The Last Temptation of Christ (4 page)

“With your life?” said the redbeard, taking hold of the other’s chin. “Don’t turn your head away from me. You’re a man now, look into my eyes. ... With your life? What do you mean?”

“Nothing.”

He lowered his head and was silent. But suddenly: “Don’t ask me, don’t ask me, Judas, my brother!”

Judas clasped the young man’s face between his palms. He raised it and looked at it for a long time without speaking. Then, tranquilly, he let it go and moved toward the door. His heart had suddenly been roused.

The din outside was growing stronger and stronger. The rustle of naked feet and the flapping of sandals rose into the air, which jingled with the bronze bracelets and thick ankle rings of the women. Standing erect on the threshold, the redbeard watched the crowds that continually poured out of the alleyways. Everyone was mounting toward the opposite end of the village, toward the accursed hill where the crucifixion was to take place. The men did not speak; they cursed between their teeth and beat their staffs against the cobbles. Some of them secretly held knives in their fists, beneath their shirts. The women were screeching. Many had thrown back their kerchiefs, undone their hair and begun to chant the dirge.

The head ram of this flock was Simeon the old rabbi of Nazareth—shrunken, bent over with the years, warped and contorted by the evil disease, tuberculosis: a scaffolding of dry bones which his indestructible soul held together and kept from collapsing. The two skeleton hands with their monstrous, birdlike talons squeezed the sacerdotal crosier with the pair of entwined snakes at its top and banged it down on the stones. This living corpse smelled like a burning city. Seeing the flames within his eyes, you felt that flesh, bones and hair—the whole ramshackle body—were afire; and when he opened his mouth and shouted, God of Israel! smoke rose from the top of his head. Behind him filed the stooping, large-boned elders with their staffs, bushy eyebrows and forked beards; behind them the able-bodied men, then the women. Bringing up the rear were the children, each with a stone in hand, and some with slings over their shoulders. They all advanced together, rumbling softly, mutely, like the sea.

As Judas leaned against the doorpost and watched the men and women, his heart swelled. They are the ones, he reflected, the blood rushing to his head, they are the ones who together with God will perform the miracle. Today! Not tomorrow, today!

An immense, high-rumped manlike woman broke away from the crowd. She was fierce and maniacal, and the clothes were falling off her shoulders. Bending down, she grabbed a stone and slung it forcefully at the carpenter’s door.

“Damn you to hell, cross-maker!” she cried.

All at once shouts and curses rang out from one end of the street to the other and the children took the slings from their shoulders. The redbeard shut the door with a bang.

“Cross-maker! Cross-maker!” was hooted on all sides, and the door rumbled under a barrage of stones.

The young man, kneeling before the cross, swung the hammer up and down and nailed, banging hard, as though he wished to drown out the hoots and curses of the street. His breast was boiling; sparks jumped across the bridge of his nose. He banged frantically, and the sweat ran down his forehead.

The redbeard knelt, seized his arm and snatched the hammer violently out of his grasp. He gave the cross a blow which knocked it to the floor.

“Are you going to bring it?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not ashamed?”

“No.”

“I won’t let you. I’ll smash it to smithereens.”

He looked around and put out his arm to find an adze.

“Judas, Judas, my brother,” said the young man slowly, beseechingly, “do not step in my way.” His voice had suddenly deepened; it was dark, unrecognizable. The redbeard was troubled.

“What way?” he asked quietly. He waited, gazing anxiously at the young man. The light now fell directly on the carpenter’s face and on his bare, small-boned torso. His lips were twisted, clenched tight as though struggling to restrain a great cry. The redbeard saw how emaciated he was, how pale, and his misanthropic heart felt pity for him. He was melting away; each day his cheeks sank more. How long was it since he had last seen him? Only a few days. He had left to make his rounds of the villages near Gennesaret. A blacksmith, he beat and fashioned the iron, shod horses, made pickaxes, ploughshares and sickles, but then hurried back to Nazareth because he had received a message that the Zealot was to be crucified. He recalled how he had left his old friend, and now, look how he had found him! How swollen the eyes had become, how sunken the temples! And what was that bitterness all around his mouth?

“What happened to you?” he asked. “Why have you melted away? Who is tormenting you?”

