The Last Temptation of Christ (64 page)

He paced up and down, tripped over the stools, spat, cursed. Matthew was sitting on hot coals. He wanted to learn what happened at Caiaphas’s palace, what at Pilate’s, what the teacher said, what the people shouted, so that he could record it all in his book.

“If you believe in God, Simon, my brother,” he said, “quiet down and tell us what happened: how, when and where; and if the teacher spoke.”

“He certainly did speak!” Simon answered. “’Damn you to hell, disciples!’—that’s what he said. Well—write! Why are you looking at me? Grab your pen and write: ‘Damn you to hell!’”

Lamentations arose from behind the barrels. John was rolling on the ground and screeching, and Peter was beating his head against the wall.

“If you believe in God, Simon,” Matthew begged him again, “tell the truth so that I can write it down. Can’t you understand that at this moment the future of the whole world depends on what you say?”

Peter was still beating his head against the wall.

“Blast it, don’t get desperate, Peter,” the innkeeper said to him. “I’ll tell you what you can do to win glory for all eternity. Listen: soon they’re going to lead him by here—I already hear the noise. Get up, open the door like a man, go take the cross from him and put it on your own shoulders. It’s heavy, curse it, and your God is very delicate, and exhausted.”

Laughing, he shoved Peter with his foot. “You’ll do it? I want to see some action, here and now!”

“I would do it, I swear to you, if there weren’t such a crowd,” Peter whined. “They’ll make mincemeat out of me.”

The enraged innkeeper spat. “Go to hell—all of you!” he shouted. “Will none of you do it? You, Nathanael bean-stalk? You, Andrew cutthroat? No one, no one? Pfou! To the devil with you all! Ah, my poor Messiah, what sterling generals you chose to help you conquer the world! You’d have done better choosing me—me! I may deserve to be hanged and have my head displayed on a stake, but I’ve got a little self-respect all the same, and when a fellow’s got self-respect it doesn’t matter if he’s a drunkard, a robber or a liar: he’s still a man. When you’ve got no self-respect, you might be an innocent dove, but pfou! you’re not worth a miserable shoe patch!”

Spitting again, he opened the door and stood on the threshold, puffing.

The streets had filled with people. Men and women were running, shouting, “He’s coming! The king of the Jews is coming. Boo! Boo!”

The disciples burrowed again behind the barrels. Simon whirled around. “Bah! Don’t you have any self-respect? You’re not going out to see him, eh? Won’t you even give the poor fellow the consolation of a glimpse of his disciples? All right, then: I’ll go out, I’ll wave to him. ‘It’s me,’ I’ll say, ‘me, Simon the Cyrenian—present.’ ”

With one bound he was in the road.

The multitude passed by, wave after wave. In front, Roman cavalry; behind, Jesus bearing the cross. Blood ran over him, and his clothes hung in tatters. He no longer had the strength to walk. His face pitched more and more forward; he continually stumbled, ready to fall, and they continually set him up straight again and kicked him onward. In back ran the lame, the blind and the maimed, enraged because he had not healed them. They cursed him and struck him with their crutches and canes. He frequently looked around him. Would none of the beloved companions appear? What had happened to them?

Outside the tavern he turned and saw the innkeeper waving his hand at him. His heart rejoiced. He started to nod his head to say goodbye to him but tripped on a stone and collapsed to the ground, the cross over his back. He groaned with pain.

The Cyrenian rushed forward, lifted him up, took the cross and loaded it upon his own back. Then he turned and smiled at Jesus. “Courage,” he said to him. “I’m here; don’t be afraid.”

They left by the gate of David and started up the slope which led to the summit of Golgotha—Golgotha: all stones, thorns and bones. Here the rebels were crucified, their remains left to the vultures. The air stank from carrion.

The Cyrenian put down the cross. Two soldiers began to dig and embed it between the rocks. Jesus sat down on a stone and waited. The sun hung high above them; the heavens were white, burning—and closed. Not a flame, not an angel, not even a small sign that someone there above was watching the events below on earth. ... And while he sat and waited, crumbling a small clod of earth between his fingers, he felt someone standing before him, looking at him. Raising his head calmly, without haste, he saw and recognized her.

“Welcome, faithful fellow voyager,” he murmured. “Here the journey ends. What you wanted has been accomplished; what I wanted has also been accomplished. All my life I toiled to turn the Curse into a blessing. I’ve done it, and we are friends now. Farewell, Mother!” He waved his hand languidly at the savage shade.

