Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal

Chapter 27

Chapter 27

The angel and I watched Star Wars for the second time on television last night, and I just had to ask. "You've been in God's presence, right, Raziel?"

"Of course."

"Do you think he sounds like James Earl Jones?"

"Who's that?"

"Darth Vader."

Raziel listened for a moment while Darth Vader threatened someone. "Sure, a little. He doesn't breathe that heavy though."

"And you've seen God's face."

"Yes."

"Is he black?"

"I'm not allowed to say."

"He is, isn't he? If he wasn't you'd just say he wasn't."

"I'm not allowed to say."

"He is."

"He doesn't wear a hat like that," said Raziel.

"Ah-ha!"

"All I'm saying is no hat. That's all I'm saying."

"I knew it."

"I don't want to watch this anymore." Raziel switched the channel. God (or someone who sounded like him) said, "This is CNN."

We came up to Jerusalem, in the gate at Bethsaida called the Eye of the Needle, where you had to duck down to pass through, out the Golden Gate, through the Kidron Valley, and over the Mount of Olives into Bethany.

We had left the brothers and Matthew behind because they had jobs, and Bartholomew because he stank. His lack of cleanliness had started to draw attention lately from the local Pharisees in Capernaum and we didn't want to push the issue since we were walking into the lair of the enemy. Philip and Nathaniel joined us on our journey, but stayed behind on the Mount of Olives at a clearing called Gethsemane, where there was a small cave and an olive press. Joshua tried to convince me to stay with them, but I insisted.

"I'll be fine," Joshua said. "It's not my time. Jakan won't try anything, it's just dinner."

"I'm not worried about your safety, Josh, I just want to see Maggie." I did want to see Maggie, but I was worried about Joshua's safety as well. Either way, I wasn't staying behind.

Jakan met us at the gate wearing a new white tunic belted with a blue sash. He was stocky, but not as fat as I expected him to be, and almost exactly my height. His beard was black and long, but had been cut straight across about the level of his collarbone. He wore the pointed linen cap worn by many of the Pharisees, so I couldn't tell if he'd lost any of his hair. The fringe that hung down was dark brown, as were his eyes. The most frightening and perhaps the most surprising thing about him was that there was a spark of intelligence in his eyes. That hadn't been there when we were children. Perhaps seventeen years with Maggie had rubbed off on him.

"Come in, fellow Nazarenes. Welcome to my home. There are some friends inside who wanted to meet you."

He led us through the door into a large great room, large enough in fact to fit any two of the houses we shared at Capernaum. The floor was paved in tile with turquoise and red mosaic spirals in the corners of the room (no pictures, of course). There was a long Roman-style table at which five other men, all dressed like Jakan, sat. (In Jewish households the tables were close to the ground and diners reclined on cushions or on the floor around them.) I didn't see Maggie anywhere, but a serving girl brought in large pitchers of water and bowls for us to wash our hands in.

"Let this water stay water, will you, Joshua?" Jakan said, smiling. "We can't wash in wine."

Jakan introduced us to each of the men, adding some sort of elaborate title to each of their names that I didn't catch, but which indicated, I'm sure, that they were all members of the Sanhedrin as well as the Council of Pharisees. Ambush. They received us curtly, then made their way to the water bowls to wash their hands before dinner, all of them watching as Joshua and I washed and offered prayer. This, after all, was part of the test.

We sat. The water pitchers and bowls were taken away by the serving girl, who then brought pitchers of wine.

"So," said the eldest of the Pharisees, "I hear you have been casting demons out of the afflicted in Galilee."

"Yes, we're having a lovely Passover week," I said. "And you?"

Joshua kicked me under the table. "Yes," he said. "By the power of my father I have relieved the suffering of some who were plagued by demons."

When Joshua said "my father" every one of them squirmed. I noticed movement in one of the doorways to Jakan's back. It was Maggie, making signals and signs like a madwoman, but then Jakan spoke. Attention turned to him and Maggie ducked out of sight.

Jakan leaned forward. "Some have said that you banish these demons by the power of Beelzebub."

