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I'd missed him by a day. A single day. I'll
never forgive myself. If it hadn't been for that stupid deal
when my father couldn't bear to lose a damn rupee, I would have
seen him again. There I was, riding like a maniac. All for nothing.
More than three years had passed since I last saw him. I missed
him from the day that we parted company. In Egypt. He was the
closest friend I ever had. As a matter of fact, con-sidering
the time I spend travelling, he was virtually my only friend.
And now he's gone. Dead. They tell me the Ro-mans executed him.
Like a common criminal. Why Yeshûa wouldn't steal
a crust of bread. He wouldn't hurt a fly. Not the Yeshûa
I knew. Could it really be true?
They've directed me to this broken down hovel. A house, a shack
really, on the back-streets of Jerusalem. Mud bricks and a straw
roof. The headquarters of his followers. I just don't believe
it. I can't. He was He wouldn't let them Yeshûa where are
you Yeshûa?
Don't listen to me. I am in a state of shock. Wouldn't you be?
You would, had you known him as I did. If you knew him at all.
Even if you had just met him.
I look around.
My eyes fall on a stone bench against the eastern wall. A mud
brick wall like the house. All around the courtyard: drab walls,
drab bench, drab, beaten down ground for a floor. Yeshûa
was never drab. He was rich beyond belief. He was the perennial
giver
They let me sit here. Someone came out, told me what happened
and went inside again. I've been alone since. As usual. As he
was. Had been.
This is where it had all started. At least
for me. On the outskirts of Jerusalem. This is where I'd met
the man who now is no more. I know it. The man who came out told
me. I've also heard it in town. But in my heart, in my heart
of hearts, it's too much to accept. Although, on the way here,
I did sense something peculiar. In the whole city. The City of
Peace. Peace indeed! A city where they murder innocent people.
Not the mob, not some crooks in a dark alley, but the people
in power. The Romans. The illustrious noble-men.
This is a farce!
And the men inside the house aren't much help either. Or weren't
to him. At least I assume there are men inside. I only met one
of them. They told me, outside, before I got here, in a whisper,
that his disciples are hiding here. Hiding from whom? And why?
Maybe they know something I don't? They certainly didn't know
him as I do, even if they had followed him during these
last three years. Much good it did them. Or him.
I feel a pang of anger.
So much had happened during these last few years. I'd had my
share of excitement, though I shared neither my fa-ther's nor
Yeshûa's ambitions. Live and let live was my motto. So
far it served me well. Apparently my friend hadn't fared so well.
And then I'd heard, all the way home, that he was a full-fledged
teacher. A Master, they called him. Like a Swami or Guru. God
how time flies! I'd just re-turned home from China. I had dropped
everything and rode all the way. I had to see him. To see if
his dream had come true. He never lost hope that it would. That
he would fulfil his mission. It had taken weeks to get here.
It would have been many months, had I travelled with a caravan.
Had I had a premonition? Had he called me to his side? Some-how?
I'd missed him by a day.
"But how exactly did it happen? I
mean, he was always an easygoing fellow. At least, I found him
to be so. And" I catch myself speaking aloud.
I glance around but nobody is listening. Not to me. Anyway, they
are all inside. They are all lost in their own thoughts. Apparently
dark thoughts. They all seem to have crawled into their shells
like a bunch of snails on a hot sum-mer day on the shores of
Tiberias. I can't take it any more. I'm going inside. It's dark.
The only light comes in through the doorway I just entered. Small
openings, high up on the wall, are shaded. This time I speak
aloud. I want to be heard. By whoever cringes in the semi-darkness.
"Didn't you know what would happen? I mean, could you not
have helped him somehow, some way?" My hand rests on the
hilt of my sword. I know it's frustration speaking through me.
Even anger. But after riding day and night only to miss him by
a day, I have a right to be upset.
No one answers.
