The Weeping Chamber Page 4

  Yet, for all I know, I could well have seen them. Again, a need for solitude had drawn me from the city. In the countryside, the sunshine and solitude gave my soul the illusion of freedom.

  But it was only an illusion.

  Resting on a large boulder on the side of the hill, I gazed at the faraway road that led down the Mount of Olives. The burden that had weighed heavily upon me for the previous eighteen months stayed squarely with me.

  To Pascal—when we sat down to complete our transaction—I would give truth. A fire had destroyed one of my warehouses. I was tired of business.

  Yet I would not tell him the entire truth: that my wife had only coldness in her heart, that my daughter recoiled from my touch, that I had discovered far too late what was truly valuable.

  As for my intentions once Pascal and I came to terms and I had ensured the well-being of my family, I was still unsure. I wondered whether I could find comfort in a quiet life in some far corner of the empire. I also realized there was another possibility, the one that was frightening me less each day and tempting me more.

  Deep in such thoughts, I would barely have paid attention to the pilgrims as they descended the Mount of Olives. Of course, at that time I did not know that Yeshua stayed in Bethany each night, nor did I care that He was determined to return to Jerusalem each new day.

  Still, had I actually been looking, I might have seen Yeshua and His followers among the stream of pilgrims. Had I noticed, however, I still would not have understood why they stopped near a fig tree. Or what that stop could mean to the one named Judas Iscariot.

  **

  Halfway down the Mount of Olives, the unseasonably early leaves of a solitary fig tree were obvious from a considerable distance. While shrubs and wildflowers had begun to emerge, dotting the hillsides with color, the season had yet to woo anything but the fig tree into such a luxurious cloak of green. It stood in welcome contrast to the rocky soil around it.

  Judas, however, had no eye for the beauty of the wild hills or the oasis of shade the fig tree promised. Of all the disciples, he walked farthest behind the teacher. Inside his purse, the fingers of his right hand played with layers of shekels as he sought relief for his uneasiness, which felt like black blood coursing through his veins.

  He’d brought up the rear of the small procession since they’d left Bethphage, shuffling his sandals at an unenthusiastic pace with little energy. The crisp air of the morning had not roused his spirits; rather it seemed the cheerfulness of the pale blue sky and a sun not yet hot, along with the promise of a new season in the beginning bloom of wildflowers, all served to taunt him for the darkness his soul could not shake.

  He’d slept poorly, waking again and again to remember pieces of his short conversation with the stranger in the crowd:

  “Why has He not taken the cloak of Messiah?”

  “In Capernaum, He commanded them not to rise up against the Romans.”

  “Nothing noble about drowning unnecessarily, particularly if power is to be found elsewhere.”

  “Should you ever want to know, you may find me among the Sanhedrists. Those who hold true power.”

  These statements surely worked like a slow poison, and when Judas felt guilt at his traitorous thoughts, it would be all too human to wash the guilt away with anger. After all, Yeshua had the entire world at His command. If He did not act upon it, should Judas be blamed for the natural result of resentment?

  Judas was so deep into his bitter contemplation that when the procession stopped, he stumbled into Peter, striking him squarely between the shoulder blades.

  Judas blinked. The small group had bunched at the side of the road. He saw no reason for the sudden halt.

  “What’s this?” Peter joked, spinning to see Judas. “A blind sparrow flutters against my neck?”

  Some of the others laughed at Peter’s affectionate remark.

  Judas raised his lips in a smile to hide his thoughts. Earlier, Judas had always fooled himself into believing such jokes were meant to include him. Now he knew differently. Had not the teacher deliberately excluded him earlier—taking only Peter, James, and John up to a mountain one night for meditation? Inside, Judas flamed with anger at where his thoughts began to take him. After all the work he had done, after all he had given of his life over the past three years . . .

  Again, Peter interrupted Judas’s thoughts, grabbing him by the elbow, fully expecting this unspoken, imperious Galilean command to focus Judas’s attention. Judas frowned in irritation. More and more the arrogant fisherman was taking a position as second-in-command. Had they forgotten Judas was the one trusted with the band’s funds?

