The Last Temptation of Christ (20 page)

I’m the prophet Jonah, without a doubt, he said to himself. I’ve been resurrected—the shark vomited me up again. But this time I’ve got a little sense in my head: I’m a prophet, all right, but I pretend to be a fisherman and don’t breathe a word to anyone; I don’t want to find myself in hot water all over again. ... He smiled with satisfaction at his own cunning. I managed it beautifully, he reflected. Look how many years no one got wind of it, not even me, until that devilish Zebedee came along. Well, it’s a good thing he opened my eyes.

He left his tools on the floor, rubbed his hands together with satisfaction, opened a cupboard, took out a gourdful of wine, tipped up his short, fat, scaly throat and began to drink, chuckling.

While the two contented old men drank in Capernaum, the son of Mary journeyed along the shore of the lake, plunged deep in thought. He was not all alone: behind him he heard the sand crunching. In Magdalene’s yard new merchants had dismounted and were now sitting cross-legged on the pebbles. They conversed quietly and munched dates and grilled crabs while they awaited their turns. At the monastery the monks had laid the Abbot out in the middle of his cell and were keeping the vigil. He still breathed; his protruding eyes stared at the opened door and his emaciated face was tensed: he seemed to be straining to hear something.

The monks looked at him and whispered among themselves.

“He’s trying to hear whether or not the rabbi has arrived from Nazareth to cure him.”

“He’s trying to hear whether or not the black wings of the archangel are coming near.”

“He’s trying to hear the footsteps of the approaching Messiah.”

They whispered and looked at him, and the soul of each was prepared at that hour to welcome the miracle. They all strained their ears, but they heard nothing except the heavy blows of a hammer on the anvil. In the far corner of the courtyard Judas had lighted his fires and was working through the night.

FAR AWAY in Nazareth, Mary the wife of Joseph sat in her simple cottage. The lamp was lighted, the door open. Hurriedly, she wound up the wool which she had spun. She had decided to rise and comb the villages in search of her boy. She wound and wound, but her mind was not on her work. Lonely and hopeless, it roamed the fields, visited Magdala and Capernaum, searched all around the shore of the lake of Gennesaret. She was seeking her son. He had run away again; once more God had prodded him with his ox-goad. Doesn’t he pity him, she asked herself, doesn’t he pity me? What have we done to him? Is this the joy and glory he promised us? Why, God, was it Joseph’s staff which you made blossom, forcing me to marry an old man? Why did you cast your thunderbolt and plant in my womb this daydreamer, this night-walker of an only son? The whole time I was pregnant the neighbors came and admired me. “Mary, you are blessed above all women,” they said. I had blossomed; I was an almond tree covered with flowers from the roots to the highest branches. “Who is this flowering almond?” the passing merchants used to ask, and they stopped their caravans, got off their camels and filled my lap with gifts. Then, suddenly, a wind blew and I was stripped bare. I fold my arms over my fallow breasts. Lord, your will has been done: you made me blossom, you blew, the petals fell away. Is there no hope I may blossom again, Lord?

Is there no hope my heart may grow calm? her son asked himself early the next morning. He had gone around the lake and now he saw the monastery opposite him, wedged in among green-red rocks. As I proceed and near the monastery, my heart becomes more and more troubled. Why? Haven’t I taken the right road, Lord? It’s toward this holy retreat you’ve been pushing me, isn’t it? Why then do you refuse to extend your hand and gladden my heart?

Two monks dressed all in white appeared at the monastery’s large door. They climbed up onto a rock and gazed out in the direction of Capernaum.

“Still no sign,” said one of them, a half-crazy hunchback with a behind which nearly scraped the ground.

“He’ll be dead by the time they arrive,” said the other, a huge elephant of a man whose mouth, a shark-like slit, reached fully to his ears. “Go ahead, Jeroboam, I’ll keep on the look-out here until the camel appears.”

“Fine,” said the delighted hunchback, sliding down from the rock. “I’ll go and watch him die.”

The son of Mary stood irresolutely on the monastery’s threshold, his heart oscillating like a bell: should he enter or not? The cloister was circular and paved with flagstones. Not a single green tree graced the courtyard, not a flower, not a bird: only wild prickly pears all around. Along the circumference of this round, inhuman desolation were the cells, carved into the rock like tombs.

