Naomi Alderman - The Liars' Gospel

Six of the priests died in the riots and Caiaphas speaks with their families. He doesn’t have to do it. Natan the Levite tells him that he can arrange it himself, but still Caiaphas has those conversations. When they realize, after two days, that Elikan, a young priest of eighteen, is the one whose hacked-up body some of the Temple men dragged from the plaza because it was dressed in priestly robes, Caiaphas himself walks down the hill to visit Elikan’s older brother and tell him.

It is a sorry job. When they see him coming across the orchard, the brother’s wife starts to wail in a thin, reedy tone. Nonetheless, the brother, a stern man in his forties, does not believe it until Caiaphas has said the words.

The brother holds his breath, when Caiaphas says, “I have come with bad news for you,” and pauses, and says, “You will have heard that there was fighting in the square in front of the Prefect’s house. Some priests were caught up in it, we do not know how,” and the brother is still holding his breath when Caiaphas says, “Elikan is dead. We knew him by the scar on his leg from the dog bite when he was a boy.”

And the brother lets his breath out in a single violent puff, as if someone has punched him, and says, “I told him not to go near that dog, but he swore he could tame it.”

Caiaphas stays with them from the ninth hour of the morning until the third hour of the afternoon, and when he goes they beg him to take a little food with him for the walk and a skin of water, but he refuses.

“It was not your fault,” says the brother’s wife, who seems, when she has finished weeping, quite reasonable and kind. “No one could keep Elikan from excitement, not even the discipline of the priests.”

But as he walks back up the hill towards the gleaming white marble Temple he thinks: it was my fault, who else’s fault could it be?

He does not lie with his wife at all for several weeks. And this, suddenly, is not abnormal or to be remarked on. Some people are drawn together at such times, driven to press their bodies against one another to remind themselves that their blood still courses and their loins still flame. But many find they do not have enough of themselves to spare, for a while. That the piling up of corpses has turned them inward, and no one can say that one response is natural and right and the other is not.

But nonetheless, the other matter does not leave his mind. They cannot send Darfon away for a time now, there is too much turmoil in the streets and in the land of Israel. He has Natan the Levite give the man constant duties, forbid him ever to leave the Temple enclosure.

And one afternoon Hodia’s daughter comes to see him. She who, if some terrible illness or accident were to kill his wife, would become his wife. She who is therefore, in some sense, already his.

She looks shaken, as all the people in Jerusalem look shaken now. He finds these days that when he passes a man in the marketplace he has only to hear a snippet of conversation—“Liata has not seen her son since…,” “They say he brought them in from Egypt so that…,” “I heard that Bar-Avo’s men plan to…”—to know exactly what subject they are talking about. There is only one topic on the lips of Jerusalem. Only one thought, refracted through thousands of minds and hearts. There is a look on the faces of the people, a look of quiet uncomprehending shock, like the face of a man who has lost his father. Such a look is on the face of Hodia’s daughter.

She says, and her voice is very calm and measured and low, “Tell me how this happened.”

He shrugs and he says, “All Jerusalem knows as much as I know.”

She shakes her head, her gentle curls stirring, the scent of her perfumes rising.

“There are a hundred different rumors. I’ve heard that the priests let Pilate take the money because he bribed them with the Temple gold. And I’ve heard that Rome sanctioned it. And I’ve heard that it wasn’t really about the money at all but revenge for an assassination plot. Which of those things are true?”

It is unusual for a woman to ask a question like this. Of a man who is not her husband, of someone she scarcely knows. But they stand in an unusual relationship to one another. He supposes she has as much right to know what kind of husband he might be as he has to ask himself and others what kind of wife she would make. And times like this change things. People meet each other’s eyes differently in the streets. Strangers swap remarks or theories about the terrible events. Something has broken down in Jerusalem. And she is right in thinking that he might know more than the gossips on the street.

“No,” he says, “it was nothing so complex. Pilate demanded his money and we gave it to him. And word got out”—he leaves a hole here, a lacuna unfilled, hoping she will not notice it—“and we thought it would pass with a little disturbance.” She is looking at him with such shining eyes of trust. “But Pilate is not a good man,” he says.

“He is a Roman.”

“There are better Romans and worse,” he says, “don’t listen to anyone who tries to tell you otherwise. There have been prefects we’ve been able to come to an arrangement with, who’ve tried to learn how things are here, to bend with us as we bend to them. Pilate is not like that.”

She nods. “He put Caesar’s head on the coins. My brothers said that was an offense against God.”

He runs a hand across his hair. She moves fractionally closer to him. He notices it. They are sitting in chairs next to each other. The door is slightly open, though. She moves her chair closer to his.

“People are too swift to find offense against God,” he says, “and too slow to recognize the truth of our situation. Look.”

He stands up and walks to the window. She follows and stands close to him. A little closer than he had expected.

He points out of the window, past the Temple courtyards. She leans in close to see where his finger is pointing. It is the red-roofed Roman building facing towards the Temple, its eyes always open, its lookout always manned.

“The garrison,” she says. “I know. I see it every day.”

“But do you know what it means?” he says.

“It means that soldiers walk among us. That strangers tread our sacred streets.”

“It means,” he says, and his hand is touching her arm, because he suddenly wants to make her really understand what he is saying, “it means that none of us is free. Each of us is shackled, I as much as you. If we destroyed the garrison they would send a legion, and if we destroyed them they would send four, and if we fight it can only end with the sacking of Jerusalem. Rome couldn’t ever lose that fight, you know, never.” He finds his wheedling politician’s smile creeping across his mouth and he stops it, pursing his lips, making his face stop lying for him. “We are trapped. All of us. No matter how high or how low, we must make accommodation with what they demand of us. I am as trapped as you.”

Her fingers find the back of his hand. She is very warm, and he realizes how cold he is.

“Is there nothing but duty?” she says. “Nothing at all but that?”

He glances behind him. The door of the room is closed now. When did that happen? He does not take his hand away.

He shakes his head. “Not for me. Not if we are to keep Rome from our door.”

“Nothing at all?” she asks again, and her voice is very low, and her face very sad and serious as she looks up at him from behind her lashes.

Is it possible she is a virgin? With the way she looks at him and the way she is dressed? It is possible, he knows it is. Some girls bloom like this at even twelve or thirteen: knowing, without understanding what it is they know. Watching for an effect.