“‘Why have you done so many bad things?’ the children asked him.
“Cato didn’t answer. But they all saw a tear run down one side of his face. Cato dried the tear and said, ‘I don’t know, I heard a story, a bad story, and I believed it. It was so long ago.’
“The children took him by the hand and said, ‘Come with us and tell a good story, stay with us.’
“So the children and Cato went across the island, and their voices soared like birdsong between the trees.”
΅
“No,” says the man. “That’s impossible.”
Martha’s holding on to Joseph, and Joseph’s holding on to Jehoahaz, and Jehoahaz’s holding on to Jehu, and Jehu’s holding on to Jacob, and Jacob’s holding on to Omri. None of them are crying anymore. They stand there with their eyes open, smiling at each other.
“How?” says the man.
“We’re going home now,” says Martha.
“No,” says the man. “Stay here.”
Martha leads her brothers and sisters toward the house.
“Stay here,” the man shouts behind them, but his voice is faint, so faint. They walk away from him.
Martha doesn’t turn around; she just says, “Go, go.” And suddenly their father appears. He lifts up Joseph and Jehoahaz and asks Martha what’s happened. Martha turns around to point at the man, but there’s nobody there anymore.
΅
That evening, Martha can’t get to sleep. She lies awake until after her mother’s told her stories and put the light out. She lies awake until all her brothers and sisters are breathing calmly and softly. It’s not evening anymore, it’s night. And Martha can feel that she doesn’t like evenings best anymore. Everything gets so dark. What if the light never comes back?
13 
THE GREAT FIRE
Over forty years have passed, there’s been an uprising in our land, and rumors are spreading that Roman troops are heading toward Jerusalem. Over forty years, all that time, and I can still see Nadab in my mind’s eye. His red hair and his beard. His whispering voice that last night, the way he said my name, “Jehoash, Jehoash,” the way he fell out of the darkness. Sometimes he turns up in my dreams, covered in fire. Other times we’re all there, the whole band of us. Like we were before everybody was taken away. Like I was before I was caught.
Dear God, I know you’ve shown me mercy, I know the gift I’ve been given. You read my heart, you see my soul.
My master, the one who owns me now, won’t show me any mercy if he reads this. But he’s old, I’m older, and the time we have left here in this world is short. He took me out of a life of devastation and violence. I was brutal and swift, more fierce than the wolves in the wilderness, flying like the eagle hunting its prey, my judgment and pride laws unto themselves. But now I’m powerless and still as the fish of the sea, until the Lord God drags me up with his hook.
Before my time is over, I want to ask what isn’t in my power to answer. When will God claim his right and bring us his kingdom of justice and peace? When will God’s kingdom come?
Everything that’s happened recently has made me think of Nadab again. It’s strange, as the time he was with us was short. But he was a sign, I can see it now, he was carrying within him everything that would follow. Something was working through him. In a way, he sacrificed himself for us. What he did that day in the Temple didn’t set prisoners free, he didn’t come storming in with an angel’s sword or spear. He just spoke, he fought his way through so that he could speak out. Maybe there was nobody apart from me and my brother, Jehoram, who heard and remembered what Nadab said that day. But it changed us, I’m sure of that. It even changed Reuben when we told him everything, even as tough as he was. Nadab’s words changed everything for me.
I think that Nadab was full of justice. I think he died in peace. And now, now there’s nothing left. Nothing of him or of Jesus of Nazareth, after all these years. But his followers have grown in numbers, they travel about, I’ve met some of them myself. They all tell stories about how Jesus was taken down from his cross, how he was carried to a cave. And there, in the cold rock, is where he’s said to have risen again and left his tomb.
I’m the only one left of those of us who took down Nadab. I’m the only one who can smile about it all now. But stories like that, where good doesn’t die, I think they bring his followers together. The same way stories bring us all together. When they tell each other about him rising again from the realm of the dead, some of them start wailing, pulling at their hair, or tearing off their clothes. Others fall silent. Others still are filled with rage and call for them to fight. But there are also many people who don’t follow Jesus, who’ve barely heard his name, who’ve been fighting against the ruling powers for a long time. They have something else, other stories, pulling everything together.
Recently, there have been more cases of assassins, knife murderers turning up everywhere, even in the Temple. When I was young and was with Nadab, I met two young men who were on such a mission. I couldn’t understand who they were then, I couldn’t understand what they were thinking. I knew little of how our people lived, and I was one of the very people who were destroying things. But everything’s changed. I can see that the young men I met then were signs of what was to come, of how everything in our land would change for the worse. Their thoughts, their clear aims, and blind faith all spoke to the brutality and extremes that have only grown since then. I don’t know whether Nadab could already see this then, but there was something working through him, something pulling at him when we killed those two young men outside Jerusalem. Maybe he wanted to do some good, to do as he thought Jesus would’ve done. Maybe he’d just had too much of all the bad things we did. I have no way of knowing, but the way everything’s turned out, seething and bubbling like a pot of boiling water, makes me think more and more that Nadab and Jesus could see the warning signs and wanted to raise our attention to what was coming.
Now, when I hear these stories about Jesus, it strikes me that they’re never complete. They’re broken off at the ends, they begin suddenly, they never end, they just keep on going, and sometimes I can’t understand what I’m being told. Sometimes they mention a name, sometimes several, but the names make no sense to me. I just hear Nadab, I know that he must’ve heard many of the same stories. About how they shared a meal, how they were all gathered together. About how Jesus chased away demons. About how he rose again and came to them in the evening, while they were walking along. I’ve tried to join it all up, to get it to fit together, but they’re different stories, I can see that now. There’s no longer one Jesus, there are several. I know that the leading followers want to make one story, and they’re struggling to hold on to this single story. They’re struggling to make us see the clear pattern according to which the world is, and was, arranged. But I’m so much older now, my time will soon be over, there are so many stories. It’s impossible to see any pattern. I don’t try to understand, I just try to see. I don’t have the knowledge to put everything together. And even if such magical, devout knowledge were to exist, everything would still be moving about, like desert sand in the wind.
Let me tell you about Nadab, or let me tell you how I remember it now. He was a criminal when I met him; I was a criminal, we all were. He lived by my side, we killed, we stole, we looted. We came looking for violence, we advanced as a group, we scoffed at those who believed in something bigger, at those who took orders from other men. We derided every city that was built, sneaking in and out, fleeing from guards and soldiers, sweeping on like the wind, and then we were gone.