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

Maggie stood and pulled me to my feet. “Look, I’m going to a wedding in Cana next month with my sister Martha, the week after Tabernacles. Jakan can’t go, he’s got some meeting of the Sanhedrin or something. Come to Cana. Bring Joshua.”

“I’ll try.”

She ran to the closest wall and held her hand in a stirrup. “Over.”

“But, Maggie…”

“Don’t be a wuss. Step, hands—step, shoulders—and over. Be careful of the pottery on top.”

And I ran—did exactly as she’d said: one foot in the stirrup, one on her shoulder, and over the wall before Jakan could get in the gate.

“Got one!” said one of the old blind guys as I tumbled down on top of them.

“Hold her still while I stick it in.”

I was sitting on a boulder, waiting for Joshua when he came out of the desert. I held out my arms to hug him and he fell forward, letting me catch him. I lowered him to the rock where I had been sitting. He had been smart enough to coat all the exposed parts of his skin with mud, probably mixed from his own urine, to protect it from burning, but in a few spots on his forehead and hands the mud had crumbled away and the skin was gone, burned to raw flesh. His arms were as thin as a small girl’s, they swam in the wide sleeves of his tunic.

“You okay?”

He nodded. I handed him a water skin I had been keeping cool in the shade. He drank in little sips, pacing himself.

“Locust?” I said, holding up one of the crispy torments between my thumb and forefinger.

At the sight of it I thought Joshua would vomit the water he had just drunk. “Just kidding,” I said. I whipped open the mouth of my satchel, revealing dates, fresh figs, olives, cheese, a half-dozen flat loaves of bread, and a full wineskin. I’d sent the new guy into Jericho the day before to bring back the food.

Josh looked at the food spilling out of the satchel and grinned, then covered his mouth with his hand. “Ow. Ouch. Ow.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Lips…chapped.”

“Myrrh,” I said, pulling a small jar of the ointment from the satchel and handing it to him.

An hour later the Son of God was refreshed and rejuvenated, and we sat sharing the last of the wine, the first that Joshua had had since we’d come home from India over a year ago.

“So, what did you see in the desert?”

“The Devil.”

“The Devil?”

“Yep. He tempted me. Power, wealth, sex, that sort of thing. I turned him down.”

“What did he look like?”

“He was tall.”

“Tall? The prince of darkness, the serpent of temptation, the source of all corruption and evil, and all you can say about him is he was tall?”

“Pretty tall.”

“Oh, good, I’ll be on the lookout then.”

Joshua said, pointing at the new guy. “He’s tall, too.” I realized then that the Messiah might be a little tipsy.

“Not the Devil, Josh.”

“Well, who is he then?”

“I’m Philip,” said the new guy. “I’m going with you to Cana tomorrow.”

Joshua wheeled around to me and almost fell off his rock. “We’re going to Cana tomorrow?”

“Yes, Maggie’s there, Josh. She’s dying.”

Philip, who was called the new guy, asked that we go to Cana by way of Bethany, as he had a friend there that he wanted to recruit to follow along with us. “I tried to get him to join with John the Baptist,” Philip said, “but he wouldn’t stand for the eating-locusts, living-in-pits thing. Anyway, he’s from Cana, I’m sure he’d love to have a visit home.”

As we came into the square of Bethany, Philip called out to a blond kid who was sitting under a fig tree. He was the same yellow-haired kid that Joshua and I had seen when we first passed through Bethany over a year ago.

“Hey, Nathaniel,” Philip called. “Come join me and my friends on the way to Cana. They’re from Nazareth. Joshua here might be the Messiah.”

“Might be?” I said.

Nathaniel walked out into the street to look at us, shading his eyes against the sun. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen. He barely had the fuzz of a beard on his chin. “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” he said.

“Joshua, Biff, Bartholomew,” Philip said, “this is my friend Nathaniel.”

“I know you,” Joshua said. “I saw you when we last passed through here.”

Then, inexplicably, Nathaniel fell to his knees in front of Joshua’s camel and said, “You are truly the Messiah and the Son of God.”

Joshua looked at me, then at Philip, then at the kid, prostrating himself on camel’s feet. “Because I’ve seen you before you believe that I’m the Messiah, even though a minute ago nothing good could come out of Nazareth?”

“Sure, why not?” said Nathaniel.

And Josh looked at me again, as if I could explain it. Meanwhile Bartholomew, who was on foot along with his pack of doggie followers (whom he had disturbingly begun to refer to as his “disciples”), went over to Nathaniel and helped the boy to his feet. “Stand up, if you’re coming with us.”

Nathaniel prostrated himself before Bartholomew now. “You are truly the Messiah and the Son of God.”

“No, I’m not,” Bart said, lifting the kid to his feet. “He is.” Bart pointed to Joshua. Nathaniel looked to me, for some reason, for confirmation.

“You are truly a babe in the woods,” I said to Nathaniel. “You don’t gamble, do you?”

“Biff!” Joshua said. He shook his head and I shrugged. To Nathaniel he said, “You’re welcome to join us. We share the camels, our food, and what little money we have.” Here Joshua nodded toward Philip, who had been nominated to carry the communal purse because he was good at math.

“Thanks,” said Nathaniel, and he fell in behind us.

And thus we became five.

“Josh,” I said in a harsh whisper, “that kid is as dumb as a stick.”

“He’s not dumb, Biff, he just has a talent for belief.”

“Fine,” I said, turning to Philip. “Don’t let the kid anywhere near the money.”

As we headed out of the square toward the Mount of Olives, Abel and Crustus, the two old blind guys who’d helped me over Maggie’s wall, called out from the gutter. (I’d learned their names after correcting their little gender mistake.)

“Oh son of David, have mercy on us!”

Joshua pulled up on the reins of his camel. “What makes you call me that?”

“You are Joshua of Nazareth, the young preacher who was studying under John?”

“Yes, I am Joshua.”

“We heard the Lord say that you were his son with whom he was well pleased.”

“You heard that?”

“Yes. About five or six weeks ago. Right out of the sky.”

“Dammit, did everyone hear but me?”

“Have mercy on us, Joshua,” said one blind guy.

“Yeah, mercy,” said the other.

Then Joshua climbed down from his camel, laid his hands upon the old men’s eyes, and said, “You have faith in the Lord, and you have heard, as evidently everyone in Judea has, that I am his son with whom he is well pleased.” Then he pulled his hands from their faces and the old men looked around.

“Tell me what you see,” Joshua said.

The old guys sort of looked around, saying nothing.

“So, tell me what you see.”

The blind men looked at each other.

“Something wrong?” Joshua asked. “You can see, can’t you?”

“Well, yeah,” said Abel, “but I thought there’d be more color.”

“Yeah,” said Crustus, “it’s kind of dull.”

I stepped up. “You’re on the edge of the Judean desert, one of the most lifeless, desolate, hostile places on earth, what did you expect?”

“I don’t know.” Crustus shrugged. “More.”