John

None speak. The elders and the youth look at the blind apostle as though at a column of light.

'But ye,' John says, 'ye are of God, my children, and have overcome them, because greater is he that is in you than he that is the world.

'They are of the world; therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them.

'We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us.

'Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.'

He pauses. The phrases are like platforms in his mind, the construction building one upon the next, rising as steps he discovers just as he arrives at each one. It proceeds with perfect logic, as if out of a natural pre-existent order. The words are there just before he needs to find them. He raises his head, his whitened eyes, his arms he holds outwards.

'Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

'He that loveth not, knoweth not God.' Again he pauses, as if he is in flight and discovers a higher plane of purer air, then flies up into it. He says aloud the four words that seem carved on the invisible: 'For God is love.'

His speech has the quality of truth, beyond dispute, and the disciples need no persuasion. Some nod silently, others stare as if at a marvel. The Apostle draws to him his arms, presses together his hands. None have heard him speak so before, for this is not the telling of the acts of Jesus, there is no narrative. This is not the preaching Ioseph heard from the Apostle many times when they wandered in the dusted lands of Bithynia or Troas or the stony fields of Thessalonica. This is other. This seems a pure distillation.

'Beloved,'John repeats, 'he that loveth not, knoweth not God: for God is love.

'In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only begotten son into the world, that we might live through him.

'Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.'

The cave catches the wind; the air sings like the sea. Light and cloud-shadow cross. The old apostle raises his hands a last time.

'Beloved,' he says, 'if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

'No man had seen God at any time. But if we love one another, God dwells in us and his love is perfected in us.

'Let us pray that it will be so.'

John bows his head, the others likewise. In the cave on Patmos they kneel in the darkness, flooded with light.

16

Now is the moment.

Matthias stands on the seashore, before him a great mound of the dead seabirds that Auster and Linus have gathered and now set alight. Lamp oil takes flame, sea faggots, flotsam of storm wrack, timbering. Black smoke in a banner unfurls.

Now is the moment. I will win to me no more but Papias. He alone of the others would be of value. Testament. Eyewitness. My own Lazarus. How quickly they carried him away! It will matter not. I will confront him: You were dead; I went after and brought you back. How deny that? Arise and follow.

The bird fire burns poorly. Smoke smudge thickens against the daylight. The grey sea twists as though in chains. In the near distance some few fishers are about, starting late because of the storm, hoping to bring home a heavy catch of fish foolish to seek sanctuary in the shallow waters. The boats cut across the waves on quick wind till the nets grow heavy. Auster and Linus stand by the pyre. They are in open-eyed amazement still at the discovery of the seabirds after Matthias had told of them in his struggle with the devil. When Linus saw them, he vomited, Auster wanted to clap his hands. The birds were a brilliant display, all the more awesome for the substantial weight of each as Linus and Auster dragged them over the sand. What power it took to strike them from the sky! What flash of mind forked into the night to plunge them headlong! The two disciples watch the smoke rise and curve in upon itself and uncoil, caught by the wind. Matthias walks away down the stony shore, stands.

The storm will have passed by this evening. At daybreak we will leave.

Lemuel comes with the news. The Apostle has announced the community will take supper together. There will be a communion before sunset. Matthias returns to his dwelling, his eye pulsing with pain. He removes the poultice, palms water on to his face from a bowl. The hour is near. His heart is quickened at the thought. He palms the water a second time, touches gingerly the throbbing, winces. Still, the wound has its worth. He sits to consider how things must proceed. After a time he sends Auster and Linus to tell the others to come to his dwelling before the supper.

The Apostle is renewed. He has a vigour and resolve unfamiliar but to Ioseph, who has known him the longest. He sits by Papias, who tells him, 'You need not care for me, Master. I recover quickly.'

'Call me not "Master", call me Brother, or call my name, John.'

'I cannot, Master.'

'My name is John.'

Papias lowers his brow, his complexion waxy and pale, his eyes glossed. 'I must call you "Master",' he says, then adds, 'and Master, I must confess.'

'And you will be forgiven.' John bows his head and Papias tells him in whisper the story of the woman Marina and her children and the vanity of thinking he could bring them back from the dead. He confesses to temptation and concealment, to the potent seduction of power. His face reddens as before a fire. His voice drops further so the words are smallest sounds. John listens, holds out his right hand and prays. 'Walk in the light,' he says.

After, he tells Papias, 'I, too, must confess. I have forgotten myself. I have forgotten love. I have been harsh and have tired of the burden I carry within me, which burden now is made light as air. Papias, from this day forth the sun shall not set but I will have told you and all our brothers the word of our Lord Jesus. The sun shall not set but I will have related what was, that it will be still. My telling will continue while does my breath till he come again. I confess to you, I have forgotten myself. I have fallen down, but now stand up, my burden light.' John's face smiles, deep furrows paired, cheekbones prominent. He is both the Gallilean fisher, Zebedee's son, John, brother of James, mender of nets a lifetime ago, fleet barefoot boy who ran one end of his father's boat to the other, untoppling, gifted with balance, and also this other, this man who seems footed in two worlds, this and the next. He is the boy and the old man both.

Now he rises. 'We must make ready,' he says.

Ioseph brings him a white stole he lays over the Apostle's shoulders. With Papias he draws two tables together, and for them benches.

The sun retreating, the elders approach. They bring some of the flat fire-baked bread the islanders make, two skins of winter-berry wine. The events of the night past are still in their minds but age and experience and faith quiet the questions. They come nonetheless with the awareness of heightened moment; the storm, the death and return of Papias, the fall of seabirds, are as currents that converge. The call to communion is another such. So as they enter the cave the disciples bear themselves as if to counsel and revelation both. Something is happening, and they are its witnesses.

They stand. John goes to each and takes their hands. None speak of Matthias and the younger disciples, though all notice they are not there. Ioseph goes outside to look. Behind clouds the sun nears the sea. He returns, tells nothing. There opens a long pause.

'My brothers, sit,' the Apostle says at last.

And they do, gathered in the yellow lamplight about the tables, Papias at the right hand of John.

'Brothers, whom I love in the truth, the darkness is past and the true light now shines. Let us give thanks and break bread and take of wine in memory of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father.'