Lars Sveen - Children of God

“Where is he?” I ask.

“He’s gone,” says Ruth. “He burned up in the water. The light will come soon.”

“The cold light,” I say.

“No,” says Ruth. “More light, warm light.”

There’s no buzzing, but it’s not silent. There’s water, so much water. It’s the deep and the rulers of the deep. And then comes the light, it’s there ahead of us. Not cold light like my lover, not light like the hand of evil. Another light, a light that is great and warm and good, and it comes down over me like a soft, light carpet.

No voices, something else. Not my lover, not my beloved. Not even little Ruth. Something else, and it shows me the sea. That’s where I’m going. I’m free from the evil that bound me. There is a great light in the world, and it will give light and life where I want. Ruth, me, everybody who smells of the earth, the ones who are cold wind, everything will be lit by a great light. The ones who have been in the clutches of evil, who have been torn apart, smashed to pieces, broken. They’ll all be lit by a great light.

“Say it,” says Ruth. “Say your beloved’s name.”

I look into the light, and I can feel my beloved in my hand.

But I open my hand and let go of it all.

“Jacob,” I say. “Set him free, take away the evil, set him free.”

And the light lifts up, rushing over my stomach, my chest, shoulder, hand, then it vanishes.

My beloved’s gone, my son’s gone. But I’ve sent out a light. I’ve sent a light of goodness.

Ruth places her hand in mine. I put my hand around hers. The sea is there ahead of us, blacker, deeper. As if the darkness we came from were merely twilight. This is the night.

“I smell of earth,” says Ruth. “I’m still warm.”

“I’m Sarah,” I say.

“Sarah?” says Ruth.

“Yes?” I reply.

“Everything’s gone, hasn’t it,” says Ruth. “No light, nothing growing. Everything just dies and dies, even after everything’s dead.”

“Yes,” I say.

“I’ve spent my last night on earth,” says Ruth. “The light’s been sent, my sister will be saved. Now I’ll come to an end. I won’t be here any longer.”

“Yes,” I say. And we go forth. Down to the sea, where dark waves carry us away, foot by foot. I hold Ruth, Ruth holds me. I’m going now, my beloved. I’m leaving now, Jacob. You’ll be set free. One day we’ll be together, on the other side of the blackness.

My brother, Jehoram, held his hands out to me and asked if they weren’t a wonderful color, and I nodded and agreed. His fingers glistened, and he asked me all kinds of questions. Reuben was panting, stabbing and kicking the men we’d just killed. I turned to Nadab. He just stood there, watching. Jehoram, his arms red, his face red, fell silent.

“Nadab?” I said, but Nadab didn’t answer, still staring at the bodies on the ground.

“Nadab?” I said again, and this time Nadab looked at me. He blinked. In the failing daylight, his pale, white skin seemed to shine softly. His red hair and beard almost made him glow. Jehoram started to speak again, while sweat and the dead men’s blood ran down his forehead and cheeks. I asked him to be quiet.

“Nadab?” I said. “Why aren’t you joining in?”

“It’s not right,” he mumbled. “I said I didn’t want to do any more killing.”

“Right?” said Reuben, who’d also stopped and was standing still now. “Not right? What are you talking about?”

“I shouldn’t have done this. We shouldn’t have done this,” said Nadab. “We promised to go with them all the way to Jerusalem.”

“Nobody tells us what to do,” said Reuben. “I’m sick and tired of being a mercenary for the rich.” He spat and tried to dry himself off. He was so tall that he looked like some strange, giant animal that didn’t know how to clean itself.

“It’s like Reuben says,” I said. “We’re not in anybody’s service, we take what we can get. Have you seen the money they’ve got with them?”

I went over to the two slain bodies, lifted up their clothes, and showed them the purses that were now red with blood.

“I didn’t want to get involved in what they were planning to do in Jerusalem,” I continued. “They would’ve got themselves killed anyway, and maybe dragged us into it too.”

“I didn’t do this,” said Nadab. “It’s putting out the light inside me.”

Reuben took a step toward him, but I raised my hand to tell him to take it easy.

“Nadab,” I said, “what we do, you do. You’re us. There’s nothing you didn’t do. We do what we do, we are what we are. Now, shut up and give us a hand.”

I stopped to see if he would say something, but he said nothing.

“We’ve got to hide them,” I went on. “If the bodies are found, their people will come looking for us. If nobody finds them, they’ll wait before coming to look for us. Sooner or later, they’ll forget about us.”

Nadab stared at me and then nodded weakly. Reuben nodded too, went over to Nadab, smacked him on the head, and told him to help. They started to drag away one of the lacerated bodies. Jehoram grinned at me. I pointed at what was left and asked him to get to work.

I snapped a few twigs off a bush to rake the blood-stained ground. The remains of the dead were absorbed down and into the sand. This world consumes us all. Some time ago, I decided that we should try out another life. I sold our services to rich families who needed protection. I transformed us from thieves to mercenaries. It wasn’t right; I could feel it in my hands, in my stomach, in my chest. Even at night, when I slept, it came to me. I can’t change us. We are what we’ve always been, and we’ll remain like that until there’s no breath or thought or anything beating within us.

These two young men we’d killed had paid us to offer them safe passage to Jerusalem. They’d been sent by a group that was fighting an armed struggle against the authorities. They had a plan to go up to the Temple and kill priests. I’d heard about others like them, hiding in the mountains and moving from village to village so as not to be captured. They said they were fighting for the ideals of our people, but who isn’t? Nadab had spoken of Jesus and his followers, and how they were something different. They were peaceful, according to Nadab, and they weren’t fighting a battle against the Roman forces or the authorities. They were leading a struggle for the Kingdom of God and for justice, and whenever Nadab said this, I always found myself wondering whether or not Nadab was still one of us. Reuben was annoyed and had asked me several times what we’d become, and how much longer he’d have to listen to that prattle. Still, there was something about Nadab, something that could make us believe in what we no longer dared to believe. Maybe that was why I’d transformed us into mercenaries, until I finally realized what we were.

Both Reuben and I had seen that the two men we were accompanying to Jerusalem were hiding money in small leather pouches beneath their tunics. I told myself that I didn’t want to be dragged into their plans, but neither that nor the money was the reason why we killed them. When all’s said and done, I agreed with Reuben. There was a time for everything, and the time when we served other people had come to an end. Nobody would buy or hire us anymore.

Maybe Nadab thought we would end up doing something else. I’d taken him in, made him into one of us. I liked to see him and Jehoram together; he was good to my little brother. And as I’ve already explained, there was something about Nadab, as if a fire that had been extinguished in us was still burning in him.