  Nonetheless, Judas turned his attention to where Peter pointed. Yeshua was walking a delicate path through low thorny bushes.

  “It’s a fig He wants,” Peter said.

  So now, Judas thought with scorn, the fisherman knows the teacher’s thoughts?

  Yeshua stopped at the base of the tree and looked up into its wide branches.

  “As we left Bethany this morning, some of us warned Him to break His fast,” Peter said softly. “It was plain that a night of prayer had worn Him into a faint of hunger. But He insisted on leaving for Jerusalem.”

  “It is not the season for figs,” Judas said. Yeshua was still searching the tree for fruit. “Surely He knows that.”

  “You have a head good with figures,” Peter said with a smile. “But it is easy to guess that you are not from the country. See the tree’s greenness? It is well known in Galilee that the fruit on a fig tree always appears before the leaves. Failing that, there should be old fruit from last season, just as edible as new fruit. Don’t be surprised when our master finds a fig.”

  “Thank you for increasing my limited education,” Judas replied. “How I ever lived without such knowledge is beyond me.”

  Peter did not hear the sarcasm and patted Judas on the shoulder. Before, Judas would have accepted such an action with a glow of fellowship. Now it seemed condescending.

  Beneath the tree, Yeshua gave up His search and picked His way back through the brush.

  “Barren,” Peter said quietly. “In any man’s garden, it would only be good for kindling.”

  “Again,” Judas said, taking satisfaction in his ambiguous tone, “I thank you for your valuable teaching. It will undoubtedly serve me well in my own orchards.”

  Judas enjoyed Peter’s response, a quick strange look as if the big man had finally suspected something amiss but did not have the intelligence to understand.

  Peter’s jaw began to move—Judas nearly laughed at the thought that the fisherman was so slow he needed to have his mouth in motion to think—but the teacher interrupted whatever reply Peter might have given. He surprised them all by speaking His first words of the day’s journey not to them but to the tree.

  “May no one ever eat your fruit again!” Yeshua said; then He turned toward Jerusalem.

  His followers also turned and exchanged puzzled looks. Not even Judas—ever alert for hidden meaning in any man’s words—could make sense of the teacher’s utterance, for His tone had been completely flat.

  Judas had, of course, noticed one thing. In the intimacy of sharing shrugs, none of the other eleven—all Galileans, when he was Judean—had bothered to glance at him.

  Judas decided he would remember that. Just as he remembered all the injustices in his life.

  Chapter Eleven

  To my surprise, on my return to the city, I saw the blind beggar again. He was not begging but awkwardly shuffling through the temple.

  To enter the city, I had done what most who arrive from the direction of Jericho did. Instead of taking the longer route past the Pool of Bethesda and around the north side of the temple, I came through the East Gate, which allowed me to cut directly through the temple to the lower quarters of Jerusalem on the other side. The bedlam of the money changers and livestock in the temple had hardly distracted me.

  But when I caught a glimpse of the man shuffling uncert
ainly as people moved quickly around him, I stopped. Twice, as I watched, uncaring pedestrians knocked him to his knees.

  I’m not sure what moved me to help him. Perhaps it was the pitiful sight of someone struggling to reach a destination he could not see. Perhaps I felt the role of his guardian; I had already assisted him with a gift of gold. Or perhaps seeing his misery was a balm to my own. Regardless, I reached him quickly and took him by the elbow.

  “Don’t be alarmed,” I told him at his startled flinch. “We spoke this morning.”

  He recognized my voice and smiled toothlessly as he turned his face to me. Then he frowned. “I cannot return your money,” he said quickly with a shiver of apprehension. “It is already—”

  “I am not here for your coins,” I said. Passersby jostled us. The din was so loud I was forced to lean toward his ear. The smell of his unwashed body and sweat-soured clothing caused me to regret our proximity. “Rather, I offer assistance. Where do you wish to go? And what madness has you venturing into the temple crowd?”

