فصل 16

XVI

The Execution

THE sun was already sinking behind Bald Mountain, and the mountain was encircled by a double cordon.

The cavalry ala that had crossed the procurator’s path around noontime had set out at a trot, moving toward the city’s Hebron Gate. A path had already been cleared for it. The infantry of the Cappadocian cohort had pushed the crowds of people, camels, and mules over to the sides of the road, and the ala, raising white columns of dust skyward as it moved along, trotted out to the intersection of two roads: one heading south to Bethlehem, the other northwest to Jaffa. The ala took the northwest road. The same Cappadocians were deployed along the sides of the road, having been successful in their efforts to clear the various caravans hurrying to Yershalaim for the holiday out of the way in a timely fashion. Crowds of pilgrims had left their striped tents, which were pitched temporarily on the grass, and were standing behind the Cappadocians. After traveling about a kilometer, the ala overtook the second cohort of the Lightning Legion, and after travelling another kilometer, the ala was the first to arrive at the foot of Bald Mountain. There the men dismounted. The commander divided them into platoons, and they cordoned off the base of the small hill so that it was accessible only from the Jaffa road.

A short time later the ala was joined by the second cohort, which set up another cordon higher up the mountain.

The last to arrive was the century under the command of Mark Ratkiller. It advanced in two columns, one on either side of the road, and in the middle of the columns, escorted by the secret guard, came the cart carrying the three condemned prisoners. They wore white boards around their necks which said, in both Aramaic and Greek, “Outlaw and Rebel.” Behind their cart came other carts, loaded with freshly hewn cross-beamed posts, ropes, shovels, buckets, and axes. Riding in these carts were the six executioners. Following them on horseback were the centurion Mark, the head of the temple guard of Yershalaim, and the man in the hood with whom Pilate had had a brief exchange in the darkened room inside the palace.

A column of soldiers brought up the rear of the procession, and it was followed by a crowd of about two thousand curiosity-seekers, unfazed by the hellish heat and intent on attending an interesting spectacle.

Joining them were the curious pilgrims, who were not deterred from tagging along at the tail of the procession. The column wound its way up Bald Mountain as the thin voices of the accompanying heralds shouted out the words spoken by Pilate at noontime.

The ala allowed everyone to go up as far as the second cordon, but the second century permitted only those connected with the execution to ascend any higher. Then it maneuvered quickly to disperse the crowd around the entire hill, so that the crowd was contained by the cordon of infantry above and the cordon of cavalry below. Now the crowd could see the execution through the thin chain of foot soldiers.

And so, more than three hours had passed since the procession had ascended the mountain, and the sun was already sinking over Bald Mountain, but the heat was still unbearable. The soldiers in both cordons were suffering from the heat, languishing from boredom, and cursing the three outlaws in their hearts, sincerely wishing them all a speedy death.

The short commander of the ala, his forehead damp and his white tunic dark with sweat, stationed himself at the bottom of the hill near the open part of the ascent. He kept walking over to the leather bucket of the first platoon, scooping out handfuls of water, drinking, and then wetting down his turban. After getting a little relief from this, he would walk back and again begin pacing back and forth along the dusty road leading to the summit. His long sword knocked against his laced leather boot. The cavalry commander wanted to be a model of endurance for his men, but he took pity on them and allowed them to stand under the pyramid-shaped tents they had fashioned by sticking their lances into the ground and draping them with their white cloaks. These tents provided the Syrians some shelter from the merciless sun. The water buckets were emptied quickly, and the cavalrymen from the different platoons took turns going for water to the gully at the foot of the hill, where in the infernal heat and sparse shade of some emaciated mulberry trees, a muddy stream lived out its remaining days. The grooms stood there with the now rested horses, and, worn down by boredom, were trying to stay inside the shifting shade.

The soldiers’ tedium and the curses they directed at the outlaws were understandable. The procurator’s fears that the execution would provoke riots in his hated city of Yershalaim had fortunately proved groundless. And contrary to all expectations, when the execution entered its fourth hour, there was not one person left in between the double cordon formed by the infantry up above and the cavalry down below. The crowd had been scorched by the sun and driven back to Yershalaim. All that was left beyond the line of the two Roman centuries were two dogs. No one knew who they belonged to and how they had ended up on the hill. But the heat had prostrated them as well, and they lay panting with their tongues out, oblivious to the green-backed lizards scurrying between the red-hot stones, the only creatures unafraid of the sun, and the prickly plants curling over the ground.

No one had attempted to free the prisoners, either in Yershalaim, which had been inundated with troops, or here on the cordoned-off hill, and the crowd had gone back to the city because there was, really, nothing interesting about this execution, and back in the city preparations were already underway for the great feast of Passover, which would begin that evening.

