For the first time James showed hostility towards Thomas. ‘No. I think you knew him well enough.’
Thomas could not contain a thought he’d tried hard to suppress. ‘Enough to know he was sometimes a misguided fool.’
‘Ah. I begin to smell the truth.’
‘James. Don’t pursue this. It’s in no-one’s interest.’
‘But it is in mine. Faith is one thing, Thomas, but blind faith I cannot stomach.’
‘Then in my own time, eh?’
While they had been talking the room had been getting steadily darker. Far away the city lights shone more brightly. Mary, still wearing a headscarf, entered carrying a tray with plates and cutlery. James motioned her to set a bowl in front of Thomas. As seemed to be her custom she kept her eyes averted.
Thomas said loudly, ‘James, there’s something familiar about your servant.’
Mary, on hearing this, put down the tray and stared at him. Then she drew closer to see him better. To James she said, ‘Is this a trick?’ She peered more closely into Thomas’ face. ‘No. It’s no trick.’ She fell to her knees beside him.
‘James, the woman’s demented.’
James knelt beside Mary. ‘Child, what’s upsetting you?’
‘Who is this man?’
‘Judas. Judas Thomas. Your master’s brother. You’re not alone in seeing a resemblance, if that’s what’s troubling you. Get up, Mary. Thomas means you no harm.’ He guided her to a seat facing Thomas, whose face she continued to scrutinise.
‘So like him. So like him.’
‘But neither of you have recollections of a meeting? Mary, take off your headscarf.’
Mary did so, revealing her long black hair. For the first time Thomas could see that she had once been beautiful.
‘So, my brother,’ James said. ‘Are you still going to stay silent?’
It was a while before Thomas could bring himself to reply. ‘I never intended it, James. But events moved so fast, as if they had been ordained. I was too weak to stop it.’
Mary was staring at him hard. ‘You. In the tomb. Standing there with the white shroud.’ Bitterly she added, ‘As if it was yours.’
‘Hardly white, being soiled with…’
‘But in the darkness might have seemed so,’ James said.
‘You have to forgive me, Mary,’ Thomas continued. ‘I took you for one of the urchins that prowl the graveyards looking for spoils. When you tried to touch me…’
‘You pushed me away. He wouldn’t have done that. Even if I had been an urchin… or a leper.’
‘Mary, that was the difference between us – me and Jesus. At that moment I failed him.’
‘Understandable,’ James said. ‘But what interests me is what you were doing there, Thomas.’
‘Simple enough. I’d worked out, you see, what he intended to do in Jerusalem. James knows that, while we were close as brothers, we were as different as rock and clay. And for him that made me a kind of sounding board… for how the public would react to his ideas. If it works on Thomas it will work on them – something like that. The logic was in the bits from scripture that you gave me, James. I didn’t believe it, then… but he did. I knew that death at the hands of the Romans was his intention.’
‘But you did nothing.’
‘Not so! I followed. But days behind. At each village I heard of his growing band of followers. I reached Jerusalem on the evening of the crucifixion. The faces of people returning, droves of them passing me, ridiculing. It sickened me. So, knowing nothing, I took courage in my hands and went to the procurator’s office.’
James was astonished. ‘You saw Pilatus?’
‘There was a councillor there from Arimathea – well known to him obviously – arguing to move the body. Can you believe that? And at that moment I felt God’s hand – me a sinner – on my shoulder. I told him – this Joseph – who I was. With his friend Nicodemus we went to Golgotha.’
‘But why would they want to move it… the body?’
‘Because the tomb couldn’t be sealed. The rock wouldn’t close. There were rats… and dogs. Maybe even a child could have crept in.’
‘So you moved him to another. Let me guess. About thirty paces away, now hidden behind brambles and tares.’
‘How did my astute brother deduce that?’
‘I caught you looking when we passed it together.’
‘That suggests to me you already suspected…’
‘Yes. But for the moment go on with your story.’
Thomas continued, ‘I had no knowledge of this house, then. Or where the Twelve might be. So I stayed with Joseph in the upper city, and remained there for the Sabbath.’
‘But the following morning – why did you go back?’
‘We replaced the original shroud when we moved the body, but in our haste stupidly left the first behind. Unscrupulous people might have… found value in it. So at daybreak…’
To Mary, James said, ‘You almost beat him to it.’
‘Had I known who she was…’
‘…the course of history would have been different.’
Thomas walked to the front of the portico and looked out. ‘It took me two more days to discover that my – our – mother was here.’
Mary began to cry bitterly. ‘Oh, why was I hiding myself away?’
‘Decision time, then,’ James said.
‘Exactly. Simon Peter – and I think John likewise – already had it in their heads that something… well… extraordinary had happened.’
‘And you chickened out of telling them.’
‘Yes. I thought it would all blow over – that I’d tell them when they’d come down to earth. Also I needed to get back to Galilee, where there was building work to finish.’
‘But you had one more opportunity to come clean, didn’t you?’
‘James, as you seem to know everything, just tell Mary.’
‘I think,’ James said, ‘that when Thomas left Jerusalem he intended to take the shorter – but more dangerous – road through Samaria. And on the way, by chance, he fell in with his uncle Cleopas and his son.’
‘Who’d only known me as a boy. They told me who they were, how ecstatic they were about what Simon Peter and John had told them about the risen Jesus.’
‘And again you stayed silent. Oh, Thomas.’
Mary was now crying bitterly. ‘I waited so long for him to come. Now I know he never will.’
James placed his arm about her shoulders. ‘That is not necessarily so, Mary.’
Noises were heard from outside, then below.
‘Ah, that clatter in the street could be our food arriving. Mary, would you…’
‘Yes, Father,’ Mary said, leaving the room.
‘What you’ve told us, Thomas, only raises further questions. You realise that?’
Thomas was amused. ‘Now what’s passing through that scheming mind of yours, James?’
‘That we should complete the picture, as we’re so nearly there.’
‘I don’t follow.’
‘I think you never reached Samaria.’
‘Hm. I knew it was risky. Just two miles beyond Emmaus I got waylaid. In fact very badly beaten. I made it back to the inn – fortunately no sign of Cleopas – and next day in darkness crept back to the city. I stayed with Joseph until… well… my face was presentable.’
‘By which time most of the Twelve had returned.’
‘I sought them out, intending to explain. I found them here in this very room…’
Mary returned with steaming dishes, which she placed on the table.
‘I was telling Thomas about when the Twelve returned.’
‘I remember,’ she said.
‘You were there?’ Thomas asked.
‘I watched them sit at the table. How they had when Jesus was with them.’