"And how could I do that?" Joshua said, getting a little angry. "How could I turn Beelzebub against himself? How can I battle Satan with Satan? A house divided can't stand."

"Boy, I'm starving," I said. "Bring on the eats."

"With the spirit of God I cast out demons, that's how you know the kingdom has come."

They didn't want to hear that. Hell, I didn't want to hear that, not here. If Joshua claimed to bring the kingdom, then he was claiming to be the Messiah, which by their way of thinking could be blasphemy, a crime punishable by death. It was one thing for them to hear it secondhand, it was quite another to have Joshua say it to their faces. But he, as usual, was unafraid.

"Some say John the Baptist is the Messiah," said Jakan.

"There's nobody better than John," Joshua said. "But John doesn't baptize with the Holy Ghost. I do."

They all looked at each other. They had no idea what he was talking about. Joshua had been preaching the Divine Spark - the Holy Ghost - for two years, but it was a new way of looking at God and the kingdom: it was a change. These legalists had worked hard to find their place of power; they weren't interested in change.

Food was put on the table and prayers offered again, then we ate in silence for a while. Maggie was in the doorway behind Jakan again, gesturing with one hand walking over the other, mouthing words that I was supposed to understand. I had something I wanted to give her, but I had to see her in private. It was obvious that Jakan had forbidden her to enter the room.

"Your disciples do not wash their hands before they eat!" said one of the Pharisees, a fat man with a scar over his eye.

Bart, I thought.

"It's not what goes into a man that defiles him," Joshua said, "it's what comes out." He broke off some of the flatbread and dipped it into a bowl of oil.

"He means lies," I said.

"I know," said the old Pharisee.

"You were thinking something disgusting, don't lie."

The Pharisees passed the "no, your turn, no, it's your turn" look around the room.

Joshua chewed his bread slowly, then said, "Why wash the outside of the urn, if there's decay on the inside?"

"Yeah, like you rotting hypocrites!" I added, with more enthusiasm than was probably called for.

"Quit helping!" Josh said.

"Sorry. Nice wine. Manischewitz?"

My shouting evidently stirred them out of their malaise. The old Pharisee said, "You consort with demons, Joshua of Nazareth. This Levi was seen to cause blood to come from a Pharisee's nose and a knife to break of its own, and no one even saw him move."

Joshua looked at me, then at them, then at me again. "You forget to tell me something?"

"He was being an emrod, so I popped him." ("Emrod" is the biblical term for hemorrhoid.) I heard Maggie's giggling from the other room.

Joshua turned back to the creeps. "Levi who is called Biff has studied the art of the soldier in the East," Joshua said. "He can move swiftly, but he is not a demon."

I stood up. "The invitation was for dinner, not a trial."

"This is no trial," said Jakan, calmly. "We have heard of Joshua's miracles, and we have heard that he breaks the Law. We simply want to ask him by whose authority he does these things. This is dinner, otherwise, why would you be here?"

I was wondering that myself, but Joshua answered me by pushing me down in my seat and proceeding to answer their accusations for another two hours, crafting parables and throwing their own piety back in their faces. While Joshua spoke the word of God, I did sleight-of-hand tricks with the bread and the vegetables, just to mess with them. Maggie came to the doorway and signaled me, pointing frantically to the front door and making threatening, head-bashing gestures which I took to be the consequences for my not understanding her this time.

"Well, I've got to go see a man about a camel, if you'll excuse me."

I stepped out the front door. As soon as I closed it behind me I was hit with the spraying girl-spit of a violently whispering woman.

"YoustupidsonofabitchwhatthefuckdidyouthinkIwastryingtosaytoyou?" She punched me in the arm. Hard.

"No kiss?" I whispered.

"Where can I meet you, after?"

"You can't. Here, take this." I handed her a small leather pouch. "There's a parchment inside to tell you what to do."

"I want to see you two."

"You will. Do what the note says. I have to go back in."

"You bastard." Punch in the arm. Hard.

I forgot what I was doing and entered the house still rubbing my bruised shoulder.

