The Last Temptation of Christ (10 page)

The rabbi collapsed onto a stool. Squeezing his temples between his hands, he plunged deep into thought. After a considerable interval he lifted his head.

“Nothing else, Mary? Bend far down within yourself so that you’ll be sure to hear. The fate of Israel may depend on what you say.”

When Mary heard the rabbi’s words she became terrified. Her breast began to tremble, and once more her mind strained to discover what was behind the thunder.

“No,” she murmured finally, exhausted, “no, Father. He said more, much more, but I can’t hear it. I’m trying as hard as I can, but I cannot hear what he said.”

The rabbi placed his hand on top of her head, above her large eyes.

“Fast, Mary, and pray; do not dissipate your mind on daily tasks. There are times when a glowing halo as bright as lightning moves all around your face. Is it truly light, I wonder? I can’t tell. Fast, pray, and you will hear. ‘Hail, Mary ...’: God’s message begins with kindness. Try hard to hear what follows.”

In order to hide her agitation Mary went to the shelf where she kept the jugs. She unhooked a brass cup, filled it with cool water, got a handful of dates also, and bent over to hand them to the old man.

“I’m not hungry or thirsty, Mary,” he said, “thank you. Sit down; I have something to say to you.”

Mary took the lowest stool and sat at the rabbi’s feet. Tipping up her head, she waited.

The old man tested the words one by one in his mind. What be wanted to say was difficult: it was a hope so spidery fine and slippery that he was unable to find words spidery and slippery enough to avoid giving the hope too much weight and turning it into a certainty. He did not want to terrify the mother.

“Mary,” he said finally, “a mystery roams outside this house, like a desert lion. You are not the same as other women, Mary. Don’t you feel that?”

“No, I don’t, Father,” she murmured. “I am like all women. I love all the cares and joys of women. I like to wash, to cook, to go to the fountain for water, to chat merrily with the neighbors; and, in the evening, to sit in my doorway and watch the passers-by. And my heart, Father, like the hearts of all women, is full of pain.”

“You’re not the same as other women, Mary,” the rabbi repeated in a solemn tone, raising his hand as though he wished to prevent all objections. “And your son ...”

The rabbi stopped. How could he find words to express this, the most difficult part of all. He looked up at the heavens and listened. Some of the birds in the trees were preparing to go to sleep, others to wake up. The wheel turned; the day sank below men’s feet.

The rabbi sighed. How the days rushed by, how rabidly one pursued the next! Dawn, dusk, the passage of the sun, the passage of moon after moon; children became men, black hairs whitened, the sea ate into the land, mountains were stripped bare—and still the One they awaited did not come!

“My son?” said Mary, her voice trembling. “My son, Father?”

“He is not like other sons, Mary,” the rabbi boldly replied.

He weighed his words once more, and continued after a moment. “Sometimes when he is alone during the night and thinks no one is watching him, the whole circumference of his face gleams in the darkness. May God forgive me, Mary, but I’ve made a small hole high in the wall. I climb up and watch him from there; I spy on what he does. Why? Because—I confess it—I’m completely confused; my knowledge is of no help whatsoever: I unroll the Scriptures tirelessly but I cannot comprehend what or who he is. I spy on him in secret, therefore, and in the darkness I discern this light which licks him and devours his face. That is why he’s been growing paler day by day and melting away. It’s not because of sickness, fasting or prayer; no, he is being devoured by this light.”

Mary sighed. Woe betide the mother who bears a son unlike all the rest, she thought. But she did not speak.

The old man bent over her now and lowered his voice. His lips were on fire.

“Hail, Mary,” he said. “God is all-powerful; his designs are inscrutable. Your son might be ...”

But the unfortunate mother uttered a cry: “Have pity on me, Father! A prophet? No, no! And if God has it so written, let him rub it out! I want my son a man like everyone else, nothing more, nothing less. Like everyone else. ... Let him build troughs, cradles, plows and household utensils as his father used to do, and not, as just now, crosses to crucify human beings. Let him marry a nice young girl from a respectable home—with a dowry; let him be a liberal provider, have children, and then we’ll all go out together every Saturday to the promenade—grandma, children and grandchildren—so that everyone can admire us.”

The rabbi leaned heavily on his crosier and got up. “Mary,” he said severely, “if God listened to mothers we would all rot away in a bog of security and easy living. ... When you’re alone, think over everything we have said.”