Is this the kingdom of heaven? the son of Mary asked himself. Is this where man’s heart grows calm?

He looked and looked, unable to decide to cross the threshold. Two black sheep dogs flew out of a corner and began to bark at him.

The stunted hunchback noticed the visitor and silenced the dogs with a whistle. Then he turned and scrutinized the newcomer from top to toe. The young man’s eyes seemed full of affliction to him, the clothes he wore were very poor, and blood trickled from his feet. He felt sorry for him.

“Welcome, brother,” he said. “What wind has tossed you out here into the desert?”

“God!” the son of Mary answered in a deep, despairing voice. The monk got frightened: he had never heard human lips pronounce God’s name with such terror. Folding his arms, he said nothing.

After a short pause, the visitor continued. “I’ve come to see the Abbot.”

“Maybe you’ll see him, but he won’t see you. What do you want with him?”

“I don’t know. I had a dream. ... I’ve come from Nazareth.”

“A dream?” said the half-crazy monk with a laugh.

“A terrible dream, Father. Since then my heart has had no peace. The Abbot is a saint; God taught him how to explain the languages of birds and dreams. That is why I came.”

It had never entered his mind to come to this monastery to ask the Abbot to explain the dream he had on the night he constructed the cross: that wild chase in his sleep and the redbeard rushing in front and the dwarfs who followed him with their instruments of torture. But now as he stood irresolutely on the threshold, suddenly the dream tore across his mind like a flash of lightning. That’s it! he shouted to himself. I’ve come because of the dream. God sent it in order to show me my road, and the Abbot is going to untangle it for me.

“The Abbot is dying,” said the monk. “You’ve arrived too late, my brother. Go back.”

“God commanded me to come,” the son of Mary replied. “Is he capable of hoaxing his children?”

The monk cackled. He had seen a good deal in his lifetime and had no confidence in God.

“He’s the Lord, isn’t he? So, he does whatever comes into his head. If he wasn’t able to inflict injustice, what kind of an Omnipotent would he be?”

He slapped the visitor on the back. He meant this slap to be a caress, but his huge paw was heavy, and it hurt the youth.

“All right, don’t get worried,” he said. “Here, step inside. I’m the guest master.”

They entered the cloister. A wind had arisen; the sand swirled over the flagstones. An opaque windstorm girded the sun. The air grew dark.

Gaping in the middle of the yard was a dried-out well. At other times it was filled with water, but now it had become filled with sand. Two lizards emerged to warm themselves on its corroded brim. The Abbot’s cell was open. The monk took his visitor by the arm. “Wait here while I ask the brothers for permission. Don’t budge.” He crossed his hands over his chest and entered. The dogs had placed themselves on either side of the Abbot’s threshold. Their necks stretched forward, they sniffed the air and yelped mournfully.

The Abbot lay stretched out in the middle of the cell, his feet toward the door. Around him the waiting monks dozed, exhausted by their all-night vigil. The moribund, stretched out as he was on his mat, kept his face continually tensed and his eyes open, riveted on the gaping doorway. The seven-branched candelabrum was still next to his face. It illuminated the polished arch of his forehead, the insatiable eyes, the hawk-like nose, the pale blue lips and the long white beard which reached his waist and covered the naked, bony chest. The monks had thrown incense kneaded with dried rose petals onto the lighted coals of an earthenward censer, and perfume invaded the air.

The monk entered, forgot why he had done so and squatted on the threshold, between the two dogs.

The sun had the door in its grasp now and was trying to enter to touch the Abbot’s feet. The son of Mary stood outside, waiting. There was no sound save the whining of the two dogs and, in the distance, the slow rhythmic blows of the sledge on the anvil.

The visitor waited and waited. The day advanced; they had forgotten him. There had been a frost during the night, but now as he stood outside the cell he felt the delicious warmth of the morning sun enter his bones.

Suddenly the silence was broken by the voice of the monk who was doing sentry duty on the rock: “They’re coming! They’re coming!”

The monks in the Abbot’s cell awoke with a start and flew outside, leaving the Abbot all alone.

Nerving himself, the son of Mary advanced two steps, timidly, and stopped on the threshold. Inside was the calm of death, of immortality. The Abbot’s pale, slender feet gleamed, bathed in sunlight. A bee buzzed near the ceiling; a fuzzy black insect flitted about the seven lights, hopping from one to the next as though trying to select its crematorium.

