The Weeping Chamber Page 10

  Eventually my wanderings led me beneath the city.

  Jerusalem’s subterranean alleys are a world set apart from sunlight, laughter, and hope. They were built almost by accident as the city grew; it became easier to build on top of some of the ancient structures than to tear them down and haul the rubble away.

  It is also a world of danger. Whispers bounce from unseen sources through the dim corridors. Movements are furtive. Shadows dance and are lost in deeper shadows. Thieves and assassins hunt each other and prey on the weak.

  Here, too, status means little. It is the refuge of the desperate, the unloved, and the poor who take comfort in shared misery and in escaping the shame that awaits them in sunlight.

  Perhaps I wandered below the city following an unconscious wish to have the decision regarding my death taken from me. If so, I failed that unacknowledged desire.

  Before I had ventured a hundred steps into the darkness, two men stepped out from behind a pillar, daggers extended.

  “Strip yourself,” one snarled.

  The other laughed. “You’ll save us the work of pulling the clothes from your dead body.”

  So they wanted not only my possessions, but also my fear.

  I measured them.

  They were pitiful. Small to begin with, hunger and alcohol had reduced them to grimy husks. They could not even hold their daggers steady. Had I turned and run, they would have collapsed within their first dozen steps of pursuit.

  As they blustered more threats, I discovered that I was still capable of an emotion beyond the deadening sensation of guilt—anger.

  Here was a place I could focus my frustration and hatred.

  I roared and threw my right fist at the first man’s head. Savage joy filled me at the pain of a popped knuckle in my hand, while my victim fell immediately, sobbing.

  The other had more spirit. He slashed at my right side, bouncing the edge of his dagger off my ribs, giving me more pain that burned a swath across my side and into the front of my consciousness.

  Without thinking, I spun and lifted a knee, catching him in the midsection with such force that his feet left the ground. As he crashed onto his back, his head made a resounding thunk against the stone of the alley.

  I stood poised to flail again, but neither moved. I heaved for breath as I waited over them. The fight had been brief, but exertion in battle comes as much from the mind’s fear as the body’s actions.

  I touched my ribs. The dagger, rusted and dull, had not even cut through the cloth of my robe.

  Between the sobs of the first man, I heard bubbling as he breathed through the blood that streamed from his nose. The other, I only half feared, was so inert as to be dead. Had I killed him, it would have mattered little to me. I would not have to face a court, and if I did, I would be applauded as a hero.

  Yes. Wonderful me. Tall and well nourished, I had defeated two broken men.

  To further demonstrate the emptiness of my victory, a little girl pushed past my legs and fell upon the motionless man, crying and pleading for him to wake.

  She was as grimy and pitiful as they. I became aware of their stench, a collective soured warmth on the damp coolness of the alley.

  The man—I guessed her father—groaned. He was not dead, then.

  Where my next impulse came from I do not know. My reputation is one of stern severity. While I do not pinch every shekel before I spend it, I do not spend foolishly, and every bargain I drive is one that could not be driven harder or further. I was not known for charity. Yet here I was, moved to it for the third time since entering Jerusalem. First the blind beggar, then the cloak to a stranger, now this.

  These two men were so utterly crushed and the little girl’s tears so wrenching that I took my purse from beneath my robe.

  I pulled the child up by an arm. In the dim light, I saw only the shiny tracks of her tears etched through the dirt of her face.

  She tried to pummel me with her fragile fists.

  I caught both her wrists and squatted to look her as clearly in the eyes as the bad light permitted. “This is for you,” I said. I gave her the purse. Her feral eyes widened at the clink of shekels.

  I did not wait for gratitude. I doubted it would come.

  I also expected that the men would take the money from her as soon as I departed. I only hoped the father, when he woke, would have the same fierce love for her that she had shown for him, and that he would spend some of the money on her.

  I turned away, leaving the popping sound of bubbling blood.

  As I reached the light, I discovered my guilt had eased. I felt an unfamiliar joy, and I began to wonder if I could shed my remorse like a snake’s skin simply by unexpectedly granting gifts to those who had less than I.

  But my joy did not last long.

  Before I had stepped into the city proper, I remembered the blind beggar. I had given him more money than he expected in a month of tending his bowl, yet that largess had left me empty.

  Why had I not felt this same joy with him? It came to me. He was not a miserable young girl like the beggar at her father’s side. Miserable and young, like my daughter.

  My heart had been lifted because of the beggar girl I’d been able to help. As I realized this, I also knew my daughter I could not help.

  At that realization, my joy became ashes.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Too much of the afternoon remained. I went back to the temple without sighting Yeshua and so decided to seek Him among His friends. Against the flow of pilgrims making their way to Jerusalem, I walked up the Mount of Olives and down the ridge on the other side, past Bethphage, to Bethany, searching for Yeshua among them. I did not see Him or His followers.

  From what I had heard, it seemed the best place to make inquiries would be at His friend’s abode.

  “Where is the house of Lazarus?” I asked a boy sitting on a pile of rocks at the side of the road.

  The boy raised his smudged face to me, gave me a sly glance, then looked back down at his hand. He opened his fingers and a small lizard scooted to freedom.