  He answered. At first I did not believe I had heard correctly. Not with the shouting of money changers, the noise of livestock, and the ceaseless noise of bartering. I asked him to repeat his words.

  “I want to see!” he shouted. “I have heard that the prophet has arrived again. If I find Him, He can heal me!”

  Did I want to be party to this beggar’s disappointment? After all, even if we actually found the prophet among the thousands in the temple, the only certainty awaiting this old blind man was tomorrow’s blindness. Not healing.

  However, as we stood, the prophet and His followers approached us. Although I witnessed what happened next, I later heard it retold in complaint—as I hid my smile and pretended ignorance—from a friend of Pascal, a friend who had a far greater stake in the event than I had.

  Chapter Twelve

  Oren, son of Judd, stood hardly taller than the heads of the goats in the enclosure behind him. His robes were of fine woven cloth, and his fingers heavy with thick rings of gold. What did it matter that the stench of manure clung to his shoes, or that he was often covered with the dirt of livestock? He was a man of power.

  Oren had earned his wealth over the years in the same way he was earning it at the moment—examining sacrificial animals, priding himself on his ability to concentrate on his task even when the pace of commerce was at its most hectic and demanding during the madness of Passover.

  Around him, filling the Court of the Gentiles, thousands of pilgrims streamed past the animal enclosures and money tables, creating a babble of noise punctuated by merchants’ shouts and children’s cries. Cramped against each other in their respective pens, lambs and goats and oxen and cattle milled in nervous circles; the smell of fresh dung scattered by their hooves was ample proof of their instinctive fear of the unaccustomed din.

  Dozens of pilgrims waited sullenly for Oren to inspect their offerings—small lambs tucked under arms, goats led by ropes, doves in reed cages. An old woman with a lamb stood directly before Oren.

  He turned the lamb upside down and frowned at a spot on its belly. “Impure,” he announced to the elderly woman. “Not fit for the sacrifice.”

  “What’s that?” She cupped her ears with her hands, trying to hear above the din.

  “I cannot give my approval to an animal with blemishes,” he said, guessing she was too dim sighted to realize the spot was merely dirt. He could clean the lamb later and sell it for great profit. “Without my approval, the priests will not accept it at the altar.”

  “I brought my best lamb,” she protested. “It cannot be blemished.”

  “Ignorance like yours is why the priests engage a mumcheh like me.”

  “I am offering God the best I have!” She was close to weeping.

  Oren shrugged. “Have you spent a year and a half with a farmer learning what faults are temporary and what faults are permanent?”

  “No, but—”

  “I have. The priest will take my word over yours.” He held out his hand. “I have been authorized to charge six isar for my judgment.” Oren clucked self-righteously. “You could have avoided this trouble and bought your animal at the market here.”

  “From thieves who ask for a pigeon the price of a month’s food?”

  Again, he shrugged. “Do you wish the inconvenience of carrying this impure lamb, or do you wish to leave it with me to dispose of for you?”

  At this final outrage, the elderly woman lost her patience. “I traveled three weeks to get here. I paid two denarii to change my coins to shekels for the temple tribute. And you propose to steal the very lamb you have rejected?”

  Oren’s thick ruddy lips formed a waxen smile. “You are welcome to have another mumcheh examine your lamb. For another six isar, of course.”

  The elderly woman screeched with anger. “You are all thieves! Working together to squeeze blood from our bones! If I were a man I would—”

  Voices behind her rose in agreement. Until louder shouts distracted them.

  “The prophet! He arrives! It is Yeshua, from Nazareth!”

  Oren hoped they were wrong.

  Then he heard a roar of approval. Although suspicion told him what to expect, he needed to see for himself. Oren remembered very clearly a time when Yeshua had visited before. Oren had been one of the prophet’s first victims. He had no intention of seeing his money scattered again.

  Oren groaned with effort and somehow squirmed his fat body onto his table. The table sagged. He tottered as he stretched to look over the crowd. What he saw confirmed his dread. The lunatic from Nazareth had begun another rampage.

