فصل 26

XXVI

The Burial

PERHAPS it was the twilight that made the procurator’s appearance change so dramatically. He seemed to have aged on the spot, to have become stooped and to have grown anxious as well. Once he looked around and for some reason shuddered when his gaze fell on the empty chair which had his cloak thrown over its back. The holiday night was approaching, the evening shadows were playing their usual tricks and very likely the weary procurator imagined that someone was sitting in the empty chair. Letting faintheartedness get the best of him, and shifting the cloak, the procurator left it lying there and began pacing around the balcony, first rubbing his hands, then going over to the table to grab the wine-cup, then stopping to stare blankly at the mosaic floor as though trying to decipher something written there.

For the second time that day he was overcome by anguish. Rubbing his brow where there now remained only a dull, faintly nagging trace of the hellish morning pain, he kept straining to understand what was causing his mental torment. And he quickly realized what it was but tried to deceive himself. It was clear to him that he had lost something irretrievably that day, and that now he wanted to make up for the loss with minor, inconsequential, and most important, belated measures. His self-deception consisted in his trying to convince himself that the actions taken that evening were no less important than the sentence passed that morning. But the procurator was having very little success in convincing himself.

On one of his turns about the balcony he stopped abruptly and whistled. In reply to his whistle, a low growl sounded in the shadows, and a gigantic gray dog with pointed ears and a gold-studded collar bounded onto the balcony from the garden.

“Banga, Banga,” cried the procurator weakly.

The dog stood up on his hind paws, lowered his front paws onto his master’s shoulders, almost knocking him to the floor, and licked his cheek. The procurator sat down in his chair, and Banga, his tongue out and panting, lay down at his master’s feet. The joy in the dog’s eyes signified that the thunderstorm—the only thing in the world the intrepid dog feared—was over, and that he was back next to the man he loved, respected, and considered the most powerful on earth, the ruler of all men, who made the dog himself feel privileged, superior, and special as well. But once he had lain down by his master’s feet, the dog sensed immediately, even without looking at him, but at the gathering shadows in the garden, that something bad had happened to him. Therefore, the dog changed position, got up, went around to the side of the chair, and put his front paws and head on the procurator’s knees, getting wet sand all over the bottom of his cloak. Banga’s actions were probably meant to console his master and to let him know that he was prepared to face misfortune with him. He tried to show this with his eyes, which looked sideways up at his master, and his ears, which were perked and at attention. Thus the two of them, the dog and the man who loved each other, greeted the holiday night on the balcony.

In the meantime the procurator’s guest had a great number of things to do. After leaving the upper terrace of the garden in front of the balcony, he went down the stairs to the lower terrace, turned right, and went out to the barracks situated inside the palace grounds. In those barracks were billeted the two centuries which had accompanied the procurator to Yershalaim for the holiday, as well as the procurator’s secret guard commanded by the guest himself. The guest spent a short time in the barracks, not more than ten minutes, but at the end of that time three carts set out from the barracks yard loaded with entrenching tools and a barrel of water. Fifteen men on horseback wearing gray cloaks accompanied the carts. The entire procession left the palace grounds through the rear gates, headed west, came out at the city walls, and took the path to the Bethlehem road and then proceeded northward. After reaching the crossroads by the Hebron Gate, they headed down the Jaffa road, taken earlier by the execution procession. By that time it was already dark and the moon was showing on the horizon.

Soon after the carts had left with their escort, the procurator’s guest, who had now changed into a shabby, dark chiton, also left the palace compound on horseback. The guest headed straight into the city, rather than out of it. A short time later he could be seen approaching the Antonia Fortress, which was located in the northern part of the city, in close proximity to the great temple. The guest did not spend much time at the fortress either, and later could be spotted in the Lower City, in its winding labyrinthine streets. The guest arrived there by mule.

The guest knew the city well and easily found the street he was looking for. It was called Greek Street because a number of Greek shops were located there, including one that traded in rugs. It was there that the guest stopped his mule, dismounted, and tied it to a ring at the gate. The shop was already closed. The guest walked through a wicket gate next to the shop’s entrance and found himself in a small square courtyard lined on three sides with sheds. After turning a corner in the yard, he ended up on the stone terrace of an ivy-covered dwelling where he surveyed his surroundings. The house and sheds were dark, because the lamps had not yet been lit. The guest called softly, “Niza!” A door creaked in answer to his call, and a young woman without a shawl over her head appeared in the shadows of the terrace. She leaned over the railing, peering anxiously, trying to see who was there. When she recognized who it was, she gave him a welcoming smile, nodded her head, and waved.

“Are you alone?” asked Afranius softly in Greek.

“Yes,” whispered the woman on the terrace. “My husband left for Caesarea this morning.” Here the woman glanced at the door and added in a whisper, “But the servant woman is here.” She made a gesture that meant—“come in.” Afranius glanced back and stepped onto the stone stairs. He and the woman then disappeared inside the house.

