III

One time, around mid­day, Je­sus and his dis­ci­ples were trav­el­ing along a rocky moun­tain road de­void of shade and, as they had al­ready trav­eled for over five hours, Je­sus be­gan to com­plain of fa­tigue. The dis­ci­ples stopped and Pe­ter, to­gether with his friend John, spread out their cloaks over the ground, and they af­fixed the cloaks of other dis­ci­ples be­tween two tall rocks, and in this way they cre­ated a kind of tent for Je­sus. And he lay down in the tent, tak­ing respite from the heat of the sun, while they en­ter­tained him with cheer­ful speeches and jokes. But, see­ing that even their speeches were tir­ing him, they, be­ing less sen­si­tive to heat and tired­ness, moved some dis­tance away and en­gaged in var­i­ous ac­tiv­i­ties. Some searched for ed­i­ble roots be­tween the rocks along the moun­tain­side and, hav­ing found them, they brought them to Je­sus; some, climb­ing higher and higher, searched thought­fully for the bor­ders of the azure re­mote­ness, and, not find­ing them, kept climb­ing onto new pointed rocks. John found a beau­ti­ful blue lizard be­tween the rocks, and, hold­ing it in his gen­tle palms and softly laugh­ing, brought it to Je­sus; and the lizard stared with its con­vex, mys­te­ri­ous eyes into his eyes, and then quickly crawled with its cold lit­tle body down his warm hand and swiftly car­ried some­place away its ten­der, trem­bling tail.

But Pe­ter, who did not like quiet plea­sures, to­gether with Philip, kept them­selves busy by tear­ing large rocks off the moun­tain­side and hurl­ing them down in a con­test of strength. And the oth­ers, at­tracted by their loud laugh­ter, grad­u­ally gath­ered round them and joined the game. Strain­ing them­selves, they tore from the ground an old, over­grown boul­der, lifted it up with both their arms, and re­leased it down the side of the moun­tain. Heavy, it made a dull thud with every col­li­sion, at times halt­ing for a mo­ment to think; then, hes­i­tantly, it made its first leap—and with every con­nec­tion with the ground, tak­ing from it speed and strength, it grew lighter, fiercer, and more dev­as­tat­ing. No longer hop­ping, it was fly­ing with its teeth bared, and the air let its dull, round body pass with a whis­tle. Here is the edge—with a fluid fi­nal move­ment the boul­der soared up­wards and calmly, lost in heavy thought, som­er­saulted down to­wards the bot­tom of an in­vis­i­ble abyss.

“Come on, one more!” cried Pe­ter. His white teeth glit­tered among his black beard and mus­tache, his pow­er­ful chest and arms were bared, and the old, grumpy rocks, left in dull amaze­ment at the strength that lifted them, rushed down obe­di­ently one af­ter an­other into the abyss. Even the frail John would throw small stones, and, smil­ing softly, Je­sus looked on at their fun.

“What about you, Ju­das? Why don’t you take part in the game—it ap­pears to be a lot of fun?” asked Thomas, find­ing his strange friend mo­tion­less be­hind a large gray rock.

“My chest hurts, and I was not in­vited.”

“But is in­vi­ta­tion nec­es­sary? Well then, I am invit­ing you, come. Just look at the boul­ders Pe­ter is hurl­ing down.”

Ju­das glanced at him side­ways, and it was then that for the first time Thomas got a vague sus­pi­cion that Ju­das of Ke­rioth had two faces. But he did not have the time to fully com­pre­hend this as Ju­das said to him in his usual tone, si­mul­ta­ne­ously flat­ter­ing and mock­ing:

“Is there any­one who is stronger than Pe­ter? When he shouts, all the don­keys in Jerusalem think that the Mes­siah has come and also be­gin shout­ing. Have you ever heard their cries, Thomas?”

And, smil­ing af­fa­bly and bash­fully wrap­ping his chest, over­grown with curly red hair, with his robe, Ju­das en­tered the cir­cle of the con­tes­tants. And be­cause every­body was hav­ing a fun time he was greeted with joy and loud jokes, and even John smiled so­cia­bly when Ju­das, af­fect­ing groans and sighs, grasped a mas­sive rock. But then he went ahead and lifted it ef­fort­lessly and hurled it down, and his blind, wide open eye wa­vered a lit­tle and locked onto Pe­ter, and the other, sly and cheer­ful, was filled with quiet laugh­ter.