"Levi, have you injured yourself?"

"No, Jakan, but sometimes I strain a shoulder muscle just shaking this monster off."

The Pharisees hated that one. I realized that they were waiting for me to request water so I could go through the whole hand-washing ritual before I sat down to the table again. I stood there, thinking about it, rubbing my shoulder, waiting. How long could it possibly take to read a note? It seemed like a long time, with them staring at me, but I'm sure it was only a few minutes. Then it came, the scream. Maggie let go from the next room, long and high and loud, a virtuoso scream of terror and panic and madness.

I bent over and whispered into Joshua's ear, "Just follow my lead. No, just don't do anything. Nothing."

"But - "

The Pharisees all looked like someone had dropped hot coals into their laps as the scream went on, and on. Maggie had great sustain. Before Jakan could get up to investigate, there came my girl - still shrieking, I might add - a lovely green foam running out of her mouth, her dress torn and hanging in shreds on her blood-streaked body and blood running from the corners of her eyes. She screamed in Jakan's face and rolled her eyes, then leapt onto the table and growled as she kicked every piece of crockery off onto the floor where it shattered. The servant girl ran through screaming, "Demons have taken her, demons have taken her!" then bolted out the front door. Maggie started screeching again, then ran up and down the length of the table, urinating as she went. (Nice touch, I would never have thought of that.)

The Pharisees had backed up against the wall, including Jakan, as Maggie fell on her back on the table, thrashing and growling and screaming obscenities while splattering the front of their white cloaks with green foam, urine, and blood.

"Devils! She's been possessed by devils. Lots of them," I shouted.

"Seven," Maggie said between growls.

"Looks like seven," I said. "Doesn't it, Josh?"

I grabbed the back of Joshua's hair and sort of made him nod in agreement. No one was really watching him anyway, as Maggie was now spouting impressive fountains of green foam both out of her mouth and from between her legs. (Again, a nice touch I wouldn't have thought of.) She settled into a vibrating fit rhythm, with barking and obscenities for counterpoint.

"Well, Jakan," I said politely, "thank you for dinner. It's been lovely but we have to be going." I pulled Joshua to his feet by his collar. He was a little perplexed himself. Not terrified like our host, but perplexed.

"Wait," Jakan said.

"Festering dog penis!" Maggie snarled to no one in particular, but I think everyone knew who she meant.

"Oh, all right, we'll try to help her," I said. "Joshua, grab an arm." I pushed him forward and Maggie grabbed his wrist. I went around to the other side of the table and got hold of her other arm. "We have to get her out of this house of defilement."

Maggie's fingernails bit into my arm as I lifted her up and she pulled herself along on Josh's wrist, pretending to thrash and fight. I dragged her out the front door and into the courtyard. "Make an effort, Joshua, would you," Maggie whispered.

Jakan and the Pharisees bunched at the door. "We need to take her into the wilderness to safely cast out the devils," I shouted. I dragged her, and Joshua for that matter, into the street and kicked the heavy gate closed.

Maggie relaxed and stood up. A mound of green foam cascaded off of her chest. "Don't relax yet, Maggie. When we're farther away."

"Pork-eating goat fucker!"

"That's the spirit."

"Hi, Maggie," Joshua said, taking her arm and finally helping me drag.

"I think it went really well for short notice," I said. "You know, Pharisees make the best witnesses."

"Let's go to my brother's house," she whispered. "We can send word that I'm incurable from there.

"Rat molester!"

"It's okay, Maggie, we're out of range now."

"I know. I was talking to you. Why'd you take seventeen years to get me out of there?"

"You're beautiful in green, did I ever tell you that?"

"I've got to think that that was unethical," Joshua said.

"Josh, faking demonic possession is like a mustard seed."

"How is it like a mustard seed?"

"You don't know, do you? Doesn't seem at all like a mustard seed, does it? Now you see how we all feel when you liken things unto a mustard seed? Huh?"

