A Dirge for Prester John

“Perhaps not,” the beautiful tree laughed. “But I did.”

“You understand, somewhere,” insisted Hajji. “Because you love Tau’ma that way—Thomas. You want to be in his story, to be in the book you read and loved. And he is dead, so there is room in his story. You need him to be a father to you. He could take that burden, and then you could just eat with me, and talk with me, and I could tell you that I knew already about your Christ—knew very much about him. And you would be so pleased. And we would talk about the separation of flesh and spirit and you could feel at home.”

“John is your name,” the tree said, and it was not exactly a question. His voice was rough and full, as though it sounded in an oak barrel. The birds in his beard rustled. “And you are a Christian, I presume.”

“Yes, yes,” I breathed, and crept closer—but they did not seem to mind. Hajji, or Imtithal, sat quietly cross-legged at the foot of the great Thomas-banyan. “I have come so far, to find your tomb, for the honor of my teacher Nestorius, whose teachings are now outlawed in Christendom. I thought that if I were worthy, God would show me this secret thing, this lost place, and I could return triumphant, having been blessed.”

The face of Saint Thomas considered for a moment. “Do you believe now you are not blessed, that you were not worthy?”

“I…” I felt my face crumble into ugly tears. “I have sinned here,” I choked. “I have sinned.” I could not say more, my throat closed up my speech.

“Ah, my son, so did I, so did I,” the tree chuckled, and his smile was radiant as candles lit in the black—oh, how my heart hurt. “It’s not so bad. Poor child, how you torture yourself. You cannot be the master of all. If you have sinned, there is forgiveness. There is always forgiveness. Nothing is as we expect, not in the whole world. I thought I would live beyond death at the right hand of my brother on the sea of glass where the throne of Our Father glides forever—instead I live forever here, in a glen near the stars, and it is not so bad, not so bad. I lived well, I loved a wife, and if not for her I would not know what it was to drink rain with my skin. I do miss my brother—I do miss him.”

“You speak metaphorically,” I said carefully, a dread growing in me. I could not hear any more inversions of the world. I could not.

“I speak literally, my son. What do you call me—Didymus Thomas, Thomas Judas, Thomas the Twin? Who did you think was my twin?”

“No, no, Christ was born alone, to Mary, in Bethlehem!”

The Thomas-tree pursed his moist lips. “What is it your teacher Nestorius preaches?”

I reeled within myself, pouring over every Scripture I could recall by heart, to refute the tree, and cling to what I knew to be true: the Logos, the light, the mystery of Christ. “That Christ possessed two natures.” I whispered faintly, my stomach sinking as I began to understand, though I did not wish to. “The Word and the Flesh, the Logos, the Light of God, and the Human, the man, and these natures dwelt within him, but were not joined as one. They call this heresy, that it denies His divinity, that it makes of Mary but a clay jar and God a poor foster father.”

“John, if you listen to me I will tell you how it was, then, with us, before anyone thought to fancy it all up with Greek diagrams. You may believe the word of a tree in the dark, or you may continue splitting Christ down the middle over and over until he ceases to be entirely. I have no stock in it anymore—I am a tree, and I want little but to look at the stars and look forward to my wife’s visits—and she is a wife, and I had a wife, just the way you say you have sinned here and did not mean to. I did not mean to have a wife, but God put her in my path, and I do not make it a habit to deny His wishes.”

“I will listen,” I said faintly. The perfume of the place made me dizzy.

“The simple truth of my name is that I was a twin, that I was born second, after my brother Yeshua. I was born with the caul draped over my face like a maiden’s veil, and I was sickly, where Yeshua was strong, and cried loudly as soon as he left our mother—his hands were red and so were his feet, and he squalled and beat the air. I almost did not take my first breath. Our father removed the caul, but I was grey. He struck my backside, but I did not cry. Finally, they lay me next to my twin, and with those little fists he struck his first brother’s blow—and I flushed red and wept and breathed and our mother was not relieved, for we were poor and one son would have been enough. She meant me no ill, but if I had died she would have wept her piece and gone on living—little enough bread and oil was there for the three of them. As we grew, she had never enough milk for me, Yeshua was so hungry, so thirsty all the time, as though he were hollow and could never, never be filled. I grew thin, with only a trickle left in Maryam’s breast for me. He was always so full, and I was so empty.