He turned to his brother in order to bid him good night. Joseph, his glassy eyes misty and his tongue hanging out, stared into the air, struggling to speak.

Mary shook her head. “He’s been fighting since morning and still hasn’t freed himself.” She went up to him and sponged the contorted, drooling mouth.

But the moment the rabbi held out his hand to say good night to Mary also, the door opened furtively and the son appeared on the threshold, his face gleaming in the darkness. The gory kerchief was pasted to his hair, but the night obscured the large tears which still furrowed his cheeks, as well as the dust and blood which coated his feet.

He strode over the threshold, looked hastily about him, discovered his mother and the rabbi and, in the darkness near the wall, his father’s glassy eyes.

Mary started to light the lamp, but the rabbi held her back.

“Wait,” he murmured. “I’ll talk to him.” Emboldening his heart, he approached.

“Jesus,” he said tenderly, lowering his voice so that the mother would not hear, “Jesus, my child, how long are you going to resist him?”

And then the entire cottage shook with the savage shout: “Until I die!”

All at once, as though every ounce of strength had flowed out of him, the son of Mary collapsed to the ground and leaned against the wall, gasping for breath. The rabbi wanted to speak to him again. He leaned over him but immediately drew back with a jolt. He felt as though he had approached a great fire and burned his face. God is all around him, he reflected: yes, it’s God who is around him, and he lets no one come near. I’d better leave!

He departed, plunged in thought. The door closed, but Mary did not dare light the lamp: a wild beast lay in wait for her in the darkness. Standing in the middle of the house, she listened to her husband’s hopeless clucking and to her son who, fallen in a heap on the ground, gasped in terror as though being strangled. Someone was choking him—who? The unfortunate mother dug her nails into her cheeks and asked God, asked him again, complained, shouted: “I’m a mother; don’t you pity me?”—but no one answered.

And while she stood there, fixed and speechless, hearing every vein in her body tremble, there was a wild, triumphant cry. The tongue of the paralyzed man had been loosed and the entire word had issued at last from his contorted mouth, syllable by syllable, and reverberated throughout the house: A-DO-NA-I! But as the old man unmouthed this word, he sank instantaneously, like lead, into the depths of sleep.

Mary nerved herself and lighted the lamp. The food was boiling. Going to the hearth, she knelt and removed the lid of the earthenware pot to see if any water was needed, or perhaps a pinch of salt.

THE SKY SHONE bluish white. Nazareth was asleep and dreaming, the Morning Star tolled the hours over its pillows, the lemon and date trees were still wrapped in a rosy-blue veil. Deep silence … Not even the black cock had crowed. The son of Mary opened the door. Dark blue rings circled his eyes, but his hand did not tremble. He opened the door, and without closing it again, without looking back to see either his mother or his father, he abandoned the paternal roof forever. He took two steps, three, and stopped. He thought he heard two heavy feet moving along with him. He looked behind him: no one. He tightened the nail-studded leather belt, tied the red-spotted kerchief over his hair and went down the narrow, twisting lanes. A dog barked at him mournfully; an owl sensed the approach of day, took fright and flew silently away over his head. He hurriedly left the bolted doors behind him and came out into the gardens and orchards. The first song birds had already begun to twitter. In a kitchen garden an old man was in harness, turning the winch over an irrigation well. The day had begun.

He had neither wallet, staff nor sandals, and the road was long. He would have to go past Cana, Tiberias, Magdala and Capernaum, then circle the lake. of Gennesaret and enter the desert. He had heard of a monastery there for simple, virtuous men: they dressed all in white, ate no meat, drank no wine, never touched a woman—did nothing but pray to God. They were versed in herbs and healed the diseases of the body; they were versed also in secret charms and cured the soul of devils. How many times had his uncle the rabbi spoken to him, sighing continually, about this holy monastery! He had spent eleven years there as a monk, praising God and healing men. But alas! one day he was mounted by the Tempter (he too, of course, is almighty): he saw a woman, abandoned the holy life, stripped off his white cassock, married—and fathered Magdalene. Served him right! God gave the apostate his just reward. ...

“That’s where I’ll go,” murmured the son of Mary, quickening his pace. “There, inside the monastery, I shall hide under his wings.

