Sanhedrin and stoned and crucified it’s you who’ll take his place. How many of us are there now in Jerusalem? I’d say about two hundred—’

  ‘More like a hundred and fifty,’ Matthew said.

  ‘Well, we’re all brothers together, and there’s nothing secret about what we’re going to try to do. So in future there won’t be many meetings of just the twelve. We’ll need all the help we can get from the others, and that means you more than anybody, Joseph Barnabas. It’s only a pair of dice that says you’re not one of the twelve.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  ‘Don’t call me sir. Peter’s the name. Go and get the dinner, Little James. They said they’d have it ready.’

  James got up in his burly way and swung towards the door. A dry wind peered in as he opened it.

  ‘He’s back in the world,’ Peter sighed, ‘but to us he leaves the burden of the word, so to speak. We’re not well prepared to shout the glory of his rising from the grave and the truth of his message. I dreamt last night I was back on the lake working at the nets. It was fine to be – well, what you might call ignorant and peaceful again, not to have any responsibility. But I have to accept the burden as you do too. The trouble is that we don’t know well how to carry it.’

  The door opened and Jesus came in carrying a jug of wine and a bread basket. James followed with cold broiled fish and cups and platters on a square tray. He kicked the door shut and the wind out. They all stood clumsily. Those who sat by the wall had difficulty getting up at all. Jesus waited till they were all standing and then said: ‘Sit. Thirteen of you? Of co
urse, I understand. You’re Matthias. You take the place of poor dear Judas, who was killed by his own love and innocence.’ They all looked at each other uncomfortably. He had always been one for mentioning the unmentionable. ‘And you, Barnabas it must be, are the unlucky thirteenth. Well, there’ll be trial and tribulation for everyone, no shortage of that.’ He grinned at Thomas as he sat next to Barnabas on the rocking bench, saying: ‘And how are the doubts today?’

  ‘Ye know what I thought,’ Thomas growled in his rough North Galilean accent, ‘and I was in the right to be thinking it. There’s too much trickery about these days. There’s not many as comes back from the grave. I know there was Lazarus who got himself killed in a tavern brawl three days after, something of a waste of effort I always thought. And there was the girl where I was working and ye first dragged me into the fellowship, saying ye needed what ye called a sceptic. Well, we’ve seen enough of false prophets about, and what was to stop one going the rounds with a dab of red paint on his wrists and ankles. I was in the right to say seeing is believing.’

  ‘I say again,’ Jesus said mildly, ‘blessed are they who believe and have not seen.’

  Ye’ll no convince me of that. Well, not all the time.’

  ‘Listen. And eat while you’re listening.’ The wooden trenchers clattered dully and the cheap winecups clanked. Matthew’s knife made heavy arithmetical work of dividing the fish into fourteen pieces. ‘You must all try and impart this power of innocent belief to those who hear the word. My word but now also yours. This is the last time you will see me in the flesh but do not forget I stay with you in these simple gifts of God. I will start the ceremony, you must finish it. I take this bread and break it. This is my body. Do this in remembrance of me.’