Afranius spent a very short time at the woman’s house—not more than five minutes. After that he left the house and terrace, pulled his hood down lower over his eyes, and went out into the street. By then the lamps were being lit in the houses, the holiday-eve throng was still immense, and Afranius on his mule was lost in the stream of people on foot and on horseback. Where he went after that is not known.

Left alone, the woman whom Afranius had called Niza began changing her clothes in a great hurry. No matter how hard it was for her to find what she needed in the dark room, she did not light the lamp and did not call her servant. Only after she was ready and wearing a dark shawl over her head was her voice heard in the house saying, “If anyone should ask for me, say that I have gone to visit Enanta.” The grumbling of the old servant woman was heard in the darkness, “Enanta? Oh, That awful woman! Your husband forbade you to see her! She’s a procuress, your Enanta! I’ll tell your husband …” “There, there, there, hush up,” answered Niza, and she slipped out of the house like a shadow. Niza’s sandals tapped against the stone slabs of the courtyard. Still grumbling, the servant woman closed the door to the terrace. Niza left her house.

At the same time, from another narrow lane in the Lower City, a winding lane which descended in terraces to one of the municipal ponds, through the gate of an unprepossessing house whose blind side faced the street and whose windows opened onto a courtyard, came a young man with a neatly shaved beard, who was wearing a clean white kaffiyeh that fell down to his shoulders, a new light-blue holiday tallith with dangling tassels, and new sandals that creaked. The hook-nosed, handsome man, dressed up for the great holiday, walked briskly, overtaking those who were hurrying home to their holiday table, and one by one he saw the windows begin to blaze with light. The young man was heading down the road that led past the marketplace to the palace of the high priest Kaifa, located at the foot of the temple hill.

A short time later he could be seen entering the gates of Kaifa’s palace. And leaving the palace a short time later.

After his visit to the palace, which was already aglow with lamps and torches, and in which the holiday bustle was in full swing, the young man began to walk even more briskly, more cheerfully, and hastened back to the Lower City. On that very corner where the street opened onto the market square, in the midst of the bustle and the crowd, he was overtaken by a slender woman in a black shawl pulled over her eyes, who walked with a dancing gait. As she was passing the handsome young man, the woman pushed her shawl up for an instant and gave the young man a side-long glance, but rather than slow her stride, she actually quickened it, as if trying to conceal herself from the man she had overtaken.

The young man did not merely notice the woman, no, he recognized her, and having done so, he shuddered and stopped, gazing after her in bewilderment, and then immediately set off to catch up with her. After nearly knocking over a passerby carrying a jug, the young man caught up with the woman and, breathing heavily from excitement, called out to her, “Niza!” The woman turned, narrowed her eyes as her face expressed cold annoyance, and replied dryly in Greek, “Oh, is that you, Judas? I didn’t recognize you at first. But that’s all to the good. We have a saying that he who is not recognized will become a rich man …” So excited that his heart began to flutter like a bird under a black shawl, Judas asked in a halting whisper, afraid that the passersby would overhear, “Where are you going, Niza?” “And why do you want to know?” replied Niza, slowing her step and looking arrogantly at Judas.

Then a childlike tone crept into Judas’s voice as he whispered to her in dismay, “What is this? We had arranged to meet. I wanted to come see you. You said you’d be home all evening …” “Oh, no, no,” replied Niza, willfully making her lower lip protrude, which made her face, the most beautiful Judas had ever seen, even more beautiful. “I got bored,” she continued. “You have a holiday, but what am I supposed to do? Sit and listen to you sighing on the terrace? And be afraid that the servant will tell my husband? No, no, and so I decided to take a walk outside the city to listen to the nightingales.” “What do you mean, outside the city?” asked Judas, at a loss. “Alone?”

“Of course, alone,” replied Niza.

“Let me go with you,” asked Judas breathlessly. His thoughts became muddled, he forgot about everything around him and gazed with pleading eyes into Niza’s light-blue eyes, which now seemed black.

Niza said nothing in reply and quickened her step.

“Why don’t you speak, Niza?” asked Judas plaintively, trying to keep pace with her.

“But won’t I be bored with you?” asked Niza suddenly and stopped. Here Judas’s thoughts became utterly confused.

“Well, all right,” said Niza, finally softening, “Let’s go.”

“But where, where to?”

“Wait … let’s step into this yard here and decide, otherwise I’m afraid that someone I know will see me and say later that I was out on the street with my lover.” And here Niza and Judas disappeared from the marketplace. They talked in whispers in the gateway of some courtyard.

“Go to the olive estate,” whispered Niza, pulling her shawl down over her eyes and turning away from some man with a pail who was entering the gateway, “to Gethsemane, beyond Kedron, do you know where I mean?” “Yes, yes, yes.”

“I’ll go on ahead,” Niza continued, “but don’t follow right behind me, keep a distance between us. I’ll leave first …When you cross the stream … you know where the grotto is?” “Yes, I know, I know …”

“Go up past the olive press and turn toward the grotto. I’ll be there. Only don’t follow at my heels. Be patient, wait here awhile.” And with these words, Niza left the entranceway as if she had never spoken to Judas.