“No, throw an­other one!” Pe­ter said in­dig­nantly. And so, one by one they lifted and hurled down enor­mous rocks, and the dis­ci­ples looked on in amaze­ment. Pe­ter hurled down a large rock—Ju­das even larger. Pe­ter, stern and se­ri­ous, fu­ri­ously heaved a moun­tain shard, trem­bling, he kept lift­ing it and drop­ping it—Ju­das, con­tin­u­ing to smile, searched for an even larger shard, dug into it af­fec­tion­ately with his long fin­gers, glued him­self to it, swayed to­gether with it, and, grow­ing pale, hurled it down into the abyss. Hav­ing thrown his rock, Pe­ter watched its fall by lean­ing back—Ju­das, how­ever, leaned for­ward, bent his back and ex­tended his hands, as if he wanted to fly af­ter the rock. Fi­nally, both of them, first Pe­ter then Ju­das, grabbed onto an old, gray boul­der—and they could not lift it, not one nor the other. All red, Pe­ter ap­proached Je­sus and said loudly:

“My Lord! I can­not bear to see Ju­das stronger than me. Help me lift that rock and hurl it down.”

And Je­sus replied some­thing to him softly. Dis­sat­is­fied, Pe­ter shrugged his shoul­ders but did not dare ob­ject, and he re­turned say­ing:

“He said: and who will help Is­car­iot?” But now he looked at Ju­das, who, pant­ing and clench­ing his teeth, con­tin­ued to hug the stub­born rock, and cheer­fully laughed:

“That’s how sick he is! Look at what our sick, poor Ju­das is up to!”

And Ju­das him­self laughed, caught so sud­denly in his lies, and all the oth­ers be­gan to laugh—and even Thomas spread out a lit­tle with a smile the straight mus­tache hang­ing over his lips. And thus, chat­ting am­i­ca­bly and laugh­ing, they set off on the road, and Pe­ter, fully rec­on­ciled with the win­ner, nudged him with his fist and loudly laughed:

“So that’s how sick he is!”

Every­one praised Ju­das, every­one rec­og­nized him as the win­ner, every­one chat­ted am­i­ca­bly with him, but Je­sus… yet again Je­sus had no praise for Ju­das. He walked in si­lence at the front, nib­bling on a blade of grass; and grad­u­ally, one by one, the dis­ci­ples stopped laugh­ing and walked over to Je­sus. And very soon it hap­pened that once again all of them walked at the front in a tight pack, and Ju­das—Ju­das the vic­tor—Ju­das the strong—trudged at the back, swal­low­ing dust.

And now they have stopped, and Je­sus put one hand on Pe­ter’s shoul­der and with the other he pointed into the dis­tance where Jerusalem was al­ready be­gin­ning to re­veal it­self through a thin haze. And Pe­ter’s broad, pow­er­ful back care­fully ac­cepted that slen­der, tanned hand.

They stopped overnight in Bethany, at the house of Lazarus. And, when every­one gath­ered round for con­ver­sa­tion, Ju­das thought that they would now re­call his vic­tory over Pe­ter, and he sat down close to them. But the dis­ci­ples were quiet and un­usu­ally thought­ful. The im­ages of the path they had trav­eled flowed qui­etly in their minds—the sun, the rocks, the grass, Je­sus ly­ing in the tent—in­duc­ing a soft con­tem­pla­tion, giv­ing birth to day­dreams, vague but sweet, of some eter­nal move­ment un­der the sun. The weary body rested pleas­antly, and the whole of it con­tem­plated some­thing mys­te­ri­ously-beau­ti­ful and grand—and no­body gave a thought to Ju­das.

Ju­das went out. Then came back. Je­sus was speak­ing and the dis­ci­ples were lis­ten­ing to his speech in si­lence. At his feet sat Mary, mo­tion­less, like a statue, and, with her head thrown back, was gaz­ing at his face. John, hav­ing moved up close, tried to make it so his hand would touch the teacher’s robe, but with­out both­er­ing him. He touched it—and froze. And Pe­ter was breath­ing loudly and force­fully, echo­ing with his breath the words of Je­sus.

