The treaders saw them, and their minds grew turbid. This was not a wine press, that was not land and vineyard, but Paradise, with old Jehovah Sabaoth sitting on the platform holding a long stick and a penknife and marking his exact obligation to each: how many hampers of grapes each had brought and how many jugs of wine, day after tomorrow when they died, he would offer them—how many jugs of wine, how many cauldrons of food, how many women!
“On my honor,” snapped Peter, “if God came this very moment and said to me, ‘Hey, Peter, my little Peter, I’m in the best of moods today, ask me a favor, any favor, and I’ll do it for you. What do you want?’—if he asked me that I should answer him, ‘To tread grapes, Lord, to tread grapes for all eternity!’ ”
“And not to drink the wine, blockhead?” Zebedee rudely asked him.
“No, from the bottom of my heart: to tread the grapes!” He did not laugh; his face was serious and absorbed. He stopped treading for a moment and stretched in the sun. His upper body was bare, and tattooed over his heart was a large black fish. An artisan, formerly a prisoner, had tapped it on years before with a needle, so skillfully that you thought it moved its tail and swam happily, all tangled up in the curly hairs of Peter’s chest. Above the fish was a small anchor with four crossed arms, each with a barb.
But Philip remembered his sheep. He did not like to plow the land, care for vineyards or tread grapes.
“Good God, Peter,” he scoffed, “some job you found yourself—treading grapes for all eternity! I should have asked the Lord to make heaven and earth a green meadow full of goats and sheep. I should then milk them and send the milk flowing down the mountainside. It would run like a river and form lakes on the plain so that the poor could drink. And every night all of us should gather—all the shepherds, together with God the chief shepherd; we should light a fire, roast a lamb and tell stories. That is the meaning of Paradise!”
“A plague on you, moron!” grumbled Judas, and he threw another fierce glance at Philip.
The adolescents went in and out of the yard, naked, hairy, with a colored rag around their loins. They listened to these disconnected discussions and laughed. They too had a Paradise inside them, but they did not confess what it was. They shoveled the hampers into the press and then with one bound were over the threshold and off to rejoin the pretty vintagers.
Zebedee parted his lips to add a clever remark but remained standing with gaping mouth. A strange visitor had appeared at the door and was listening to them. He wore a black goatskin which hung from his neck; his feet were bare, his hair disheveled and his face yellow, like sulphur. His eyes were large, black, and fiery.
The feet ceased treading, Zebedee swallowed his witticism, and everyone turned toward the door. Who was this living corpse who stood on the threshold? The laughter came to a standstill. Old Salome appeared at the window, looked, and suddenly cried, “It’s Andrew!”
“Good God, Andrew,” shouted Zebedee, “just look at you! Are you returning to us from the underworld? Or maybe you’re on your way down there!”
Peter jumped out of the wine press, clasped his brother’s hand without uttering a word, and looked at him with love and fright. Oh, God, was this Andrew, Andrew the chubby young hero, the celebrated athlete, first in work and play? Was this the Andrew who had been engaged to flaxen-haired Ruth, the prettiest girl in the village? She had been drowned on the lake together with her father, one night when God raised a terrible wind, and Andrew had left in despair in order to surrender himself, bound hand and foot, to God. Who could tell, he thought. If I join God perhaps I shall find her with him. Obviously, he was seeking his fiancée, not God.
Peter stared at him in terror. He remembered how he had been when they surrendered him to God; and now, look how God had returned him to them!
“Hey,” Zebedee shouted at Peter, “are you going to stare at him and finger him all day long? Let him come in; out there a wind might blow and knock him down! Come in, Andrew my boy, bend over, take some grapes and eat. We have bread too, glory be to God. Eat and put some color in your cheeks, because if your poor old father sees you in the state you’re in, he’ll be so scared he’ll burrow right back into his shark!”
But Andrew raised his bony arm: “Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves!” he shouted to them all. “Don’t you fear God? The world is perishing, and you tread grapes here and laugh!”
