The Brook Kerith: A Syrian story

by George Moore

He is not dead, he is not dead, he cried, and his joy died, for on the instant Jesus passed again into the darkness of swoon. Joseph had no water to bathe his forehead with, nor even a drop to wet his lips with. There is none nearer than my house, he said. I shall have to carry him thither. But if a wayfarer meets us the news that a man newly risen from the tomb was seen on the hillside with another will soon reach Jerusalem; and the Pharisees will send soldiers.... The tomb will be violated; the houses in the neighbourhood will be searched. Why then did he awaken only to be taken again? Jesus lay as still as the dead, and hope came again to Joseph. On a Sabbath evening, he said, I shall be able to carry him to my house secretly. The distance is about half-a-mile. But to carry a swooning man half-a-mile up a crooked and steep path among rocks will take all my strength.

He took cognisance of his thews and sinews, and feeling them to be strong and like iron, he said: I can do it, and fell to thinking of his servants loitering in the passages, talking as they ascended the stairs, stopping half-way and talking again, and getting to bed slowly, more slowly than ever on this night, the night of all others that he wished them sound asleep in their beds. Half-a-mile up a zigzagging path I shall have to carry him; he may die in my arms; and he entertained the thought for a moment that he might go for his servants, who would bring with them oil and wine; but dismissing the thought as unwise, he left the tomb to see if the darkness were thick enough to shelter himself and his burden.

But Jesus might pass away in his swoon. If he had some water to give him. But he had none, and he sat by the couch waiting for Jesus to open his eyes. At last he opened them.

The twilight had vanished and the stars were coming out, and Joseph said to himself: there will be no moon, only a soft starlight, and he stood gazing at the desert showing through a great tide of blue shadow, the shape of the hills emerging, like the hulls of great ships afloat in a shadowy sea. A dark, close, dusty night, he said, and moonless, deserted by every man and woman; a Sabbath night. On none other would it be possible. But thinking that some hours would have to pass before he dared to enter his gates with Jesus on his shoulder, he seated himself on the great stone. Though Jesus were to die for lack of succour he must wait till his servants were in bed asleep. And then? The stone on which he was sitting must be rolled into the entrance of the tomb before leaving. He had told the carrier that he would have no trouble with it, and to discover that he had not boasted he slid down the rock, and, putting his shoulder to it, found he could move it, for the ground was aslant, and if he were to remove some rubble the stone would itself roll into the entrance of the tomb. But he hadn't known this when he refused the carrier's help. Then why?... To pass away the time he fell to thinking that he had refused the carrier's aid because of some thought of which he wasn't very conscious at the time; that he had been appointed watcher, and that his watch extended through the night, and through the next day and night, until Mary and Martha came with spices and linen cloths.

The cycle of his thoughts was brought to a close and with a sudden jerk by some memory of his maybe dying friend; and in his grief he found no better solace than to gaze at the stars, now thickly sown in the sky, and to attempt to decipher their conjunctions and oppositions, trying to pick out a prophecy in heaven of what was happening on earth.

His star-gazing was interrupted suddenly by a bark. A jackal, he said. Other jackals answered the first bark; the hillside seemed to be filled with them; but, however numerous, he could scare them away; a wandering hyena scenting a dead body would be more dangerous, for he was weaponless. But it was seldom that one ventured into the environs of the city; and he listened to the jackals, and they kept him awake till something in the air told him the hour had come for him to go into the tomb and carry Jesus out of it ... if he were not dead. He slid down from the rock again, and no sooner did he reach the ground than he remembered having left Galilee to keep his promise to his father; but, despite his obedience to his father's will, had not escaped his fate. In vain he avoided the Temple and refused to enter the house of Simon the Leper.... If he were to take Jesus to his house and hide him he would become a party to Jesus' crime, and were Jesus discovered in his house the angry Pharisees would demand their death from Pilate. If he would escape the doom of the cross he must roll the stone up into the entrance of the sepulchre.... A dying man perceives no difference between a sepulchre and a dwelling-house. He would be dead before morning; before the Sabbath was done for certain; and Mary and Martha would begin the embalmment on Sunday. He would be dead certainly on Sunday morning, and dead men tell no tales, so they say. But do they say truly? The dead are voiceless, but they speak, and are closer to us than the living; and for ever the spectre of that man would be by him, making frightful every hour of his life. Yet by closing up the sepulchre and leaving Jesus to die in it he would be serving him better than by carrying him to his house and bringing him back to life. To what life was he bringing him? He could not be kept hidden for long; he could not remain in Jerusalem, and whither Jesus went Joseph would follow, and his bond to his father would be broken then in spirit as well as in fact. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead and for a long time his mind seemed like a broken thing and the pieces scattered; and as much exhausted as if he had carried Jesus a mile on his shoulders, he stooped forward and entered the tomb, without certain knowledge whether he was going to kiss Jesus and close the tomb upon him or carry him to his house about a half-an-hour distant.

