“Damned hell-deserter,” he shouted at him, “how nice to meet you! What say, did you have a nice time down there, by God! Which is better, life or death?”
“Six of one, half dozen of the other,” Lazarus answered. He started to pass by, but Barabbas put out his arm and blocked the way.
“Excuse me, my dear ghost,” he said, “but Passover is coming, I don’t have a lamb, and this morning, so that I too could celebrate the Passover, I swore to God that in place of a lamb I would slaughter the first living thing I happened to meet along the road. Well, you’re in luck. Stick out your neck: you’re about to become a sacrifice to God.”
Lazarus started to scream. Barabbas seized him by the Adam’s apple but was immediately overcome with fright. He had caught hold of something exceedingly soft, like cotton. No-softer, like air. His fingernails went in and came out again without drawing a single drop of blood. Maybe he’s a ghost, he thought, and his heavily pock-marked face grew pale.
“Does it hurt?” he asked.
“No,” Lazarus answered, sliding out of Barabbas’s grip in order to escape.
“Stop!” Barabbas growled, seizing him now by the hair. But the hair, together with the scalp, remained in his hand. Lazarus’s skull flashed yellowish-white in the sunlight.
“Damn you!” Barabbas murmured, trembling. “Blast it, are you a ghost?” He clutched Lazarus’s right arm and shook it violently. “Say you’re a ghost and I’ll let you go.”
But as he shook the arm, it came off in his hand. Terror took hold of him. He threw the decayed arm into the flowering broom and spat, nauseated. He was so terrified, the hair on his head stood on end. He grabbed his knife. He wanted to finish him off in a hurry, to be rid of him. He took hold of him carefully by the nape of the neck, propped his throat against a stone and began the slaughter. He sliced and sliced, but the knife did not penetrate. It was like cutting through a tuft of wool. Barabbas’s blood ran cold. Am I slaughtering a corpse? he asked himself. He started to go down the hill in order to flee but saw Lazarus still moving and was afraid his confounded friend might find him and resurrect him again. Conquering his fear, he seized him at both ends and, just as one might wring out a wet garment before hanging it up on the line, he twisted him and gave him a snap. His vertebrae uncoupled and he separated at the middle into two pieces. These Barabbas hid under the broom; then he departed at a run. He ran and ran. It was the first time in his life he had been afraid. He dared not look back. “Ah,” he murmured, “if I can only get to Jerusalem in time to find Jacob! He’ll give me a talisman to exorcize the demon!”
In Lazarus’s house, meanwhile, Jesus was bending over the disciples, struggling to throw a little light into their minds so that what they were about to see would not frighten them into dispersing.
“I am the road,” he told them, “as well as the house toward which one heads. I am also the guide, and he whom one goes out to meet. You must all have faith in me. No matter what you see, do not be afraid, for I cannot die. Do you hear-I cannot die.”
Judas had remained all by himself in the yard. He was uprooting the pebbles with his big toe. Jesus frequently turned to look at him, and an inexpressible sorrow spread over his face.
“Rabbi,” John complained, “why do you always call him to stay near you? If you look into the pupils of his eyes you’ll see a knife.”
“No, John, beloved,” Jesus answered, “not a knife-a cross.”
The disciples gazed at each other, disturbed.
“A cross!” John exclaimed, falling on Jesus’ breast. “Rabbi, who is being crucified?”
“Whoever leans over those eyes and looks in will see his face on the cross. I looked, and I saw my face.”
But the disciples did not understand. Several laughed.
“It’s a good thing you told us, Rabbi,” snapped Thomas. “As for me, I won’t look into the redbeard’s eyes as long as I live!”
“Your children and grandchildren will, Thomas,” Jesus said. He glanced through the window at Judas, who was standing now on the doorstep, gazing toward Jerusalem.
“Your words are obscure, Rabbi,” Matthew complained. “How do you expect me to record them in my book?” All this time, he had been holding his pen in the air, unable to understand anything or to write.
“I don’t speak in order for you to write, Matthew,” Jesus answered bitterly. “You clerks are rightly called cocks: you think the sun won’t come up unless you crow. I feel like taking your pen and papers and throwing them into the fire!”
Matthew quickly gathered together his writings and shrank away.
Jesus’ rage did not abate. “I say one thing, you write another, and those who read you understand still something else! I say: cross, death, kingdom of heaven, God… and what do you understand? Each of you attaches his own suffering, interests and desires to each of these sacred words, and my words disappear, my soul is lost. I can’t stand it any longer!”
He rose, suffocating. Suddenly he felt his mind and heart being filled with sand.
The disciples cowered. It was as though the rabbi still held the ox-goad and pricked them, as though they were sluggish oxen who refused to move. The world was a cart to which they were yoked; Jesus goaded them on, and they shifted under the yoke but did not budge. Looking at them, Jesus felt drained of all his strength. The road from earth to heaven was a long one, and there they were, motionless.
“How long will you have me with you?” he cried. “Those who guard within yourselves a grave question, hurry and ask it. Those who have a tender word to say to me, say it quickly: it will do me good. Say it, so that after I have gone you will not complain that you missed the opportunity to utter a kind word to me, that you never made me realize how much you loved me. Then it will be much too late.”
The women listened. They were heaped up in a corner, their chins wedged between their knees. From time to time they sighed. They understood everything but could say nothing. Suddenly Magdalene uttered a cry. She was the first to have the presentiment, and the funeral lamentation broke out within her. She jumped up and went into the inner room. Searching under her pillow, she found the crystal flagon she had brought with her. It was full of Arabian perfume which a former lover had given her in payment for one night. As she followed Jesus she carried it always with her, poor wretch, saying to herself: God is great; who knows but the day will come when I shall wash the hair of my beloved in this precious scent. The day might come when he’ll wish to stand next to me as a bridegroom. Such were the hidden longings of her bosom; but now behind her beloved’s body she saw death-not Eros, death. It too, like a marriage, required perfumes. She removed the crystal flagon from under her pillow, placed it in her bosom and began to weep. Holding the flagon to her breast and rocking it like an infant, she wept quietly, so that she would not be heard. Then she wiped her eyes, went out and fell at Jesus’ feet. Before he could lean over to lift her up, she crushed the flagon and the fragrant myrrh flowed over the holy feet. Then, weeping, she let out her hair and wiped the perfumed feet. With the remaining perfume she washed the beloved head. Straightway she again collapsed at the rabbi’s feet and kissed them.
The disciples were provoked.
“It’s a shame to let so much expensive perfume go to waste,” said Thomas, the merchant. “If we’d sold it, we’d have been able to feed many of the poor.”
“To dower orphans,” said Nathanael.
“To buy sheep,” said Philip.
“It’s a bad sign,” John murmured, sighing. “With such perfumes the corpses of the rich are anointed. You shouldn’t have done it, Mary. If Charon smells his beloved aroma and comes…”
Jesus smiled. “You will always have the poor with you,” he said, “but you will not always have me. It does not matter, therefore, if a flagon of perfume has been wasted for my sake. There are times when even Prodigality mounts to heaven and sits next to her well-born sister Nobility. You, John, beloved: do not feel oppressed. Death always comes. It is better that it come when the hair is perfumed.”