Christopher Moore - Lamb - The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal

He was there for days. Joshua wouldn’t even leave to eat, and I went out into the city to bring him back food. First the Pharisees, but later even some of the priests came to quiz Joshua, to try to throw him some question about some obscure Hebrew king or general. They made him recite the lineages from all the books of the Bible, yet he did not waver. Myself, I left him there to argue while I wandered through the holy city looking for Maggie, then, when I couldn’t find her, for girls in general. I slept at the camp of my parents, assuming all the time that Joshua was returning each night to his own family, but I was wrong. When the Passover feast was over and we were packing up to leave, Mary, Joshua’s mother, came to me in a panic.

“Biff. Have you seen Joshua?”

The poor woman was distraught. I wanted to comfort her so I held my arms out to give her a comforting embrace. “Poor Mary, calm down. Joshua is fine. Come, let me give you a comforting embrace.”

“Biff!” I thought she might slap me.

“He’s at the Temple. Jeez, a guy tries to be compassionate and what does he get?”

She had already taken off. I caught up to her as she was dragging Joshua out of the Temple by the arm. “You worried us half to death.”

“You should have known you would find me in my father’s house,” Joshua said.

“Don’t you pull that ‘my father’ stuff on me, Joshua bar Joseph. The commandment says honor thy father and thy mother. I’m not feeling honored right now, young man. You could have sent a message, you could have stopped by the camp.”

Joshua looked at me, his eyes pleading for me to help him out.

“I tried to comfort her, Josh, but she wouldn’t have it.”

Later I found the two of them on the road to Nazareth and Joshua motioned for me to walk with them.

“Mother thinks we may be able to find at least one of the Magi, and if we find that one, he may know where the others are.”

Mary nodded, “The one named Balthasar, the black one, he said he came from a village north of Antioch. He was the only one of the three that spoke any Hebrew.”

I didn’t feel confident. Although I’d never seen a map, “north of Antioch” sounded like a large, unspecific, and scary place. “Is there more?”

“Yes, the other two had come from the East by the Silk Road. Their names were Melchior and Gaspar.”

“So it’s off to Antioch,” Joshua said. He seemed completely satisfied with the information his mother had given him, as if all he needed were the three Magi’s names and he’d as much as found them.

I said, “You’re going to go to Antioch assuming that someone there will remember a man who may have lived north of there thirteen years ago?”

“A magician,” Mary said. “A rich, Ethiopian magician. How many can there be?”

“Well, there might not be any, did you think of that? He might have died. He might have moved to another city.”

“In that case, I will be in Antioch,” Joshua said. “From there I can travel the Silk Road until I find the other two.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “You’re not going alone.”

“Of course.”

“But Josh, you’re helpless out in the world. You only know Nazareth, where people are stupid and poor. No offense, Mary. You’ll be like—uh—like a lamb among wolves. You need me along to watch out for you.”

“And what do you know that I don’t? Your Latin is horrible, your Greek is barely passable, and your Hebrew is atrocious.”

“Yeah. If a stranger comes up to you on the road to Antioch and asks you how much money you are carrying, what do you tell him?”

“That will depend on how much I am carrying.”

“No it won’t. You haven’t enough for a crust of bread. You are a poor beggar.”

“But that’s not true.”

“Exactly.”

Mary put her arm around her son’s shoulders. “He has a point, Joshua.”

Joshua wrinkled his brow as if he had to think about it, but I could tell that he was relieved that I wanted to go along. “When do you want to leave?”

“When did Maggie say she was getting married?”

“In a month.”

“Before then. I don’t want to be here when it happens.”

“Me either,” Joshua said.

And so we spent the next few weeks preparing for our journey. My father thought I was crazy, but my mother seemed happy to have the extra space in the house and pleased that the family wouldn’t have to put up a bride price to marry me off right away.

“So you’ll be gone how long?” Mother asked.

“I don’t know. It’s not a terribly long journey to Antioch, but I don’t know how long we’ll be there. Then we’ll be traveling the Silk Road. I’m guessing that that’s a long journey. I’ve never seen any silk growing around here.”

“Well, take a wool tunic in case it gets cold.”

And that was all I heard from my mother. Not “Why are you going?” Not “Who are you looking for?” Just “Take a wool tunic.” Jeez. My father was more supportive.

“I can give you a little money to travel with, or we could buy you a donkey.”

“I think the money would be better. A donkey couldn’t carry both of us.”

“And who are these fellows you’re looking for?”

“Magicians, I think.”

“And you want to talk to magicians because…?”

“Because Josh wants to know how to be the Messiah.”

“Oh, right. And you believe that Joshua is the Messiah?”

“Yes, but more important than that, he’s my friend. I can’t let him go alone.”

“And what if he’s not the Messiah? What if you find these magicians and they tell you that Joshua is not what you think he is, that he’s just a normal boy?”

“Well, he’ll really need me to be there, then, won’t he?”

My father laughed. “Yes, I guess he will. You come back, Levi, and bring your friend the Messiah with you. Now we’ll have to set three empty places at the table on Passover. One for Elijah, one for my lost son, and one for his pal the Messiah.”

“Well, don’t seat Joshua next to Elijah. If those guys start talking religion we’ll never have any peace.”

It came down to only four days before Maggie’s wedding before Joshua and I accepted that one of us would have to tell her we were leaving. After nearly a whole day of arguing, it fell upon me to go to her. I saw Joshua face down fears in himself that would have broken other men, but taking bad news to Maggie was one he couldn’t overcome. I took the task on myself and tried to leave Joshua with his dignity.

“You wuss!”

“How can I tell her that it’s too painful to watch her marry that toad?”

“First, you’re insulting toads everywhere, and second, what makes you think it’s any easier for me?”

“You’re tougher than I am.”

“Oh, don’t try that. You can’t just roll over and expect me to not notice that I’m being manipulated. She’s going to cry. I hate it when she cries.”

“I know,” Josh said. “It hurts me too. Too much.” Then he put his hand on my head and I suddenly felt better, stronger.

“Don’t try your Son of God mumbo jumbo on me, you’re still a wuss.”

“If it be so, so be it. So it shall be written.”

Well, it is now, Josh. It’s written now. (It’s strange, the word “wuss” is the same in my ancient Aramaic tongue as it is in this language. Like the word waited for me these two thousand years so I could write it down here. Strange.)

Maggie was washing clothes in the square with a bunch of other women. I caught her attention by jumping on the shoulders of my friend Bartholomew, who was gleefully exposing himself for the viewing pleasure of the Nazarene wives. With a subtle toss of my head I signaled to Maggie to meet me behind a nearby stand of date palms.