The Roman infantry in the second cordon was suffering more than the cavalry in the first. The only respite the centurion Ratkiller allowed his men was to remove their helmets and replace them with wetted-down headbands, but he kept his soldiers standing, with their spears in their hands. Wearing the same kind of headband around his head, only dry, not wetted-down, he paced back and forth not far from the group of executioners, without having removed the silver lions’ heads from his tunic, or his scabbard, sword, or knife. The sun beat down on the centurion without causing him any distress, and it was impossible to look at the lions’ heads on his tunic, so blinding was the glare of the silver, which seemed to be boiling in the sun.

Ratkiller’s disfigured face showed no sign of exhaustion or discontent, and it seemed that the giant centurion had the strength to go on pacing like that all day and all night, and the next day as well—in short, for as long as he had to. To keep walking with his hands on his heavy, bronze-studded belt, to gaze sternly now at the posts with the men being executed, now at the soldiers in the cordon, and to kick the toe of his shaggy boot indifferently at the bleached human bones or bits of flint that lay in his path.

The man in the hood had settled himself on a three-legged stool not far from the posts and sat in placid immobility, only occasionally poking at the sand with a twig out of boredom.

That there was not a single person behind the line of legionaries is not completely true. There was one man there, but he was simply not visible to everyone. The spot he had chosen was not on the side where there was an open ascent up the mountain and where the most comfortable view of the execution could be had, but on the northern side of the hill where the ascent was not sloping and accessible, but uneven, with crevices and cracks, and where in one of the crevices, clinging to the heaven-cursed waterless soil, trying to survive, was a sickly fig tree.

It was precisely under this tree which gave no shade at all that this single spectator, who was not a participant in the execution, had ensconced himself, and he had been sitting there on a rock from the very beginning, that is, for more than three hours. Yes, the place he had chosen was the worst rather than the best place to view the execution. Nevertheless, from that vantage point the posts were visible, and visible as well, beyond the cordon, were the two shiny spots on the centurion’s chest, and that was evidently, more than sufficient for this man who obviously wanted to remain unobserved and undisturbed by anyone.

Four hours before, however, when the execution was just beginning, this man had acted very differently and had been very noticeable indeed—no doubt that was why he had changed his behavior and had sequestered himself.

It was when the procession had passed the second cordon and reached the top of the hill, that he had made his first appearance, acting like an obvious latecomer. Breathing heavily, he did not walk, but ran up the hill, pushing others aside, and when he saw that the line had closed in front of him as well as everyone else, he acted as if he did not understand the angry shouts being directed at him and made a naive attempt to break through the cordon to the place of execution where the condemned men were already being taken off the cart. For his efforts he received a heavy blow on the chest with the dull end of a spear, and he jumped back from the soldiers with a cry not of pain, but of despair. He gave the legionary who had struck him a dull and totally indifferent look, as if he were impervious to physical pain.

Coughing and gasping for breath, clutching his chest, he ran around the circumference of the hill, trying to find some break in the line on the northern side where he might be able to slip through. But it was too late. The ring had closed. And the man, his face contorted with grief, was forced to abandon his attempts to break through to the carts, from which the posts had already been removed. Such attempts would only have led to his capture, and being arrested on that particular day was certainly not part of his plan.

And so he had gone over to a crevice on the side of the hill, where it was more peaceful and no one would bother him.

This black-bearded man, his eyes suppurating from the sun and from lack of sleep, was now sitting on a rock, consumed with anguish. With a sigh, he would periodically open his tallith, once light-blue, but now ragged and dirty-gray from a life of wandering, and bare his chest, which had been bruised by the spear and was dirty with sweat. Then, in a state of unbearable torment, he would raise his eyes to the sky, following the flight of three vultures who, for sometime now, had been tracing broad circles high in the sky in anticipation of the feast to come. Or he would fix his hopeless gaze on the yellow earth and see there the remains of a dog’s skull, with lizards running all over it.

The man’s suffering was so great that from time to time he would start talking to himself, “Oh, what a fool I am,” he mumbled, swaying back and forth on his rock in a state of mental anguish, digging his nails into his swarthy chest. “Fool, stupid woman, coward! I’m carrion, and not a man!” He would fall silent, drop his head, and then after taking a drink of warm water from his wooden flask, he would become animated again and grab for the knife hidden on his chest under his tallith, or for the piece of parchment in front of him on the rock, beside a small stick and a bladder of ink.

The parchment already had some scattered jottings:

The minutes go by, and I, Levi Matvei, am here on Bald Mountain, and still death does not come!

