The Book of Longings(119)

“I didn’t hand him to the Romans.” He was composed, but compelled now to recite every recrimination against himself. The scorpion-tail scar beneath his eye rippled up and down with his jaw. “Last night, I, his friend and brother, turned him over to the Temple guard, knowing they would hand him to the Romans. I led the guard here where I knew Jesus would be. I kissed his cheek so the soldiers would know who he was.” He pointed to a spot in front of him. “That’s where Jesus stood when I kissed him. Just there.”

I looked at the place where he’d pointed—brown dirt, tiny white rocks, the imprint of sandals.

He kept talking in his tortured, calm voice. “I wanted to give the people a reason to revolt. I wanted to help bring God’s kingdom. I thought it was what he wanted, too. I believed if I forced his hand, he would see it was the only way, that he’d resist the soldiers and lead the uprising, and if not, that his death would inspire the people to do so themselves.”

Violence. Uprising. Death. Ridiculous, meaningless words.

“But do you know what Jesus said to me when I kissed him? He saw the soldiers coming behind me with their swords drawn and he said, ‘Judas, would you betray me with a kiss?’ Ana, you have to believe me—I didn’t know until that moment what I’d done, how I’d misled myself. I’m sorry.” He dropped his head onto his knees. The moans came again.

Now he was sorry? I wanted to throw myself at him and claw the skin from his face.

“Ana, please,” Judas said. “I don’t expect you to understand what I’ve done, but I’m asking you to do what I cannot—forgive me.”

“Where’s my husband?” I said. “Where did they take him?”

He closed his eyes. “They took him to Caiaphas’s house. I followed them. At dawn they delivered him to the western palace. It’s where the Roman governor resides when he’s in Jerusalem.”

The Roman governor, Pilate. The one Lazarus had called brutal. I searched for the sun, hoping to guess the time, but the sky had solidified into a gray murk. “Is Jesus still there?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I couldn’t bear to remain and learn his fate. The last I saw him, he was standing on the porch at the palace before Pilate.”

“The palace—where is it?”

“It’s in the upper city, near Mariamme’s Tower.”

I bolted, Lavi chasing after me.

“Ana! . . . Ana!” Judas called.

I didn’t answer.





iii.


We entered Jerusalem through the Golden Gate, crossing the Court of the Gentiles and plunging into the tight, twisting streets bloated with Passover pilgrims. I looked west for a glimpse of Mariamme’s Tower. Smoke from the Temple altar hung overhead in a thin, drooping canopy, infused with the revolting smell of burned animal entrails. I could see nothing.

We threaded our way through the masses in the upper city with excruciating slowness. Move. Move. Move! A desperate, anxious feeling battered against my breast. “There!” I cried. “There’s the tower.” It jutted up from the corner of Herod’s palace into the stench and haze.

We turned a corner, then another, careening into a host of people lining the street and the rooftops above it. I wondered if we’d blundered upon a stoning. I looked for some poor woman accused of adultery or thievery crouched alone on the street—I knew the terror of it. But the crowd did not seem stirred to anger. They appeared dazed, grieved, possessed by an unnatural quiet. I didn’t know what was happening, nor did I have time to inquire. I pushed through them toward the street, determined to reach the palace and gain news of Jesus.

As I reached the edge of the crowd, I heard horse hooves, then a bone-scraping noise as if some heavy object was being dragged over the street stones. “Make way!” a voice shouted.

Glancing about for Lavi, I spotted him some distance behind me. “Ana,” he called. “Ana, stop!” It was not possible to stop—he must know this.

I stepped into the street. I saw everything then. The Roman centurion on the black horse. The firebird plumes on his helmet, the splash of red they created in the grayness. Four soldiers on foot, the flap of their capes, the puncturing jabs their spears made overhead as they marched. A man staggered behind them in a filthy, bloodstained tunic, bent beneath the weight of a large, roughly hewn timber. One end of the plank rested on his right shoulder; the other end dragged on the street behind him. I watched for long, stupefied moments as the man labored to hold up the beam.

Reaching me, Lavi grabbed my arm and swung me toward him, away from the street. “Don’t look,” he said. His eyes were like the spear tips.

I felt the wind rise, a hollow, whooshing sound. Lavi went on saying words. I no longer heard him. I was remembering the timbers that stood erect on the stark little hill just outside Jerusalem, the hill they called the Place of the Skull. Lavi and I had seen them only yesterday as we’d approached the city after our long trek from Joppa. In the dusk, they’d appeared like a little forest of dead trees amputated at the neck. We knew them to be the upright beams of the crosses on which the Romans crucified their victims, but neither of us had said it.

The bone scrape on the street intensified. I turned back to the sad procession. The soldiers are taking the man to the Place of the Skull. He’s carrying the crossbeam. I studied him closer. There was a familiarity about him, something about the shape of his shoulders. He lifted his head and his dark hair parted to reveal his face. This man was my husband.