“The saints preserve us, here’s another one come to give us a hard time!” grumbled Zebedee, and now he turned to Andrew in a rage. “You won’t leave us alone either, eh? We’re stuffed to the gills, if you want to know. Is this what your prophet the Baptist proclaims? Well, you’d better tell him to change his tune. He says the end of the world has come, that the tombs will open and the dead fly out; he says God will descend—Second Coming!—to open the ledger, and then woe is us! Lies! Lies! Lies! Don’t listen to him, lads. On with our work! Tread the grapes!”
“Repent! Repent!” bellowed the son of Jonah. He shook himself out of his brother’s embrace and stood in the middle of the yard, directly in front of old Zebedee, with his finger lifted toward the sky.
“For your own good, Andrew,” said Zebedee, “sit down, eat, drink a bit of wine and come to your senses. Poor thing, hunger has driven you mad!”
“Easy living has driven you mad, Zebedee,” replied the son of Jonah. “But the ground is opening under your feet, the Lord is an earthquake, he’ll swallow your wine press and your boats and you too, you and your confounded belly!”
He had caught fire. Shifting his eyes from side to side, he pinned them now on one, now on another, and shouted, “Before this must turns to wine, the end of the world will come! Put on hair shirts, spread ashes over your heads, beat your breasts and shout ‘I have sinned! I have sinned!’ The earth is a tree, it has grown rotten, and the Messiah is coming with the ax!”
Judas stopped his hammering. His upper lip had rolled back and his sharp teeth gleamed in the sunlight. But Zebedee could control himself no longer.
“For the love of God, Peter,” he shouted, “take him and get out of here. We’ve work to do. ‘He’s coming! He’s coming!’ Sometimes be holds fire, sometimes a ledger and now—what next! An ax. Why can’t you leave us alone, you impostors, you deceivers of the people? This world is holding up fine, just fine—that’s what I say! ... Tread the grapes, men, and rest assured!”
Peter patted his brother tenderly on the back to calm him. “Be still,” he said to him softly, “be still, Brother; don’t shout. You’re tired from your trip. Let’s go home so that you can get some rest and so Father can see you and quiet his heart.”
He took him by the hand and slowly, carefully, guided his way as though he were blind. They went up the narrow street and disappeared.
Old Zebedee burst into laughter. “Eh, miserable Jonah, my poor old fish-prophet, I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes for all the world!”
But now it was old Salome’s turn to open her mouth. She still felt Andrew’s large eyes hanging over her and burning her. “Zebedee,” she said, shaking her white-haired head, “mind what you say, old sinner. Do not laugh. An angel stands above us and writes. You will be paid in kind for your scoffing.”
“Mother is right,” said Jacob, who until now had kept his mouth locked. “You were within a hair’s breadth of suffering the same thing with John, your pet; and as far as I can see, you’re still not out of danger. He isn’t helping with the vintage, so I’m told by the carriers; he’s sitting with the women and slobbering about God and fasting and immortal souls. I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes either, Father!”
He laughed dryly. He could not stomach his lazy, pampered brother, and started furiously to stamp the grapes.
The blood rose to Zebedee’s large head. He, in his turn, could not stomach his eldest son—they resembled each other too much. A quarrel would have broken out if at that moment Mary, the wife of Joseph of Nazareth, had not appeared at the door, leaning on John’s arm. Her thin feet were bloody and covered
with dust from her long journey. For days now she had abandoned her house and gone from village to village, weeping, in search of her unfortunate son. God had robbed him of his senses; he had departed from the ways of men. Sighing, the mother sang her son’s dirge while he was still alive. She asked, asked everywhere, if anyone had seen him: “He’s tall, thin, barefooted; he was wearing a blue tunic and a black leather belt. Have you noticed him, perhaps?” ... No one had seen him, and it was only now, thanks to Zebedee’s younger son, that she had got on his trail. He was at the monastery in the desert. He had donned the white robe and was prostrate, face down on the earth, praying. ... John, feeling sorry for her, had revealed everything. Now, leaning on his arm, she entered Zebedee’s yard for a bit of rest before she set out for the desert.
