chapter 04

We were sitting around with little interest in doing anything when Mikie suggested we go and see if we can't pick up some Roman girls at the low rentals. Divorced mothers and tax collectors. That didn't matter to us. It just meant it was asking for trouble at home.

When we got to their little pleasant ghetto, our mission was obvious to them. Luckily for us, no one minded. Even the boys were glad to see us.

We stayed all afternoon and into the night.

After a few visits, James and Ab didn't come with us. I was surprised to find I was the boyfriend of Dinah and really enjoyed kissing Rachel and Clara. Clara was Timothy's girl and she liked to flirt with me and kiss me to see if Timothy would do anything.

He didn't. When I played with her breasts, Timothy wasn't there.

It was all over after a few moons but it was a real good experience to have so much fun with all the Romans.

I met Mary Helene about the same time. She went to Synagogue with her family. Our families were distantly related. Which should have disturbed me. I was determined not to fall in love with a Jew. Stupid really. I was angry with the religion, not the people in it.

Mary Helene made that clear to me when she looked at me. She was 12 and I thought maybe a bit too young. So we didn't talk in the Synagogue. I was too involved with telling the elders they were wrong.

Almost a year later, I finally talked to her at a goat roast. Sin offering.

"Hi Jesus."

"You show me so much love."

"Everyone shows you love."

"Not like you do. Can you tell me your name."

"My parents always call me Mary Helene. My friends call me Helene."

"Have they arranged a marriage for you yet."

Helene's leg was touching mine. She smiled and kissed my cheeks and went to sit with her family. I went to mine.

"She's pretty, isn't she."

"Who's pretty."

"Mary Helene. Her father."

"I don't want to know. I said hello to the girl."

Mom wanted her boys to marry Jewish girls. Our ancestors could never make up their minds. And with Romans and Arabs everywhere, it just wasn't working again with sticking to cousins.

After the old people had a few glasses of wine, the goat roast became a nice party. And amid so many self proclaimed Torah experts, I seldom left looking into Helene's beauty. Her movements were natural like a beast of prey with a full stomach. Relaxed and beautiful. And relaxed in a way that made me feel as relaxed even though a part of me was anything else.

We danced together. And I smelled her. I breathed in her hair and her hands told me she was confident in her love for me and I fell into her and married her to my heart.

I kept getting a hard on when we danced and had to relieve myself that night before I could sleep.

The next day, we went out of Nazareth and found a place to ourselves.

We talked along the way about our faith in the laws of Moses.

"What I think, Helene, is that as long as our people are defenders of the sacred scriptures of bloody laws and bloody wars, there will be war. It is a book made to make fools think that dieing in war at the age of 14 or 18 is honourable. It gives the soldier a good place in heaven. If he wins in a war, he can rape and plunder."

"It's not a very nice picture."

"No. No it's worse than that, Helene. The priests are making our lives hell. And instead of getting killed at 18, a man could do anything else. The Priests and Sadducees are the only winners of war. Helene, it drives me mad seeing how myopic this world is. Why is everyone so dim witted."

"I don't know, my sweet Jesus. But I believe if anyone can make a difference, you can. I see how people love you."

"No one believes me though."

"I do. Your friends do. And I think, even though most people won't admit it, they know things could be better here."

"I love you, Helene."

"I know you do. You always did."

She didn't let me think about anything after that but her. I felt ageless, as if I had come from forever and had always longed for love. That I would always feel at home in Helene's touch.

It was forbidden what we did. By dead ancestors who had no understanding for the magic in the life that was ours. To embrace and to commune.

Then night came and I had to take Helene home.

I didn't wash that night. I wanted to smell the scents of her that lingered and mixed with my own not at all modest sent.

I felt like an animal. I imagined I could understand my world. The canine souls and feline souls showed themselves to me. They expected something from me.

Everyone showed me love and even my dreams and impressions of moths attacking me when my faith in my own capability faltered. I knew I was a King of a tribe I felt alien to. I knew it was illusion. I had known many Egyptians and Romans and Arabs. They all seemed to believe it was okay for me to take on the priests.