At Simon the Leper's house Joshua went to the door first by himself so Maggie's appearance didn't scare the humus out of her brother and sister. Martha answered the door. "Shalom, Martha. I'm Joshua bar Joseph, of Nazareth. Remember me from the wedding in Cana? I've brought your sister Maggie."

"Let me see." Martha tapped her fingernail on her chin while she searched her memory in the night sky. "Were you the one who changed the water into wine? Son of God, was it?"

"There's no need to be that way," Joshua said.

I popped my head around Josh's shoulder. "I gave your sister a powder that sort of foamed her up all red and green. She's a bit nasty-looking right now."

"I'm sure that becomes her," said Martha, with an exasperated sigh. "Come in." She led us inside. I stood by the door while Joshua sat on the floor by the table. Martha took Maggie to the back of the house to help her clean up. It was a large house by our country standards, but not nearly as big as Jakan's. Still, Simon had done well for the son of a blacksmith. I didn't see Simon anywhere.

"Come sit at the table," Joshua said.

"Nope, I'm fine by the door here."

"What's the matter?"

"Do you know whose house this is?"

"Of course, Maggie's brother Simon's."

I lowered my voice. "imon-Say the eper-Lay."

"Come sit down. I'll watch over you."

"Nope. I'm fine here."

Just then Simon came in from the other room carrying a pitcher of wine and a tray of cups in his rag-wrapped hands. White linen covered his face except for his eyes, which were as clear and blue as Maggie's.

"Welcome, Joshua, Levi - it's been a long time."

We'd known Simon as boys, spending as much time as we did hanging around Maggie's father's shop, but he had been older, learning his father's craft then, and far too serious to be associating with boys. In my memory he was strong and tall, but now the leprosy had bent him over like an old woman.

Simon set the cups down and poured for the three of us. I remained against the wall by the door. "Martha doesn't take well to serving," Simon said, by way of apologizing for doing the serving himself. "She tells me that you turned water into wine at the wedding in Cana."

"Simon," Joshua said, "I can heal your affliction, if you'll allow me."

"What affliction?" He lay down at the table across from Joshua. "Biff, come sit with us." He patted a cushion next to him and I ducked in the event that fingers started flying. "I understand that Jakan used my sister as bait for a trap for you two."

"Not much of a trap," Joshua said.

"You expected that?" I asked.

"I thought there would be more, the whole Pharisee council perhaps. I wanted to answer them directly, not have my words passed through a dozen spies and rumormongers. I also wanted to see if there would be any Sadducees there."

Just then I realized what Joshua had already figured out: the Sadducees, the priests, weren't involved in Jakan's little surprise inquisition. They had been born to their power, and were not as easily threatened as the working-class Pharisees. And the Sadducees were the more powerful half of the Sanhedrin, the ones who commanded the soldiers of the Temple guard. Without the priests, the Pharisees were vipers without fangs, for now anyway.

"I hope we haven't brought the judgment of the Pharisees down on your head, Simon," Joshua said.

Simon waved a hand in dismissal. "Not to worry. There'll be no Pharisees coming here. Jakan is terrified of me, and if he really believes that Maggie is possessed, and if his friends believe it, well, I'd bet he's divorced her already."

"She can come back to Galilee with us," I said, looking at Joshua, who looked at Simon, as if to ask permission.

"She may do as she wishes."

"What I wish is to get out of Bethany before Jakan comes to his senses," Maggie said, coming from the other room. She wore a simple woolen dress and her hair was still dripping. There was still green goo on her sandals. She came across the room, knelt down, and gave her brother a huge hug, then a kiss on the eyebrow. "If he comes by or sends word, you'll tell him I'm still here."

I sensed Simon was smiling under the veil. "You don't think he'll want to come in and look around?"

"The coward," Maggie spat.

"Amen," I said. "How did you stay with a creep like that all of these years?"

"After the first year he didn't want to be anywhere near me. Unclean, don't you know? I told him I was bleeding."

"For all those years?"

"Sure. Do you think he would embarrass himself among the members of the Pharisee council by asking them about their own wives?"

