Foam gushed from his lips. Grasping Jesus by the shoulder, he shook him forcefully, glued him to the wall. He began again to bellow. “What business do you have here? Why weren’t you crucified? Coward! Deserter! Traitor! Was that all you accomplished? Have you no shame? I lift my fist and ask you: Why, why weren’t you crucified?”

“Quiet! Quiet!” Jesus begged. The blood began to run from his five wounds.

“Judas Iscariot,” Peter interrupted again, “have you no pity? Don’t you see his feet, his hands? Put your hand to his side if you don’t believe. It’s bleeding.”

Judas forced himself to laugh. Then he spat on the ground and shouted, “Eh, son of the Carpenter, you’re not putting anything over on me-no! Your guardian angel came during the night.”

Jesus shook. “My guardian angel…” he murmured with a shudder.

“Yes, your guardian angel: Satan. He stamped the red spots on your hands, feet and side so that you could deceive the world and deceived yourself. Why are you looking at me like that? Why don’t you answer? Coward! Deserter! Traitor!”

Jesus closed his eyes. He felt faint but managed to keep himself on his feet. “Judas,” he said, his voice trembling, “you were always intractable and wild; you never accepted human limits. You forget that the soul of man is an arrow: it darts as high as it can toward heaven but always falls back down again to earth. Life on earth means shedding one’s wings.”

Hearing this, Judas became frantic. “Shame on you!” he screamed. “Is that what you’ve come to, you, the son of David, the son of God, the Messiah! Life on earth means: to eat bread and transform the bread into wings, to drink water and to transform the water into wings. Life on earth means: the sprouting of wings. That’s what you told us-you, traitor! They’re not my words, they’re yours. In case you forgot, I’m reminding you of them!”

“Where are you, Matthew, scribe? Come here! Open your weighty papers-you always carry them next to your heart, the same way I carry my knife. Open your writings. They’ve been devoured by time, moths and sweat, but quite a few words can still be seen. Open your writings, Matthew, and read so that the gentleman in question may hear and remember. One night an important notable of Jerusalem, Nicodemus by name, came to him secretly and asked, ‘Who are you? What is your work?’ And you, son of the Carpenter, you answered him-remember!-‘I forge wings!’ As you said that we all felt wings shoot out from our backs. And now what have you come to, you plucked cock! You whine away and say, ‘Life on earth means shedding one’s wings.’ Ugh! Out of my sight, coward! If life isn’t all lightning and thunder what do I want with it? Don’t come near me, Peter, you windmill; nor you, gallant Andrew. Don’t screech, women. I won’t bother him. Why lift my hand against him? He’s dead and buried. He still stands up on his feet, he talks, he weeps, but he’s dead: a carcass. Let God forgive him-God, because I cannot. May Israel’s blood, tears and ashes fall upon his head!”

The endurance of the tiny old men gave out and they all collapsed in one heap onto the ground. Their memories had been reawakened; they had begun to feel young again, to remember the kingdom of heaven, the thrones, the majesty. Suddenly they broke out into the dirge. Groaning and wailing, they beat their foreheads against the stones.

All at once Jesus too burst into sobs. He cried, “Judas, my brother, forgive me!” and started to rush into the redbeard’s arms. But Judas jumped back, put out his hands and would not let him come near. “Don’t touch me,” he shouted. “I don’t believe in anything any more; I don’t believe in anyone. You broke my heart!”

Jesus stumbled. He turned, searching for something to catch hold of. The women, fallen prone on the ground, were pulling out their hair and screaming; the disciples were looking up at him with anger and hatred. The Negro boy had disappeared.

“I am a traitor, a deserter, a coward,” he murmured. “Now I realize it: I’m lost! Yes, yes, I should have been crucified, but I lost courage and fled. Forgive me, brothers, I cheated you. Oh, if I could only relive my life from the beginning!”

He had collapsed to the ground while speaking and was now banging his head on the pebbles of the yard.