The young man laughed feebly. He was about to reply that it was God, but he restrained himself. This was the great cry within him, and he did not want to let it escape his lips.

“I am wrestling,” he answered.

“With whom?”

“‘I don’t know. I’m wrestling.”

The redbeard plunged his eyes into those of the youth. He questioned them, implored them, threatened, but the pitch-black inconsolable eyes, full of fear, did not answer.

Suddenly Judas’s mind reeled. As he bent over the dark, unspeaking eyes it seemed to him that he saw trees in bloom, blue water, crowds of men; and inside, deep down in the gleaming pupil, behind the flowering trees and the water and the men, and occupying the entire iris, a large black cross.

He jumped erect, his eyes popping out of his head. He wanted to speak, to ask, Can you be ... You? But his lips had frozen. He wanted to clasp the young man to his breast to kiss him, but his arms, stretched in the air, had suddenly stiffened, like wood.

And then, as the youth saw him with his arms spread wide, his eyes protruding, his hair standing on end, he uttered a cry. The terrifying nightmare bounded out of the trapdoor of his mind—the entire rout of dwarfs with their implements of crucifixion and the cries: After him, lads! And now too he recognized their captain the redbeard: it was Judas, Judas the blacksmith, who had rushed in the lead, laughing wildly.

The redbeard’s lips moved. “Can you be ... you ...?” he stammered.

“I? Who?”

The other did not answer. Chewing his mustache, he looked at him, half of his face again brilliantly illuminated, the other half plunged in darkness. Jostling in his mind were the signs and prodigies which had surrounded this youth from his birth, and even before: how, when the marriage candidates were assembled, the staff of Joseph—among so many others—was the only one to blossom. Because of this the rabbi awarded him Mary, exquisite Mary, who was consecrated to God. And then how a thunderbolt struck and paralyzed the bridegroom on his marriage day, before he could touch his bride. And how later, it was said, the bride smelled a white lily and conceived a son in her womb. And how the night before his birth she dreamed that the heavens opened, angels descended, lined up like birds on the humble roof of her house, built nests and began to sing; and some guarded her threshold, some entered her room, lighted a fire and heated water to bathe the expected infant, and some boiled broth for the confined woman to drink. ...

The redbeard approached slowly, hesitantly, and bent over the young man. His voice was now full of longing, entreaty, and fear. “Can you be ... you ...?” he asked once more, but again he dared not complete the question.

The youth quivered with fright. “Me?” he said, sniggering sarcastically. “But don’t you see me? I’m not capable of speaking. I haven’t the courage to go to the synagogue. As soon as I see men I run away. I shamelessly disobey God’s commandments. I work on the Sabbath. ...”

He picked up the cross, stood it straight again and seized his hammer.

“And now, look! I make crosses and crucify!” Once more he struggled to laugh.

The redbeard was vexed and did not speak. He opened the door. A new swarm of tumultuous villagers appeared at the end of the street—old ladies with disheveled hair, sickly old men; the lame, the blind, the leprous—all the dregs of Nazareth. They too were mounting, short of breath; they too were crawling toward the hill of crucifixion. ... The appointed hour drew near. It’s time for me to leave and join the people, the redbeard reflected, time for us to rush forward all together and snatch away the Zealot. Then it will become clear whether or not he is the Saviour. ... But he hesitated. Suddenly a cool breeze passed over him. No, he thought, this man who is to be crucified today will not be the One the Hebrew race has awaited for so many centuries. Tomorrow! Tomorrow! Tomorrow! How many years, God of Abraham, have you kept pounding us with this tomorrow! tomorrow! tomorrow! All right—when? We’re human; we’ve stood enough!

He had become ferocious. Throwing a wrathful glance at the young man who lay prone on the cross, nailing, he asked himself with a shudder, Can he be the One, can he be the One—the cross-maker? God’s ways are obscure and indirect. ... Can he be the One?

Behind the old women and the cripples, the soldiers of the Roman patrol now appeared with their shields, spears, and helmets of bronze. Indifferent and silent, they herded the flock of men, looking down on the Hebrews with disdain.

The redbeard eyed them savagely, his blood boiling. He turned to the youth. He did not want to see him any more: everything seemed to be his fault.

