Lazarus looks at the surface of the water. It does not tremble.
‘What is Jesus really like? You’re his friend.’
‘Slow at climbing.’
‘No, honestly.’
‘Hopeless at swimming. I don’t remember.’
Jesus had light flickering around his face, not heavenly light, but sunshine reflected from the trembling surface of the lake.
‘Don’t keep it to yourself. Tell us how he was as a child.’
Don’t ask me, Lazarus thinks. Ask Amos.
1
He waded back out to the same depth as Lazarus, because it was important to keep up, to be as strong as the next boy along.
It happened quickly. Lazarus swam out further and Amos followed. Lazarus turned back, and Amos had his nose above the water, his hands paddling fast. His neck was strained back at an unnatural angle, and then his head went under. Lazarus thought his brother was play-acting. He got his hands underneath him and pushed him up, gave him a shove towards the shore. He went under again.
‘That’s not funny!’
Amos came up, paddling furiously, as if panic could keep him afloat. He whined with terror, his lips sucked tight into his mouth.
Lazarus caught him and held him up. He pushed him hard to get him started but his own head went under. He was the taller of the two, and his toe touched gravel on the bed of the lake.
The gravel slipped beneath him. He reached again with his foot but drifted further from the shore, pulled out by the currents of the coming storm. Amos was now closer to the shore than Lazarus but still out of his depth; Lazarus reached down a foot to move closer and found himself further away. His brain wasn’t working — he made the mistake several times more before accepting he had to swim.
He splashed hard with his arms, slapping his hands into the water. He aimed himself at Amos but wasn’t making progress. He put his foot down searching for solid ground but the gravel dragged him back before he could push himself off.
Now Lazarus, too, felt the strength leave his arms.
Staying alive would take all his effort. Finding his depth. Reaching the shore. He wanted to help Amos, with his whole heart he wanted to save him, but only to the point where he had to save himself. That was as far as his saving would go. Ahead of him Amos went under. Lazarus thrashed with his arms. Amos drifted away from him. Lazarus felt the nearness of death and he knew, with absolute certainty, that above all else he wanted to live.
Jesus stood on the shore, holding their clothes and sandals. He didn’t help because he couldn’t swim. He patiently watched Amos drown. He watched Lazarus save himself. He did not intervene.
Lazarus remembers every detail — this is not a forgettable experience. On the shore, when he hauled himself out, Jesus had lost that look in his eye that said everything would turn out fine.
The body was never found, or if it was Lazarus was never told. He didn’t ask.
He travelled home to Nazareth on the back of a cart, surrounded by veiled women who took turns to press him close to their breasts. He couldn’t remember Jesus as a presence in the cart going home, but presumably he was there.
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INNOCENT PEOPLE MUST drown in Lake Galilee. Blameless families are required to grieve. This must be so, otherwise no one would be frightened for the disciples in the storm.
If Jesus is the son of god, then all stories both before and after exist in the service of this one incredible story. Every drowning makes its contribution to the glory.
‘When evening came, his disciples went down to the lake, where they got into a boat and set off across the lake for Capernaum. By now it was dark, and Jesus had not yet joined them. A strong wind was blowing and the waters grew rough. When they had rowed three or three and a half miles, they saw Jesus approaching the boat, walking on the water’ (John 6: 16–19).
Jesus walks on water. This is the next miracle, the fifth sign of the messiah as recorded in the Gospel of John.
Several explanations are possible. Jesus is standing on an unmapped sandbar. The disciples, confused by threatening weather, experience a moment of collective hysteria. Glaucoma, trachoma, conjunctivitis. In a random sample of twelve first-century Galileans, as many as a third may have suffered from an eye complaint.
Jesus walks on water; the body of Lazarus collapses. His skin retracts and his joints pop with fluid. Veins push outward through his black and yellow flesh. He jolts awake. The whites of his eyes are red.
The fifth miracle sends his body into a dramatic decline. Overnight, at the Bethesda pool, he reaches the invalid stage where on the second morning his sisters talk about him as if he isn’t there.
‘Now, please,’ Mary begs. ‘Look at him. We have to send for Jesus.’
‘There’s nothing anyone can do,’ Yanav says. ‘It’s over.’
Mary looks at Martha.
‘We promised,’ Martha says. ‘Disobeying his wishes could make him worse.’
‘How could he be any worse? He doesn’t know up from down.’
‘We promised him we wouldn’t send for Jesus.’
His sisters argue. Lazarus notices a tremor on the surface of the water. He doubts his eyesight but then the reflections break up, clouds in the sky shimmering and cracking. No one else sees it. He could topple himself in, first into the pool as the angels pass by.
He stares at the trembling water. He will hit the surface, sink, probably drown.
‘Send for Jesus,’ Mary pleads. ‘That’s all we have to do. Let me send a messenger.’
‘Stop,’ Lazarus says.
The pool glasses over. It is difficult for Lazarus to speak, as if he’s slowly being strangled with the minimum of force. ‘Don’t send for Jesus. And get me away from the water. It’s dangerous.’
Lazarus is going blind.
On the road home to Bethany the darkness at the edge of his vision begins to close in. He sees a migrating crane, sunlight bright on the tips of its wings. He finds it easier to close his eyes than to work out what anything means.
In the final stage of his illness, the various diseases blunder into each other, and the ability of his body’s defences to distinguish between self and not-self fades. His immune cells overwhelm some areas and miss the distress signals from others. His B-lymphocites are unable to protect him. His T-lymphocites recognise their doom and surrender.
Death is filthy. Lazarus has no control over his bowels, and is exhausted after retching whatever thin gruel reaches his stomach. He wills his inner workings back into their rightful place, but doesn’t know what to imagine or how the unimaginable should properly fit together. The effort of not knowing defeats him.
Poor Lazarus, like in the parable. Perhaps death is for the best, and if there is a heaven he may yet be comforted there.
Mary crouches close to the creaking stretcher, praying into her brother’s ear. He beckons her closer still. It hurts him to speak, but if he stays silent the pain does not diminish.
‘What?’ Mary asks. ‘What are you trying to tell me?’
‘Stop praying. Send for Lydia.’
‘I will not.’
‘Send for her. Please.’
Jesus walks on water. Jesus stands on the shore with their clothes in his arms, watching Amos drown. The gap between these two events is the emptiness into which Lazarus subsides.
Were they friends? Not really. Not after Amos died.
Jesus spent weeks afterwards in the synagogue, searching through the holy scrolls. He’d find obscure references to console his friend — ‘Come, let us return to the lord. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds’ (Hosea 6: 1) — but to Lazarus these were only words.