Henning Koch - The Maggot People

“Who?” asked Michael.

“Oh, Romans, concerned with their position, as always; heavy laden with badges and laurels,” said Jesus. “Here they will only find work, no feather beds.”

“Do we know them?”

“Yes. One of them was once a friend of yours. He dug holes in the ground and made a resting place for the dead. I once slept there myself.”

“Giacomo?”

“The same.”

“What do they want?”

“They are Pharisees. They believe in gods of their own making, make rules for others to follow, harness the power and keep it for themselves.”

Jesus placed a raw hen’s egg in the fire and watched it with a half-smile. When it exploded, scattering egg white in all directions, he looked up and smiled. “The rooster sits on the egg, and a chick emerges. Without her soft breast, fire consumes all things and makes them worthless.”

Ariel touched her stomach and Michael put his hand there, too.

Jesus continued. “Soon I must leave. But this is of little consequence to you or anyone else. You will remember me no less than our other friends who have lived with us here, in our home.”

They were shocked by his words. Why this sudden departure, and what would they do without him, their Master?

“My work was not so much with you,” said Jesus. “Not with Man. I will judge neither Man nor Woman. Let the truth speak for itself… if it has tongue to speak.” His craggy face stared into the fire, weary. “I came to stop the juggernaut, and now I have. People have stopped moving and the fumes and poisons of their lives and minds are no longer killing their gardens. Now they must work to keep themselves alive.”

“What about the sick and dying? Without all the medicines and hospitals, how will they be helped?”

“Have no fear, they will be helped.”

After that, he would say nothing else. The night passed in a heavy, semi-conscious silence bursting with unanswered questions.

In the morning there were three distant figures coming up the hill: Giacomo, Paolo, and Günter. Jesus was cutting wood. He didn’t even look up, merely glanced down the valley and wiped his brow.

Michael took Ariel’s hand and muttered to her: “Here they come, I suppose they were always going to catch up with us.”

She kissed him. “We’ll keep away from them and mind our own business. We’ve come too far now for them; they can’t touch us.”

Jesus straightened up and called out to them: “The web is already upon you, if you look.” He turned to Ariel and added succinctly: “There is no way of separating yourself from other men’s business when they make it their business to include you in theirs. Two of these fellows come with good intentions but the third is a darkling thrush. He flatters himself with his struggle; he thinks himself a man of words and learning and he pins honors to his own chest. But he fights for nothing. He fights for the hollowed air where his body stands. He is a mere skin held up by his gaseous existence.”

Ariel looked up. “Will you heal him?”

“If he asks to be healed… he will be healed.”

Giacomo and Paolo were shown to a vacant hut, where they put their packs down at the foot of the bunks and rested their aching limbs. Only Günter was unaffected by the long hike through the mountains. He sat in the doorway, looking with interest at the bustling settlement all about them: the carts passing by, the donkeys and goats, the digging of drainage ditches and laying of pipes, groups of elderly women on wooden chairs in the thoroughfares carding wool or embroidering cloth. Most of the men and some of the women were down in the valley on the fields, while gangs of carpenters put up more huts farther down the hill.

Steady streams of people were arriving all the time, carrying their belongings on their backs. Before long, this hilltop would be a town and, within a few years, a walled city.

Giacomo lay on his back, reading out aloud from Dr. Brun-ton’s The Spiritual Crisis of Man . “Listen to this,” he said: “‘The human entity’s inordinate clinging to its combative animality and selfish personality is being challenged and attacked by world forces and turned into a cause of its own psychic suffering…’ What are these supposed world forces, then?” He yawned.

Günter turned round in the doorway. “The Devil, you dumb shit. And by this I mean the absence of anything worthwhile, which quickly grows a nose, eyes, and ears. The Devil is just a name we give it.”

“Günter, do me a favor,” said Giacomo. “Make yourself scarce. Go lay a cable or something.”

“Some people shouldn’t read books. It goes to their heads.”

The three friends lay down and rested, each of them seething in his own, private universe.

Giacomo, because he considered his thoughts to be undervalued by the others.

Paolo, because his longing for prayer was always disrupted by his clannish need of friendship.

And Günter, because he viewed most humans as puffed-up idiots concerned with nothing more than the outward forms of things and plagued by hypocrisy.

A fine mist of unspoken conflict settled over them.

Finally Giacomo spoke: “In a while we’ll go and introduce ourselves to… well, you know who I mean.”

“He means Jesus, but he can’t say it,” said Günter.

Sleep was most welcome. Outside, the birds seemed to be twittering, full of well-being, nothing much concerning them beyond the occasional pecking at seeds or sitting on branches puffing their feathers.

After a few hours of pleasant repose, the two men and the dog (rolled up on the floor) began to stir and stretch their aching limbs.

“Two things occur to me,” said Giacomo, the old spark in his eye returning. “First, I want to eat. Then I’ll go and have a look at…”—he glared at Günter—“…Jesus.”

“In that order, you miserable old glutton,” said Paolo, with guilty delight. “You forget we haven’t any food.”

“Ah, how wrong he is. I bought a piece of smoked meat in the valley,” said Giacomo proudly, “and a skin of wine.” He rummaged in his pack and placed his treasures on a flat stone, sniffing the meat with deep relish. “Mutton is undervalued, particularly when smoked.”

“What about oil and bread?” said Paolo.

“Oil, yes, but no bread, only a small bag of flour. Have no fear, Paolo. Before nightfall you shall have bread and meat and enough wine to stir your mind into repose.”

“To stir my mind into repose? What a very odd thing to say, my old friend. Repose comes very easily to me,” said Paolo, patting Giacomo’s shoulder. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Oh, I’m fine. A little nervous at the prospect of meeting our Redeemer, I’ll confess. The life of a priest is all preparation, but we don’t expect to come face to face with Him before our time is due.”

His ruminations were disturbed by Günter shaking his head and flapping his fleshy lips. “Bread is for pot-bellied men, in fact men very much like you. Give me meat to make my muscles hard. And water to settle my mind. Let’s get on with it.”

They made a campfire. As dusk set in, they squatted on the ground and stared into the dancing flames. Giacomo baked on a flatiron he’d brought expressly for that purpose, lugging it over the sharp peaks of the Pyrenees, all for his faithful love of wheat.

After they’d luxuriated another hour, digesting, they set up the hill to find Jesus.

The huts had proliferated in higgledy-piggledy fashion. There was no system to it, no street names. Everywhere sat tired laborers with their families, eating or sleeping in their doorways by glowing embers or clay ovens.

At the top of the hill they found the camper bus, beside what they assumed to be a chapel. Yet it had no belfry, no crucifixes, no stained-glass windows, and was no more than a simple wattle-and-daub shelter with a thatched roof. A rectangle of hard, tanned calf leather served for a door. Hesitantly they pushed it aside and called out before entering.