Old Salome rose majestically. “Welcome, Mary dear,” she said. “Come inside.”
Mary lowered her kerchief to her brows, bowed her head and passed through the yard with her eyes on the ground. Grasping her elderly friend’s hand, she began to cry.
“It’s a great sin for you to cry, my child,” said old Salome. She placed her on the divan and sat down by her side. “Your son is in safety now; he’s under God’s roof.”
“A mother’s pain is heavy, Salome,” Mary answered with a sigh. “God sent me but one boy, and he a blemished one.”
Old Zebedee heard her complaint (he was not a bad man if one did not interfere with his profits) and came down from his platform in order to comfort her. “It’s his youth, Mary,” he said, “his youth. Don’t worry about it—it will pass. Youth, bless it, is like wine, but we sober up soon enough and slide under the yoke without any more kicking. Your son will sober up too, Mary. Take my own son, the one you see before you: he’s beginning now to get sober, glory be to God.”
John blushed but did not say a word. He went inside to fetch a cup of cold water and some ripe figs to offer the visitor. The two women, sitting side by side, their heads touching, talked about the boy who had been swept away by God. They conversed in whispers so that the men would not hear them and by interfering spoil the deep feminine joy given them by pain.
“He prays and prays, your son tells me, Salome; he prostrates himself so much, his hands and knees have become all calloused. John says also that he doesn’t eat, that he’s melting away. He’s begun to see wings in the air, too. It seems he even refuses to drink water, in order to see the angels. Where can this affliction lead, Salome? Not even his uncle the rabbi can heal him, and think how many other people possessed with devils he has cured. Why has God cursed me, Salome; what have I done to him?”
She leaned her head against her elderly friend’s knees and began to weep.
John appeared with a brass cup filled with water and five or six figs on a fig leaf. “Don’t cry,” he said to her, placing the figs in her lap. “A holy glimmer runs around your son’s entire face. Not everyone sees it, but one night I did: I saw it licking his face and devouring it, and I was frightened. And after the Abbot died, Father Habakkuk dreamed of him every night. He says he held your son by the hand and took him from cell to cell, pointing to him with his outstretched finger, not speaking, just smiling and pointing to him. Finally Father Habakkuk jumped out of bed in terror and roused the other monks. They struggled all together to disentangle the dream. What did the Abbot wish to tell them? Why did he point to their new guest and smile? Suddenly, the day before yesterday, the day I left, the monks were illumined by God and they untangled the dream. The dead man was instructing them to make your son Abbot. Without losing a moment, the whole monastery-full of monks went and found your son. They fell at his feet and shouted that it was God’s will he should become Abbot of the monastery. But your son refused. ‘No, no, this is not my road,’ he said. ‘I am unworthy; I shall leave!’ I heard his cries of refusal at noon, just as I left the monastery. The monks were threatening to lock him into a cell and place sentries in front of the door to prevent his escape.”
“Congratulations, Mary,” said old Salome, her aged face gleaming. “Fortunate mother! God blew into your womb and you don’t even realize it!”
The woman loved by God heard and shook her head, unconsoled. “I don’t want my son to be a saint,” she murmured. “I want him to be a man like all the rest. I want him to marry and give me grandchildren. That is God’s way.”
“That is man’s way,” said John softly, as though ashamed to offer an objection. “The other is God’s way, the one your son is following.”
They heard voices and laughter from the direction of the vineyards. Two young, flushed carriers entered the yard.
“Bad news, bosses,” they shouted, splitting with laughter. “It looks like Magdala’s risen up. The people have taken stones and are hunting their mermaid in order to kill her!”
“What mermaid, lads?” yelled the treaders, stopping their dance. “Magdalene?”