“Comrades, my old friends, say a kind word to me, comfort me. I perish, I am lost! I hold out my hand. Does no one of you rise to place his palm in mine or to say a kind word to me? No one? No one? Not even you, John, beloved? Not even you, Peter?”

“How can I speak, what is there to say?” wailed the beloved disciple. “What was the witchcraft you threw over us, son of Mary?”

“You deceived us,” said Peter, wiping away his tears. “Judas is right: you broke your word. Our lives have gone to waste.”

All at once from the pile of tiny old men there arose a unified whining din.

“Coward! Deserter! Traitor!”

“Coward! Deserter! Traitor!”

And Matthew lamented: “All my work gone for nothing, nothing, nothing! How masterfully I matched your words and deeds with the prophets! It was terribly difficult, but I managed. I used to say to myself that in the synagogues of the future the faithful would open thick tomes bound in gold and say, ‘The lesson for today is from the holy Gospel according to Matthew!’ This thought gave me wings, and I wrote. But now, all that grandeur has gone up in smoke, and you-you ingrate! you illiterate! you traitor!-you’re to blame. You should have been crucified. Yes, if only for my sake, so that these writings might have been saved, you should have been crucified!”

Once more the unified whining din arose from the heap of tiny old men.

“Coward! Deserter! Traitor!”

“Coward! Deserter! Traitor!”

At that moment Thomas rushed in from the doorway. “Rabbi,” he cried, “I won’t leave you now that everyone is abandoning you and calling you traitor! No, I won’t abandon you, not I, not Thomas the prophet. We said the Wheel turns. That’s why I won’t leave your side. I’m waiting for the Wheel to turn.”

Peter rose. “Let’s go!” he shouted. “Judas, step in front, lead us!”

Gasping, the tiny old men got up. Jesus was stretched out on the ground, face down, his arms spread wide. He filled the entire yard. They held their fists over him and shouted.

“Coward! Deserter! Traitor!”

“Coward! Deserter! Traitor!”

One by one they shouted, “Coward! Deserter! Traitor!”-and vanished.

Jesus rotated his eyes with anguish, and looked. He was alone. The yard and house, the trees, the village doors, the village itself-all had disappeared. Nothing remained but stones beneath his feet, stones covered with blood; and lower, farther away, a crowd: thousands of heads in the darkness.

He tried with all his might to discover where he was, who he was and why he felt pain. He wanted to complete his cry, to shout LAMA SABACTHANI… He attempted to move his lips but could not. He grew dizzy and was ready to faint. He seemed to be hurling downward and perishing.

But suddenly, while he was falling and perishing, someone down on the ground must have pitied him, for a reed was held out in front of him, and he felt a sponge soaked in vinegar rest against his lips and nostrils. He breathed in deeply the bitter smell, revived, swelled his breast, looked at the heavens and uttered a heart-rending cry: LAMA SABACTHANI!

Then he immediately inclined his head, exhausted.

He felt terrible pains in his hands, feet and heart. His sight cleared, he saw the crown of thorns, the blood, the cross. Two golden earrings and two rows of sharp, brilliantly white teeth flashed in the darkened sun. He heard a cool, mocking laugh, and rings and teeth vanished. Jesus remained hanging in the air, alone.

His head quivered. Suddenly he remembered where he was, who he was and why he felt pain. A wild, indomitable joy took possession of him. No, no, he was not a coward, a deserter, a traitor. No, he was nailed to the cross. He had stood his ground honorably to the very end; he had kept his word. The moment he cried ELI ELI and fainted, Temptation had captured him for a split second and led him astray. The joys, marriages and children were lies; the decrepit, degraded old men who shouted coward, deserter, traitor at him were lies. All-all were illusions sent by the Devil. His disciples were alive and thriving. They had gone over sea and land and were proclaiming the Good News. Everything had turned out as it should, glory be to God!