Joshua said, "I can heal you of that affliction, if you'll allow me, Maggie."

"What affliction?"

"You should go," Simon said. "I'll send word about what Jakan has done as soon as I know. If he hasn't done it already, I have a friend who will plant the idea that if he doesn't divorce Maggie his place on the Sanhedrin might be questioned."

Simon and Martha waved to us from the doorway, Martha looking like a compact ghost of her older sister and Simon just looking like a ghost.

And thus did we become eleven.

There was a full moon and a sky full of stars thrown over us as we walked back to Gethsemane. From the top of the Mount of Olives we could see across the Kidron Valley to the Temple. Black smoke streamed into the sky from the sacrificial fires which the priests tended day and night. I held Maggie's hand as we walked through the grove of ancient olive trees and out into the clearing near the oil press where we camped. Philip and Nathaniel had built a fire and there were two strangers sitting by it with them. They all stood up as we approached. Philip glared at me, which baffled me until I remembered that he'd been with us at Cana, and seen Joshua and Maggie dancing at the wedding. He thought I was trying to steal Joshua's girl. I let her hand go.

"Master," said Nathaniel, tossing his yellow hair, "new disciples. These are Thaddeus and Thomas the Twins."

Thaddaeus stepped up to Joshua. He was about my height and age, and wore a tattered woolen tunic and looked especially gaunt, as if he might be starving. His hair was cut short like a Roman's, but it looked as if someone had cut it with a dull piece of flint. Somehow he looked familiar.

"Rabbi, I heard you preach when you were with John. I have been with him for two years."

A follower of John, that's where I knew him from, although I didn't remember meeting him. That explained the hungry look as well.

"Welcome, Thaddaeus," Joshua said. "These are Biff and Mary Magdalene, disciples and friends."

"Call me Maggie," Maggie said.

Joshua stepped over to Thomas the Twins, who was only one guy, younger, perhaps twenty, his beard still like soft down in places, his clothes finer than any of ours. "And Thomas."

"Don't, you're standing on Thomas Two," Thomas squealed.

Nathaniel pushed Joshua aside and whispered in his ear a little too loudly. "He sees his twin but no one else can. You said to show mercy, so I haven't told him that he's mad."

"And so you shall be shown mercy, Nathaniel," Joshua said.

"So we won't tell you that you're a ninny," I added.

"Welcome, Thomas," Joshua said, embracing the boy.

"And Thomas Two," Thomas said.

"Forgive me. Welcome, Thomas Two, as well," said Joshua to a perfectly empty spot in space. "Come to Galilee and help us spread the good news."

"He's over there," said Thomas, pointing to a different spot, equally empty.

And thus did we become thirteen.

On the trip back to Capernaum Maggie told us about her life, about the dreams she had set aside, and about a child that had died in the first year of her marriage. I could see Joshua was shaken when he heard of the child, and I knew he was thinking that if we hadn't taken off to the East, he would have been there to save it.

"After that," Maggie said, "Jakan didn't come near me. There was bleeding right after the baby died, and as far as he knew it never stopped. He's always been afraid that someone might think that there's a curse on his house, so my duties as a wife were public only. It's a double-edged sword for him. In order to appear dutiful I had to go to the synagogue and to the women's court in the Temple, but if they thought I was going there while I was bleeding I would have been driven out, maybe stoned, and Jakan would have been shamed. Who knows what he'll do now."

"He'll divorce you," I said. "He'll have to if he wants to save face with the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin."

Strangely enough, it was Joshua who I had trouble consoling about Maggie's lost child. She'd lived with the loss for years, cried over it, allowed it to heal as much as it would, but the wound was fresh for Joshua. He walked far behind us, shunning the new disciples who pranced around him like excited puppies. I could tell that he was talking to his father, and it didn't seem to be going well.

"Go talk to him," Maggie said. "It wasn't his fault. It was God's will."

"That's why he feels responsible," I said. We hadn't explained to Maggie about the Holy Ghost, the kingdom, all the changes that Joshua wanted to bring to mankind, and how those were at odds, at times, with the Torah.