Judas stood there alone for a while, trying to collect his scattered thoughts, one of which was how he would explain his absence from the holiday table to his family. Judas stood and tried to think up some lie, but in his excitement he couldn’t think of anything suitable, and his legs moved of their own accord and carried him out of the gateway.

Now he changed his route, and instead of heading for the Lower City, he turned back toward Kaifa’s palace. The holiday was already in full swing in the city. Not only were lights glittering in all the windows around Judas, but prayers and blessings could already be heard. Late-comers were urging on their mules, whipping them, and shouting at them. Judas’s legs carried him along by themselves, and he failed to notice the fearsome moss-covered Antonia Towers as they flew past him, he did not hear the blast of trumpets in the fortress, and he paid no attention to the Roman cavalry patrol whose torch flooded his path with quivering light.

When Judas turned after passing the tower, he saw that two gigantic five-branched candelabra had been lit above the temple at a dizzying, fearsome height. But Judas saw them through a haze as well, and it seemed to him that ten immense lamps had been hung up over the city and were competing with the light of the single lamp rising higher and higher over Yershalaim—the moon.

Now the only thing that mattered to Judas was to get to the Gethsemane Gate, and he wanted to leave the city as soon as possible. At times he thought he could see a dancing figure up ahead as it darted among the faces and backs of the passersby, showing him the way. But it was an illusion—Judas knew that Niza must be far ahead of him. Judas ran past the money-changing shops and finally arrived at the Gethsemane Gate. Once there, burning with impatience, he was nevertheless forced to halt. Camels were entering the city, followed by a Syrian military patrol, which Judas cursed mentally … But everything comes to an end. The impatient Judas was already outside the city wall. To his left he saw a small graveyard and near it the striped tents of a few pilgrims. After crossing the dusty road, which was flooded with moonlight, Judas hurried toward the Kedron stream, intending to cross it. The water gurgled softly at Judas’s feet. Jumping from stone to stone, he finally made it over to the Gethsemane bank, and to his great joy saw that the road alongside the gardens was deserted. Not far away could be seen the tumbledown gates of the olive estate.

After the stuffiness of the city, Judas was struck by the intoxicating smell of the spring night. From the garden beyond the fence a fragrant wave of myrtle and acacia came drifting in from the Gethsemane fields.

There was no one guarding the gates, no one there at all, and in a few minutes Judas was running beneath the mysterious shadows of the huge, spreading olive trees. The road led uphill, Judas went up it, breathing heavily, occasionally emerging from the darkness onto the patterned carpets of moonlight, which reminded him of the carpets he had seen in the shop of Niza’s jealous husband. In a while the olive press with its heavy stone wheel and pile of barrels appeared in a clearing to Judas’s left. There was no one in the garden. Work had stopped at sunset and now a chorus of nightingales pealed and broke into song over Judas’s head.

Judas was near his goal. He knew that in the darkness to his right he would soon hear the quiet whisper of falling water in the grotto. And so it was, he heard it. The air was getting cooler and cooler.

Then he slowed his step and called out softly, “Niza!”

But instead of Niza, a thickset male figure detached himself from the fat trunk of an olive tree, and jumped onto the road. Something gleamed in his hand for a second and then was extinguished. Judas gave a weak cry and tried to run back, but a second man blocked his way.

The first man, the one in front, asked Judas, “How much did you get just now? Talk, if you want to save your life!” Hope flared up in Judas’s heart, and he cried out in desperation, “Thirty tetradrachmas! Thirty tetradrachmas! That’s all I got, I have it with me. Here’s the money! Take it, but spare my life!” The man in front immediately snatched the purse out of Judas’s hands. And at the same instant a knife flew up behind him and struck the would-be lover under the shoulder blade. Judas was pitched forward, his arms raised and his fingers clutching the air. The man in front caught Judas on his knife and plunged it to the hilt into Judas’s heart.

“Ni … za …” said Judas in a low, reproachful rasp that was quite unlike his own high, clear, youthful voice, and never uttered another sound. His body hit the ground so hard it began to hum.

Then a third figure appeared on the road. He was wearing a hooded cloak.

“Don’t delay,” he ordered. The assassins quickly wrapped up the purse with a note given them by the third man in a piece of leather skin and tied it crosswise with twine. The second man thrust the bundle in his bosom, and then both assassins ran off the road in different directions and were swallowed up by the darkness of the olive estate. The third man crouched down beside the body and gazed at the dead man’s face. In the shadows it looked as white as chalk and had a kind of spiritual beauty.