But I adored our mother. I followed her everywhere, barely toddling after her—long after Yeshua had learned to run headlong from one end of the street to the other— as she washed and cooked wheat in the great iron pot which had been the better part of her dowry. I kissed her cheek until she smiled whenever I saw her sad, and I drew pictures of her in the dirt while the other boys played. Yet she never looked at me the way she looked at Yeshua, with a kind of awe, and fear, and love, as he grew lean and strong but so terribly hungry, like a wolf’s babe.

As boys it was much the same—he charmed our teachers and knew his Torah as though he had written it. The girls in the village went soft and moon-mouthed over him as his curls grew shiny and thick, his skin deep and rose-brown. They ignored me, or did not see me at all, and I could not remember the holy books like he could, no matter how I studied. But for all that, Yeshua doted upon me, and included me in all his games. We slept in one bed, and told each other children’s secrets i

n the thick of the night. I worshipped him, abjectly. When he looked at me, John, when he looked at me it was like the sun had suddenly noticed me in particular, and shone on no one else for a moment. His attention was exquisite as a knife, and when he turned back to his tablets or his nails and wood, it was as though a darkness had fallen in my heart, suddenly, utterly.

For my part, I had a persistent cough, and bony limbs, lanky hair, and my attention was sought by no one but him. But I was not unhappy. I was clever enough—as he grew more beautiful and wise, as people turned to him for advice and company, he left our mother alone more and more, and a space opened for me to show her that I could be a good son, too. That I could be worthy of love. I helped her to keep the house as no boy should—I burned myself with harsh soap so that she could rest, I learned to cook lentils and garlic in that pot. I recited holy writ to her—and found when I opened my mouth to speak to her, the words appeared as they never had in school with all those severe old men staring at me. And bit by bit, she smiled, and even laughed, and finally, held me close, and called me her lovely boy, and kissed my head, and I shook and shook in her arms, but did not cry. Once, when our father did not come home at night, as often happened, for he drank and preferred company other than Maryam’s, she told me that before Yeshua and I were born, a strange man came to her and told her she would have a special child, a wonderful child, that she had been chosen out of all other women to have him, and that she was blessed. The man frightened her badly, and when she saw him out of the corner of her eye, she saw red wings, dark and burning, so colossal they could not fit in her little room, and she knew he was an angel sent to her from God.

‘But he never mentioned you,’ she murmured, and held me close.

You know much of this tale, I know. He was a great man—everyone listened when he spoke, and so did I. He took on students, and we were a family of thirteen, all of us together, so excited by the nearness of God, by the fire that burned in Yeshua, in all his words and deeds. And then came the fishes. And then the wine, and the boy who was dead but lived. And we all fell silent, because when young men dream together they do not really imagine that things like that will start happening. Yeshua was as surprised as anyone, but he did not show it to the others. In the night, at home, he would open and close his hands and shake, for he did not understand what was happening to him.

I understood. My brother was perfect, that was all. Had it ever been any different? Whatever he desired appeared. It was a law of the universe.

Once, I came upon him in a garden full of pomegranate trees, and date trees as well. The air smelled rich and bitter all at once. Yeshua was speaking in low tones to a tall man under the shade of a pomegranate. Red fruit hung all around them. The tall man had very long, very black hair, and upon his shoulders sat a kind of light that was not light. I tried to look at it, but it was like looking at something through the flames of a fire: the air wriggled like oil, and I could not keep my eyes on it, for they burned. Finally my brother finished his business with the man and left the garden by the far gate. I stood where I stood, and the tall man saw me. He looked startled for a moment, then slightly furtive, as though caught out.

‘Hello, Thomas,’ he said to me, and my ears ached, though he did not speak loudly.

‘Hello. What business have you with my brother?’

‘Much business,’ he said softly. ‘And grave.’

I looked the man in the eye, and we held one another’s gaze. ‘You are an angel,’ I said, and I knew it to be true before I said it. An angel bends your bones apart, to make room for its voice inside you.

‘Yes.’

‘You came for my brother.’

‘Yes.’