"There will be synagogues long after you're dead."

One of the Sadducees told me that. And I knew he was right. It was impossible for one person to stop such a camel caravan.

I had the strangest feeling that life would help me if I just walked through my fears and let the animal in me help me listen and hear.

I was really happy to be alive. I couldn't understand why the world around me seemed in a dream.

chapter 05

"Humans are like a big zit. The common poor people are the puss. The priests and Sadducees are the dirt that the puss is trying to push away from the skin. The skin is God. Kings are just part of the dirt."

"Not bad, Jesus. But zits are a little like assholes. We don't talk about them."

"Why not."

"Moses probably said don't talk about zits or assholes."

"I like assholes."

"They certainly are practical for excreting the food our bodies didn't metabolize."

"I'd like to go to university, John. Tell me of the one you attended in Baghdad."

"Some fine scholars there. I became a big fan of the Iliad there. And most brilliant was the course on Plutarch's Lives. You think Roman occupation is bad here."

"I don't. I like the Romans. Just not capital punishment and military dictators."

"It's the curse of our people, Jesus."

"We must break the curse."

It wasn't easy to get into the Baghdad university and it was far away from Galilee. And dad had many connections in Cairo so I studied there two years. My major was theology. Know you enemy. Legend and Myth and Eastern Religion made up the balance.

It was a shock to my system, being away from home, seeing very little of Helene and having to learn to read.

I was a smart ass punk in the synagogue rebuking their sermons. But I could hardly read or write. It had always concerned my parents but doctors assured them I wasn't stupid. Just not interested.

And that ain't unnormal for a teenager trying to get a grip on life as a nonbeliever in times of occupation.

It didn't take long. There were more brilliant thinkers than I had imagined in my sheltered Torah life.

I received a scholarship and a part time teaching position in the university of Istanbul. Helene moved to Istanbul to study as well. We had two beds. One we slept in. The other was full of books.

After two years of studies, I worked full time as a teacher for two years. Every time I got paid, it surprised me.

"Helene, I think I am in heaven."

"You are. And today is your day off."

"Off what."

"No university today."

"Okay. Let's take two days and go up to Sinnap's house on the lake."

We took a boat along the Küre Daglart coast and came to the large yet humble estate of my university friend.

"Jesus, Helene, what a wonderful surprise. And what luck that you come today. My husband and parents are in Athina till next week."

Sinnap's family were very conservative but Sinnap wasn't and enjoyed being naked and especially enjoyed sharing her bed with us.

If my mother knew, she would lay an egg.

We decided to stay the week. I hadn't had a holiday. I hadn't realized I had been working. It was like being in heaven to wake up slowly in the morning. Go for a swim before breakfast on the terrace.

On the third day, we got up early and sailed with Sinnap's boat to Sinop. Helene and I pretended to be her personal servants and she was someone important.

Personal servants were preferred over slaves. It showed more dignity.

We had a wonderful meal with many local vegetables and local chickens. With imported spices and local spices. They were known around the lake for their chicken.

Helene had the fish. Local as well. From the brother, the other brother of the owner of the Inn.

We stayed the night in a small room overlooking the lake. We made love under the laughing moon.

"You know, sometimes I think almost anything could be possible. We just haven't seen it yet."

chapter 06

Then I took the boat that changed my life. Rome wanted me in their university. Helene didn't get out of bed for 40 days. I thought her soul had died. My contract was for a minimum of three years. I thought about sending her back to Galilee. Or going with her to Galilee.

But I couldn't go to Galilee and Helene knew that if I wanted to make a difference in the world, I would not pass up a chance to be in the heart of the ruling Empire.

The magistrate told me to take Helene to his sister's place in the Toscana. I could use the time to study for my Latin course and Helene, he assured me, would come back to life in the quiet gentle hills.

And she did.

We were back in heaven and Helene was no longer having monthly periods. It had been a long sea voyage.