Seconds later there was not a living soul on the road. The lifeless body lay with its arms flung out. A patch of moonlight fell on his left foot, making every strap of his sandal clearly visible. The whole Gethsemane garden rang with the singing of nightingales. No one knows where Judas’s two assassins went, but the route taken by the third man in the hood is known. After leaving the road, he plunged into a grove of olive trees and headed south. He climbed over the garden wall far from the main gates, in its south corner, where the top layer of stones had fallen out. He soon reached the bank of the Kedron. Then he entered the stream and walked along in the water until he saw two horses silhouetted in the distance and a man standing next to them. The horses were also standing in the stream. The water washed over their hooves. The man tending the horses mounted one of them, and the man in the hood mounted the other. As the two of them headed slowly into the stream, one could hear the horses’ hooves scraping on the stones. After the riders came out of the stream, they went up the Yershalaim bank, and followed the city wall at a walking pace. Then the groom broke away and galloped ahead while the man in the hood stopped his horse, dismounted on the deserted road, took off his cloak, turned it inside out, removed a flat, uncrested helmet from its folds, and put it on. The man who now mounted the horse wore a military chlamys and a short sword on his hip. He touched the reins, and his spirited cavalry mount set off at a trot. The rider did not have far to go—he was approaching the southern gates of Yershalaim.

The restless flame of torches danced and played under the archway of the gates. The sentries from the second century of the Lightning Legion were sitting on stone benches, playing dice. They jumped up when they saw the mounted officer, he waved to them and rode into the city.

The city was flooded with holiday lights. Candle flames flickered in all the windows, and the blessings coming from within blended into a discordant chorus. The rider would occasionally glance into the windows that looked out on the street and see people at their holiday tables, set with kid’s meat and cups of wine placed between dishes of bitter herbs. Whistling a soft tune, the rider made his unhurried way through the deserted streets of the Lower City, heading toward the Antonia Tower, occasionally glancing up at the unique five-branched candelabra burning above the temple, which were not to be seen anywhere else in the world, or gazing at the moon, which hung even higher up than the candelabra.

The palace of Herod the Great was taking no part in the Passover night celebration. In the auxiliary rooms that faced south, where the officers of the Roman cohort and the Legate of the Legion were quartered, lights were burning and there was a feeling of activity and life. The front section, occupied by the sole and involuntary resident of the palace—the procurator—with its colonnades and gold statues, seemed blinded by the extremely bright moon. Here, inside the palace, darkness and quiet reigned. And the procurator, as he had told Afranius, preferred not to go inside. He had ordered that a bed be made up for him on the balcony where he had dined that evening and conducted the interrogation that morning. The procurator lay down on the couch that had been prepared, but sleep would not come to him. The naked moon hung high overhead in the clear sky, and the procurator was unable to take his eyes off it for several hours.

Around midnight sleep finally took pity on the Hegemon. With a convulsive yawn, the procurator unfastened his cloak and threw it off, removed the strap with its sheathed broad steel knife that belted his tunic and placed it on the chair beside the couch, took off his sandals, and stretched out. Banga immediately got up on the bed and lay down beside him with his head next to his, and the procurator, putting his arm around the dog’s neck, finally closed his eyes. Only then did the dog fall asleep too.

The couch stood in semidarkness, shielded from the moon by a column, but a ribbon of moonlight stretched from the stairway to the bed. And as soon as the procurator lost touch with the world of reality around him, he quickly set out on a shining road and ascended it straight to the moon. He even laughed in his sleep with happiness, so splendid and unique was everything on that light-blue, transparent road. He was accompanied by Banga, and walking alongside him was the vagrant philosopher. They were arguing about something complex and important, and neither one of them could convince the other. They did not agree about anything, and that made their dispute all the more engaging and endless. Today’s execution, needless to say, turned out to have been a complete misunderstanding—after all, the philosopher who had conceived the absurd notion that all people were good was walking beside him, so he had to be alive. And besides, the very idea that such a man could be executed was utterly horrible. The execution had not taken place! No! Therein lay the charm of this journey up the stairway of the moon.

They had as much time as they needed, and the thunderstorm would only come toward evening, and cowardice was, undoubtedly, one of the most terrible of vices. Thus spoke Yeshua Ha-Notsri. No, philosopher, I disagree with you: it is the most terrible vice!

For example, the present procurator of Judea, and former tribune of the legion, had not been a coward back then, in the Valley of the Maidens, when the furious Germans had almost hacked Ratkiller the Giant to pieces. But, excuse me, philosopher! Could you with your intelligence really imagine that the procurator of Judea would ruin his career over a man who had committed a crime against Caesar?

“Yes, yes,” said Pilate, moaning and sobbing in his sleep.

Of course he would. He would not have done it in the morning, but now, at night, having weighed everything, he would be glad to do it. He would do anything to save the totally innocent mad dreamer and physician from death!

“Now we shall always be together,” he heard in his sleep from the vagrant philosopher, who had appeared inexplicably on the Knight of the Golden Spear’s path. “Where you find one, you’ll find the other too! When people remember me, they will immediately remember you too! Me—a foundling, the son of unknown parents, and you—the son of an astrologer-king and a miller’s daughter, the beautiful Pila.” “Yes, please don’t forget, remember me, the son of an astrologer-king,” implored Pilate in his sleep. And when the pauper from En-Sarid, who was walking beside him, gave him a nod of assent, the cruel procurator of Judea wept and laughed with joy in his sleep.

