'But. .'
'Good Papias. Go lest you take this plague from me. My prayers are only that those who sat to my sides at communion, Ioseph and Danil, are spared.'
'I will go and tell the Master,' Papias says at last. 'But you will be coming with us. We will not leave you.' He turns out into the day and draws a deep breath. His forehead is beaded. He blinks at the light. Below, the sea glistens. On the foreshore are Ioseph and the Apostle, and at once he takes off to race down toward them, spinning stones from underfoot, hurrying down the curved pathway until he meets the sand soft then hard and calls out into the wind.
Ioseph and John stand, and when Papias arrives to them, he breathlessly gasps, 'Simon is ill. He will not come. He says it is the disease of Prochorus. I saw his sores.'
The sea sighs. The waves collapse and come to their feet.
'Say again,' Ioseph says, 'and slowly.'
And Papias does and Ioseph bows his head and holds it so in silence some moments, as though his spirit absorbs a blow.
'He fears for you and Danil,' Papias says to Ioseph, looking at where John's hand lies on the old disciple's arm for guidance. 'He fears a contagion that would kill us all if he came to Ephesus.'
The three stand on the shore. John does not remove his hand from the elder's arm.
'I will go and reason with him,' Ioseph says at last.
Papias is flush-faced and agitated. 'He will not allow it. He is resolved. And. .' He presses his lips tightly together. As if to hear the unspoken, John turns his face toward him.
'And?' Ioseph asks.
Papias shakes his head. He will not say before the Apostle. But John says simply, 'Tell.'
'What if it is true? What if he carries the disease? What if it is on his flesh, in his very breath? What if we bring him with us and we come to Ephesus plagued? Though I love Brother Simon and all who are our community. .'
'Yes, Papias?'
He knows he has spoken rashly. The sign of it is in his cheeks, in the wideness of his eyes. He lowers his head.
'Papias is right,' Ioseph says, 'Simon must stay.' A tall wave unfurls, slowly falling, then he adds, 'And I with him.' His voice is calm. 'I will remain and attend him until the disease passes or takes us both.'
Once Ioseph has said it, all three know it will be so. It falls out as if by natural decree, as if such bonds of love and selflessness are written in air and await only discovery. Ioseph turns to the blind apostle, whom he has known and followed a lifetime. By the sleeve hem of his robe he begins to lift the arm that lays on his and to place it instead on Papias. But John raises both of his hands and leans forwards, reaching till he finds the face of his old friend.
He says nothing. He holds the face in his hands. The wind lifts and lets fall the thin strands of his white hair. Ioseph bows his head. The sea breaks in foam.
When at last Ioseph steps back from the embrace, he bends forward and kisses the sleeve of the Apostle's robe, and, leaving him with Papias, he goes along the shoreline to the stone-way that leads to Simon.
Later, John sits by the cave entrance. Papias attends him. Meletios and Danil have been instructed to gather what things they will not need and bring these to the fisher families on the far shore. They come and go from the cave. What will they need after all? What lies ahead is for each differently imagined. They have lived so long on the island, the greater world has fallen away, first into memory, and then into the shifting domain of dreams. The world they keep with them is the one of childhood. The dust of summer in Judea. The streets of Jerusalem, the shadowed cool by the synagogue, running fleet and barefoot past the merchants' stalls. It is a world from before hearing the Word, before each of their lives were stopped and turned about. In silence and exile on Patmos, almost all had to let go the grief of their days before banishment, the spitting, the name calling, the stones. Each, through dream and prayer and will, had to come to a place of understanding whereby suffering and persecution were part of the Lord's plan, where the ignorance and scorn of the world made it easier to leave it. And leave they had. On the island the world was elsewhere. In the first years of Danil's dreams his narrow jaws ground together until he had a vision of wings sprouting at his ankles and moving him three feet above the ground. He woke and understood they were to live now between heaven and earth, and he lost all resentment of banishment. To Meletios the island took on the form of a great ship pulling away from the shore and sailing on through day and night toward a New Jerusalem always just beyond the horizon. Lemuel, bald-headed and genial, smiled at this. 'The world is light and dark, is day and night rising and falling over us. What need have we of any other world? This place is all places,' he had told Papias. 'Why need we ever leave?'
And so, variously, they had each come to acceptance, and even gratitude. Their prison had become a sanctuary. And now that John has spoken, not all feel, as young Papias, the glory of the return.
Meletios takes a wooden table and Danil stools from the cave across the upper plane of rock. They do not voice dissent, nor even consider it. But yet there is a shadow. What will it be like to leave? The island, bare and harsh in winter, has become a part of them, and the world at Ephesus that now awaits is unknown. Is it perhaps better to remain like Ioseph, even to die there? The Roman lifting of banishment does not mean hatred of them will be gone. Hearts will not have changed, only laws.
They carry the furniture across the island and come down the shale to a crooked hut of stone and boat planking. An old fisherman sits there. They greet him.
'We are, all but two, leaving this island,' Danil says. 'We will leave with you what goods we have in thanks and blessing.'
The old man looks impassively at the gifts.
'There is more. We will bring more,' Meletios tells him, but in the tangled nets of wrinkles the fisherman's eyes do not brighten.
'You can tell all. There will be things of use to be shared,' Meletios continues. Then, uncertain the old man hears them, he raises his voice to call, 'WE GO TO EPHESUS. THE CHRISTIANS GO TO EPHESUS.'
Slightly the fisherman nods, but shows no emotion.
'To Ephesus. We go to Ephesus,' Danil says. He is a short, sturdy figure and his voice is strong.
The old man narrows further his eyes. His mouth is drawn tightly, a downward curve of dismay at all the world. The sunlight silhouettes the disciples before him. He says nothing. What is the price of this bounty? What is asked for all this Christian love? He and other of the fisher families on the island are considered converted, but the old fisherman knows the conversion is a convenience merely, a present tide. Once the Christians leave, their teachings will ebb away, the islanders will remain with only the concern offish and fire. Who knows what believers may come next? In his mouth the old man turns salt spittle of seaweed. Of his face the sun makes a wrinkled map. He makes no gesture or response to the gift, but studies the two disciples who stand puzzled before him.
Danil looks to Meletios.
'Peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you,' Meletios says. He raises a hand in blessing to the fisherman. But the old man remains unmoved. The blessing passes over him. The sun moves behind cloud. He considers a last time these two, sees the torrid future that awaits them in Ephesus, and the very texture of their skin paling with immanent ghosthood.
The disciples turn and walk away. When they are gone, the old fisherman rises and takes the table.
Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost.
You said.
Gather up the fragments that remain.
The Apostle keeps his word to teach to Papias. When Ioseph leaves, he walks first with the young disciple down the sand in silence. The bright wind blows, the sea tumbles near. This news of Simon must cause him suffering, but Papias sees it not. There is only this calm, this exterior of serene acceptance. He is the manifest of faith, Papias thinks. This is faith, this quiet in grief, this coming of knowledge, understanding of divine ordinance. He can learn this from the Master. He can learn to shorten the bridge between suffering and acceptance, to surrender himself, to understand. In the Apostle there must be sorrow. He must have thought to return one day, if not with Matthias and the others, then at least with Prochorus, with Simon, with Ioseph. But now there will be only the few. It must wound him, but he bears it so.