  “My hand is now empty,” he said. “The lizard made room for a shekel.”

  “One shekel to give directions?”

  The boy shrugged. “Many others have paid me to take them there.”

  So I was to be just one of the many curiosity seekers. I should have expected it. Not many men are raised from the dead.

  “Half a shekel,” I told the boy.

  He grinned. “Half a shekel. I’ll take you there myself.” He’d spoken so quickly that I knew I’d paid too much, but other things occupied my mind.

  He led me on a narrow path between the houses. Bethany was a small village. I could imagine it in the middle of the summer, the white walls of the single-level dwellings shimmering in the heat, weeds struggling for a foothold in the cracks between the rocks.

  We rounded a corner, and the boy pointed out a house with two goats tethered in front. “Half a shekel,” he said.

  “First,” I answered, “tell me if any share this house with Lazarus.”

  Another shrug. “Two old women. Mary and Martha.”

  I gave him his money, and he dashed away as if expecting me to call for it back.

  **

  I smiled when a woman with high cheekbones and a suspicious glance answered my call. The boy and I had differing opinions on what defined old. My guess was that she had not even reached her thirtieth year.

  “What is it?” she asked without stepping out from the doorway. I smelled fresh bread baking inside.

  “This is the house of Lazarus?”

  “Yes,” she answered. “And yes, he was dead. Yes, he is now alive. No, it wasn’t the work of the devil that brought him forth. And finally, even if he were here, he would be too busy to be poked and prodded.”

  A second woman appeared in the doorway. She was taller, slimmer, and younger. The same high cheekbones showed they were sisters, but this one did not have a face creased with suspicion.

>   “Martha,” she told her old sister, “this poor man asked a simple question.”

  “Just as all the others have bothered us with simple questions to take us away from our work.”

  Before they could argue further, I slipped in another question. “I am actually looking for Yeshua. Do you know where He is?”

  “No,” Martha said firmly. “You have wasted your time.”

  Her sister placed a hand lightly on her forearm.

  Martha shook it off. “See how he is dressed?” Martha said to her. “He’s probably been sent by the Sadducees.”

  “No,” I said.

  The younger sister kept her eyes on my face as she spoke to Martha. “He has need of the teacher. Grant him some peace.”

  “The bread will burn. I have no time,” Martha said as she stepped into the shadows of the house. She was out of my sight when she called her parting words from inside. “And, Mary, you have your cleaning!”

  “Forgive her,” the woman in the doorway said. “She is worried these days for our teacher. It makes her short-tempered.”

  “Worried for the teacher?”

  “You have probably heard,” Mary said. “After He healed our brother, the religious authorities called for His death. Yet He persists in going to the temple.”

  “Not today,” I said. “I waited for Him there.”

  “He has gone into the hills,” she said. “He has taken a day of contemplation and quiet.”

  I was conscious of standing awkwardly in front of this woman. I was a man and a stranger; it would be improper to ask her to leave the house and join me in a walk. As she did not invite me in, I received a clear unspoken message: I was imposing upon her graciousness.

  “My daughter is crippled,” I blurted. It was a naked bid for her sympathy—appealing to her heart with news of a hurt child—but I was desperate. “He is my only hope.”

  “I tell you the truth,” she replied. “I do not know where He is or when He will return.”

  Her eyes lingered on the mutilated left side of my face. I resisted the impulse to rub my scar.

  “But He will return?” I persisted.

  “He makes His plans known to no one. Spies are everywhere, and the religious authorities lie in wait to capture Him away from the crowds.”

  I slumped. “How can He be the Messiah, then? How can He lead the nation if He lives in such fear?”

  Mary understood that my questions were not meant as criticism. She answered softly. “It is not fear. This leadership is what others want for Him. He Himself walks a different path.”

  I stared at her. “Who is He then?”

  “We all ask that question,” she said. “Even those closer to Him.”

  “And you? What do you think?”

  Mary smiled. “He is a man of love. One who not only heals people, but also forgives them of their sins and sets them free.”

  “No man has the power to forgive sins,” I said.

  “No man has the power to raise someone from the dead. Yet my brother walks and talks, even after four days in the tomb.”

  Four days’ time was significant. Many of us Jews believed the soul stayed near the body for three days, waiting in hope that it might reenter the body. Not until the fourth day, we believed, did true death arrive with a drop of gall from the sword of the angel of death. This gall changed the body’s face, forcing the soul to leave its resting place.

  “If He can raise your brother,” I said, “He can heal my daughter. I must see Him.”

  “He does no one’s bidding,” Mary said. “Were I you, I would try to understand His teachings first.”

  In so many words, He had told me the same.

  Martha called from inside the house. “Mary! Time grows short. We must prepare for the Passover.”

  Mary apologized for her sister with a quick grimace. “I wish I could help you more. . . .”

  “Please,” I said, hiding my disappointment, “return to your sister. I will look for Yeshua in the temple later.”

  I turned back toward Jerusalem. For all the time and effort I had spent to visit Bethany, I had learned little. I should have expected Mary and Martha to confirm the raising of Lazarus; if it had been a carefully worked fraud, they would not reveal it to a passing stranger.