All this was good, but it made the Hegemon’s awakening all the more horrible. Banga began howling at the moon, and the light-blue road, slippery and oily-smooth, vanished in front of the procurator. He opened his eyes and the first thing he remembered was that the execution had taken place. The first thing the procurator did was, as usual, to grab for Banga’s collar, then, with aching eyes, he began searching for the moon and saw that it had moved slightly to the side and turned silver. Its light was being disrupted by an unpleasant, restless light playing on the balcony right in front of him. It came from a flaming, smoking torch held by Centurion Ratkiller. He glowered with fear and loathing at the dangerous beast ready to lunge at him.

“Stay, Banga,” said the procurator with a sickly voice, and he coughed. Shading his eyes from the flame, he continued, “Even at night and in the moonlight, I have no peace. O gods! You too have a bad job, Mark. You maim soldiers …” Mark looked at the procurator with profound astonishment, and the latter came to his senses. In an effort to smooth over the gratuitous words he had spoken when not fully awake, the procurator said, “Don’t take offense, Centurion. My position, I repeat, is even worse. What do you want?” “The chief of the secret service is here to see you,” Mark reported calmly.

“Send him in, send him in,” ordered the procurator, coughing to clear his throat, and feeling for his sandals with his bare feet. The flame played over the columns, the centurion’s caligas clattered on the mosaic. The centurion went out to the garden.

“Even at night and in the moonlight, I have no peace,” said the procurator to himself, his teeth clenched.

The man in the hood took the place of the centurion on the balcony.

“Banga, stay,” said the procurator quietly, pressing the back of the dog’s head.

Before he began to speak, Afranius, as was his custom, took a look around and stepped into the shadow, and when he had assured himself that apart from Banga, he and the procurator were the only ones on the balcony, he said softly, “I ask that you bring me to justice, Procurator. You were right. I was unable to save Judas of Kerioth. He was murdered. I ask to be tried and discharged.” Afranius felt as if he were being watched by two pairs of eyes—a dog’s and a wolf’s.

He pulled a bloodstained purse with two seals out from under his chlamys.

“Here is the bag of money the murderers threw at the high priest’s house. The blood on it is the blood of Judas of Kerioth.” “I’m curious, how much money is there?” asked Pilate, nodding at the purse.

“Thirty tetradrachmas.”

The procurator gave a laugh and said, “Not very much.”

Afranius said nothing.

“Where is the slain man?”

“That I don’t know,” replied the man who never parted with his hood, with calm dignity. “We’ll begin our investigation this morning.” The procurator shuddered, and let go of the sandal strap that refused to be fastened.

“But you know for certain that he was killed?”

To this the procurator received a dry reply, “I have worked in Judea for fifteen years, Procurator. I began my service under Valerius Gratus. I don’t have to see the corpse to know that a man has been killed, and I am here to report that the man called Judas from the city of Kerioth was murdered a few hours ago.” “Forgive me, Afranius,” replied Pilate. “I’m still not properly awake, that’s why I said what I did. I sleep badly,” the procurator gave a laugh, “and I keep seeing a moonbeam in my dream. It’s so absurd, imagine … I seem to be walking along that moonbeam. And so, I would like to know what your thoughts are on this matter. Where do you intend to look for him? Sit down, Chief of the Secret Service.” Afranius bowed, moved a chair closer to the bed and sat down, his sword clanking.

“I intend to look for him near the olive press in the garden of Gethsemane.”

“I see. And why there, precisely?”

“Hegemon, by my reasoning, Judas was killed neither in Yershalaim itself, nor very far away from it. He was killed on the outskirts of Yershalaim.” “I consider you one of the leading experts in your field. I cannot speak of Rome, of course, but in the colonies you are without equal. Explain to me, why?” “It is inconceivable to me,” said Afranius, speaking softly, “that Judas would have fallen into suspicious hands within the city limits. You don’t stab someone clandestinely on the street. That means he must have been lured into some cellar somewhere. But the secret service has already looked for him in the Lower City, and if he were there, they would surely have found him. I can assure you that he is nowhere in the city. And if he had been killed far away from the city, they wouldn’t have been able to throw back the packet of money so soon. He was murdered not far from the city. They managed to lure him out of the city.” “I don’t see how they could have accomplished that.”

“Yes, Procurator, that is the most difficult question of all, and I don’t even know if I’ll be able to solve it.” “A mystery indeed! On the evening of a holiday a believer forsakes the Passover meal and goes out of the city for some unknown reason, and there he perishes. Who could have lured him and how? Could it have been a woman?” asked the procurator with sudden inspiration.