My eyes are getting accustomed to the dark. There are bodies
everywhere. Inert. After a while, a heavy, thickset man lifts
his head. As he looks up I can just see his face. It is lined
as though from an intensive effort of trying to under-stand something
beyond understanding. His hair seems prematurely gray. He looks
at me as though he is emerging out of a deep, painful dream.
"No."
That's all he said. No. No we couldn't. No, we tried, and we
couldn't. No. No one could help him, not even He whom he called
his Father. It took a long time before I un-derstood what he
meant. It was all there. Stated as clearly as though he'd spoken
all the words out loud. What really showed in his eyes was pain.
Such pain, as I'd never seen before.
There are eleven of them sitting on the floor, their knees gathered
under their robes, their heads bowed, or hidden in their hands.
In the other room I can just see three or four women, huddled
together as though trying to avoid the sand carried by the desert
wind. Only there is no wind. The air stands still. In abeyance.
Waiting? There is not even any noise. Not even a whimper of discontent
from Mother Na-ture. Nor from people in this room. These people
might as well be dead.
"Come!" A hand taps me on the shoulder. A young face
is peering into my eyes. Asking. The same pain. There is a great
deal of pain here. "Come outside," he repeats.
I gather my cape and satchel and follow the young man into the
courtyard. He points to the sole stone bench against the east
wall. The courtyard is awash with early morning golden-pink warmth,
somehow out of place in the atmos-phere of gloom. Of desperation.
"They are lost. All of them," the young man says after
we sit down. I pull the cowl over my head to protect my eyes.
After the darkness inside, my eyes hurt. Even in the shade. Only
then I look at my companion.
"I am Satya," I say. "Satya Bihari." My name
means nothing to him but it seems polite to introduce myself.
"My name is Yôchanan. People call me Yôna."
"You knew him?" A stupid question. Right now I feel
pretty stupid.
A sad smile confirms my suspicions. His smile says: I knew him
and I loved him.
"Yes," he nods. "We all did." Then he catches
his breath. "We thought we all knew him. But we didn't.
No-body really knew him. Nobody He was all alone," this
last in a barely perceptible whisper.
My host is a young, smallish man, no more than twenty. He does
his best to look happy, to maintain an air of equilib-rium, even
of serenity. It doesn't quite work. His features say one thing,
his eyes another. I feel his anguish.
"Can you tell me what really happened?"
He looks at me for a long time. A few times he opens his mouth
to speak, and his lips move up and down, as though by their own
volition, and then hang open. Gusts of breath escape his heaving
chest. And then, without warning, a guttural sobbing spills from
his open mouth. Sobbing that shakes his insides while his body
remains stiff, rigid, un-yielding, refusing to let go. I move
closer to the young man and put my hand on his shoulder. For
a while he doesn't react and then he seems to melt, collapse
in a heap. I catch him as he's slipping to the ground. I catch
him and hold him as a father would hold a distraught child. Gradually
his chest relaxes; his heaving becomes easier, less tortured.
I can do little but wait. It doesn't last more than a few sec-onds.
He dries his eyes with his long flowing sleeve, clears his throat
and offers me a distorted facsimile of a smile.
"He told us to be happy," he says.
I let that go. "What did people say about him?" My
young companion regains control of himself. "I mean, what"
"They said that he was the king who didn't make it."
"King?"
"King of the Jews. Of Judea. They said he would set us free"
"From the Romans?"
It's hard to believe this young man. I'd first met Yeshûa
when he was a twelve-year-old boy. I'd spent years travel-ling
with him across the continents. We went as far north as Palmyra,
as far west as Memphis, and as far east as my own home, Benares.
I'd slept in the same tent with him on a hundred occasions. We
talked until the first light dimmed the stars over our heads.
I'd known the man. He was not a king. He'd never had any ambition
of becoming a king. He had as low regard for the power wielded
by man, any man as well, as I did. Only more so. Yeshûa
was a vagabond. A homeless hobo. He was a seeker of truth, of
the secret of life. He was satisfied with fewer creature comforts
than any man I'd ever met. The nearest he'd gotten to the concept
of an ego was to try and find out who exactly he was. King? These
people must be crazy.
