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

“Behind those trees?” Maggie shouted.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“You bringing the idiot?”

“Nope.”

“Okay,” she said, and she handed her washing to one of her younger sisters and scampered to the trees.

I was surprised to see her smiling so close to the time of her wedding. She hugged me and I could feel the heat rise in my face, either from shame or love, like there was a difference.

“Well, you’re in a good mood,” I said.

“Why not? I’m using them all up before the wedding. Speaking of which, what are you two bringing me for a present? It had better be good if it’s going to make up for who I have to marry.”

She was joyful and there was music and laughter in her voice, pure Maggie, but I had to turn away.

“Hey, I was only joking,” she said. “You guys don’t need to bring me anything.”

“We’re leaving, Maggie. We won’t be there.”

She grabbed my shoulder and forced me to face her. “You’re leaving? You and Joshua? You’re going away?”

“Yes, before your wedding. We’re going to Antioch, and from there far into the East along the Silk Road.”

She said nothing. Tears welled up in her eyes and I could feel them rising in mine as well. This time she turned away.

“We should have told you before, I know, but really we only decided at Passover. Joshua is going to find the Magi who came to his birth, and I’m going with him because I have to.”

She wheeled on me. “You have to? You have to? You don’t have to. You can stay and be my friend and come to my wedding and sneak down to talk to me here or in the vineyard and we can laugh and tease and no matter how horrible it is being married to Jakan, I’ll have that. I’ll at least have that!”

I felt as if I’d be sick to my stomach any second. I wanted to tell her that I’d stay, that I’d wait, that if there was the slightest chance that her life wasn’t going to be a desert in the arms of her creep husband that I could hold hope. I wanted to do whatever I could to take away even a little bit of her pain, even up to letting Joshua go by himself, but in thinking that, I realized that Joshua must have been feeling the same thing, so all I said was “I’m sorry.”

“And what about Joshua, wasn’t he even going to say good-bye?”

“He wanted to, but he couldn’t. Neither of us can, I mean, we didn’t want to have to watch you marry Jakan.”

“Cowards. You two deserve each other. You can hide behind each other like Greek boys. Just go. Get away from me.”

I tried to think of something to say, but my mind was a soup of confusion so I hung my head and walked away. I was almost out of the square when Maggie caught up to me. I heard her footsteps and turned.

“Tell him to meet me behind the synagogue, Biff. The night before my wedding, an hour after sunset.”

“I’m not sure, Maggie, he—”

“Tell him,” she said. She ran back to the well without looking back.

So I told Joshua, and on the night before Maggie’s wedding, the night before we were to leave on our journey, Joshua packed some bread and cheese and a skin of wine and told me to meet him by the date palms in the square where we would share supper together.

“You have to go,” Joshua said.

“I’m going. In the morning, when you do. What, you think I’d back out now?”

“No, tonight. You have to go to Maggie. I can’t go.”

“What? I mean, why?” Sure I’d been heartbroken when Maggie had asked to see Joshua and not me, but I’d come to terms with it. Well, as well as one ever comes to terms with an ongoing heartbreak.

“You have to take my place, Biff. There’s almost no moon tonight, and we are about the same size. Just don’t say much and she’ll think it’s me. Maybe not as smart as normal, but she can put that down to worry over the upcoming journey.”

“I’d love to see Maggie, but she wants to see you, why can’t you go?”

“You really don’t know?”

“Not really.”

“Then just take my word for it. You’ll see. Will you do this for me, Biff? Will you take my place, pretend to be me?”

“That would be lying. You never lie.”

“Now you’re getting righteous on me? I won’t be lying. You will be.”

“Oh. In that case, I’ll go.”

But there wasn’t even time to deceive. It was so dark that night that I had to make my way slowly through the village by starlight alone, and as I rounded the corner to the back of our small synagogue I was hit with a wave of sandalwood and lemon and girl sweat, of warm skin, a wet mouth over mine, arms around my back and legs around my waist. I fell backward on the ground and there was in my head a bright light, and the rest of the world existed in the senses of touch and smell and God. There, on the ground behind the synagogue, Maggie and I indulged desires we had carried for years, mine for her, and hers for Joshua. That neither of us knew what we were doing made no difference. It was pure and it happened and it was marvelous. And when we finished we lay there holding each other, half dressed, breathless, and sweating, and Maggie said, “I love you, Joshua.”

“I love you, Maggie,” I said. And ever so slightly she loosened her embrace.

“I couldn’t marry Jakan without—I couldn’t let you go without—without letting you know.”

“He knows, Maggie.”

Then she really pulled away.

“Biff?”

“Uh-oh.” I thought she might scream, that she might leap up and run away, that she might do any one of a hundred things to take me from heaven to hell, but after only a second she nuzzled close to me again.

“Thank you for being here,” she said.

We left at dawn, and our fathers walked with us as far as the gates of Sepphoris. When we parted at the gates my father gave me a hammer and chisel to carry with me in my satchel. “With that you can make enough for a meal anywhere you go,” my father said. Joseph gave Joshua a wooden bowl. “Out of that you can eat the meal that Biff earns.” He grinned at me.

By the gates of Sepphoris I kissed my father for the last time. By the gates of Sepphoris we left our fathers behind and went out into the world to find three wise men.

“Come back, Joshua, and make us free,” Joseph shouted to our backs.

“Go with God,” my own father said.

“I am, I am,” I shouted. “He’s right here.”

Joshua said nothing until the sun was high in the sky and we stopped to share a drink of water. “Well?” Joshua said. “Did she know it was you?”

“Yes. Not at first, but before we parted. She knew.”

“Was she angry at me?”

“No.”

“Was she angry at you?”

I smiled. “No.”

“You dog!” he said.

“You really should ask that angel what he meant about you not knowing a woman, Joshua. It’s really important.”

“You know now why I couldn’t go.”

“Yes. Thanks.”

“I’ll miss her,” Joshua said.

“You have no idea,” I said.

“Every detail. I want to know every detail.”

“But you aren’t supposed to know.”

“That’s not what the angel meant. Tell me.”

“Not now. Not while I can still smell her on my arms.”

Joshua kicked at the dirt. “Am I angry with you, or happy for you, or jealous of you? I don’t know? Tell me!”

“Josh, right now, for the first time I can remember, I’m happier being your friend than I would be being you. Can I have that?”

Now, thinking about that night with Maggie behind the synagogue, where we stayed together until it was nearly dawn, where we made love again and again and fell asleep naked on top of our clothes—now, when I think of that, I want to run away from here, this room, this angel and his task, find a lake, dive down, and hide from the eye of God in the dark muck on the bottom.