Our hosts were John Camus and Mary. They had two children: Paulo, who was 6 and Malinda, who was seven and a half but would soon be 12. There were 2 really big dogs, Rolax and Borus. They both moved very slowly. John Camus had been a lawyer for the Roman senate until he couldn't take Rome anymore. He moved with his girlfriend and their two children to an old stone house with a stall where they kept a few goats and sheep. They had a fenced off area with chickens.

I felt at home.

"My ancestors where almost all sheep herders or soldiers."

"I come from a family of city and village folk."

"I was born in Bethlehem but we moved to Cairo shortly after my birth. After Cairo we were in Nazareth. After a few more brothers and sisters were born, dad set up his dream business in Galilee."

"What's your dad do."

"Furniture. He has a company in Cairo that does a very large volume. In Galilee he does personal designs and room concepts and makes all most as much money working half as much. It was the best thing to happen to our family. He slowed down a little every year."

"So he sent you to university to become a professor."

"He paid my first two years in Cairo. In Istanbul I worked part time and had a full scholarship from your friendly government."

"And now you are a professor in the most important university in the world."

"It certainly has that reputation."

It was good. Rome had stolen most of their culture and unlike my ancestors, they didn't burn it. They mixed it into what they had.

Much of it was from the greeks and there they plundered the beginning of a direction in thinking. The more I learned, the more I realized there was much too much we didn't know.

And it was terrifying.

I went to see an afternoon's event at the coliseum with the magistrate. To take in a little culture.

I watched and saw monkies. Monkies that looked like humans, all dressed up in different armor. All with weapons of steel. And they killed each other while 40,000 sun drunk Romans cheered along.

"You don't like it too much."

"Sorry, if I let it show."

"Jesus, don't be sorry. Get up and leave. I am happy you don't like it. They call us civilized. And this is our entertainment. They cleared an area of housing holding over a thousand people, and don't ask me how much wealth they threw at the monster structure to hold 40,000 fools. It's bloody frightening."

We enjoyed agreeing with each other. He called me a God send. Not from Ab but some other one they picked up along the way.

We found a cafe and talked a mix of politics, philosophy and theology.

"Are you Jewish or Palestinian."

"If you promise to try to not tell anyone, I'm half Roman."

"Many people are Roman."

"He was as Roman as they get."

"A first son."

John Camus understood.

"Everyone has a few relatives like that."

"Well, I say we eat, gotta feed the little one. Do you have a name yet."

"No, we want to see if it comes to us."

"You sound like a farmer. Let me show you my shop while they prepare dinner."

John Camus took me to his glass shop. Doors and windows and lamps in stained glass and lead.

"I don't make much money but I'm also not dead from working too hard. The sooner you learn to slow down and enjoy life, the more rewards life gives you. The best thing I ever did, besides having kids with Mary, was drop my life in Rome and come out here."

"It certainly is beautiful."

"Stay for a while. We'll play a game of chess and talk about Rome and it's madness."

"I'd love to John Camus, but I have a Latin exam in four days and a seminar to give in six and someone is taking my classes as long as I'm here. And I've just started my job. Otherwise, I'd stay here with Helene and help you make windows till the baby comes."

"Jesus, Jesus. You must learn to relax."

"When I'm 36, I'll relax. For a few days at least."

"Let Helene stay for a few moons."

"It is a good idea."

I left the next morning, the sixth day, and left Helene in paradise and went back to a place with heaven and hell beating at one another. I went out the first few nights until I got used to my rooms, our rooms, without Helene.

Rome bored me. It was like a circus all the time. Always loud. Sometimes horrible smells attacked me in the streets. There was much going on but nothing happening. It was destined to go the way of the Empires before it.

It seemed like an eternity before I finally traveled back north to the Toscana to be with Helene.

"Helene. You are an angel."

She put her arms around me and kissed me and I knew I wanted her back in Rome. We would have to get out to the Middle Sea on my days off. And I would have to take them. I was about to be a dad. I'd work like a sensible man. As little as possible.


jesus chapters 07 - 09