Is­car­iot stopped at the door­way and, con­temp­tu­ously by­pass­ing the con­gre­ga­tion, fo­cused all of his fire on Je­sus. And the more he stared, the more would every­thing around him fade, be­com­ing wrapped in dark­ness and si­lence, and only Je­sus with his raised hand re­mained alight. And now even he rose up­wards into the air, as if he was dis­solved and was now wholly com­posed of an over­lake fog per­me­ated by the light of a set­ting moon; and his soft speech sounded gen­tly some­where far, far away. And, star­ing into the wa­ver­ing phan­tom, lis­ten­ing to the soft melody of the dis­tant, spec­tral words, Ju­das grasped the whole of his soul with his iron fin­gers and in si­lence be­gan con­struct­ing some­thing im­mense in its bound­less gloom. Slowly, in deep dark­ness, he lifted up some mas­sive things, like moun­tains, and smoothly placed one upon an­other; and again lifted them, and again placed them atop one an­other; and some­thing was grow­ing in the gloom, silently spread­ing, ex­pand­ing bound­aries. Now he could feel his head like a dome, and in his im­pen­e­tra­ble dark­ness some­thing mas­sive con­tin­ued to grow, and some­one was work­ing silently: lift­ing up moun­tain­like hulks, plac­ing one atop an­other, and again lift­ing… And some­where, dis­tant, spec­tral words sounded softly.

Thus he stood, block­ing the door­way, enor­mous and black, and Je­sus was speak­ing, and Pe­ter’s force­ful, in­ter­mit­tent breath echoed his words. But sud­denly Je­sus stopped talk­ing—abruptly, a word cut short; and Pe­ter, as if he had just woken up, rap­tur­ously ex­claimed:

“My Lord! The words of ever­last­ing life are re­vealed to you!” But Je­sus was silent and was gaz­ing in­tently at some­thing. And when they fol­lowed his gaze they saw in the door­way the pet­ri­fied Ju­das with his mouth agape and his eyes frozen. And, not un­der­stand­ing what this was all about, they be­gan to laugh. Matthew, how­ever, well read in the Scrip­tures, softly touched Ju­das’ shoul­der and said to him in the words of Solomon:

“He whose looks are gen­tle shall be pitied, but he that con­tends in the gates will af­flict souls.”

Star­tled, Ju­das shud­dered and even let out a light scream; and every part of him—his eyes, his arms, and his legs—be­gan to move in every di­rec­tion, like those of an an­i­mal that has sud­denly no­ticed hu­man eyes above it. Je­sus started walk­ing to­wards Ju­das, seem­ingly car­ry­ing some word on his lips… and he walked right past Ju­das through the door­way, now open and clear.

At mid­night Thomas grew con­cerned, walked up to Ju­das’ bed, crouched down and asked:

“Are you cry­ing, Ju­das?”

“No. Go away, Thomas.”

“But why are you groan­ing and grat­ing your teeth? Are you not well?”

Ju­das fell silent, and then, one af­ter an­other, heavy words be­gan to fall from his lips, filled with sor­row and rage.

“Why doesn’t he love me? Why does he love the oth­ers? Am I not more beau­ti­ful, bet­ter, stronger than them? Was it not I who saved his life, while the oth­ers ran, cow­er­ing, like cow­ardly dogs?”

“My poor friend, you are not al­to­gether cor­rect. You are not at all beau­ti­ful, and your tongue is just as un­pleas­ant as your face. You lie and slan­der con­stantly, so how can you ex­pect Je­sus to love you?”

But it was as if Ju­das did not hear him and he con­tin­ued, stir­ring heav­ily in the dark­ness:

“Why is he not with Ju­das but with the oth­ers, with those who do not love him? John brought him a lizard—I brought him a ven­omous snake. Pe­ter hurled rocks—I would turn a whole moun­tain for him! But what is a ven­omous snake? Rip out its tooth and it will lie like a neck­lace around one’s neck. But what is a moun­tain, which can be torn with one’s hands and tram­pled un­der one’s feet? I would give him Ju­das, the brave, beau­ti­ful Ju­das! And now he will per­ish, and Ju­das will per­ish with him.”

“You are say­ing some­thing strange, Ju­das!”

“A with­ered fig tree that must be axed—it’s me he is talk­ing about. Then why does he not ax me? He doesn’t dare, Thomas. I know him: he is afraid of Ju­das! He is hid­ing from the brave, strong, beau­ti­ful Ju­das! He loves the stu­pid, the trai­tors, the liars. You are a liar Thomas, have you heard about that?”

Thomas was very sur­prised and wanted to protest, but he thought that Ju­das was sim­ply vent­ing his rage, and so he only shook his head in the dark­ness. And Ju­das grew ever more mourn­ful; he groaned, grated his teeth, and one could hear how the whole of his large body was shift­ing rest­lessly un­der the blan­ket.

“What is hurt­ing so much in Ju­das? Who has ap­plied fire to his body? He gives up his son to the dogs! He gives up his daugh­ter to ban­dits to dis­honor, his bride—to out­rage. But does Ju­das not have a gen­tle heart? Go away Thomas, go away, you fool. Let him be alone, the strong, brave, beau­ti­ful Ju­das!”