And further on:

The sun is sinking, and still, no death.

Now, in a hopeless state, Levi Matvei had used his sharp stick to record the following:

God! Why art thou angry at him? Send him death.

When he had written that, he burst into tearless sobs and again dug his nails into his chest.

The reason for Levi’s despair was the terrible misfortune that had befallen Yeshua and himself, and also the mistake that he felt he, Levi, had made. Two days before, Yeshua and Levi had been in Bethany outside Yershalaim, where they had been visiting a vegetable gardener who had been most favorably impressed by Yeshua’s preachings. Both guests had worked in the garden all morning, helping their host, and they were planning to go into Yershalaim in the evening when it was cooler. But for some reason Yeshua had suddenly started to hurry, said he had urgent business in the city and left by himself around noontime. That had been Levi Matvei’s first mistake. Why, oh why had he let him go alone?

In the evening Matvei had not been able to go to Yershalaim. He was hit by a sudden and terrible illness. He shook all over, his body was on fire, his teeth chattered, and he constantly had to ask for water. He was unfit to go anywhere. He collapsed on a horse-blanket in the gardener’s barn and lay there until dawn on Friday, when Levi’s illness left him as suddenly as it had come. Although he was still weak and his legs trembled beneath him, he was tormented by forebodings of disaster, and so he said good-bye to his host and set out for Yershalaim. There he learned that his forebodings had not deceived him. Disaster had taken place. Levi was in the crowd and heard the procurator pronounce the sentence.

When the condemned men had been taken out to the mountain, Levi Matvei ran alongside the column in the crowd of curiosity-seekers, trying, at least, to find some inconspicuous way to let Yeshua know that he, Levi, was there, that he would not forsake him on his final journey, and that he was praying that Yeshua would have a speedy death. But Yeshua had been looking up ahead to where they were taking him and had not seen Levi.

And then, when the procession had gone a short distance, Matvei had a simple and ingenious idea as he was being jostled by the crowd pressing in upon the column. And being as hotheaded as he was, he immediately cursed himself for not having thought of it sooner. The cordon of soldiers was not impenetrable. There were gaps in it. If one were quick and timed it right, it might be possible to bend down, slip between two of the legionaries, get to the cart and jump up on it. Then Yeshua would be saved from suffering.

A single instant would be enough to plunge a knife into Yeshua’s back and shout, “Yeshua! I am saving you and am going with you! I, Matvei, your true and only disciple!” And if God would grant him yet another instant of freedom, then he might be able to stab himself as well and avoid death on the post. But the latter was of little concern to Levi, the former collector of taxes. He did not care how he died. The only thing he wanted was for Yeshua, who had never done anyone any harm in his whole life, to escape being tortured.

The plan was a very good one, but it had one flaw: Levi had no knife. Nor did he have any money to buy one.

Enraged at himself, Levi broke away from the crowd and ran back to the city. Only one thought burned in his fevered brain and that was to get hold of a knife there right away, by whatever means, and then to catch up with the procession once again.

He reached the city gates, maneuvering his way through the crush of caravans pouring into the city, and over to his left he saw the open door of a bread shop. Breathing heavily after his run down the blistering street, Levi regained control of himself and walked sedately into the shop. He greeted the woman behind the counter and asked for a loaf from the top of the shelf, saying it appealed to him more than the others. When the woman turned around to get it, he silently and quickly grabbed from the counter a long, razor-sharp bread knife, ideal for his purposes, and bolted out of the shop.

A few minutes later he was again on the Jaffa road. But the procession was nowhere in sight. He started to run. Occasionally he would have to fall down on the dusty road and lie still in order to catch his breath. And so he would lie, startling those passing by on mules and on foot, enroute to Yershalaim. He lay, listening to his heart pounding in his head, ears, and chest. After he had gotten some of his breath back, he jumped up and started running again, but at a slower and slower pace. When he could finally see the dust in the distance raised by the long procession, it had already reached the foot of the mountain.

“Oh, God!” groaned Levi as he realized that he would be late. And he did come too late.

As the fourth hour of the execution was ending, Levi’s suffering reached its peak, and he flew into a rage. He got up from his rock and threw away the knife which, as it seemed to him now, he had stolen in vain. He stamped on his flask, thus depriving himself of water, tore the kaffiyeh off his head, clutched at his straggly hair and began cursing himself.

He cursed and yelled out meaningless words, he roared and spat, reviling his mother and father for bringing such a fool into the world.