Afranius answered calmly and gravely, “Absolutely not, Procurator. That possibility is ruled out entirely. One must reason logically. Who would have an interest in Judas’s death? Vagrant dreamers, a group of them, a group, first of all, that doesn’t include any women. One needs money to get married, Procurator, money is also necessary to bring someone into the world, but to murder someone with a woman’s help, one needs a great deal of money, and vagrants don’t have money. No woman was involved in this affair, Procurator. What’s more, I would argue such a hypothesis can only serve to throw us off track, impede the investigation, and complicate things for me.” “I see your point completely, Afranius,” said Pilate, “and I was only taking the liberty of offering my supposition.” “It is, alas, a mistaken one, Procurator.”

“But, then, what other possibilities are there?” exclaimed the procurator staring at Afranius with avid curiosity.

“I think it was still the money.”

“A remarkable ideal! But who could offer him money at night outside the city? And for what?”

“Oh, no, Procurator, it didn’t happen like that. I can offer only one supposition, and if it’s wrong, then I probably won’t come up with any others.” Afranius leaned closer to the procurator and added in a whisper, “Judas wanted to hide his money in a safe spot only he knew about.” “A highly subtle explanation. That must have been how it happened. Now I follow you; it wasn’t people who lured him out of the city, but his own idea. Yes, yes, that must have been it.” “Precisely. Judas didn’t trust anyone. He wanted to hide his money.”

“Yes, in Gethsemane, you said. But why is it precisely there that you intend to look for him—that, I confess, I can’t understand.” “Oh, Procurator, that is the simplest thing of all. No one is going to hide money on a road or in an empty, open place. Judas wasn’t on the road to Kedron or to Bethany. He needed to be in some safe, secluded spot with trees. It’s so simple. And there’s no place like that near Yershalaim except Gethsemane. He couldn’t have gone far.” “You’ve convinced me completely. So, what is to be done now?”

“I’ll start an immediate search for the murderers who followed Judas out of the city, and in the meantime, I will, as I have already reported, turn myself over for prosecution.” “What for?”

“My men lost him this evening in the marketplace after he had left Kaifa’s palace. How that happened, I do not know. It has never happened to me before. He was put under observation right after our talk. But in the vicinity of the marketplace he got away and covered his tracks so thoroughly that he vanished without a trace.” “I see. But I am informing you that I do not deem it necessary for you to be prosecuted. You did everything that you could, and no one in the world,”—here the procurator smiled—“could have done more than you did! Reprimand the men who lost Judas in the marketplace. But here too I warn you: I do not wish you to reprimand them too severely. After all, we did everything we could to look after that good-for-nothing! Oh, yes, I forgot to ask,” said the procurator, wiping his forehead, “how did they manage to throw the money back at Kaifa?” “You see, Procurator … That wasn’t particularly difficult. The avengers went to the back of Kaifa’s palace, where the street looks down over the rear courtyard. They threw the packet of money over the fence.” “With a note attached?”

“Yes, exactly as you had imagined, Procurator. And, by the way,”—here Afranius broke the seals on the packet and showed its contents to Pilate.

“Take care what you’re doing, Afranius. After all, they’re temple seals!”

“The Procurator need not trouble himself about this question,” replied Afranius, closing the packet.

“You mean you have all their seals?” asked Pilate, laughing.

“How could it be otherwise,” replied Afranius dryly, with no trace of laughter.

“I can just imagine Kaifa’s reaction!”

“Yes, Procurator, it caused quite a stir. I was summoned immediately.”

Even in the semidarkness, Pilate’s eyes could be seen glittering.

“That’s interesting, interesting …”

“I beg to differ, Procurator. It was not interesting at all. It was a supremely tedious and wearisome business. When I questioned them as to whether money had been paid out to anyone in Kaifa’s palace, they told me categorically that it had not.” “Is that so? Well, then, if the money wasn’t paid, it wasn’t paid. It will be that much harder to find the murderers.” “Quite true, Procurator.”

“You know, Afranius, something just occurred to me: couldn’t he have killed himself?”

“Oh, no, Procurator,” replied Afranius, leaning back in his chair in surprise. “That is, if you will pardon me, highly unlikely!” “Ah, in this city anything is possible! I would argue, in fact, that in no time at all rumors to that effect will be spreading throughout the city.” At this point Afranius gave Pilate that particular look of his, thought for a moment, and replied, “That may be, Procurator.” The procurator obviously could not relinquish the subject of the man from Kerioth’s murder, even though it was already clear what had happened, and he commented wistfully, “I wish I could have seen how he was killed.” “He was killed with great artistry, Procurator,” replied Afranius, giving him a somewhat ironic look.

“How do you know that?”

“Just take a look at the bag, Procurator,” replied Afranius. “I can promise you that Judas’s blood flowed freely. I’ve seen my share of murdered bodies, Procurator!” “So, then, of course he will not arise?”

“No, Procurator, he will arise,” replied Afranius with a philosophic smile, “when the trumpet of the Messiah, whom they await here, sounds above him. But until that he will not arise.” “Enough, Afranius! This subject is clear. Let’s go to the burial.”

