“He said he is not allowed to buy publications for you, but he can direct you to a place where you can purchase them yourself.”
“That’s ridiculous, he’s a servant, isn’t he? He will do as I ask.”
“Oh my, Jesus, he has asked if you would like to feel the power of his manly nakedness.”
“Is he crazy? I have a wife and two children.”
“Sadly, yes. Please show him that you are offended by his offer by spitting on him and storming out of the room.”
“I don’t know, sir, spitting on a guest…”
I handed him a handful of the bills that he’d taught me were appropriate gratuities. “Please, it will be good for him.”
“Very well, Mister Biff.” He produced an impressive loogie and launched it at the front of the angel’s robe, where it splatted and ran.
Raziel leapt to his feet.
“Well done, Jesus, now curse.”
“You fuckstick!”
“In Spanish.”
“Sorry, I was showing off my English. I know many swear words.”
“Well done. Spanish please.”
“Pendejo!”
“Splendid, now storm out.”
Jesus turned on his heel and left the room, slamming the door behind him.
“He spit on me?” Raziel said, still not believing it. “An angel of the Lord, and he spit on me.”
“Yes, you offended him.”
“He called me a fuckstick. I heard him.”
“In his culture, it is an affront to ask another man to buy a Soap Opera Digest for you. We’ll be lucky if he ever brings us a pizza again.”
“But I want a Soap Opera Digest.”
“He said you can buy one just down the street, I will be happy to go get one for you.”
“Not so fast, Apostle, none of your tricks. I’ll get it myself, you stay here.”
“You’ll need money.” I handed him some bills.
“If you leave the room I will find you in an instant, you know that?”
“Absolutely.”
“You cannot hide from me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. Hurry now.”
He sort of shuffled sideways toward the door. “Don’t try to lock me out, I’m taking a key with me. Not that I need it or anything, being an angel of the Lord.”
“Not to mention a fuckstick.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“Go, go, go.” I shooed him through the door. “Godspeed, Raziel.”
“Work on your Gospel while I’m gone.”
“Right.” I slammed the door in his face and threw the safety lock. Raziel has now watched hundreds of hours of American television, you’d think he would have noticed that people wear shoes when they go outside.
The book is exactly as I suspected, a Bible, but written in a flowery version of this English I’ve been writing in. The translation of the Torah and the prophets from the Hebrew is muddled sometimes, but the first part seems to be our Bible. This language is amazing—so many words. In my time we had very few words, perhaps a hundred that we used all the time, and thirty of them were synonyms for guilt. In this language you can curse for an hour and never use the same word twice. Flocks and schools and herds of words, that’s why I’m supposed to use this language to tell Joshua’s story.
I’ve hidden the book in the bathroom, so I can sneak in and read it while the angel is in the room. I didn’t have time to actually read much of the part of the book they call the New Testament, but it’s obvious that it is the story of Joshua’s life. Or parts of it, anyway.
I’ll study it later, but now I should go on with the real story.
I suppose I should have considered the exact nature of what we were doing before I invited Maggie to join us. I mean, there is some difference between the circumcision of an eight-day-old baby boy, which she had seen before, and the same operation on the ten-foot statue of a Greek god.
“My goodness, that is, uh, impressive,” Maggie said, staring up at the marble member.
“Graven image,” Joshua said under his breath. Even in the moonlight I could tell he was blushing.
“Let’s do it.” I pulled a small iron chisel from my pouch. Joshua was wrapping the head of his mallet with leather to deaden its sound. Sepphoris slept around us, the silence broken only by the occasional bleat of a sheep. The evening cook fires had long since gone to coals, the dust cloud that stirred through the city during the day had settled, and the night air was clean and still. From time to time I would catch a sweet whiff of sandalwood coming from Maggie and I would lose my train of thought. Funny the things you remember.
We found a bucket and turned it upside down for Joshua to stand on while he worked. He set the tip of my chisel on Apollo’s foreskin and ventured a light tap with the mallet. A tiny fragment of marble flaked away.
“Give it a good whack,” I said.
“I can’t, it will make too much noise.”
“No, it won’t, the leather will cover it.”
“But I might take the whole end of it off.”
“He can spare it,” Maggie said, and we both turned to her with our mouths hanging open. “Probably,” she added quickly. “I’m only guessing. What do I know, I’m just a girl. Do you guys smell something?”
We smelled the Roman before we heard him, heard him before we saw him. The Romans covered themselves with olive oil before they bathed, so if the wind was right or if it was an especially hot day you could smell a Roman coming at thirty paces. Between the olive oil they bathed with and the garlic and dried paste of anchovies they ate with their barley, when the legions marched into battle it must have smelled like an invasion of pizza people. If they’d had pizzas back then, which they didn’t.
Joshua took a quick swipe with the mallet and the chisel slipped, neatly severing Apollo’s unit, which fell to the dirt with a dull thud.
“Whoops,” said the Savior.
“Shhhhhhhh,” I shushed.
We heard the hobnails of the Roman’s boots scraping on stone. Joshua jumped down from the bucket and looked frantically for a place to hide. The walls of the Greek’s bathhouse were almost completed around the statue, so really, except for the entrance where the Roman was coming, there was no place to run.
“Hey, what are you doing there?”
We stood as still as the statue. I could see that it was the legionnaire that had been with Justus our first day in Sepphoris.
“Sir, it’s us, Biff and Joshua. Remember? The kid from the bread?”
The soldier moved closer, his hand on the haft of his half-drawn short sword. When he saw Joshua he relaxed a bit. “What are you doing here so early? No one is to be about at this hour.”
Suddenly, the soldier was yanked backward off of his feet and a dark figure fell on him, thrusting a blade into his chest over and over. Maggie screamed and the figure turned to us. I started to run.
“Stop,” the murderer hissed.
I froze. Maggie threw her arms around me and hid her face in my shirt as I trembled. A gurgling sound came from the soldier, but he lay still. Joshua made to step toward the murderer and I threw an arm across his chest to stop him.
“That was wrong,” Joshua said, almost in tears. “You are wrong to kill that man.”
The murderer held his bloody blade up by his face and grinned at us. “Is it not written that Moses became a prophet only after killing an Egyptian slave driver? No master but God!”
“Sicarii,” I said.
“Yes boy, Sicarii. Only when the Romans are dead will the Messiah come to set us free. I serve God by killing this tyrant.”
“You serve evil,” Joshua said. “The Messiah didn’t call for the blood of this Roman.”
The assassin raised his blade and came at Joshua. Maggie and I leapt back, but Joshua stood his ground. The assassin grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him close. “What do you know of it, boy?”