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

“Go with God, Levi,” James said.

I turned. “James, it is written, ‘To the work you are entitled, but not the fruits thereof.’”

“I’ve never heard that. Where is that written?”

“In the Bhagavad Gita, James. It’s a long poem about going into battle, and this warrior’s god tells him not to worry about killing his kinsmen in battle, because they are already dead, they just don’t know it yet. I don’t know what made me think of it.”

My father hugged me until I thought he’d broken my ribs, then he handed me off to my mother, who did the same until she seemed to come to her senses, then she began to cuff me about the head and shoulders with her sandal, which she had whipped off with surprising speed and dexterity for a woman her age.

“Seventeen years you’re gone and you couldn’t write?”

“You don’t know how to read.”

“So you couldn’t send word, smart mouth?”

I fended off the blows by directing their energy away from me, as I had been taught at the monastery, and soon two small boys who I didn’t recognize were catching the brunt of the beating. Fearing lawsuits from small strangers, I caught my mother’s arms and hugged them to her sides as I looked at my father, nodded to the two little ones, and raised my eyebrows as if to say, Who are the squirts?

“Those are your brothers, Moses and Japeth,” my father said. “Moses is six and Japeth is five.”

The little guys grinned. Both were missing front teeth, probably sacrificed to the squirming harpy I was currently holding at bay. My father beamed as if to say, I can still build the aqueduct—lay a little pipe, if you know what I mean—when I need to.

I scowled as if to say, Look, I was barely able to hold on to my respect for you when I found out what you did to make the first three of us; these little fellows are only evidence that you’ve no memory for suffering.

“Mother, if I let you go will you calm down?” I looked over her shoulder at Japeth and Moses. “I used to tell people she was besought by a demon, do you guys do that?” I winked at them.

They giggled as if to say, Please, end our suffering, kill us, kill us now, or kill this bitch that plagues us like the torments of Job. Okay, maybe I was just imagining that’s what they were saying. Maybe they were just giggling.

I let my mother go and she backed off. “Japeth, Moses,” Mother said, “come meet Biff. You’ve heard your father and me talk about our oldest disappointment—well, this is him. Now run and get your other brothers, I’ll go fix something nice.”

My brothers Shem and Lucius brought their families and joined us for dinner and we all lay around the table as Mother served us something nice, I’m not sure what it was. (I know I’ve said that I was the oldest of three brothers, and obviously, with the squirts, it was five, but dammit, by the time I met Japeth and Moses I was too old to have the time to torment them, so they never really paid their dues as brothers. They were more like, oh, pets.) “Mother, I’ve brought you a gift from the East,” I said, running out to the camel to retrieve a package.

“What is it?”

“It’s a breeding mongoose,” I said, tapping on the cage. The little scamp tried to bite the pad off of my finger.

“But there’s only one.”

“Well, there were two, but one escaped, so now there’s one. They’ll attack a snake ten times their size.”

“It looks like a rat.”

I lowered my voice and whispered conspiratorially, “In India, the women train them to sit on their heads like hats. Very fashionable. Of course the fad hasn’t reached Galilee yet, but in Antioch, no self-respecting woman will go out of the house without wearing a mongoose.”

“Really,” said Mother, looking at the mongoose in a new light. She took the cage and stowed it gently away in the corner, as if it contained a delicate egg, rather than a vicious miniature of herself. “So,” said Mother, waving to her two daughters-in-law and the half-dozen grandchildren that loitered near the table, “your brothers married and gave me grandchildren.”

“I’m happy for them, Mother.”

Shem and Lucius hid their grins behind a crust of flatbread the same way they did when we were little and Mother was giving me hell.

“All the places you traveled, you never met a nice girl you could settle down with?”

“No, Mother.”

“You can marry a gentile, you know. It would break my heart, but why did the tribes almost wipe out the Benjamites if it wasn’t so a desperate boy could marry a gentile if he needs to? Not a Samaritan, but, you know, some other gentile. If you have to.”

“Thanks, Mother, I’ll keep that in mind.”

Mother pretended to find some lint or something on my collar, which she picked at while she said, “So your friend Joshua never married either? You heard about his little sister Miriam, didn’t you?” Here her voice went to a conspiratorial whisper. “Started wearing men’s clothes and ran off to the island of Lesbos.” Back to normal nudging tone. “That’s Greek, you know? You boys didn’t go to Greece on your travels, did you?”

“No, Mother, I really have to go.”

I tried to stand and she grabbed me. “It’s because your father has a Greek name, isn’t it? I told you, Alphaeus, change the name, but you said you were proud of it. Well, I hope you’re proud of it now. What’s next, Lucius here will start hanging Jews on crosses like the other Romans?”

“I’m not a Roman, Mother,” Lucius said wearily. “Lots of good Jews have Latin names.”

“Not that it matters, Mother, but how do you think they get more Greeks?”

To my mother’s credit, she stopped for a second to think. I used the lull to escape.

“Nice to see you guys.” I nodded to all of my relatives, old and new. “I’ll come by and visit before I go. I have to go check on Joshua.” And I was out the door.

I threw the door open at Joshua’s old house without even knocking, nearly coldcocking Joshua’s brother Judah in the process. “Josh, you’ve got to bring the kingdom soon or I’m going to have to kill my mother.”

“She still plagued by demons?” asked Judah, who looked exactly as he had when he was four, except for the beard and the receding hairline, but he was as wide-eyed and goofy of smile as he had ever been.

“No, I was just being hopeful when I used to say that.”

“Will you join us for supper?” said Mary. Thank God she had aged: gone a little thicker around the hips and waist, developed some lines at the corner of her eyes and mouth. Now she was just the second or third most beautiful creature on earth.

“Love to,” I said.

James must have been home with his wife and children, as I guessed were the other sisters and brothers, except for Miriam, and I’d already been apprised of her whereabouts. At the table it was only Mary, Joshua, Judah, his pretty wife, Ruth, and two little redheaded girls that looked like their mother.

I expressed my condolences for the family’s loss, and Joshua filled me in on the timing of events. About the time that I spotted Mary’s portrait on the temple wall in Nicobar, Joseph had taken ill with some disease of the water. He started peeing blood, and in a week he was bedridden. He lingered only a week longer before he died. He’d been buried for two months now. I looked at Joshua as Mary related this part of the story and he shook his head, meaning, too long in the grave, there’s nothing I can do. Mary had known nothing about a message calling us home.

“Even if you two had only been in Damascus you’d have been lucky to get here in time. He went so fast.” She was strong, had recovered somewhat from the loss, but Joshua appeared to still be in shock.