John

None of this can Auster say yet. He is slumped forwards, like a beast of burden heavily used.

'What is it? What has happened?'

'Papias,' Auster mutters and raises a hand to indicate.

Matthias steps past him into the dwelling. There Papias lies, blackened and blood-faced, but breathing still.

In the small grove of the olive trees is the stranger. Early sunlight plays. From branch to branch birds engage and dart, quickened in the light. The first pale olive leaves stir with emergence, the minor rustle as a bird exits a tree and crosses with swooping flight to another, the morning otherwise still. Tranquil, his back turned, the stranger stands. His feet are unshod, his robe the brown of a gardener. So moveless and silent is he, the birds take no notice and cross the grove singing the new day.

The light is the light of early summer. It cradles the scene, makes of the trees and their undershade a haven.

How he himself comes there, John does not know. He has walked from nowhere but is at the edge of the grove, branches overhead not yet fruited but leaf-heavy and stirring in wind he did not know was there. There is a scent out of old Galilee, a perfume of olives and dust baked in sun. He handles the tough bark of the trees, touching as he passes. The light he sees. How it falls between the trees. How all is balanced, light and dark, as he steps forward. The birdsong is life-full, pulsing. The stranger he knows, even from distance, even though his back is turned. He knows because of how the world is about him. He knows because of this condition of stillness, about him the createdness of things, how in the stranger's company all seems of one purpose, from the smallest leaf-move in unfelt wind to the traverse of a bird, from the patterned fall of sunlight to the pooled shade beneath. In this company he feels all is intent. Nothing is but what is intended. All has been made. And as John walks forward, he feels the deep solace of this, the knowledge he has almost forgotten that he is loved.

'Brother,' the stranger says, turning to him.

'My Lord.'

'Papias! Papias!'

'What?' Linus answers, startled from sleep. He uncoils his long limbs, moves free an ache in the elbow he slept on.

'Papias?'

'It is Linus. I am coming.'

'Where is Papias? Why is he not returned?'

Linus looks at the old man, his filmed eyes, his white beard, anxiety wrinkling his face. Does he not know it is night? Linus speaks to him as if to a fool, slow and loud. 'I do not know where Papias is,' he says. 'You should sleep now.'

'Go and find him,' the Apostle urges. 'I must speak with him.'

Linus gasps at the arrogance of command, looks away as if to others for corroboration.

'It is night now,' he says, bending his long body down and slowing his words further still. 'Night. There is storm coming. There are no stars.'

'But where is he?'

Linus's lips are thin, his face pinched with scorn from narrow chin to yellow hair. 'I have told you, I do not know where he is.'

'And I have told you, go and find him! Go! Go!' The old man's voice is suddenly fierce, and he waves his arm, gesturing outward toward the cave exit and the night.

Linus steps back. How dare he. How dare he shout at me like that. He has it in his mind to shout back, even to push the old man off his stool, but doesn't. He sneers in disgust and shakes his head, walks out of the cave and stands not a yard from the entrance. The night is doubly dark, clouds gathering all day have not yet fallen, and there is strange cold. He holds his arms wrapped together, broken sleep and the raised voice of the old man making him shiver. The sea is wild. The air smells of salt and burning.

After a short time Linus goes back inside the cave and sits, his head propped against his arm on the wall, his eyes closed, looking in vain for sleep.

'Linus is that you? Are you back, did you find him?'

Linus does not answer. He keeps his eyes closed, allows a thin smile to turn up his lips.

'Linus?' the old man calls out. 'Linus?'

Linus lifts a small stone from the cave floor, pitches it high past the head of the Apostle so it lands with a sharp clack against the far wall. The old man turns toward it.

'Who is there? Who are you? Is that you, Linus?'

Another comes through the air and hits on the near side.

'Who is there? Speak! Who are you?'

Linus holds a hand across his smile.

'I command you, speak.'

The old man gets to his feet and feels in front of him. He is dark against dark, finger-tipping at nothing. A clump of dirt is thrown at the back wall, and a bat falls from hanging, flies, then another.

The blind man spins about. 'Stop! Who is there? Linus! Is that you, Linus?' From the dark there is no answer. The bats circle, swoop, flicker in velvet black. John stops then. And it is as though in three moments he arrests the all of him, makes stop the beating of human fear and anger inside himself and stands perfectly still. Then directly he walks the smoothened floor across the cave to where his attendant sits. But Linus is up quickly and with held breath slides along the wall.

In the dark of the cave John turns his blind face to where Linus stands with in-breath pressed against the wall.

'Why do you act so?' he asks, as though he sees. 'Go I tell you. Go and bring Papias here.'

Linus does not move.

'Papias cannot come,' Matthias announces suddenly, his voice at the entranceway, where he stands watching Linus and the old man.

'Matthias.'

'Papias has been injured. I come to tell you.'

'How injured?'

'He has lost an ear and bled much. He has been inside the fisher's hut with the woman Marina when it burned.'

John feels for the cave wall.

'He is living still, but barely. Auster saved him, brought him to me.' Matthias does not take his eyes from the old man. 'He is in my care. I have prayed over him that the Lord may not take him, and the Lord has spared him to me these past hours.'

'He is living?' John's voice is thin and low.

'He is living.' Matthias shrugs. 'My prayers have thus far been answered. He has woken once and spoken wildly and fallen asleep again. In dreams he cries out, but without import. I speak to him, but he is unhearing.'

John cannot speak. He feels a deep wound of love open.

'Be assured my prayers are with him,' Matthias says. 'He cannot be moved. Linus will attend you these times.'

The Apostle stands. 'Take me to him.'

'The night is wild, the storm coming since nightfall comes still. You must remain. He may not live until sunrise. I come to ask that you pray for me in my ministering for his soul.'

'You must take me to him now. I will be by his side.'

Matthias taps his fingertips together before his mouth.

'For your own good I cannot allow it. You know my dwelling is on the cliff top. The way is treacherous. I near fell several times myself. I could not answer to the community with good conscience if anything befell you. Stay here. I will send for you if Papias lives.'

'You defy me?'

'I act from love, O Master.'

'I would go to him now.'

'Of course. But as it is written, "and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit. Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry, for anger resteth in the bosom of fools." '

'You quote scripture to me.'