The fat, stoop-shouldered innkeeper was still half asleep, having just risen from his bed of straw. His eyes and nose were red and swollen, for he had sipped wine with his drunken patrons until all hours of the night, had sung, brawled, and gone to bed terribly late. Now, sluggish and in a bad humor, he was cleaning the counter, sponging away the remains of the celebration. Though on his feet, he was still not awake: it seemed to him that he had begun in a dream to clean the counter, sponge in hand. But as he labored between slumber and wakefulness, he heard panting men enter his tavern. He turned. His eyes still smarted, his mouth was bitter, his beard full of the shells of roasted pumpkin seeds.

“Damn it, who’s there?” he growled hoarsely. “Leave me alone, will you! You’ve come in bright and early to eat and drink, eh? Well, I’m not in the mood. Scram!”

But his shouting gradually woke him up, and little by little he began to recognize his old friend Peter and the other Galileans. He came forward, examined them closely, and burst out laughing. “Bah, what snouts do I see here! Stick your tongues back in your mouths, boys. Grab your belly buttons before they burst from fear. Aren’t you a proud lot, my brave Galileans!”

“For God’s sake, Simon, don’t stir up the whole world with your shouting,” Peter answered him, putting his hand over Simon’s mouth. “Close the door. The king killed John the Baptist. Haven’t you realized that yet? He cut off his head and put it on a platter.

“He did well by him. The Baptist chewed off his ears with this business about his sister-in-law. Who cares! He’s the king, let him do what he likes. And afterward-just between friends-he chewed off my ears too with his ‘Repent! Repent!’ Bah, I just want to be left alone!”

“But they say he’s going to kill all the baptized-put them to the sword. And we’re baptized. Don’t you understand?”

“Who told you to get baptized, blockheads! Serves you right!”

“But you were baptized too, wine jug!” Peter scolded him. “You told us yourself. So, why scream at us?”

“That wasn’t the same thing, you make-believe fishmonger. I’m not baptized. You call that baptism? I dove in the water, went for a swim. Everything the fake prophet chanted went in one ear and out the other, as it does with anyone who has any sense. But you, you morons… These quacks tell you they can milk a billy goat into a sieve, and you’re the very first to believe them. They command you to dive into the water and-pluff! in you go and catch your death of pneumonia. They say not to kill your fleas on the Sabbath-it’s a very great sin. So you don’t kill them, and they kill you. Don’t pay the head tax! You don’t pay, and snap! off goes your head. Serves you right! Sit down now and we’ll have a drink. You need steadying down and I waking up!”

Two fat barrels loomed black in the recesses of the tavern. On one was painted a cock in red oils; on the other, in gray-black, a pig. He filled a pitcher of wine from the barrel with the cock, found six glasses and plunged them into a tub of filthy water in order to clean them. The smell of the wine hit him, and he awoke.

A blind man appeared at the tavern door. Putting his staff between his legs, he began to tune an ancient lute while coughing dryly and spitting to clear his throat. This was Eliakim, who had been a camel-driver in his youth. One day at noon, however, while he was traversing the desert, he saw a naked woman washing herself in a pit of water under a date tree. Instead of turning his face away, the saucy fellow pinned his eyes on the beautiful Bedouin. It was just his luck that her husband was squatting behind a rock and had lighted a fire for cooking. Seeing the camel-driver approach his wife and devour her nudity with his gaze, he rushed out with two live coals and extinguished them in the offender’s eyes. From that day on, the unfortunate Eliakim threw himself into psalm and song. He went the rounds of Jerusalem ’s taverns and homes with his lute, sometimes hymning the kindness of God, sometimes singing the nudity of women. He would receive a piece of dry bread, a handful of dates, a couple of olives, and then continue on his way.

He tuned his lute, cleared his throat, raised his voice, and with melismatic elaboration began to sing his favorite psalm:

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your greatmercy;And according to the multitude of your compassions,blot out my iniquity.

At that moment the innkeeper appeared with the pitcher of wine and the wineglasses. He heard the psalmody and went wild. “Enough! Enough!” he exploded. “You’re another one who chews off my ears. Always the same tune: ‘Have mercy on me… have mercy on me…’ Go to hell! Bah, was I the one who sinned? Was I the one who lifted his eyes to see someone else’s wife at her bath? God gave us eyes so that we should keep them closed-don’t you understand that yet? Well, serves you right. Go on, get out of here. Go bother someone else!”

The blind man once more took up his staff, squeezed the lute under his arm, and departed without breathing a word.

“ ‘Have mercy on me, O God… have mercy on me, O God…’ ” trilled the irritated innkeeper. “David made eyes at other people’s wives; this eyeless idiot did the same-and we’re the ones who have to suffer for it… O God, I just want to be left alone!”

He finally filled the glasses. They drank. He refilled his own and downed it.

“I’m off now to put a lamb’s head into the oven for you. Grade A! A mother would steal it from the mouth of her babe!” He flew into the yard, where there was a small oven which he had built all by himself, brought twigs and vine branches, lighted the oven, thrust in the pan with the lamb’s head, then returned to his company. He was anxious for wine and talk.

But the companions were not in the mood. Crowded together by the fire, they would mumble a few words halfheartedly, then once more become mute. It was as though they were walking over burning coals. They stared at the door, anxious to leave. Judas got up and went and stood on the threshold. He detested the sight of these cowards who were all upside down with fear. Look how they had run, how fast they had reached Jerusalem from the Jordan; look how they’d gone, their hearts in their mouths, and burrowed into this out-of-the-way tavern! And now, their ears sticking up like rabbits’, they trembled and stood on tiptoe, ready to flee… To hell with you, brave Galileans, he said to himself. Thank you, God of Israel, for not fashioning me in their image. I was born in the desert; I’m made of Bedouin granite, not of soft Galilean soil. Every one of you fawned on him and was lavish with oaths and kisses; while now-“Don’t fail me, legs!”-all you want is to save your own hides. But I-the savage, the devil, the cutthroat-I shall not abandon him. I shall wait here until he returns from the Jordan desert, in order to see what he has to say; and then I shall make my decision. I don’t care about my own hide. Only one thing torments me, and that’s the suffering of Israel.

He heard a low-voiced argument within the tavern. He turned.

“I say we should go back to Galilee where there’s security,” said Peter. “Don’t forget our lake, boys!” He sighed. He saw his green boat flowing over the blue surge, and his heart swelled. He saw the pebbles, the oleanders, the nets loaded with fish. Tears came to his eyes. “Let’s go, lads,” he said, “come on, let’s go!”

“We gave him our word we’d wait for him in this tavern,” said Jacob. “It’s only right we keep our promise.”

“We can arrange matters,” suggested Peter, “by instructing the Cyrenian to tell him, if he comes, that-”

“No, no!” Andrew objected. “How can we forsake him in this wild city? We’ll wait for him here.”