  Chapter Thirteen

  From my vantage point, one hand still firmly clasping the blind beggar’s elbow, I saw everything clearly. And with some degree of fascination.

  The prophet Yeshua was less than a dozen steps away.

  He showed no anger. Instead, great resolve was etched into His face. Already, He had turned over two money tables. Shekels and pagan coins had scattered like grain; the money changers were on their hands and knees, trying to scoop the coins together.

  The next table held cages of doves. Had He wrenched the table on its side, the doves would have been crushed. Instead Yeshua leaned on the table and stared at the much taller, angry merchant behind it.

  But the stare was enough. Instead of shouting, the merchant snapped his jaw shut and stepped away. With quick flicks of His fingers, the prophet opened the cage doors. Blossoms of white freedom, the doves whirred into the air above the crowd.

  Yeshua upended two more money tables in silence. Several money changers down the line had lifted their tunics by the hems with one hand, uncaring of the indignity of exposing their skinny white legs as they scrambled to throw coins into the makeshift pouches. Despite their frantic efforts, they were not fast enough and fell backward as Yeshua flipped their tables.

  He stopped abruptly and spun toward the gates of the animal enclosures. Pulling open the gates of the goat pen first, He waded in, waving His arms to drive the goats into the crowd. Then the cattle, the sheep and lambs, and finally the oxen.

  The animals did much of the remaining work, knocking over tables and benches, bumping into merchants so greedy to guard their money that they refused to move away from the stampede of frightened beasts.

  Around me, the confusion multiplied as people panicked. Twice I had to pull the blind beggar from the path of oxen. People flowed around us, at first trying to stem the escape of livestock, then fleeing it. Sheep, goats, and oxen barged in all directions.

  The blind beggar kept crying for an explanation of the noise and confusion around him. I shouted to him to stay with me and wait. I did not know it at the time, of course, but the chaos had extended far beyond this portion of the temple.

  Above all of it, I could hear pilgrims cheer. They thrilled to watch Yeshua’s righteous anger. This man dared to stand alone against corruption. While the pilgrims needed animals for sacrifice at the altar, a proper market had been es
tablished on the lower portion of the Mount of Olives. The family of Annas had no scriptural authority for its stranglehold on these tainted profits.

  Yeshua’s moral certainty, like a physical force, at first made the merchants fall away. Then, as His methodical action gained momentum, the crowd’s approval of His stance against the thievery was too much for any one merchant to overcome.

  Still, as Yeshua continued, I could not help but wonder when the temple police would arrive.

  I can thank Pascal and his love for passing on gossip from his well-to-do customers for the answer I eventually discovered.

  **

  When the first priests reached Caiaphas, the high priest, they were out of breath. It had been a long run from the Court of the Gentiles.

  Caiaphas turned from conversation with a chief priest and raised his eyebrows in question at the noisy approach of the two men.

  “He is at the money tables,” one gasped. He waved his arms in a rapid gesture of confusion. “The animals! Coins! Benches everywhere! Send the temple police!”

  Caiaphas froze him by raising a single bony finger.

  “Do not ever tell me what to do.” Tall and angular, with a reach as wide as a vulture’s wingspan, Caiaphas’s looks caused some to say his face mirrored the wrathful countenance of God. Caiaphas prided himself on the image and was as miserly with his smiles as with his shekels.

  Confronted by his full anger, the second Pharisee actually twitched in fear and tried to suck back his own sobs for air, hoping not to be noticed.

  Caiaphas looked back and forth between them until he was satisfied at their level of terror. “Tell me,” he said. “Is the crowd in favor of His actions?”

  Both nodded.

  “Then we do nothing,” Caiaphas announced. He glanced over their shoulders at the tower of Fort Antonia, where six hundred Roman soldiers were garrisoned and ready to quell any public riots.

  Caiaphas closed his eyes. He spoke softly, more to himself than to the others. “This is not our time. When our time arrives, it will be formed at our choosing, without the people around to protect Him.”