  Even if I chose to believe in that unlikely miracle, it has still brought me no closer to what I needed. “Understand His teachings”—there was nothing practical about that. This man seemed to be a whimsical, unpredictable mystic.

  It was a shame, I thought, that neither money nor power seemed to tempt Him. What could I do to bend His will to mine?

  Chapter Thirty-two

  I fear for you,” Pascal said. Seraphine had left us alone, disappearing after the meal to supervise servants. Candle flames wavered and made it difficult to read Pascal’s face.

  “Fear?” I smiled, as if his statement had not risen a snake’s head of worry in my belly. Has he or one of his servants found my letters to Jaala?

  He sighed. “Surely by now you understand that a fly does not land in this city without my knowledge. Take your hand, for example. The knuckles, bruised and scraped. The way you wince with every movement. Even had I not heard about your encounter with the thieves, I would have noticed something during our meal tonight.”

  “Pascal, I will find it unforgivable if you had me followed during the day.” I had told no one of the happenings in the alley beneath the city. If he knew, it was because he had made efforts to track my movements.

  Pascal sighed again. “Must I remind you of your appearance? How long do you think it took for word to spread through the underbelly of this city that an expensively dressed, unarmed man with a distinctive scar attacked two with knives and defeated them?”

  My smile was grim, unamused. “You have friends among thieves.”

  “Don’t be a fool. Of course I do.” He grinned, trying to relieve the tension between us. “Most of them live here in the upper city.”

  I was not in the mood.

  Neither was he; his grin faded. “Admit it,” Pascal said. “During any of your other visits, your mind found nothing of interest but the price of glass, silk, and other luxuries. You worked ceaselessly, securing shipments at prices far below market rates. Yet this past week, the only mention you’ve made of business is a cryptic offer to sell me what you own, and even then, you’ve ignored any opportunity to discuss that offer with me further.”

  “Other matters seemed more important. I will make a list of the assets tomorrow and present it to you before the Passover begins.”

  “I’m not sure that will be necessary—which is why I fear for you.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  He rubbed his face pensively before looking at me again. “You went to Bethany today. You made inquiries at the house of Lazarus. Do you deny this?”

  I half stood, immediately angry.

  He put up a tired hand. “Simeon, I did not have you followed. The Sanhedrin have spies everywhere around this man. As always, their reports reached me through friends of mine.”

  I remained half standing.

  “Sit. Please,” Pascal urged. “Understand that I am willing to see things from your point of view. I have never had the joy of a child, let alone a son to carry my name. I can only imagine how deeply it would hurt to lose him had God given me such a gift. . . .”

  For all my anger and all my faults, even I could recognize that Pascal had acknowledged his one deepest pain, sorrow, and shame—the lack of an heir. Seraphine was his fourth wife; he was long past being able to blame a barren womb instead of his own infertile seed.

  I sat, as weary as he was.

  “A good charlatan can deceive the best, and I pray that in your grief you have not fallen into this Yeshua’s power,” Pascal said. I had never seen his face so softened with the gentleness I saw in the candlelight. The quietness of his voice matched the compassion of his gaze. “I think of you as a brother, and it would break my heart to see that the r
umors of a man raised from the dead have led you to false hope.”

  “You need not worry about me.”

  Pascal shook his head and tightened his lips in sadness. “Simeon, listen to me. He cannot bring your son back. Nor can He heal your daughter.”

  “I’m not sure I wish to continue this discussion.”

  “We must,” he said. His face had lost none of its concern for me. “The Sanhedrin believe you want to join Yeshua’s movement, and that leaves me no choice. I cannot consider any dealings with you, at least not now. In a year perhaps, when this false messiah has been forgotten. But not now. I hope you understand.”

  Before I could reply, Pascal continued. “What makes this conversation so difficult is that your interest in the false messiah has been in vain.”

  I waited.

  “One of His followers visited the temple today,” Pascal said. He carefully watched my face. “Obviously a shrewd man, he sees the end. Undoubtedly, he has decided that if he helps the religious authorities now, they can’t prosecute him later with the other disciples when Yeshua is gone.”

  Pascal’s narration was not one of triumph but resignation. “Think of it. The chief priests are deep in discussions that must not be recorded by any scribes. Their priority issue, of course, is this prophet from Galilee, who threatens each of their areas of temple jurisdiction. He must be stopped. But He is too popular. If He is taken publicly, the people will riot. Pilate will send in his troops. But how can He be taken in secret when He comes and goes so unpredictably? Then this man Judas approaches and offers them the prophet.”

  Pascal shook his head in mild disgust. “Our holy representatives did not merely accept the gift but still fought for a bargain. To get this Yeshua would be worth half the temple treasury. Yet they bartered until Judas agreed to betray his master for the legal price of a slave.”

  I felt the muscles in my chest squeeze. “Betray?” I echoed.

  “The prophet will die. And the price of His life was only thirty pieces of silver.”

  Chapter Thirty-three

  As I stared sightlessly into the darkness, lost in my miserable world, much higher-stakes politics were occurring not far from my guest chamber.