Lars Sveen - Children of God

“Why weren’t you with Nadab?” Jehoram asked him.

“Nadab?” said Reuben. “It’s not my damn job to look after him.”

“Nadab’s been caught,” I said.

“Caught?” said Reuben. “What do you mean caught?”

“I thought he was with you,” I said.

“He wanted to be on his own,” said Reuben. “Was I supposed to follow him around the whole damn city?”

I called over to Jehoram and told him to get dressed. “Follow me,” I said, leading them through the streets to a row of stables at the back of a worn-down house. There was a boy guarding the stables, so I gave him a coin and asked him to leave us alone.

“Just don’t disturb the animals,” he said. I nodded and told him not to worry about us.

“Nobody will look for us here,” I said to the others.

“We haven’t got time for this,” Jehoram said. “We’ve got to go and take him down now, straightaway.”

My hands were cold. I held them up to my mouth to warm them. Reuben asked what had happened. I told them to sit down, and in the dim light of a torch burning outside, I explained what had been done, and what we were going to do.

Over the following years, when Jehoram forgot himself and started talking about that day and that night, I would close my eyes, and it was still difficult to remember everything the way it had happened.

When Reuben lay dying, and Jehoram and I sat there with him, he carried on about Anna from Sychar. He’d promised to take care of her, and everything he’d done had been to save Anna. Jehoram and I took turns sitting there and listening to him, neither of us trying to understand what he was talking about. But then, after a while, Reuben wanted to talk about Nadab.

“I’ll meet Nadab now,” he said. “He died fighting for something he believed in, there’s honor in that. I’ve been proud of him ever since that day, and I’m going to tell him. He’s waiting for me; I’ve been waiting for him.”

Jehoram tried to get him to drink some more water, but Reuben didn’t want any. He just lay there, on the ground, with his hands by his sides. He lay there, talking and talking, about what Nadab did that time in Jerusalem and how it was right, about how Nadab truly was a child of God. Jehoram became impatient and excused himself while he went to find some more wood for the fire. I stayed sitting there with Reuben. He asked for Anna, and I told him that she wasn’t there.

“Maybe she’s waiting for me too,” said Reuben. “I’ll have several people to meet. I’ve got so many to meet. Nadab and Anna.”

I got up and could hear Jehoram walking about out in the night air.

“Jehoash,” said Reuben. His voice was so weak.

“Yes?” I said, still facing the sound of Jehoram.

“Jehoash,” said Reuben again. I turned to him and knelt down.

“What?” I asked.

“I shouldn’t have done it,” he said. “Should I?”

“No,” I said. “Maybe not.”

“I shouldn’t have done what the old man told me,” he said.

I had no idea what he was talking about.

“What was it he said? I’m blind, and yet I see many things, something like that. I can picture him now. He had pale, gray eyes, he talked about light and shadow, he touched me.”

I told him to hush now, to relax, but he wasn’t listening to me anymore.

“You’re going to bury me,” he went on. “You must bury me here. Don’t leave me lying here so the old man can find me, bury me. Don’t let him find me.”

I nodded and told him we would.

The next morning he was dead, and Jehoram and I dragged him over to a small cave that Jehoram had found. We had to break his bones to fit him in, and we covered the opening with rocks and with sticks. There was glaring sunlight, and a chafing wind.

“When it’s my turn, just leave me,” I said. Jehoram nodded. I didn’t know then that Jehoram would also die by my side, while I would be dragged away, alive and tied up. A new and final chapter would begin. I didn’t know then, I couldn’t see it.

Neither did we know what was coming as we sat there, in the stable, that evening in Jerusalem. The city lay in darkness, while Nadab was hanging there alone, nailed fast.

“They did it so quickly,” Jehoram said. “They just took him and nailed him up there sooner than you can count to three.”

“He was still alive when we left,” I said.

“I’ve never heard him like that,” Jehoram said. “He was screaming.”

“Do they know about us?” Reuben asked.

“We’ve got nothing to do with it,” I said. “He was talking about Jesus.”

“I told you,” said Reuben. “He’s not one of us.”

“Shut your mouth,” Jehoram said. “Don’t talk about him like that. Why are we sitting here talking anyway? He’s still alive.”

“I warned you,” said Reuben. “I didn’t like his talk.”

“He was still alive when we left,” Jehoram said.

“We can’t leave him hanging there like that,” I said. “I won’t let one of us be strung up like that. If it were you, Reuben, I’d take you down. If it were Jehoram, I’d do the same. Nadab’s one of us. If he’s going to die, he should die with us, not in front of those people who want us to serve them.”

Reuben fell silent. He glanced down at his hands; he turned them and stroked them across his beard.

“If they get hold of us, we’ll be strung up there with him,” he said. “He’s no more now. Nobody can stand being nailed up like that.”

“That may be so,” I said, “but Nadab’s one of ours, he’s tough.”

“What do you want us to do?” Reuben asked. “Take him down? Are you going to climb up there and bring him down?”

“Yes,” I said. “We’re taking him down, and we’ll leave into the night when it’s all over, toward Jaffa. We’re going to get Nadab, we’ll fix him up. If it doesn’t work, then we’ll bury him. None of us should hang like that.”

Reuben was about to say something, but I cut him off: “I know you’re surprised, Reuben. I don’t know how to say this, but Nadab’s given us something. Since he’s been one of us, it’s as if something new has opened up. I’ve been fighting against it, I’ve been holding on to what we are. But when I saw them taking him, when I saw them putting him up there …”

“It’s all right, Jehoash,” said Reuben. “I’m joining you. You would’ve done the same for me.”

“We took him in,” I said. “We stick together. What we do, he does. What he does, we do.”

“Yes,” said Reuben, “but they’re going to come looking for us.”

“They’ll go hunting for insurgents,” I said. “They’ll search the city, the mountains, they won’t find us.”

Reuben nodded. I saw that he was ready. If not for the sake of Nadab, then he was ready to do what we were made for.

The guards were positioned by the city walls. They stood facing away from us, staring into the darkness where Nadab was hanging. I could hear dogs and soft, hoarse cries. One of the guards sneered and yelled out into the night.

“Whose cries are those?” Jehoram said. “Is it Nadab?”

“The animals feed on the ones who stop moving,” said Reuben. “Were there any others hanging there?”

“The others were dead,” Jehoram said.

“How are we going to do this?” Reuben wondered.

I nodded at the guards.

“There are only two of them,” I said. “We’ll go through from the other side of the wall. They won’t see us. If they hear anything and come to see, we’ll kill them. Nobody will look for us, nobody knows who we are, and we’ll be on our way to Jaffa before daylight anyway.”

“They’re soldiers,” said Reuben.

“Good,” I said. “Maybe they’re not so soft.”