As he drew the cere-cloths from the body, a vision of his house rose up in his mind—a large two-storeyed house with a domed roof, situated on a large vineyard on the eastern slopes of the Mount of Olives, screened from the highway by hedges of carob, olive garths and cedars. And this house seemed to Joseph as if designed by Providence for the concealment of Jesus. The only way, he muttered, will be to lift him upon my shoulders, getting the weight as far as I can from off my arms. If he could walk a little supported on my arm. He questioned Jesus, but Jesus could not answer him; and there seemed to be no other way but to carry him in his arms out of the tomb, place him on the rock, and from thence hoist him on to his shoulders.

Jesus was carried more easily than he thought for, as easily carried as a child for the first hundred yards, nor did he weigh much heavier for the next, but before three hundred yards were over Joseph began to look round for a rock against which he might rest his burden.

One of the hardships of this journey was that howsoever he held Jesus he seemed to cause him great pain, and he guessed by the feel that the body was wounded in many places; but the stars did not show sufficient light for him to see where not to grasp it, and he sat in the pathway, resting Jesus across his knees, thinking of a large rock within sight of his own gates and how he would lean Jesus against it, if he managed to carry him so far. He stopped at sight of something, something seemed to slink through the pale, diffused shadows in and out of the rocks up the hillside, and Joseph thought of a midnight wolf. The wolves did not venture as near the city, but—Whatever Joseph saw with his eyes, or fancied he saw, did not appear again, and he picked up his load, thinking of the hopeless struggle it would be between him and a grey wolf burdened as he was. He could not do else than leave Jesus to be eaten, and his fear of wolf and hyena so exhausted him that he nearly toppled at the next halt. A fall would be fatal to Jesus, and Joseph asked himself how he would lift Jesus on to his shoulder again. He did not think that he could manage it, but he did, and staggered to the gates; but no sooner had he laid his burden down than he remembered that he could not ascend the stairs without noise. The gardener's cottage is empty; I will carry him thither. The very place, Joseph said, as he paused for breath by the gate-post. I must send away the two men-servants, he continued, one to Galilee and the other to Jericho. The truth cannot be kept from Esora. I need her help: I can depend upon her to cure Jesus of his wounds and keep the young girl in the house, forbidding her the garden while Jesus is in the cottage. The danger of dismissal would be too great, she would carry the story or part of it to Jerusalem, it would spread like oil, and in a few days, in a few weeks certainly, the Pharisees would be sending their agents to search the house. With Jesus hoisted on to his shoulder he followed the path through the trees round the shelving lawn and crossed the terrace at the bottom of the garden. He had then to follow a twisting path through a little wood, and he feared to bump Jesus against the trees. The path led down into a dell, and he could hardly bear up so steep was the ascent; his breath and strength were gone when he came to the cottage door.

Fortune seems to be with us, he said, as he carried Jesus through the doorway, but he must have a bed, and fortune is still with us, they haven't removed the bed; and as soon as Jesus was laid upon it he began to remember many things. He must go to the house and get a lamp, and in the house he remembered that he must bring some wine and some water. He noticed that his hand and his sleeve were stained with blood. He must have been badly scourged, he said, and continued his search for bottles, and after mixing wine and water he returned to the gardener's cottage, hoping that casual ministrations would relieve Jesus of some of the pain he was suffering till Esora would come with her more serious remedies in the morning.