Two soldiers grabbed him by the shoulders. “Get up, Your Majesty,” they shouted at him. “Mount your throne!”

They undressed him, revealing his thin body. It was covered with blood.

The heat was intense. The people, tired of shouting themselves hoarse, watched mutely.

“Let him drink some wine to gain strength,” a soldier suggested.

But Jesus pushed away the cup and extended his arms to the cross. “Father,” he murmured, “your will be done.”

The blind, the leprous and the maimed now began to howl. “Liar! Cheat! Deceiver of the people!”

“Where is the kingdom of heaven, where are the ovens with the loaves?” howled the ragamuffins, and they barraged him with lemon peels and stones.

Jesus spread wide his arms and opened his mouth to cry, Brothers! but the soldiers seized him and hoisted him up onto the cross. Then they called the gypsies with the nails, but as the hammers were lifted and the first blow was heard, the sun hid its face; as the second was heard, the sky darkened and the stars appeared: not stars, but large tears which dripped onto the soil.

The crowd was overcome with fright. The horses on which the Romans were mounted became ferocious. Rearing, they began to gallop furiously and trample the Jewry. Then earth, sky and air suddenly grew mute, as at the beginning of an earthquake.

Simon the Cyrenian fell prone onto the stones. The world had shaken many times under his feet, and he was terrified. “Alas! now the earth will open up and swallow us all,” he murmured.

He lifted his head and looked around him. The world seemed to have fainted. Deathly pale, it was now just barely visible in the bluish darkness. The heads of the people had vanished and only their eyes—black holes—bored through the air. A thick flock of crows which had scented the blood and rushed to Golgotha now fled in terror. A feeble gasp of complaint descended from the cross, and the Cyrenian, tying his heart into a knot so that he would not weep, lifted his eyes and looked. Suddenly he uttered a cry. Jesus was not being nailed to the cross by gypsies! No, a multitude of angels had come down from heaven, holding hammers and nails in their hands. They flew around Jesus, swung the hammers happily and nailed the hands and feet; some tightly bound the victim’s body with stout cord so that he would not fall; and a small angel with rosy cheeks and golden curls held a lance and pierced Jesus’ heart.

“What is this?” murmured the Cyrenian, trembling. “God himself, God himself is crucifying him!”

And then—never in his life had the Cyrenian experienced such intense fear or pain-a great, heart-rending cry, full of complaint, tore the air from earth to heaven.

“ELI ... ELI ...”

The sufferer was unable to continue. He wanted to but could not: he had no more breath.

The Crucified inclined his head—and fainted.

HIS EYELIDS fluttered with joy and surprise. This was not a cross; it was a huge tree reaching from earth to heaven. Spring had come: blossoms covered the entire tree; and at the very very end of each branch a bird sat over the brink and sang. ... And he—he stood erect, his whole body leaning against the flowering tree. He lifted his head and counted: one, two, three ...

“Thirty-three,” he murmured. “As many as my own years. Thirty-three birds, and all singing.”

His eyes expanded, burst their bounds, covered his entire face. Without turning, he could see the world in bloom in every direction. His ears, two sinuous seashells, received the blasphemies, weeping and tumult of the world and turned them into song. And from his heart, pierced by a lance, the blood flowed.

There was no wind, but the compassionate tree shed its flowers, one by one, onto his thorn-entangled hair and bloody hands. And as he struggled amid the sea of twitterings to remember who he was and where he was, the air suddenly whirled, congealed, and an angel stood before him. ... At that moment, day broke.

He had seen many angels, both while asleep and while awake, but he had never seen an angel like this. What warm, human beauty, what soft, curly fluff on his cheeks and upper lip! And the eyes—how they played friskily, full of passion, like those of a young man or woman in love. His body was supple and firm; a blue-black disquieting fluff enwrapped his legs, from the shins to the rounded thighs; and his armpits smelled of beloved human sweat.

Jesus was disconcerted. “Who are you?” he asked him, his heart pounding.

The angel smiled and his whole face became sweet, like the face of a man. He folded his two wide green wings as though he did not want to frighten Jesus too much.

“I am just like yourself,” he answered. “Your guardian angel. Have faith.”

His voice was deep and caressing, compassionate and familiar—just like the voice of a man. The voices of the angels Jesus had heard until now had been severe, and they had always scolded him. Rejoicing, he looked imploringly at the angel and waited for him to speak again.

