“He’s there! He lives there in hiding, barefooted, dressed in rags, playing the carpenter, pretending he is not the One. He wants to save himself, but how can he escape us: God’s eyes have seen him! After him, lads!”
He raised his foot and got on his mark, but the dwarfs clung to his arms and legs. He lowered his foot again.
“There are many people dressed in rags, Captain, many who go barefooted, many carpenters. Give us a clue who he is, what he looks like and where he lives, so that we’ll be able to recognize him. Otherwise we’re not budging. You’d better know that, Captain. We’re not budging; we’re tired out.”
“I shall hug him to my bosom and kiss him. That will be your clue. Forward now; run! But quiet, don’t shout. Right now he’s sleeping. Take care he doesn’t wake up and escape us. In God’s name, lads, after him!”
“After him, Captain!” shouted the dwarfs in unison, and they raised their big feet, ready to start.
But one of them, the skinny, cross-eyed hunchback who held the crown of thorns, clutched a prickly shrub and resisted.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he screamed. “I’m fed up! How many nights have we been hunting him? How many countries and villages have we tramped through? Count: in the desert of Idumea we searched the monasteries of the Essenes one after the other; we went through Bethany, where we practically murdered poor Lazarus to no avail; we reached the Jordan, but the Baptist sent us away, saying, ‘I’m not the One you seek, so be off with you!’ We left and entered Jerusalem, searched the Temple, the palaces of Annas and Caiaphas, the cottages of the Scribes and Pharisees: no one! No one but scoundrels, liars, robbers, prostitutes, murderers! We left again. We raced through Samaria the excommunicate and reached Galilee. In one lump we took in Magdala, Cana, Capernaum, Bethsaida. From but to hut, caïque to caïque, we searched for the most virtuous, the most God-fearing. Every time we found him we cried, ‘You’re the One, why are you hiding? Arise and save Israel!’ But as soon as he saw the tools we carried, his blood ran cold. He kicked, stamped, shrieked, ‘It’s not me, not me!’ and threw himself into a life of wine, gambling and women in order to save himself. He became drunk, he blasphemed, he whored-just to make us see he was a sinner and not the One we sought… I’m sorry, Captain, but we’ll meet up with the same thing here. Were chasing him in vain. We won’t find him: he still has not been born.”
The redbeard grabbed him by the nape of the neck and held him dangling in the air for a long moment. “Doubting Thomas,” he said, laughing, “doubting Thomas, I like you!”
He turned to the others. “He is the ox goad, we the laboring beasts. Let him prick us, let him prick us so that we may never find peace.”
Hairless Thomas screeched with pain; the redbeard set him down on the ground. Laughing again, he swept his eyes over the heterogeneous company. “How many are we?” he asked. “Twelve-one from each of the tribes of Israel. Devils, angels, imps, dwarfs: all the births and abortions of God. Take your pick!”
He was in a good mood; his round, hawk-like eyes flashed. Stretching out his great hand, he began to grip the companions angrily, tenderly, by the shoulder. One by one, he held them dangling in the air while he examined them from top to bottom, laughing. As soon as he released one, he grabbed another.
“Hello, skinflint, venom nose, profit-mad immortal son of Abraham… And you, dare-devil, chatterbox, gobble-jaws… And you, pious milktoast: you don’t murder, steal or commit adultery-because you are afraid. All your virtues are daughters of fear… And you, simple donkey that they break with beating: you carry on, you carry on despite hunger, thirst, cold, and the whip. Laborious, careless of your self-respect, you lick the bottom of the saucepan. All your virtues are daughters of poverty… And you, sly fox: you stand outside the den of the lion, the den of Jehovah, and do not go in… And you, naïve sheep: you bleat and follow a God who is going to eat you… And you, son of Levi: quack, God-peddler who sells the Lord by the ounce, innkeeper who stands men God as a drink so that they will become tipsy and open their purses to you and their hearts-you rascal of rascals!… And you, malicious, fanatical, headstrong ascetic: you look at your own face and manufacture a God who is malicious, fanatical and headstrong. Then you prostrate yourself and worship him because he resembles you… And you whose immortal soul opened a money-changing shop: you sit on the threshold, plunge your hand into the sack, give alms to the poor, lend to God. You keep a ledger and write: I gave so many florins for charity to so and so on such and such a day, at such and such an hour. You leave instructions for the ledger to be put in your coffin so that you will be able to open it in front of God, present your bill and collect the immortal millions… And you, liar, teller of tall tales: you trample all the Lord’s commandments underfoot, you murder, steal, commit adultery, and afterward break into tears, beat your breast, take down your guitar and turn the sin into a song. Shrewd devil, you know very well that God pardons singers no matter what they do, because he can simply die for a song… And you, Thomas, sharp ox goad in our rumps… And me, me: crazy irresponsible fool, I got a swelled head and left my wife and children in order to search for the Messiah! All of us together-devils, angels, imps, dwarfs-we’re all needed in our great cause!… After him, lads!”
He laughed, spit into his palms and moved his big feet.
“After him, lads!” he shouted again, and he started at a run down the slope leading to Nazareth.
Mountains and men became smoke and disappeared. The sleeper’s eyes filled with dreamless murk. Now, at last, he heard nothing in his endless sleep but huge heavy feet stamping on the mountain and descending.
His heart pounded wildly. He heard a piercing cry deep within his bowels: They’re coming! They’re coming! Jumping up with a start (so it seemed to him in his sleep), he blockaded the door with his workbench and piled all his tools on top-his saws, jack and block planes, adzes, hammers, screwdrivers-and also a massive cross which he was working on at the time. Then he sheathed himself again in his wood shavings and chips, to wait.
There was a strange, disquieting calm-thick, suffocating. He heard nothing, not even the villagers’ breathing, much less God’s. Everything, even the vigilant devil, had sunk into a dark, fathomless, dried-up well. Was this sleep? Or death, immortality, God? The young man became terrified, saw the danger, tried with all his might to reach his drowning mind to save himself-and woke up.
He was soaked in sweat. He remembered nothing from the dream. Only this: someone was hunting him. Who?… One? Many?… Men? Devils? He could not recall. He cocked his ear and listened. The village’s respiration could be heard now in the quiet of the night: the breathing of many breasts, many souls. A dog barked mournfully; from time to time a tree rustled in the wind. A mother at the edge of the village lulled her child to sleep, slowly, movingly… The night filled with murmurs and sighs which he knew and loved. The earth was speaking, God was speaking, and the young man grew calm. For a moment he had feared he remained all alone in the world.
He heard his old father’s gasps from the room where his parents slept, which was next to his own. The unfortunate man could not sleep. He was contorting his mouth and laboriously opening and closing his lips in an effort to speak. For years he had been tormenting himself in this way, struggling to emit a human sound, but he sat paralyzed on his bed, unable to control his tongue. He toiled, sweated, driveled at the mouth, and now and then after a terrible contest he managed to put together one word by voicing each syllable separately, desperately-one word, one only, always the same: A-do-na-i, Adonai. Nothing else, only Adonai… And when he finished this entire word he would remain tranquil for an hour or two until the struggle again gripped him and he began once more to open and close his mouth.