Judas halted and leaned against the wall opposite the tower, nervously clenching and unclenching his fists.

Suddenly he gave a start. Trumpets blared, the crowd made way. Four Levites arrived and gently placed a gold-inlaid litter in front of the tower door. The silken curtains parted and light-skinned Caiaphas, wearing a yellow all-silk gown, slowly descended. He was so fat that globs of blubber formed cocoons around his eyes. The heavy double doors opened exactly as Jesus was coming out, and the two men met face to face on the threshold. Jesus halted. He was barefooted, his white tunic full of patches. Perfectly motionless, he stared deeply into the high priest’s eyes. The other lifted his heavy eyelids, recognized him, eyed him rapidly from head to toe. His goatish lips parted. “What do you want here, rebel?”

But Jesus, still motionless, stared down on him severely with his large, afflicted eyes.

“I’m not afraid of you, high priest of Satan,” he replied.

“Throw him out!” Caiaphas screamed at his four litter-bearers. He proceeded into the courtyard, a fat, bow-legged pygmy whose immense behind nearly scraped the ground.

The four Levites closed in on Jesus, but Judas dashed forward. “Hands off!” he bellowed. Shoving them aside, he took the teacher by the arm.

“Come,” he said, “let’s go.”

Judas pushed through camels, men and sheep, clearing a path so that Jesus could proceed. They strode under the city’s fortified gate, descended into the Cedron Valley, climbed up the opposite side and took the road to Bethany.

“What did he want with you?” Judas asked, squeezing the master’s arm in an agony.

“Judas,” Jesus answered after a deep silence, “I am now going to confide a terrible secret to you.”

Judas bowed his red-haired head and waited with gaping mouth. “You are the strongest of all the companions. Only you, I think, will be able to bear it. I have said nothing to the others, nor will I. They have no endurance.”

Judas blushed with pleasure. “Thank you for trusting me, Rabbi,” he said. “Speak. You’ll see: I won’t make you ashamed of me.

“Judas, do you know why I left my beloved Galilee and came to Jerusalem?”

“Yes,” Judas answered. “Because it is here that what is bound to happen must happen.”

“That’s right; the Lord’s flames will start from here. I can no longer sleep. I wake with a start in the middle of the night and look at the sky. Hasn’t it opened yet? Aren’t the flames flowing down? Daylight comes and I run to the Temple, speak, threaten, point to the sky, command, beseech, invoke the fire to descend. But my voice is always lost. The heavens remain closed, mute and tranquil above me. And then suddenly one day…”

His voice broke. Judas leaned on top of him in order to hear but could detect only stifled breathing and the rattling of Jesus’ teeth.

“Go on! Go on!” Judas gasped.

Jesus caught his breath and continued. “One day as I was lying all alone on the top of Golgotha, the prophet Isaiah rose up in my mind-no, no, not in my mind: I saw his entire body in front of me on the rocks of Golgotha, and he was holding a goatskin sewn up and inflated, and it looked just like the black he-goat I met in the desert. There were letters on the hide. ‘Read!’ he commanded, stretching out the goatskin in the air in front of me. But as I heard the voice, prophet and goat disappeared and only the letters remained-in the air, black with red capitals.”

Jesus lifted his eyes into the light. He had turned pale. He squeezed Judas’s arm and clung to him. “There they are!” he whispered, terrified. “They’ve filled the air!”

“Read!” said Judas, who was also trembling.

Panting, Jesus began hoarsely to spell out the words. The letters were like living beasts: he hunted them and they resisted. Continually wiping away his sweat, he read: “’He has borne our faults; he was wounded for our transgressions; our iniquities bruised him. He was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. Despised and rejected by all, he went forward without resisting, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter.’ ”

Jesus spoke no more. He had turned deathly pale.

“I don’t understand,” said Judas, standing still and shifting the pebbles with his big toe. “Who is the lamb being led to slaughter? Who is going to die?”

“Judas,” Jesus slowly answered, “Judas, brother, I am the one who is going to die.”

“You?” said Judas, recoiling. “Then aren’t you the Messiah?”

“I am.”

“I don’t understand!” Judas repeated, and he lacerated his toe on the stones.

“Don’t shout, Judas. This is the way. For the world to be saved, I, of my own will, must die. At first I didn’t understand it myself. God sent me signs in vain: sometimes visions in the air, sometimes dreams in my sleep; or the goat’s carcass in the desert with all the sins of the people around its neck. And since the day I quit my mother’s house, a shadow has followed behind me like a dog or at times has run in front to show me the road. What road? The Cross!”

Jesus threw a lingering glance around him. Behind him was Jerusalem, a mountain of brilliantly white skulls; in front of him, rocks and a few silver-leafed olive trees and black cedars. The sun, filled with blood, had begun to set.

Judas was uprooting hairs from his beard and tossing them away. He had expected a different Messiah, a Messiah with a sword, a Messiah at whose cry all the generations of the dead would fly out of their tombs in the valley of Joshaphat and mix with the living. The horses and camels of the Jews would be resuscitated at the same time, and all-infantry and cavalry-would flow forth to slaughter the Romans. And the Messiah would sit on the throne of David with the Universe as a cushion under his feet, for him to step on. This, this was the Messiah Judas Iscariot had expected. And now…

He looked fiercely at Jesus and bit his lips to prevent an unkind word from escaping them. He began again to shift the pebbles, this time with his heels. Jesus saw him and pitied him.

“Take courage, Judas, my brother,” he said, sweetening his voice. “I have done so. There is no other way: this is the road.”

“And afterward?” asked Judas, staring at the rocks.

“I shall return in all my glory to judge the living and the dead.”

“When?”

“Many of the present generation will not die before they have seen me.

“Let’s go!” said Judas. He increased his pace. Jesus panted behind him, toiling to keep up. The sun was at last about to tumble down behind the mountains of Judea. Far away, from the Dead Sea, the first wakening jackals could be heard.

Judas rolled on ahead, bellowing. Within him was an earthquake: everything falling away. He had no faith in death-that seemed to him the worst road of all; resurrected Lazarus, who appeared to him deader and filthier than all the dead, made him nauseous; and the Messiah himself-how could he possibly manage in this fight with Charon?… No, no, Judas had no faith in death as a way.

He turned. He wanted to object, to throw out the grave words which were burning on his tongue. Perhaps they would make Jesus change his route and not go by way of death. As he turned, however, he uttered a cry of terror. An immense shadow fell from Jesus’ body. It was not the shadow of a man but of a huge cross. He grasped Jesus’ hand. “Look!” he said, pointing.

Jesus shuddered. “Quiet, Judas, my brother. Do not speak.”

And thus, silently, arm in arm, they began to mount the gentle incline to Bethany. Jesus’ knees sagged and Judas held him up. They did not speak. Once Jesus leaned over, picked up a warm stone and held it for a long time tightly in his palm. Was this a stone, or the hand of some beloved man? He looked around him. All the soil, which had died during the winter: how it sprouted grass now, how it blossomed!

“Judas, my brother,” he said, “do not be sad. Look how the wheat comes to the earth; how God sends rain and the earth swells and the ears of grain rise from the foamy soil to feed mankind. If the grain of wheat did not die, would the ears ever be resurrected? It is the same with the Son of man.”