The Liars' Gospel (29 page)

“I do not know,” says Bar-Avo.

Pilate sighs. “You may be surprised,” he says, “by how much you will start to tell us when the branding irons are applied
to your flesh. The ears, they tell me, are surprisingly sensitive. And the bottoms of the feet. Quite brave men find themselves
babbling like women after having hot coals and iron scourges applied to the bottoms of their feet.”

It is time to take back this conversation. Pilate’s lines are too practiced now; he is in a rhythm which will be hard to break.

“Do you think any one of us tells the others where they are to be found?” says Bar-Avo. “Prefect, you know better than that.”

He lets it hang in the air for a second too long. The insolence of it catches Pilate short.

Bar-Avo pushes on: “You might as well ask that Yehoshuah where all his followers are now, all that rabble he brought with
him from Galilee who fled as soon as he was captured. Every meeting place will have been changed the moment they knew I was
taken alive. Every man I ever knew will have moved to another home. Every family will have been told to deny their sons. Prefect,
you can beat me and scourge me for as long as pleases you, but don’t think for a moment that my bruised body will do more
than excite greater hatred of you. Even if they think I am a traitor, they will still hate you more.”

Pilate looks at him. He knows that what he says has the ring of truth to it.

“A true leader,” says Pilate, “does not care whether he is hated, as long as he is feared.”

“And has it stopped them rising up? You’ll never hold Jerusalem like this,” says Bar-Avo. “Every man and every woman and every
child will fight you. You can’t take us by fear, only by love.”

And he knows that this is the right thing to say, because his men have intercepted some of the letters from Syria and Rome,
and he knows that this is what Pilate’s masters have been saying to him for months now. These exact words. Not by fear, but
by love. Bar-Avo is not stupid. He is not ill-informed. He is the leader of many men.

“Do you want them to remember you like this, Pilate? As a bloody tyrant? A man who made the streets run red, not one who brought
the civilization and order of Rome?”

This is a gamble too.

“They will remember me for discipline. Rome does not bring marble and gold only, Rome brings order and obedience.” Pilate
is talking to himself now, for the most part. Bar-Avo has him. The right words at the right moment and Pilate is his now.

“If I were you,” says Bar-Avo, “I would release that man Yehoshuah and put me to the sword.”

Pilate stares at him and nods, as if he has said something tremendously wise and interesting.

“Why release him?”

“To show mercy. To bring the love of Rome as well as the scourge. You’ve done it before at the festivals. You know it works.
It is clever.”

Too much to compliment him in this fashion? No. Pilate is as vain as any man.

“They have already come to ask, it is true.”

“Then release him. He has a body of followers, many of them women.” He drops this in as if it is in Yehoshuah’s favor. It
is not. Rome takes only a little more account of women than Greece ever did. “That is my advice to you”—he lowers his head—“in
return for a swift and merciful death. I’ve killed your men. Your soldiers will love you for doing away with me. It will be
easier for you to keep them in line.”

Pilate’s lip curls.

“The soldiers will obey me because it is their duty so to do. They owe it to me, to Rome, to their Emperor.”

He motions with his head to the little golden statue of the God-Emperor in the alcove shrine opposite the window.

“You should still execute me. If you want to be wise.”

It is so easy to bait Pilate. He is entirely unable to conceal his reactions. He is angry that Bar-Avo has suggested a wise
course of action, implied that he is not wise already.

“I know what men like you are. You consider it an honor to die at our hands, fighting. What if I don’t want to give you that
honor? What if I keep you here as my slave? There’d be no martyr’s death for you then, no crowd of wailing women to keep your
name alive and use it to spur on further rebellion.”

Bar-Avo shrugs.

“I am in your hands, Prefect. Do with me as you see fit.”

Pilate narrows his eyes, certain now that some game is being played with him.

“And what if I let you go?”

“My men would, of course, be delighted.”

“Yes,” says Pilate, “yes, your men. Ten thousand of them, they say, across Judea, loyal to you.”

This is not true, but Bar-Avo does not contradict him. There are nearer five thousand and they are loyal not to him but to
the cause. To live free is more important than merely to live. Loyalty to him would hurt that cause. They must be willing
to give him up if necessary; he would do the same to them.