“Yes, Magdalene, bless her! Two mule drivers brought us the news as they went by. They said the bandit chief Barabbas—phew! all fear and trembling he is!—they said he left Nazareth and invaded Magdala yesterday, Saturday.”
“There’s another one for you!” growled Zebedee in a rage. “A plague on him! He says he’s a Zealot and will save Israel, him and his beastly snout. May he rot in hell, the filthy bastard! ... Well?”
“Well, he went by Magdalene’s house in the evening and found her yard full-up. The excommunicate was working on the holy Sabbath! This impiety was too much for him. In he rushes, yanks his knife out from under his shirt, the merchants draw their swords, the neighbors crowd in too, they all rush at each other, and before you know it the yard turns into a tangled mass of arms and legs. Two of our men fell wounded; the merchants mounted their camels and ran for their lives. Barabbas broke down the door to find the lady in question and slaughter her. But where was Magdalene? She’d flown the coop, gone out through the back door, unseen! The whole village took up the hunt, but soon it got dark, and there was no chance of finding her. In the morning they scattered in every direction, searched, and got on her trail. It seems they found her tracks in the sand—and she’s headed for Capernaum!”
“What luck if she comes, lads!” said Philip, licking his protruding, goat-like lips. “She was the one thing missing from our Paradise. Yes, we forgot Eve, and now we’ll certainly be delighted to see her!”
“Her water mill is open on the Sabbath too, bless her!” said simple Nathanael, smirking craftily in his beard. He remembered how once, on the eve of the Sabbath, he had bathed, put on clean clothes and shaved. Then the temptation of the bath came and took him by the hand. They went together to Magdala and made a beeline for Magdalene’s house—bless her! It was winter, business was bad, and Nathanael remained at her mill the whole of the Sabbath, all by himself—and ground. He smiled with satisfaction. A great sin, one might say. Yes, indeed, a great sin; but we place all our trust in God, and God forgives. ... Calm, poor, harassed, unmarried, Nathanael spent his whole life sitting in front of a small bench in one corner of the village street making clogs for the villagers and thick sandals for the shepherds. What kind of a life was that! Once, therefore, one precious time in his whole life, he had thrown everything overboard and enjoyed himself like a man—even if it was on the Sabbath. As we said, God understands this sort of thing—and forgives. ...
But old Zebedee scowled. “Troubles! Troubles!” he grumbled. “Do they always have to settle their rows in my yard? First prophets, then whores or weeping fishermen, and now Barabbases—this is too much!” He turned to the treaders. “You, my fine lads, attend to your work. Tread the grapes!”
Inside the house, old Salome and Mary the wife of Joseph heard the news, looked at each other and, without saying a word, immediately bowed their heads. Judas abandoned his hammer and went to the street door, where he leaned against the jamb. He had heard everything and had engraved it all in his mind. On his way to the door he threw a savage glance at old Zebedee.
He stood in the doorway and listened. He heard voices
and saw a cloud of dust rise up. Men were running; women were screaming, “Catch her! Catch her!” and before the three men had time to jump out of the wine press or old stuff-pockets to slide down from his platform, Magdalene, her clothes in rags and her tongue hanging out of her mouth, entered the yard and fell at old Salome’s feet.
“Help!” she cried. “Help! They’re coming!”
Old Salome took pity on the sinner. She got up, closed the window and told her son to bolt the door.
“Squat down on the ground,” she said to Magdalene. “Hide yourself.”
Mary the wife of Joseph leaned over and looked at this woman who had gone astray, looked at her with both sympathy and horror. None but honest women know how bitter and slippery honor is, and she pitied her. But at the same time this sinful body seemed to her a wild beast, shaggy, dark and dangerous. This beast had almost snatched away her son when he was twenty years old, but he had escaped by a hair’s breadth. Yes, he escaped the woman, Mary thought, with a sigh, but what about God. ...