The angel divined this and inclined smilingly to the man’s desire. “God sent me to bring sweetness to your lips. Men have given you much bitterness to drink; the heavens have done the same. You have suffered and struggled. In your whole life you have seen not one day of gladness. Your mother, brothers, disciples; the poor, the maimed, the oppressed—all, all abandoned you in the last terrible moment. You remained upon a rock in the darkness, completely alone and undefended. And then God the Father took pity on you. ‘Hey, there, why are you sitting?’ he called to me. ‘Aren’t you his guardian angel? Well, go down and save him. I don’t want him to be crucified. Enough’s enough!’

“ ‘Lord of hosts,’ I answered him, trembling, ‘didn’t you send him to earth to be crucified in order to save mankind? That’s why I sit here undisturbed: I thought that such was your will.’

“ ‘Let him be crucified in a dream,’ God answered; ‘let him taste the same fear, the same pain.’ ”

“Guardian angel,” cried Jesus, grasping the angel’s head with both his hands so that he would not lose him, “guardian angel, I’m bewildered—wasn’t I crucified?”

The angel placed his all-white hand on Jesus’ agitated heart in order to calm it. “Quiet down, don’t be disturbed, beloved,” he said to him, and his bewitching eyes fluttered. “No, you weren’t crucified.”

“Was the cross, then, a dream—and the nails, the pain, the sun which became dark?”

“Yes, a dream. You lived your entire Passion in a dream. You mounted the cross and were nailed to it in a dream. The five wounds in your hands, feet and heart were inflicted in a dream, but with such force that, look! the blood is still flowing.”

Jesus gazed around him in a trance. Where was he? What was this plain with its flowering trees and water? And Jerusalem? And his soul? He turned to the angel and touched his arm. How cool his flesh was, how firm!

“Guardian angel,” he said, “as you speak my flesh finds relief, the cross becomes the shadow of a cross, the nails shadows of nails, and the crucifixion floats in the sky above me, like a cloud.”

“Let us go,” said the angel, and he began to stride nimbly over the blossoming meadow. “Great joys await you, Jesus of Nazareth. God left me free to allow you to taste all the pleasures you ever secretly longed for. Beloved, the earth is good—you’ll see. Wine, laughter, the lips of a woman, the gambols of your first son on your knees—all are good. We angels (would you believe it?) often lean over, up there in heaven, look at the earth—and sigh.”

His huge green wings fluttered and embraced Jesus. “Turn your head,” he said; “look behind you.”

Jesus turned his head—and what did he see? High in the distance, the hill of Nazareth gleamed in the rising sun, the fortress gates were open, and a multitude of thousands—all great lords and ladies—was coming out. They were dressed in gold and mounted on white horses. Waving in the air were standards of snowy-white silk decorated with golden lilies. The procession descended between flowering mountains, passed by royal castles, forded rivers, wound in and out, hugging the hillsides. He heard a din compounded of laughter, shrill conversations, and from behind the thick clumps of trees, sweet sighs.

“Guardian angel,” said Jesus, bewildered, “what is this multitude of noblemen? Who are these kings and queens? Where are they going?”

“It’s a royal marriage procession,” the angel replied with a smile. “They are going to a wedding.”

“Who is getting married?”

“You,” he answered. “This is the first joy I give you.”

Jesus’ blood flowed up to his head. Suddenly he conjectured who the bride would be, and his flesh rejoiced. He was in a hurry now. “Let’s go,” he said.

He immediately felt that he too had mounted a white horse saddled and bridled in gold. He looked at himself. A blue feather was waving at the top of his head, and his poor tunic with its thousands of patches had become all velvet and gold.

“My boy, is this the kingdom of heaven I announced to men?” he asked.

“No, no,” the angel replied, laughing. “This is the Earth.”

“How did it change so much?”

“It did not change; you did. Once upon a time your heart did not want the earth: it went against her will. Now it wants her—and that is the whole secret. Harmony between the earth and the heart, Jesus of Nazareth: that is the kingdom of heaven. ... But why waste our time with words? Come, the bride is waiting.”

The angel now mounted a white horse, and they set out. Behind him the mountains neighed with the royal cavalcade which was descending. The laughter of the women had increased. The birds, beating their wings in the air, were drawing everything toward the south. “He’s coming,” they sang, “he’s coming, he’s coming!”