Suddenly the Abbot stirred. Exerting all his strength, he raised his head—and at once the eyes popped out of his head, his mouth dropped open, his nostrils sniffed the air, twitching insatiably. The son of Mary put his hand to his heart, lips and forehead in the sign of greeting.

The Abbot’s lips moved. “You’ve come ... you’ve come ... you’ve come ...” he murmured, so imperceptibly that the son of Mary did not hear. But a smile of unspeakable bliss spread over the Abbot’s severe, embittered face and straightway his eyes closed, the nostrils remained motionless, his mouth shut and the two hands which were crossed over his breast rolled one to the right and the other to the left and rested on the ground with open, upturned palms.

In the courtyard meanwhile, the two camels had knelt. The monks rushed forward to help the old rabbi dismount.

“Is he alive, is he still alive?” the young novice asked in anguished tones.

“He’s still breathing,” answered Father Habakkuk. “He sees and hears everything, but does not speak.”

The rabbi entered first, followed by the novice with the precious wallet containing the healer’s salves, herbs and magic amulets. The two black dogs, their tails between their legs, did not even turn their heads. Their necks were stretched out against the ground and they were yelping woefully, like human beings.

The rabbi heard them and shook his head. I’ve come too late, he reflected, but he did not speak.

He knelt by the Abbot’s side, leaned over his body and placed his hand on his heart. His lips were almost touching those of the Abbot.

“Too late,” he whispered. “I’ve come too late. ... Long may you live, Fathers!”

Crying out, the monks stooped and kissed the corpse, each according to his length of service, as prescribed by custom: Father Habakkuk the eyes, the remaining monks the beard and upturned palms, the novices the feet. And one of them took the Abbot’s crosier from the empty stall and laid it next to the holy remains.

The old rabbi knelt and regarded him, unable to tear away his eyes. What was this triumphant smile? What meaning had the mysterious gleam around the closed eyes? A sun, an unsetting sun, had fallen over this face and remained there. What was this sun?

He looked about him. The monks, still on their knees, were paying homage to the deceased; John, his lips glued to the Abbot’s feet, wept. The old rabbi shifted his glance from one monk to the next as though questioning them; and suddenly his eye was caught by the son of Mary standing motionless and tranquil in the back corner of the cell, his hands crossed on his breast. But spread over the whole of his face was the same calm, triumphant smile.

“Lord of Hosts, Adonai,” whispered the terrified rabbi, “will you never cease tempting my heart? Help my mind now to understand—and decide!”

The next day an angry blood-red sun ringed by a dark tempest bounded out of the sand. A fiery east wind arose from the desert; the world turned black. The monastery’s two ebony dogs tried to bark, but their mouths filled with sand and they remained still. The camels, glued to the ground, closed their eyes and waited.

Slowly, linked one to the next in a chain, the monks groped their way forward, struggling not to fall. Squashed together in a row and holding the Abbot’s remains tightly in their arms so that the wind would not take him from them, they proceeded, going to bury him. The desert swayed: rose and fell like the sea.

“It’s the desert wind, the breath of Jehovah,” murmured John, leaning his entire body against the son of Mary. “It withers every green leaf, dries up every spring, fills your mouth with sand. We’ll simply leave the sacred remains in a hollow, and the waves of sand will come to cover them up.”

The moment they passed over the monastery’s threshold the red-bearded blacksmith, his hammer over his shoulder, rose up black and enormous out of the swirling mist and looked at them for an instant, but immediately disappeared, enveloped by the sand. The son of Zebedee saw this ogre in the middle of the sandstorm. Terrified, he clutched his partner’s arm.

“Who was that?” he asked softly. “Did you see him?”

But the son of Mary did not reply. God arranges everything perfectly, and exactly as he desires, he reflected. Look how he brought Judas and me together—here in the desert, at the very ends of the earth. Well, then, Lord, let your will be done.

Bent over, they advanced all together, planting their feet in the burning sand. They tried to block their mouths and nostrils with the edge of their robes, but the fine sand had already descended to their throats and lungs. The wind suddenly took hold of Father Habakkuk, who was in the lead. It twirled him around and threw him down. The monks, blinded by the clouds of sand, walked over him. The desert whistled, the stones jingled; old Habakkuk uttered a hoarse cry, but no one heard.