“Yes,” Pilate muses, “let them taste the mercy of Rome as well as the kiss of her strap.”

The man is not an idiot, and yet he behaves like an idiot. It is pride. If another man were considering this course of action,
Pilate would bring him up easily on five or six points which make it unthinkably foolish. But he cannot bring his mind to
bear on his own plans.

“They would be grateful to me, would they not, if I released their master?”

“They would suspect I had turned traitor,” says Bar-Avo, because he can see the growing, gathering shimmer of the way to save
his own skin.

“Hah!” Pilate smiles broadly. “Even better! Gratitude and mistrust. Magnificent. You could not have promised me anything better
if you had designed it yourself.”

Bar-Avo tries to make his face as impassive as a stone. As if the thought of what he has done has hardened his heart.

“I’ll tell you what,” says Pilate, “I’ll make a game of it.”

His men are in the crowd. Bar-Avo sees them as soon as he and Yehoshuah are brought out blinking into the light of the square
below Pilate’s home, the place where later on the Prefect has his soldiers massacre all those men.

They are here to see him die, perhaps. Or to start a riot, or join in with one if one starts. They mingle quietly with the
crowd. The hoods of their cloaks are drawn up around their faces. There are perhaps two hundred people here and probably forty
of them are his own men. Because of the respect and love they hold him. Not to try to save him, but to witness his death and
bear witness of it to his friends, and to his mother, and to his wife and sons.

He sees two or three of the friends of Yehoshuah in the crowd. He had a smaller band, of course, and they were not strong
men, not used to fighting or to witnessing death at the hands of Rome. He wishes more of Yehoshuah’s men were here. Such a
united force should see how Rome kills. If they saw, they could not help but rise up.

Pilate addresses the crowd.

“People of Jerusalem!” he shouts. “I come here today to offer you a choice!”

The crowd stirs and mutters. He has played this little game before. He does not always do it, only sometimes. So they should
not become complacent, of course.

“Your will is important to me! Rome does not wish to hurt you, only to bring you order and good governance. Therefore, I have
two criminals here: the preacher Yehoshuah, who called himself the King of the Jews, and Barabbas, a rebel who murdered men
during the rebellion.”

There is more muttering. Not men, the crowd are thinking to themselves, soldiers. Who do the Jews kill in a rebellion? Not
other Jews. Soldiers. Even those who didn’t know that Bar-Avo had killed soldiers know it now. Pilate has as good as said:
here is a freedom fighter, a hero. Does he know he’s said it? It’s so hard to tell with that man whether he’s being cunning
or stupid. Or whether his cunning is the same as his stupidity, because only a stupid man would try to be cunning like that.

“I am going to allow you to decide which of these men shall live and which shall be executed. They are both criminals, both
found guilty by your courts!”

But we know who influences the courts, murmur the crowd, we know who tells them whom they may find guilty and whom innocent.

“This man Yehoshuah has blasphemed against your God! And this man Barabbas has murdered men!”

But there are women in that crowd to whom Bar-Avo’s men have given bread when the Romans burned the wheat field. There are
men in that crowd whom Bar-Avo’s men have fought with, defending their homes from bandits. There are children in that crowd
whom Bar-Avo’s men have found medicine for. No group of guerrilla fighters can last for long without the love of the people
they live among. What could Yehoshuah possibly have to compare with that? No preacher has anything to offer to an oppressed
people that compares with bread and water and tinctures and swords.

“So which do you choose?” he shouts. “You can save one and only one! Which of these men will you save?”

And there’s no choice, none at all. Yehoshuah’s friends try to call for him, but there aren’t enough of them, and they’re
drowned out by the voices rising up one on another on another saying, “Barabbas! Give us Barabbas! Blessed Barabbas!”

It is a pitilessly cruel game. If they refuse to call out names—and it has happened before, like gladiators refusing to fight—Pilate
will simply kill both men. It is entirely unfair. It makes a mockery of life itself. And yet what can anyone do but participate?