“I’m leaving!” he cried, clenching his fist. “You—you do what you like, cross-maker! You’re a coward, a good-for-nothing traitor like your brother the town crier! But God will throw fire on you just as he threw it on your father, and burn you up. That’s what I say—and let it be something for you to remember me by!”

THE YOUNG MAN remained all alone. He leaned against the cross and sponged the sweat from his forehead. The breath had caught in his throat; he was gasping. For an instant the world revolved about him, but then it stood still once more. He heard his mother light the fire so that she could put the meal on bright and early and be in time to run like the others to see the crucifixion. All her neighbors had left already. Her husband still groaned, fighting to move his tongue; but only his larynx was alive, and he made nothing but clucking sounds. Outside, the street was again deserted.

But while the youth leaned on the cross, his eyes shut, thinking nothing and hearing nothing except the beating of his own heart, suddenly he jolted with pain. Once more he felt the invisible vulture claw deeply into his scalp. “He’s come again, he’s come again ...” he murmured, and he began to tremble. He felt the claws bore far down, crack open his skull, touch his brain. He clenched his teeth so that he would not cry out: he did not want his mother to become frightened again and start screaming. Clasping his head between his palms, he held it tightly, as though he feared it would run away. “He’s come again, he’s come again ...” he murmured, trembling.

The first, very first time—he was already twelve years old and sitting with the sighing, sweating elders in the synagogue listening to them elucidate God’s word—he had felt a light, prolonged tingling on the top of his head, very tender, like a caress. He had closed his eyes. What bliss when those fluffy wings grasped him and carried him to the seventh heaven! This must be Paradise! he thought, and a deep, endless smile flowed out from under his lowered eyelids and from his happy, half-opened mouth, a smile which licked his flesh with ardent desire until his entire face disappeared. The old men saw this mysterious man-eating smile and conjectured that God had snatched the boy up in his talons. Putting their fingers to their lips, they remained silent.

The years went by. He waited and waited, but the caress did not return; and then, one day—Passover, springtime, glorious weather—he went to Cana, his mother’s village, to choose a wife. His mother had forced him; she wanted to see him married. He was twenty years old, his cheeks were covered with thick curly fuzz and his blood boiled so furiously he could no longer sleep at night. His mother had taken advantage of this, the acme of his youth, and prevailed upon him to go to Cana, her own village, to select a bride.

So there he stood, a red rose in his hand, gazing at the village girls as they danced under a large, newly foliaged poplar. And while he looked and weighed one against the other—he wanted them all, but did not have the courage to choose—suddenly he heard cackling laughter behind him: a cool fountain rising from the bowels of the earth. He turned. Descending upon him with her red sandals, unplaited hair and complete armor of ankle bands, bracelets and earrings was Magdalene, the only daughter of his uncle the rabbi. The young man’s mind shook violently. “It’s her I want, her I want!” he cried, and he held out his hand to give her the rose. But as he did so, ten claws nailed themselves into his head and two frenzied wings beat above him, tightly covering his temples. He shrieked and fell down on his face, frothing at the mouth. His unfortunate mother, writhing with shame, had to throw her kerchief over his head, lift him up in her arms and depart.

From that time on he was completely lost. It came when the moon was full and he roamed the fields, or during his sleep, in the silence of the night; and most often in springtime, when the whole world was in bloom and fragrant. At every opportunity he had to be happy, to taste the simplest human joys—to eat, sleep, to mix with his friends and laugh, to encounter a girl on the street and think, I like her—the ten claws immediately nailed themselves down into him, and his desire vanished.

But never before this daybreak had they fallen on him with such ferocity. He rolled himself up under his workbench and buried his head in his breast, remaining this way for a long time. The world sank away. He heard nothing but a hum inside him and, above, the furious beating of wings.

Little by little the claws relaxed, unhooked themselves and freed—slowly, one by one—first his mind, then the bone and finally the skin of his head. Suddenly he felt great relief, and great fatigue. Emerging from under the workbench, he put his hand to his head and hurriedly ran his fingers through his hair to investigate his scalp. It seemed to him that it had been pierced, but his searching fingers found not a single wound, and he grew calm. But when he drew out his hand and looked at it in the light, he shuddered. His fingers were dripping with blood.