John

Papias goes forward and greets him.

'I am Papias, disciple of John, who is come out of exile on the island of Patmos to bring the good news.'

Diotrophes sits impassive.

'John, son of Zebedee,' Papias says a little louder. The frankincense is stifling. 'John who was the beloved disciple of our Lord Jesus the Christ, who was from the beginning and at the end, who sat at the right hand of our Lord, who. .' He has to pause for better breath. The air is so thick and sweet.

'We are come to bring the good news. I am to tell you that we rejoice in that you have kept the true faith and the time is now upon us for the coming of the glory.' His lips are dry. Is he not being clear? Is he failing to show the miracle of what is happening? 'It is a great time,' he says. 'We are full of joy.'

'What do you ask of me?'

The voice is cold, drops the words from the raised seat like lesser coins.

'I am sent with the good news,' Papias says falteringly. 'Though we are small in number now, we will soon. .'

'Again, what do you ask of me?'

The frankincense stings in the nostrils.

'We ask that you will receive us. We seek dwelling that we may go about the city to gather to us the community of faith. You have many buildings.'

'Wherefore should I receive you?'

'Because we are come in the company of the Apostle to bring the good news.'

'The apostle John?'

'Yes, the Beloved.'

'The one called the apostle John is dead.'

'No.'

'He is dead. Another pretends to be him; he you follow.'

Papias blinks. The world shifts out of its focus. Do the walls slide slightly? Does the light buckle? 'It is not true!' he says loudly. 'He lives. It is he. I have lived by his side these years past on Patmos.'

'John is dead. He was killed in Rome, stoned and crucified, years since. This man is another,' Diotrophes replies, his voice unchanged, his manner cool, as though he but tells the hour. 'I have it on good account. You are fools. It is widely reported. Your numbers have diminished as the truth has enfolded. This man tells outrageous falsehood and some believe him. It is the way o£ the world. Ignorance is everywhere.'

Papias does not know what to say. The man sits before him, his hands upon his knees, his deep eyes slow and spiritless, as though he studies dull wares.

'This John,' Diotrophes says. 'He speaks of Jesus the Galillean?'

'Our Lord Jesus the Christ.'

Diotrophes shakes his head slowly. 'The Christ?'

'The Son of God.'

The phrase makes the elder man respond; he blows a half sneer to the ceiling. 'I have not heard it said outright until now,' he says. 'I had heard it reported but not spoken in my own presence. Jesus the Galillean, the Son of God! I should drive you from my house for blasphemy. You are a fool who has been taken for a fool.' Diotrophes's face warms with anger. His eyes now dark, he points a finger at the other. 'I should spit upon you for speaking such, have you beaten by my servants.' He sighs, looks above him, his nostrils wide as he draws to him the frankincense. 'But Diotrophes must be great of spirit,' he says. 'And is great of spirit. Your hope lies only in your ignorance. That you may be instructed. You are ignorant. John son of Zebedee was a fisherman who followed Jesus a prophet. Nothing more. Jesus was a wise teacher. Nothing more. John claimed for him this. Nothing more. John was killed in Rome by Romans. The rest is lies.'

'Jesus was the Son of God,' Papias says. His voice is quieter than he wants, as if he tells himself.

'Again, the Son of God?' Diotrophes raises his voice. Spittle flecks whitely his beard.

'It is what John believed,' the disciple says, then corrects himself, 'what John believes.'

'There is no John, you fool. You know nothing of God. Do not you speak to me of God! Do not utter it! Do not defile my house with your blasphemy. What gives you right to say this man was the Son of God, or that one? Why not my servant Galen? Why not Absalom, why not Ezra, why not my fatted goat, why not my horse? Any one of them no further from the truth. God the One forgive you, for you are ignorant. You are not fit to say his name. Be gone. Go before Diotrophes is removed from Diotrophes and is ruled by anger. Go, tell this John he is false. Tell him to go back to his island. To die with the fools who follow him. Tell him Diotrophes knows God the One, the True. Tell him a new age is come, that his Gallilean Jesus is forgotten and his John with him. The holy are not ignorant fishermen now, not carpenter's sons, but wealthy and important people. Look at my house. Do you see my house? Is this the house of an ignorant follower of your Jesus? Is this not the house of one whom God loves? If God loves me not, why do I prosper? Diotrophes is preeminent in God's eye. You tell this. Go. Go tell him this. Be gone from my house.'

Papias does not move. What is happening cannot be happening. It is a dream. It is the infection in his blood speaking. His mind is disordered. He stares up at the bearded man, whose head shakes in scorn. What is he to say? What reply can be make?

Beside him appears the flaxen-haired servant. His audience is over. He is touched on the elbow to be led away. But Diotrophes cannot let go yet of the outrage, and before Papias has reached the doorway, he calls after him, 'Tell him he is discovered a liar and a blasphemer! Tell him if he comes to my door I will have him beaten away! Diotrophes will punish him for God. I will bring the wrath of God upon him. Tell him that!'

Diotrophes puts hand in fist behind his back, walks from the dais and out into a side chamber.

Papias's head spins. His cheeks are aflame. He is like a bird stunned from flight, falling. He cannot see what he passes.

Then he is outside in the street once more, and past the cypress trees and the avenue.

He cannot think what to think. Is he blind or seeing? There is such sudden dark. He leans to a wall to steady himself.

He does not see Auster watching, nor Matthias pass on his way into the house.

27

In the evening they are gathered again. Lemuel has good report of Gaius, who received him well, as did Demetrios, Meletios. Josiah was ill, Eli tells.

'What of Diotrophes?' asks Danil.

Papias looks at the serene face next to him. He is the apostle John, Papias knows he is. But he cannot unhear what Diotrophes said, nor can he break to John the news of hatred.

'Diotrophes, Papias?' Lemuel prompts. 'Did he receive you?'

'No. No, he was elsewhere; his servant told he was away,' he lies. He looks at his hands, sees tiny specks of dead gnats. He has not told John yet that Kester is not returned.

Their host, Martha, brings them wine and bread, her children about her. The disciples, unused to the presence of a woman and of children, sit quiet in humility. But John most easily demonstrates gratitude. He finds in Martha virtues forgotten. Or perhaps it is that in her he traces back to others of the women in his life. Perhaps in her modest manner, in her voice, in the soft sounds of her movements, he is carried back into the century past where was his mother, and Mary and the Magdalen and another Martha, and others, too, such women. Perhaps it is only now, after years on Patmos, that he recognises how greatly he has missed the virtue of woman. He is deeply moved, it is clear.

So, too, by her children. In the day the disciples have been absent, he has become familiar to them, and sometime in their presence reaches his hand out into the air and one or another takes it briefly, and the Apostle's face breaks in smile.

No other dwelling has yet been found. They must burden their host a little longer. Martha tells them they are welcome, though the space is small. At sunrise they pray together, the first frail day of their return over.