“The executed men have been buried, Procurator.”

“Oh, Afranius, it would be a crime to prosecute you. You deserve the highest reward. How did it go?” Afranius began an account of how, while he was busy with the Judas affair, a secret service team under the command of his assistant got to the hill before nightfall. One body was missing from the hilltop. Pilate shuddered and said hoarsely, “Ah, why didn’t I foresee that!” “It is not worth getting upset about, Procurator,” said Afranius and continued his account.

The bodies of Dismas and Gestas, their eyes pecked out by birds of prey, were picked up, and then a search was undertaken for the third body. It was soon located. Some man had … “Levi Matvei,” said Pilate, stating rather than questioning.

“Yes, Procurator …”

Levi Matvei had been hiding in a cave on the northern slope of Bald Skull, waiting for it to get dark. He had Yeshua Ha-Notsri’s naked body with him. When the men entered the cave with a torch, Levi flew into a fit of rage and despair. He shouted that he had committed no crime and that anyone had the right, according to the law, to bury the body of an executed criminal if he wished to. Levi Matvei kept saying that he did not want to part with the body. He was agitated, and kept shouting something incoherent, begged, then threatened or cursed …” “Did they have to seize him?” asked Pilate gloomily.

“No, Procurator, they did not.” answered Afranius very soothingly, “The daring madman was calmed when it was explained that the body would be buried.” Levi, after absorbing what had been said, quieted down, but declared that he wasn’t going away, and wanted to take part in the burial. He said he would not go away even if they were going to kill him, and even offered them the bread knife he had with him for this purpose.

“Did they chase him off?”

“No, Procurator, they did not. My assistant allowed him to take part in the burial.”

“Which of your assistants was in charge?” asked Pilate.

“Tolmai,” replied Afranius, adding with alarm. “Did he perhaps make a mistake?”

“Go on,” replied Pilate, “there was no mistake. In general, I am beginning to feel somewhat at a loss, Afranius, since apparently I am dealing with a man who never makes mistakes. And that man is you.” “They put Levi Matvei into the cart along with the bodies of the executed men, and two hours later they arrived at a deserted canyon north of Yershalaim. There the men worked in shifts and in about two hours they had dug a deep ditch and buried all three of the bodies.” “Were they naked?”

“No, Procurator. The men had brought chitons for that very purpose. Rings were put on the fingers of the corpses. Yeshua’s ring had one marking, Dismas’s two, and Gestas’s three. The ditch was filled in and covered over with rocks. Tolmai knows what the identifying marker is.” “Ah, if only I had foreseen it!,” said Pilate, frowning. “I would have liked to have seen that Levi Matvei.” “He is here, Procurator.”

Pilate’s eyes widened and he stared at Afranius for some time before he said, “Thank you for all that was done in this matter. Please have Tolmai sent to me tomorrow, and in the meantime tell him that I am well pleased with him. And I ask that you, Afranius,”—here the procurator took a ring from the pocket of his belt, which was lying on the table, and handed it to the chief of the secret service—“accept this as a token of my esteem.” Afranius bowed and said, “It is a great honor, Procurator.”

“I ask that you reward the men who took care of the burial. And reprimand those responsible for losing Judas. Now send me Levi Matvei. I wish to hear more details about Yeshua.” “Certainly, Procurator,” replied Afranius, and he began bowing as he withdrew. The procurator clapped his hands and shouted, “Come here! Bring me a lamp in the colonnade!” By the time Afranius had reached the garden, lights were seen flickering behind Pilate in the servants’ hands. Three lamps were placed on the table in front of the procurator, and the moonlit night retreated into the garden, as if Afranius had taken it away with him. Taking Afranius’s place on the balcony was a short, scrawny stranger and beside him was the giant centurion. The latter, at a glance from the procurator, withdrew to the garden and disappeared.

The procurator studied the new arrival with avid, and slightly fearful eyes. It was the kind of look one gives someone one has heard of and thought a lot about, and whom one is meeting for the first time.

The newcomer was about forty, ragged, black, caked with dried mud, and glaring wolfishly from under his brows. In short, he was very unprepossessing and resembled hundreds of other beggars in the city who flocked around the temple terraces or marketplaces of the dirty, noisy Lower City.

The silence between them lasted for some time and was broken only by the strange behavior of the man who had been brought before Pilate. A change came over his face, he tottered, and would, in fact, have fallen if his dirty hand had not grabbed on to the edge of the table.

“What’s wrong with you?” Pilate asked him.

“Nothing,” Levi Matvei replied, and made a movement that looked as if he had swallowed something. His dirty, bare neck bulged out and then sank in.

“What’s wrong, answer me,” Pilate repeated.

“I’m tired,” Levi replied and stared gloomily at the floor.

“Sit down,” said Pilate, pointing to the chair.

Levi looked distrustfully at the procurator, moved over to the chair, cast a frightened eye over its gilded arms, and then chose to sit not on it, but on the floor beside it.