"Go talk to him," she said.

I fell back in our column, past Philip and Thaddaeus, who were trying to explain to Nathaniel that it was his own voice he heard when he put his fingers in his ears and spoke, and not the voice of God, and past Thomas, who was having an animated discussion with empty air.

I walked along beside Joshua for a while before I spoke, and then I tried to sound matter-of-fact. "You had to go to the East, Joshua. You know that now."

"I didn't have to go right then. That was cowardly. Would it have been so bad to watch her marry Jakan? To see her child born?"

"Yes, it would have. You can't save everyone."

"Have you been asleep these last twenty years?"

"Have you? Unless you can change the past, you're wasting the present on this guilt. If you don't use what you learned in the East then maybe we shouldn't have gone. Maybe leaving Israel was cowardly."

I felt my face go numb as if the blood had drained from it. Had I said that? So, we walked along for a while in silence, not looking at each other. I counted birds, listened to the murmur of the disciples' voices ahead, watched Maggie's ass move under her dress as she walked, not really enjoying the elegance of it.

"Well, I, for one, feel better," said Joshua finally. "Thanks for cheering me up."

"Glad to help," I said.

We arrived in Capernaum on the morning of the fifth day after leaving Bethany. Peter and the others had been preaching the good news to the people on the shore of Galilee and there was a crowd of perhaps five hundred people waiting for us. The tension had passed between Joshua and me and the rest of the journey had been pleasant, if for no other reason than we got to hear Maggie laugh and tease us. My jealousy of Joshua returned, but somehow it wasn't bitter. It was more like familiar grief for a distant loss, not the sword-in-the-heart, rending-of-flesh agony of a heartbreak. I could actually leave the two of them alone and talk to other people - think of other things. Maggie loved Joshua, that was assured, but she loved me as well, and there was no way to divine how that might manifest. By following Joshua we had already divorced ourselves of the expectations of normal existence. Marriage, home, family: they were not part of the life we had chosen, Joshua made that clear to all of his disciples. Yes, some of them were married, and some even preached with their wives at their sides, but what set them apart from the multitudes who would follow Joshua was that they had stepped off the path of their own lives to spread the Word. It was to the Word that I lost Maggie, not to Joshua.

As exhausted as he was, as hungry, Joshua preached to them. They had been waiting for us and he wouldn't disappoint them. He climbed into one of Peter's boats, rowed out from the shore far enough for the crowd to be able to see him, and he preached to them about the kingdom for two hours.

When he had finished, and had sent the crowd on their way, two newcomers waited among the disciples. They were both compact, strong-looking men in their mid-twenties. One was clean-shaven and wore his hair cut short, so that it formed a helmet of ringlets on his head; the other had long hair with his beard plaited and curled in the style I had seen on some Greeks. Although they wore no jewelry, and their clothes were no more fancy than my own, there was an air of wealth about them both. I thought it might have been power, but if it was, it wasn't the self-conscious power of the Pharisees. If nothing else, they were self-assured.

The one with the long hair approached Joshua and kneeled before him. "Rabbi, we've heard you speak of the coming of the kingdom and we want to join you. We want to help spread the Word."

Joshua looked at the man for a long time, smiling to himself, before he spoke. He took the man by the shoulders and lifted him. "Stand up. You are welcome, friends."

The stranger seemed baffled. He looked back at his friend, then at me, as if I had some answer to his confusion. "This is Simon," he said, nodding toward his friend. "My name is Judas Iscariot."

"I know who you are," Joshua said. "I've been waiting for you."

And so we became fifteen: Joshua, Maggie, and me; Bartholomew, the Cynic; Peter and Andrew, John and James, the fishermen; Matthew, the tax collector; Nathaniel of Cana, the young nitwit; Philip and Thaddeus, who had been followers of John the Baptist; Thomas the twin, who was a loony; and the Zealots, Simon the Canaanite and Judas Iscariot. Fifteen went out into Galilee to preach the Holy Ghost, the coming of the kingdom, and the good news that the Son of God had arrived.

***