Seeing that his cursing and swearing had no effect, and had caused no change in the blazing sun, he narrowed his eyes, clenched his dry fists, raised them up to the sky, to the sun that was creeping lower and lower as it lengthened the shadows and neared its fall into the Mediterranean Sea, and he demanded that God send a miracle right away. He demanded that God send death to Yeshua then and there.

When he opened his eyes, he realized that everything on the hill had stayed the same, with the exception of the shiny spots on the centurion’s chest which had gotten dimmer. The sun’s rays were falling on the backs of those being executed, who were facing toward Yershalaim. Then Levi cried out, “I curse you, God!” In a hoarse voice he shouted that he had become convinced of God’s injustice and no longer had any intention of believing in Him.

“You’re deaf!” bellowed Levi. “If you weren’t deaf, you would have heard me and killed him on the spot.”

Narrowing his eyes, Levi waited for fire to fall from the sky and strike him down. That failed to happen, and without opening his eyelids, Levi went on shouting out caustic, offensive remarks to the sky. He screamed about his utter disenchantment and about the fact that there were other gods and religions. Yes, another god would not have allowed, would never have allowed, someone like Yeshua to be strung up on a post and burned by the sun.

“I was mistaken!” cried the now completely hoarse Levi. “You are the God of evil! Or has the smoke from the temple censers blinded your eyes, and are your ears deaf to everything but the trumpet calls of the priests? You are not an omnipotent God. You are a black God. I curse you, God of outlaws, their protector and their soul!” At this point something blew in the face of the former tax collector and something stirred beneath his feet. There was another gust, and when Levi opened his eyes, he saw that everything around him had changed, either because of his curses or for some other reason. The sun had disappeared without reaching the sea it sank into every evening. After swallowing the sun, a menacing thundercloud was rising relentlessly on the western horizon. White foam bubbled around its edges, and its smoky black belly was fringed with yellow. The cloud rumbled from time to time and emitted streaks of fire. The wind that had suddenly blown up chased spirals of dust down the Jaffa road, across the sparse Valley of Gion, and over the pilgrims’ tents.

Levi fell silent and wondered whether the thunderstorm about to envelop Yershalaim would have any effect on poor Yeshua’s fate. And as he gazed at the streaks of fire that were splitting open the stormcloud, he begged for the lightning to strike Yeshua’s post. Levi looked repentantly at the clear part of the sky not yet devoured by the stormcloud, where the vultures had flown in order to escape the thunder and lightning, and he thought that he had been much too hasty with his curses. Now God would not listen to him.

Levi turned his gaze to the foot of the hill where the cavalry regiment was deployed, and saw that significant changes had taken place there. He had a good view from above and could see the soldiers bustling about, pulling their lances out of the ground and throwing on their capes, and the grooms running out to the road, leading raven-black horses by the reins. It was obvious that the regiment was preparing to move out. Shielding his face from the blowing dust with his hand and spitting the sand out of his mouth, Levi tried to figure out the significance of the cavalry’s imminent departure. When he turned his glance upward, he could make out a small figure in a crimson-colored military chlamys, who was making his way up to the execution site. Sensing that the joyous end was at hand, the former tax collector felt a chill in his heart.

The man ascending the mountain in the fifth hour of the outlaws’ suffering was the commander of the cohort, who had ridden out from Yershalaim along with his orderly. At a wave of Ratkiller’s hand, the cordon of soldiers opened up, and the centurion saluted the tribune. The latter drew Ratkiller aside and whispered something to him. The centurion saluted a second time and moved over to the group of executioners who were sitting on rocks at the foot of the posts. The tribune walked over to the man sitting on the three-legged stool, and he got up politely to meet him. The tribune said something to him in a low voice, and they both walked over to the posts. They were joined by the chief of the temple guard.

Ratkiller cast a squeamish glance at the dirty rags piled on the ground by the posts, rags that had once been the criminals’ clothing and had been rejected by the executioners. He summoned two of them and ordered, “Follow me!” A crazed, raspy-sounding song could be heard coming from the nearest post. On it was Gestas, who had been driven mad by the flies and the sun when the execution was nearing the end of its third hour, and who was now quietly singing something about grapes. He would, however, occasionally shake his turbaned head, and when he did, flies would lazily swirl off his face, only to return and light on it again.

Dismas, who was on the second post, was suffering more than the other two because he had not lost consciousness, and he shook his head right and left frequently and systematically, so that he could strike an ear against each shoulder.

Yeshua had been more fortunate than the other two. In the first hour he had had intermittent fainting spells, and then he lost consciousness. His head, in its straggly turban, hung on his chest and he was, therefore, so covered with flies that his face had disappeared beneath a black, heaving mask. Fat horseflies clung to his groin, stomach, and armpits, sucking on his naked yellow body.