“Why didn’t you sit on the chair?” asked Pilate.

“I’m filthy, I’ll soil it,” said Levi, staring at the ground.

“Then I’ll get you something to eat right away.”

“I don’t want to eat,” replied Levi.

“Why lie?” asked Pilate softly. “You haven’t eaten for a whole day, perhaps longer. All right, then, don’t eat. I sent for you because I wanted you to show me the knife you had.” “The soldiers took it away from me when they brought me here,” replied Levi sullenly, adding, “Get it back for me. I have to return it to its owner. I stole it.” “Why?”

“To cut the ropes,” replied Levi.

“Mark!” shouted the procurator, and the centurion stepped into the colonnade. “Give me his knife.” The centurion removed a dirty bread knife from one of the two sheaths on his belt and handed it to the procurator. He then withdrew.

“Who did you steal the knife from?”

“From a bread store at the Hebron Gate, right on the left as you enter the city.”

Pilate looked at the wide blade, tested its sharpness with his finger for some reason, and said, “Don’t worry about the knife, it will be returned to the shop. And now I want something else: show me the parchment you carry around with you, where Yeshua’s words are written down.” Levi looked at Pilate with hatred and smiled such a malicious smile that his face became all distorted.

“You want to take that away? My last possession?” he asked.

“I didn’t say: hand it over,” replied Pilate, “I said: show it to me.”

Levi rummaged inside his shirt and pulled out a roll of parchment. Pilate took it from him, unrolled it, spread it out between the lamps, and with a frown on his face began studying the barely decipherable ink markings. The scrawly lines were hard to follow, and Pilate frowned as he bent over the parchment, running his finger over the lines. He did manage to make out that the writing was a disconnected set of sayings, dates, household jottings, and poetic fragments. He was able to read: “There is no death … Yesterday we ate sweet spring figs …” Grimacing from the effort, Pilate squinted, and read, “We shall see the pure stream of the water of life … Mankind will gaze at the sun through transparent crystal …” Here Pilate shuddered. In the parchment’s concluding lines he could make out the words, “ … greater vice … cowardice.” Pilate rolled up the parchment and handed it brusquely back to Levi.

“Take it,” he said, and after a brief silence, added, “You are, as I can see, a learned man, and there is no reason why you, who are alone, should be wandering about in rags without any place to go. I have a large library in Caesarea, I am very wealthy, and I want to take you into my service. You will arrange and care for the papyri, and you will be well fed and clothed.” Levi stood up and replied, “No, I don’t want to.”

“Why?” asked the procurator, his face darkening. “Do you find me unpleasant, are you afraid of me?” The same malicious smile contorted Levi’s face, and he said, “No, it’s because you’ll be afraid of me. It won’t be easy for you to look me in the face after you killed him.” “Be quiet,” said Pilate, “take some money.”

Levi shook his head in refusal, and the procurator continued, “You, I know, consider yourself a disciple of Yeshua, but I can assure you that you have learned nothing from what he tried to teach you. Because if you had, you would certainly have accepted something from me. Remember that before he died, he said that he didn’t blame anyone,”—Pilate raised his finger meaningfully, and his face twitched—“and he himself would undoubtedly have taken something from me. You are cruel, and he was not a cruel man. Where will you go?” Levi suddenly walked over to the table, rested both hands on it, and, staring with burning eyes at the procurator, whispered to him, “Know, Hegemon, that I am going to murder a certain man in Yershalaim. I am telling you this so you will know there will be more blood.” “I too know there will be more blood,” replied Pilate. “Your words do not surprise me. You, of course, wish to murder me, isn’t that so?” “I would not be able to murder you,” replied Levi, baring his teeth in a smile, “and I am not stupid enough to expect that I could. But I shall murder Judas of Kerioth, even if it takes me the rest of my life.” A gleam of pleasure shone in the procurator’s eyes. Beckoning Levi Matvei closer, he said, “Don’t worry yourself, you won’t succeed. Judas was already murdered this very night.” Levi jumped back from the table, his eyes staring wildly, and cried out, “Who did it?”

“Don’t be jealous,” replied Pilate, baring his teeth, and rubbing his hands, “I’m afraid you weren’t his only admirer.” “Who did it?” repeated Levi in a whisper.

“I did it.”

Levi’s mouth fell open, and he gaped at the procurator, who said quietly, “It wasn’t very much, of course, but nevertheless it was I who did it.” And he added, “Well, will you take something now?” Levi thought for a while, relented, and finally said, “Tell them to give me a piece of clean parchment.” An hour passed. Levi was gone from the palace. Now the only thing that disturbed the early morning silence was the quiet sound of the sentries’ footsteps in the garden. The moon was rapidly fading, and at the other edge of the sky the whitish speck of the morning star appeared. The lamps had long been extinguished. The procurator lay on his couch. He slept with his hand under his cheek, breathing soundlessly. Banga slept beside him.

Thus the dawn of the fifteenth day of Nisan was greeted by the fifth procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate.