Gospel (122 page)

“Keep in mind,” she said to me, “that we already have Attis and Adonis and the like. We would prefer something different.”

I asked of her, “Your Radiance, is it the habit of Meroe to worship
all
the known gods?”

She said with serenity, “Not knowing which God is most powerful or most likely to benefit us, would a sovereign advise her people otherwise? We are concerned lest we should neglect a deity and cause Her or His ire. In your religion, do those who have not heard of your God suffer punishment for their ignorance?”

Of course not, I said.

“But if one has heard your God revealed and then not accepted, then horrible judgments are bound to follow, correct?”

I said to her that this was true.

She said to me, “Ah, you see the wisdom of our ways. One can never be too careful with other people's strange gods.”

20.
An adviser (or male courtesan for all I knew) suggested that I had but brought Osiris down the Nile again, but I protested, describing in full the genealogy and pedigree of Our Teacher.

She said to me, “As to this sacrifice, if we follow your God we ourselves do not make this sacrifice?”

I told her that the sacrifice of lives was not necessary, lest she confuse the Nazirene Church with some Eastern barbarity. Instead, I mentioned, some sacrifice of wealth was required so that God's children might live communally and be clothed and fed.

She said to me, “But we live already communally and share whatever we have between us. All extra wealth is accumulated in this palace for the glory of the Candace, as well as for disasters and famines, which, sadly, are common here.”

21.
Our Master, I said to her, said to love one's enemies. To turn the other cheek if we are struck.

She said to me, “We have no wars. Should anyone declare one, it is not long before they lose interest or undo themselves. We are very skilled at hiding our money and treasure, you see, in the many catacombs beneath Meroe. We have an army in the event someone wishes to destroy us and raze the city but not since the Persians has anyone traversed this far up the Nile with an army intact.”
16

Then the Candace seemed to grow impatient with me.

She said to me, “Please, my Judean gentleman, tell us of the festivals! How do we celebrate this new prophet?” She snapped her fat fingers and a minister approached showing her an unrolled papyrus. “We have nothing for the first winter month. A fourteen-day gap with nothing religious. We tried to celebrate the Sacred Fire then but no one could be troubled to stand around a fire in this part of the world, as you may understand.”

22.
At great length, I explained that it is ritual itself that we Nazirenes have eschewed as worthless.
17

I persevered and was at last able to introduce the subject of why I had come. I said to her, “Your Lustrousness would not know then of a man named either Benjamin or Belshazzar who claims to possess a great secret about the Teacher of Righteousness?”

And at this the entire court fell quiet, as if I might have given offense. (Yes, I see Tesmegan is hushed as I retell it.)

One of the more clothed of the attendants rushed to my side to whisper that the talk of secrets always annoyed the Candace deeply, but soon the Candace spoke for herself:

“As a newcomer to Meroe you could not know that we never speak of secrets here. To have secrets, secret pacts and groups, secret societies and schemes, is the beginning of all evils, my determined Judean. If the man you search for did come here with a mystery and my court voted to make it a secret, then there is no way you shall ever know it.”

23.
The minister by my side counseled me not to say much more, this topic of secrets was of such great sensitivity. Indeed, once something was proclaimed a secret, the originator was consigned to his house forever, a guard posted at the door, and in serious cases of dreadful secrets, he was killed. Someone unfortunate enough not to have a house was confined to the Palace of Secrets, a most dread prison filled, according to open gossip, with schemers for power, would-be usurpers, a magician who refused to tell the Candace how he did a particular illusion, and an array of secret and inconvenient lovers of great personages.

The Candace entered her own opinion, saying to me, “What is said in Meroe must be said for all to hear.”

Indeed, one must credit a society highly that bans secret factions and agencies. Your own modest history, my brother Josephus, shows that our former Judea was a society doomed by scheming and deal-making. I said to the Candace, “Alas, O Beauteous One, Your Greatness is telling me I shall never know if Benjamin and his libelous information have passed through Meroe. I suppose I have committed myself to come here in vain.”

24.
She said to this, “But of course you have not. I hope to see you often in our court where we make much sport of newcomers; we have barely begun with you! And you may have the honor of adding a theological document to our library. Our ministers will study it repeatedly until we shall find something of your Nazirene God to admire.”

Then she added, as I was waved away (I believe it is a private matter, her moving from her throne, having all her attendants bring the pillows and stuffings that lend credence to the illusion of her bulk)—she said to me, “Besides, in time we shall get to know you and once you are deemed unthreatening and not a Roman spy, you may bribe your way out of the city, a gift to our Treasury. Nothing in these parts cannot be managed if one is skilled in bribery!”

25.
I was then taken to a banqueting hall, atop the tombstones of lesser nobles and older Meroitian families—for it is impolite not to include the departed, they think, in all festivities and gaiety; the ritual uncleanliness of this custom barely needs elaboration. After this impossibly spicy fare (the court competes, I am told, among who can swallow the hottest morsel), I was shown to a spacious mansion used for visitors, and introduced to—yes yes, he is so happy he can barely write it down—my dear young Tesmegan, my scribe.

26.
And here I have written down my history.

My passion for my mission faded, of course, as I surmised that I should never impress upon the Meroitians the need for only one God; all I might ever do is provide some trinket by which they can create a feast or a special holiday. They use God to merely decorate the calendar.

Ah, dear Tesmegan. How I wish I had stayed in his company alone, my brother, but I felt the need to wander among the citizens and investigate this marvelous place. I trifled with the idea of writing a book upon the unvisited Meroe and so I occupied many weeks with meeting the inhabitants and perusing the library and its numerous Greek works. (I confess to finding the Meroitian language totally indecipherable; nor would anyone give me as much as a clue to reading it—impossible people!)