In response to a sign made by the man in the hood, one of the executioners took a spear, and another brought a bucket and sponge over to the post. The one with the spear raised it and ran it along each of Yeshua’s arms, which were stretched out along the crossbeam of the post and fastened to it with ropes. The body with its protruding ribs gave a shudder. The executioner ran the end of the spear over his stomach. Then Yeshua raised his head and the flies took off with a buzzing sound, thus revealing the hanged man’s face. Bloated from bites, and with swollen eyelids, his face was unrecognizable.

Unglueing his eyelids, Ha-Notsri glanced down. His usually bright eyes were now dulled.

“Ha-Notsri!” said the executioner.

Ha-Notsri’s swollen lips moved slightly and in a hoarse outlaw’s voice he asked, “What do you want? Why have you come?”

“Drink!” said the executioner, lifting the water-soaked sponge to Yeshua’s lips on the end of the spear. His eyes flashing with joy, Yeshua pressed his lips to the sponge and greedily drew in the moisture. Dismas’s voice was heard from the neighboring post, “That’s unfair! He’s as much of an outlaw as I am.” Dismas strained his body, but could not move. His arms were tied to the crossbeam in three places with rings of rope. He pulled in his stomach, dug his nails into the ends of the crossbeam, and turned his head toward Yeshua’s post. His eyes burned with malice.

A cloud of dust enveloped the place of execution. It got very dark. When the dust lifted, the centurion shouted, “Silence on the second post!”

Dismas fell silent. Yeshua pulled away from the sponge, and trying unsuccessfully to make his voice sound gentle and convincing, he hoarsely implored the executioner, “Give him a drink.” It was getting darker and darker. The stormcloud rushing toward Yershalaim already filled half the sky. Turbulent white clouds swept by in front of the thundercloud, which was bursting with black water and fire. Lightning flashed and thunder clapped right above the hill. The executioner removed the sponge from the spear.

“Praise the merciful Hegemon!” he whispered solemnly and quietly pierced Yeshua through the heart. Yeshua shuddered and whispered, “Hegemon …”

Blood ran down his stomach, his lower jaw trembled convulsively, and his head dropped down.

As the thunder clapped a second time, the executioner let Dismas drink, and with the same words, “Praise the Hegemon!” killed him too.

Gestas, who had lost his reason, cried out in fright as soon as the executioner appeared beside him, but when the sponge touched his lips, he growled something and took hold of it with his teeth. Seconds later, his body also hung limply, straining against the ropes.

The man in the hood walked behind the executioner and the centurion, and behind him came the head of the temple guard. After stopping at the first post, the man in the hood looked closely at the bloodied Yeshua, touched the sole of his foot with his white hand and said to his companions, “He’s dead.” The same ritual was repeated at the other posts.

Following this, the tribune signalled to the centurion, turned around, and began walking down the hill together with the head of the temple guard and the man in the hood. Dusk had fallen, and lightning ripped through the black sky. Suddenly there was a burst of fire and the centurion’s shout, “Break ranks!” was drowned out by the thunder. The happy soldiers ran off down the hill, putting on their helmets.

Darkness covered Yershalaim.

The sudden downpour hit the centuries as they were halfway down the hill. The water poured down so ferociously that churning streams nipped at the soldiers’ heels as they ran down the hill. They slipped and fell on the wet clay as they hurried to reach the level road on which—barely visible through the veil of water—the cavalry, soaked to the bone, was heading back to Yershalaim. A few minutes later, in the churning brew of thunder, fire, and water, there was only one man left on the hill.

Brandishing the knife, which had not been stolen in vain, scaling the slippery ledges, grabbing hold of anything he could, crawling at times on his hands and knees, he headed straight for the posts. He would at times disappear in complete darkness, only then to be suddenly lit up by flickering light.

When he reached the posts, standing ankle-deep in water, he ripped off his heavy, soaked tallith, and wearing only his shirt, threw himself at Yeshua’s feet. He cut the ropes around his shins, climbed up on the lower cross beam, embraced Yeshua, and released his arms from their restraints. Yeshua’s wet, naked body fell on top of Levi and knocked him to the ground. Levi was about to hoist him up on his shoulder, but something stopped him. He left the body in a pool of water on the ground with its head thrown back and its arms flung out and ran, slipping on the wet clay, over to the other posts. He cut the ropes on them too, and the two bodies fell to the ground.

Minutes later, all that was left on the top of the hill were those two bodies and three empty posts. The water beat down on the bodies and turned them over.

By that time both Levi and Yeshua’s body had vanished from the top of the hill.