Richard Beard: Lazarus Is Dead

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From the Bethany cemetery to Jerusalem, Lazarus pulls two lambs behind him on a length of red rope. Small brown hooves skitter on the path as Lazarus lengthens his stride down the slope of the first valley. Within minutes, his clothes are drenched in sweat. He climbs hard up the next hill, hands pushing down on his thighs.

Unusually, Absalom easily keeps up with Lazarus and the trotting lambs.

‘They believe it happened,’ he says. ‘They’re calling it a miracle.’

‘Must make it almost worthwhile getting married.’

Lazarus would prefer to conserve his energy, but this is a conversation that Absalom is determined to have.

‘They swear on their mothers’ lives. The water turned into wine.’

‘They were drunk. It was a wedding. I know what they’re like in the Galilee. The water was poured into old jars, and peasants drink straight from the jar. It was dark and late. They smelled the old wine on the rims and tasted what they wanted to taste.’

At the crest of the hill, Lazarus has to stop and rest. Today, for some reason, he is struggling to walk and talk at the same time. He blows hard as he catches his breath, his hands braced on his knees.

‘Anything wrong?’

‘I’m fine.’

The lambs jump past him and he pulls them back, then lifts his head.

On the far side of the second valley is the shining city. From a distance, from above, red in the midday sunlight, the walls of Jerusalem never fail to impress him.

‘I thought Jesus was your friend,’ Absalom says.

‘He is my friend.’

‘Maybe this isn’t a good time.’ Absalom walks on ahead. ‘You have a lot on your mind.’

Lazarus straightens up, wipes the sweat from his eyes. Nothing wrong with him that a brisk walk in the fresh air won’t cure. The story about Jesus at the wedding has upset him more than it should, because they aren’t in competition, not any more. Lazarus had forged ahead years ago. He was the one succeeding in Jerusalem, the capital city his second home.

Inside the walls the streets and alleys of the city are alive with people, animals, noise.

Lazarus is easily recognised by his cheekbones, the open curve of his lips, his jaw. There is a shine on the shaven skin of his face, and he stands out from the crowd like a foreigner. A boy tugs at his clothes.

‘Can Jesus make me a faster runner?’

Lazarus growls and the boy runs away, laughing. Lazarus licks sweat from his upper lip and snorts at a shouted joke he doesn’t properly hear. Ishmael the baker stands outside his shop. He steeples his hands in front of his face, makes a little bow.

‘Lazarus,’ he says. ‘You’re looking well.’

Along the narrow streets, sunlight spills off the overhead canopies and breaks on the paving stones into spikes. Lazarus carries his lambs one under each arm, protecting them from the shouting, begging, the hooves of beasts and the stench of daily sacrifice. Down the smoke-filled alleys barefooted boys run errands. Servant girls carry baskets of bread and a military patrol goes by, dark scarlet and tarnished metal, high-laced sandals slapping the warm worn pave-stones.

In doorways and on corners sit the poor and crippled, but bad luck can happen to anyone. Lazarus is thinking ahead to his meeting with Isaiah, who is famously devout but whose daughter, alas, is one among the unfortunates. However high Isaiah rises in the council of priests, his daughter Saloma is there in his house as a penance, a reminder of the good left undone.

‘Come on,’ Lazarus says to Absalom. ‘Let’s not keep him waiting.’

The Lazarus family and the Jesus family had been Bethlehem neighbours, the fathers close friends, two young Davidians on the work gangs of the second Temple. Joseph would splice the wooden joists, Eliakim cut the stones for the walls. The stones were rougher work, but then Eliakim was the stronger of the two.

Eliakim had named his second daughter Mary, after the serenity he admired in the wife of his friend. His own wife, Sarah, was a worrier. She suffered at the birth of each of their children, but for her fourth, after Martha, Mary and Lazarus, the conditions had been impossible. She used up the little strength she had on the exhausting journey into Egypt.

Sarah died but the baby lived. It was a boy. Eliakim remembered the flight across the desert and chose not to name him Joseph.

His second son and fourth child he named Amos, and as soon as Amos could walk he tagged along with Lazarus and Jesus. When they ran from the local Egyptian children, Amos ran too. The women forgave the older boys much for that — for their softness of heart. They allowed Amos to feel he belonged.

They did the same when Herod died and the families moved back across the desert to Nazareth. The Galilee region was safer than Bethlehem, but unlike Joseph, Eliakim never warmed to life in the provincial north. The site work in the nearby town of Sephoris was less rewarding than god’s masonry at the Temple in Jerusalem. He was bringing up four children on his own, and constantly had to ask Joseph and Mary for help.

Every evening Eliakim would walk home from a day’s heavy stonework and idealise his dead wife, who’d lived the last weeks of her pregnancy on a jolting cart in the baking open desert. He’d drink wine, and on bad days mutter and grumble about Joseph.

‘Should have kept his mouth shut.’

He and his wife and children could have stayed behind in Bethlehem. The soldiers would have found Lazarus, he knew that, and Herod’s soldiers spared no one. Lazarus would now be dead, but children die all the time.

His wife Sarah would have lived. Within two months the new baby Amos would have gone some way to replacing their poor lost Lazarus. They could have had more children, many more. Lazarus was replaceable but his wife was not. Lazarus wasn’t the one who should have been saved.

The Sanhedrin, the ruling council of Jerusalem priests, insists on its place in any story of the life of Lazarus. Again, the Gospel of John provides valuable information. After his resurrection, ‘ the chief priests made plans to kill Lazarus ’ (John 12: 10).

That decision is a year in the future. In the meantime his job and his geographical closeness to Jerusalem suggest that Lazarus already has the Sanhedrin’s attention. Every year he sells the Temple as many sheep as he can, and Isaiah is the Temple priest charged with regulating the sale of beasts in the open-plan Court of the Gentiles.

Up close, the marble cladding of the Temple is cracked, and in many places stained with soot from ceremonial torches. Doves crash against the sides of tight wicker cages. Lambs bleat in confusion, while behind their tables the currency changers sit with blank faces as they perform intricate sums in their heads.

Lazarus acknowledges dealers and junior priests as he makes his way amongst them — they are his future, and friendly hearts are a reliable source of profit.

Isaiah has taken over a recess in Solomon’s Porch, sheltered from the hustle of the main Temple courtyards. He has what they call in Jerusalem a ‘clean’ forehead, shawl wrapped tight over his receding hairline, a look much favoured in the city for its suggestion of honest intelligence. He is flanked by priests and guards as he centres himself on a formal high-backed chair. He glances at Absalom.

‘As a mark of my respect,’ Lazarus says, holding up the rope attached to the lambs, ‘and to bless our future dealings.’

Lazarus has been working towards this meeting for some time, but the formality of Isaiah’s reception surprises him. The chair is not an encouraging sight, nor are the Temple guards. Lazarus adapts quickly, pulls his lambs forward, makes his eyes smile.

A guard takes the lambs to one side. They bleat.