Of course it was not long before I discovered the house of a wealthy man who was said to have been Judean, guards posted at his door, a man condemned to his home for harboring a secret deemed malevolent by the Empire of Meroe. The more the locals refused to answer my questions, the more information perversely I was to garner. I asked the guards one day if any visitation of the man inside was possible, and I learned there was such a day granted, upon each full moon. But, they told me, this man had existed many years without visitors; they would not even speak his name to me.

27.
Dutifully, thinking only of my history … no, that is not true. Thinking only of my own faith, my brother, hoping for a final proof, my own powers of prayer and faith quite dry, I waited until the next full moon to pay a visit.

The guard knocked loudly on the bolted door of what looked to be a pleasant house. In many minutes there was no answer, and so the guard beat the door again. I feared briefly that the prisoner had expired, but then I heard him call out to us, “Leave the food inside the door, I shall get it later!”

“It is a visitor,” called back the guard.

Then there was more delay as the man had run to change into something appropriate for company. He was, upon appearing, a man of sixty-some years, still with dark beard and large, mournful eyes. He came to the window in the wall. He was dressed well but it did not disguise his weariness and unhappiness. And what a strange sensation, here in Meroe to speak in Aramaic! (Do not worry, Tesmegan, I shall continue in this language.)

28.
He said to me, “I wondered if I should ever see another visitor.”

“Are you Benjamin,” I asked, “the former slave of Joseph of Arimathea?”

He was very cagey, this man. “Do I look like a slave?”

I said to him, “I mean, of course, a freedman who was once a slave.”

“In this prison, I am hardly a freedman now.”

I told Benjamin that I would appreciate his cooperation. I was an historian, in addition to my fame as a poet, and I was also a Disciple of Our Beloved Teacher. But he merely wanted to know one thing, asking me, “Are you rich?”

I said to him, “I was born into a noble family and have possessed great wealth within my lifetime.”

He asked me, “Are you rich enough to get me out of here?”

I said to him, “I understand there is no escape.”

He said to me, “But there is. Only at the changing of the Candace, which should be in six months. A new Candace can hear my case. You cannot imagine my rage, my bitterness at this foolish land!”

29.
I decided to outwit this rascal by proffering the hopes that I might fund such an enterprise. I said to him, “I might well pay the sum if it is not too much, if you are willing to speak honestly with me. A former slave of Joseph of Arimathea was made rich by his owner, who sent him away up the Nile on the condition that he not tell a secret concerning the death of Our Master, the Teacher of Righteousness.”

He interrupted me, saying, “You mean the Nazirene.”

I said to him, my heart fully racing, “Yes, the One Who was crucified and buried.”

He said to me, “And is said to have risen from the tomb.”

I explained to him, “Yes, Joseph's family tomb, in fact. It is said that a slave was paid to secrete away the body and, as a reward, was sent to Elephantine with quite a lot of money to ensure his secrecy. Again, sir, is your name Benjamin?”

30.
He said at last, “Why of course it is. Yes, that is I.”

I asked him to swear that this was true and he willingly gave his word in the solemnest of oaths. I asked him finally, “Have you some proof of what became of Our Master's relics?”

He said to me, “We brought the body to Egypt. Shall I show him to you?”

Such heresies hinted at: the bones of the Messiah! I said to him, “Do you expect me to be convinced by a display of bones, a fetid pile of grave clothes?”

He said to me, “One cannot, my friend, believe what men say is true, but perhaps you will believe your own eyes. Remember the secrets of the Pharaohs, the art of embalming? If you could get inside this house I would take you to the cool cellar where Your Master awaits.”

Of all the unclean abominations—the mummies of the Egyptians! To think that Our Master, rather than ascended bodily to sit in the presence of the Throne, encrowned with the Seven Diadem, was rotting in this vile man's cellar like a preserved foodstuff!

31.
Overcome with emotion, I said to him, “I should know in a moment if it were He, the One Who Brought Us Life. Just to look upon him…”

And here this villain laughed, saying to me, “To look upon what is left of his face, you mean?”

I declared this talk all blasphemous and beyond what even the scripture had thought to condemn! What good was it to even entertain such pollutions in the mind, as I could never be admitted to examine this ghastly relic.

But he said to me, “Because no one wishes to break into this house it would not be difficult for you to slip inside when a meal is delivered and the guard not looking. It is getting out that would require delicacy.”

I said to him, “Apparently it is too great a trick to escape, otherwise you would have done so already.”

“I am known to be imprisoned here, but you are not. Were you to be seen again on the street no one should care.”

32.
I hoped to avoid the risk of lawbreaking. Still unsure, I asked him questions to verify his identity. Did he remember anything said or done by Our Master? He did not, not being a Nazirene, he said. Could he tell me particulars of the estate at Arimathea? He described an estate and large house generally enough (honestly, no country estate is so dissimilar from another). What was Joseph's wife's name? He did not remember, but I must say it was lost in my own mind.

He said to me, “Choose your course, Disciple. You have only this day to visit or you shall wait another month. I shall make a crashing of crockery, turn over a table, and feign that I have obtained an injury. Inform the guard you are a physician bringing medicine; he shall let you in briefly. The guard will change in the evening. After some minutes we will knock to let you out and the evening guard will suppose you newly arrived. I shall dissemble convincingly for you, for these guards have grown to like and trust me. But there is a price!”

And of course I knew that price, the ransom for his escape. It should mean all my remaining monies, except what I had laid aside to pay my scribe.

“And you are truly Benjamin?” I begged of him again.

“Who else would I be?” he insisted.

Giving this scoundrel my purse would mean never having money to bribe my own way out of this city, and since no trade would be allowed me, I should never leave this land unless rescued. But at my age …

33.
My brother, you now know the choice I made. I risked being caught and punished. I gambled with my last monies, assuring that I should never leave this place.