Bar-Avo stares at Yehoshuah. Yehoshuah is looking out at the crowd, where his scattered friends are shouting themselves hoarse
on his behalf. There is a man with tears streaming down his face as he shouts, “Yehoshuah! Yehoshuah!” Bar-Avo can see his
lips moving, but the sound does not reach, so great is the clamor of “Barabbas! Barabbas!”

Pilate is disconcerted by the vehemence of the cries. Whatever calculation he thought he’d made, it seems to have fallen out
differently from his expectation. His shoulders slope. He quiets the crowd. They settle down watchfully. He could do anything.

“But this man,” he says, “don’t you want this King of the Jews?”

And it’s clear to the crowd that he’s mocking them now. As if they’ve been left with any such thing as a rightful king, as
if they’d be able to tell their rightful king when they saw him.

It is nearly one hundred years this year since Rome took hold of Jerusalem and breached her and penetrated her by force. He
is asking this question as if every king for one hundred years hasn’t been placed on the throne by Rome. He despises them,
and it is obvious in every word he utters.

“What shall I do with this King of the Jews?” he says.

“Execute him!” shouts someone in the crowd, and the rest take up the cry of “Barabbas!” again. The few pitiful voices calling
out the other name are entirely inaudible.

How is it possible that a whole life can come down to this moment: seeing how many friends you have and how loudly they are
prepared to shout your name?

Bar-Avo wants to live, he thinks, but not like this. But that is a lie. He realizes it as he stands there, with the humility
of a man who has been for these past few days half dead, half alive. He wants to live and he does not much care how, as long
as it does not destroy the cause he’s fought for. He and Yehoshuah are both weeping, and the preacher’s friends are still
shouting his name, still desperately trying to save him, and it is obvious they love the man. If it were possible to save
them both, Bar-Avo’s men would be shouting for that. If it were possible to expel the occupiers from the land by shouting,
they would shout for that until their throats bled. But there is never the choice to save both. There is never more mercy
than absolutely required.

A look crosses Pilate’s face, and he glances to his left and right as if he wishes he had more soldiers around him. If he
were to refuse to give them Bar-Avo now, his life would be in danger. There are enough men in the crowd to rush them. Crowds
have a single voice and mind and heart. This crowd wants Bar-Avo.

“Very well!” shouts Pilate. “I have heard your wishes! I hope that seeing the magnanimity of Rome will encourage you to be
loyal! To love your Emperor! To stop your petty uprisings! I know that Barabbas, having felt this mercy, will join with me
in longing for peace between the two great nations of Rome and the Jews!”

Yehoshuah’s friends are still calling out, they are trying to get close to the raised platform on which the men are displayed.
Yehoshuah himself stands absolutely silent, his head bowed, his hands tied, like Bar-Avo’s, behind his back. Bar-Avo looks
at Yehoshuah, while one of Pilate’s soldiers saws at the ropes that bind him.

And eventually Yehoshuah looks back. He seems shocked and frightened and alone. He understands that he has failed to win a
popularity contest, that he has somehow not made enough friends, or loyal enough friends, to fight for him on this nonsensical
battlefield.

Bar-Avo too has heard the sayings of the rabbis: that one good friend is worth an army of hangers-on, that fools consort with
a multitude while the wise man keeps his counsel among a few whom he can trust. They are wrong, the rabbis, in this matter.
In times of peace a man has the luxury of picking a few good friends. In times of war one must hoard the love of men as one
lays down stocks of grain and oil and jars of water against an ill-fortuned time. Bar-Avo’s friends are his treasure house.
They have saved his life.

Pilate does not have to release him, even still. There is no law that says he must obey the will of the people, just as no
statute or edict from Rome has told him to ask them. But Pilate is too fearful a man to be willing to chance a crowd like
this. He has rolled the dice hoping for Venus and it has come up Vultures.

They cut through Bar-Avo’s ropes at last. His wrists are sore, his hands numb. There is a gash on his right hand where the
knife slipped—though they were none too careful with it and perhaps the wound was intended. The soldiers hustle him by his
shoulders to the edge of the platform and half lower, half push him off. He looks back. Yehoshuah’s head is still hanging
down. Their eyes meet as Bar-Avo reaches the ground and his friends begin to encircle him, hugging and patting and punching
his shoulder.