"That's what they thought."
I look at Yôchanan with closer attention. There is something
he is not telling me. "But you don't, Yôna?"
I ask not knowing quite what to expect.
Once again it takes him a while to reply. He seemed to be looking
for the right words. It was as though he'd never spoken on the
subject before. Almost as though it was all new to him. Then
Yôchanan leaned back against the adobe wall.
"He didn't talk about us, here, " he started, choosing
his words carefully. I nod my encouragement. "He said,"
the young man hesitates then seems to gather courage. "He
said that His kingdom was not of this world."
I want to shout "What!?" but his hand silences me with
a strange authority.
"He always meant what He said."
There is steel in Yôchanan's tone. Confident, unbend-ing.
A strange change sweeps over him. He wasn't offering an opinion.
He was sharing a statement of fact.
Yeshûa imparted strange respect among
his closest friends. Disciples, I think they call themselves.
Or some-thing like that. This last statement did sound like Yeshûa
talking. The Yeshûa I'd known. Only the Yeshûa I
knew didn't teach. He was always learning. More so than any man
I'd ever met. But he did have that power of persuasion. He didn't
talk much, not in public, but when he did speak, he sounded as
though he was beyond being challenged. It sounded as though what
he said had to be said, and he sim-ply vocalized the truth in
a manner in which people were likely to understand it.
"You loved him very much" I speak
softly, really thinking of myself.
I did love him very much. Yeshûa was
not a man who was easy to love. Oh, he was complacent enough
towards most, towards the masses, but when he befriended you,
there were no more compromises. It was all or nothing. You can-not
serve two masters, he'd told me. So many years ago. So many times.
We were discussing loyalty to the government versus your own
family. He was arguing for total commit-ment to the idea. Or
ideal. We also joked a lot.
"Wait until you get married," I quipped. "Then
you'll see what master you must serve. At least if you want your
supper!"
I recall his eyes. He laughed more than any man I'd met in all
my travels. He had a strange capacity to see beauty in virtually
everything. And when he became aware of it, he laughed. "Just
look at these," he'd say pointing at some flowers, "or
those," his hand followed the contour of the desert dunes
afar, "or the riches we are given to witness," he'd
say pointing at the night sky. He seemed to live in con-stant
awe of the world around him. It was all beauty for him, all perfect,
all an inscrutable gift made exclusively for our pleasure. For
our joy. If he were a Greek, he would have been a follower of
Epicurus. Both he and Epicurus denied the existence of gods.
It sounded strange coming from one raised in the strictest observances
instilled in him by the Essenes. Maybe that's why he'd run away.
For years. For so many years. And yet?
And yet he came back. How I wish he hadn't.
"I'm sorry," says Yôchanan.
"There is little more I can tell you."
And with that Yôna rose slowly and half walked, half staggered
towards the dark opening in the wall. A moment later the darkness
embraced him with a merciful blanket. He will hide in it, as
I now wish I could hide. Hide from memo-ries that fill the emptiness
with such vividness before my eyes.
Once more I am alone. More alone than I have ever been in my
life. More alone than on that first caravan, be-fore I met him.
With suddenness that jars my raw nerves, memories flood my mind.
My eyes are filled with images long and short, snippets
of events, of journeys, words, frag-ments of discussions, arguments
we'd had over the years. The pain that I detected in the eyes
of the men in the dark-ened room is now my own. I simply cannot
accept that I'll never speak to him again. I shut my eyes. I
would give all I have to shut out the whole world. It seems empty
now, de-void of life.
The next instant I see a scruffy lad hiding behind a sun-drenched
stone wall. A lad who would grow into a man like no man I'd ever
met. My eyes burn from recent lack of sleep. I'd tried so hard
to get to see my friend. I close my eyes again. My young friend's
face is still there. He is smiling
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