What a joy this was! What a long time—ever since his twelfth birthday—he had longed to abandon house and parents, to forget the past, escape his mother’s admonitions, his father’s bellowing and the petty workaday cares which devour the soul; had longed to shake Man from his feet like so much dust and to flee and take refuge in the desert! Today—finally—he had thrown everything behind him with one toss, had extricated himself from man’s wheel and taken hold, body and soul, of God’s. He was saved!

His pale, embittered face suddenly gleamed. Perhaps God’s claws had clutched him all those years precisely in order to bring him where he was now going of his own volition, free of the claws. Did this mean that his desires were beginning to join with those of God? Wasn’t this the greatest and most difficult of man’s duties? Wasn’t this the meaning of happiness?

His heart felt relieved. No more claws, no more wrestling and screaming. This morning at daybreak God had come filled with compassion, had come like a cool, gentle breeze and said to him, “Let us go!” He had opened the door; and now—what a delicious feeling of reconciliation, what happiness! “It is too much for me,” he murmured. “I shall lift high my head and sing the psalm of salvation: ‘You are my shelter and my refuge, Lord. ...’ ” His joy could not be contained in his heart; it overflowed. He proceeded in the sweet light of the dawn, surrounded by God’s great wealth—olive trees, vineyards, wheatfields; and the psalm of joy bounded out of his loins, trying to reach the sky. He lifted high his head and opened his mouth, but suddenly his heart skipped a beat: he had just clearly heard two bare feet running behind him. He shortened his stride and listened carefully. The two feet checked their pace. His knees gave way and he stopped. The two feet stopped also.

“I know who it is,” he whispered, trembling. “I know ...”

But he emboldened his heart and whirled abruptly in order to catch sight of her before she vanished. ... No one!

The eastern sky had turned dark cherry. The ears of grain were fully ripe; the stalks inclined their heads in the windless air and awaited the sickle. Not a single object was on the plain—not a beast, not a man. Only in Nazareth, behind him, was there any sign of life. Smoke had already begun to rise from one or two houses. The women were awakening.

He felt somewhat reassured. Better not lose time, he reflected. Let’s run for all I’m worth and get around to the other side of that hill, to lose her. He started to run.

On the other side of him the wheat towered to the height of a man. It was here in this plain of Galilee that wheat had originated, as had the vine, and wild vines still crept up the mountainsides. An ox cart creaked in the distance. Donkeys shook themselves up off the ground, sniffed the air, lifted their tails and braved. He heard laughter and chattering. Honed sickles flashed; the first mowers appeared. The sun saw them and fell on their lovely arms, necks and shins.

When they glimpsed the son of Mary running in the distance they burst out laughing.

“Hey there, who are you chasing,” they called to him, “or who’s chasing you?”

But when he came closer and they were able to get a better view of him, they knew who he was. They all stopped their chatter and huddled one next to the other.

“The cross-maker!” they murmured. “A curse on him! Yesterday I saw him crucify ...”

“Look at the gory kerchief he’s wearing!”

“It was his share of the clothes of the Crucified. May the blood of the innocent fall upon his head!”

They continued hurriedly on their way, but now the laughter stuck in their throats and they were silent.

The son of Mary went past them, left them behind him, crossed the wheatfields and reached the vineyards which covered the gentle slopes of the mountain. Seeing a fig tree, he started to slow down in order to pick a leaf and smell it. He liked the smell of fig leaves very much: they reminded him of human armpits. When he was little he used to close his eyes and smell the leaves, and he imagined he was snuggled again at his mother’s breast, sucking. ... But the moment he stopped and put out his hand to pick the leaf, cold sweat poured over his body. The two feet—which had been running behind him—suddenly stopped too. His hair stood on end. His arm still in the air, he looked all around him. Solitude. No one but God. The soil was wet, the leaves dripping; in the hollow of a tree a butterfly struggled to open its dewy wings and fly.

I’ll scream, he decided. I’ll scream to find relief.

Whenever he remained alone on the mountain or on the deserted plain at the hour of noon, what was it that he felt so abundantly—joy? bitterness? or was it, above everything else, fear? He always sensed God girding him about on all sides, and he would utter a wild cry, as though he wanted to make a desperate attempt to escape. Sometimes he crowed like a cock, sometimes he howled like a hungry jackal, sometimes like a dog being whipped. But as he opened his mouth now to cry out, his eye caught sight of the butterfly that was struggling to unfold its wings. He bent over, lifted it up gently and placed it high above the ground on a leaf of the fig tree, where the sun began to beat down upon it.