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  “When is the next Passover?”

  “Not for many months.”

  “How can I help you?”

  “You are a magus.”

  “I can work no miracles.”

  John wiped the honey from his beard. “I cannot believe that, Emmanuel. The manner of your coming was miraculous. The Essenes did not know if you were a devil or a messenger from Adonai.”

  “I am neither.”

  “Why do you confuse me, Emmanuel? I know that you are Adonai’s messenger. You are the sign that the Essenes sought. The time is almost ready. The kingdom of heaven shall soon be established on Earth. Come with me. Tell the people that you speak with Adonai’s voice. Work mighty miracles.”

  “Your power is waning, is that it?” Glogauer looked sharply at John. “You need me to renew your rebels’ hopes?”

  “You speak like a Roman, with such lack of subtlety.” John got up angrily. Evidently, like the Essenes he lived with, he preferred less direct conversation. There was a practical reason for this, Glogauer realised, in that John and his men feared betrayal all the time. Even the Essenes’ records were partially written in cipher, with one innocent-seeming word or phrase meaning something else entirely.

  “I am sorry, John. But tell me if I am right.” Glogauer spoke softly.

  “Are you not a magus, coming in that chariot from nowhere?” The Baptist waved his hands and shrugged his shoulders. “My men saw you! They saw the shining thing take shape in air, crack and let you enter out of it. Is that not magical? The clothing you wore—was that earthly raiment? The talismans within the chariot—did they not speak of powerful magic? The prophet said that a magus would come from Egypt and be called Emmanuel. So it is written in the Book of Micah! Is none of these things true?”

  “Most of them. But there are explanations—” He broke off, unable to think of the nearest word to “rational.” “I am an ordinary man, like you. I have no power to work miracles! I am just a man!”

  John glowered. “You mean you refuse to help us?”

  “I’m grateful to you and the Essenes. You saved my life almost certainly. If I can repay that . . .”

  John nodded his head deliberately. “You can repay it, Emmanuel.”

  “How?”

  “Be the great magus I need. Let me present you to all those who become impatient and would turn away from Adonai’s will. Let me tell them the manner of your coming to us. Then you can say that all is Adonai’s will and that they must prepare to accomplish it.”

  John stared at him intensely. “Will you, Emmanuel?”

  “For your sake, John. And in turn, will you send men to bring my chariot here as soon as possible? I wish to see if it may be mended.”

  “I will.”

  Glogauer felt exhilarated. He began to laugh. The Baptist looked at him with slight bewilderment. Then he began to join in.

  Glogauer laughed on. History would not mention it, but he, with John the Baptist, would prepare the way for Christ.

  Christ was not born yet. Perhaps Glogauer knew it, one year before the crucifixion.

  And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth. John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me; for he was before me.

  (John 1: 14–15)

  Even when he had first met Monica they had had long arguments. His father had not then died and left him the money to buy the Occult Bookshop in Great Russell Street, opposite the British Museum. He was doing all sorts of temporary work and his spirits were very low. At that time Monica had seemed a great help, a great guide through the mental darkness engulfing him. They had both lived close to Holland Park and went there for walks almost every Sunday of the summer of 1962. At twenty-two, he was already obsessed with Jung’s strange brand of Christian mysticism. She, who despised Jung, had soon begun to denigrate all his ideas. She never really convinced him. But, after a while, she had succeeded in confusing him. It would be another six months before they went to bed together.

  It was uncomfortably hot.

  They sat in the shade of the cafeteria, watching a distant cricket match. Nearer to them, two girls and a boy sat on the grass, drinking orange squash from plastic cups. One of the girls had a guitar across her lap and she set the cup down and began to play, singing a folksong in a high, gentle voice. Glogauer tried to listen to the words. As a student, he had always liked traditional folk music.

  “Christianity is dead.” Monica sipped her tea. “Religion is dying. God was killed in 1945.”

  “There may yet be a resurrection,” he said.

  “Let us hope not. Religion was the creation of fear. Knowledge destroys fear. Without fear, religion can’t survive.”

  “You think there’s no fear about, these days?”

  “Not the same kind, Karl.”

  “Haven’t you ever considered the idea of Christ?” he asked her, changing his tack. “What that means to Christians?”

  “The idea of the tractor means as much to a Marxist,” she replied.

  “But what came first? The idea or the actuality of Christ?”

  She shrugged. “The actuality, if it matters. Jesus was a Jewish troublemaker organising a revolt against the Romans. He was crucified for his pains. That’s all we know and all we need to know.”

  “A great religion couldn’t have begun so simply.”

  “When people need one, they’ll make a great religion out of the most unlikely beginnings.”

  “That’s my point, Monica.” He gesticulated at her and she drew away slightly. “The idea preceded the actuality of Christ.”

  “Oh, Karl, don’t go on. The actuality of Jesus preceded the idea of Christ.”

  A couple walked past, glancing at them as they argued.

  Monica noticed them and fell silent. She got up and he rose as well, but she shook her head. “I’m going home, Karl. You stay here. I’ll see you in a few days.”

  He watched her walk down the wide path towards the park gates.

  The next day, when he got home from work, he found a letter. She must have written it after she had left him and posted it the same day.

  Dear Karl,

  Conversation doesn’t seem to have much effect on you, you know. It’s as if you listen to the tone of the voice, the rhythm of the words, without ever hearing what is trying to be communicated. You’re a bit like a sensitive animal who can’t understand what’s being said to it, but can tell if the person talking is pleased or angry and so on. That’s why I’m writing to you—to try to get my idea across. You respond too emotionally when we’re together.

  You make the mistake of considering Christianity as something that developed over the course of a few years, from the death of Jesus to the time the Gospels were written. But Christianity wasn’t new. Only the name was new. Christianity was merely a stage in the meeting, cross-fertilisation metamorphosis of Western logic and Eastern mysticism. Look how the religion itself changed over the centuries, re-interpreting itself to meet changing times. Christianity is just a new name for a conglomeration of old myths and philosophies. All the Gospels do is retell the sun myth and garble some of the ideas from the Greeks and Romans. Even in the second century, Jewish scholars were showing it up for the mishmash it was! They pointed out the strong similarities between the various sun myths and the Christ myth. The miracles didn’t happen—they were invented later, borrowed from here and there.

  Remember the old Victorians who used to say that Plato was really a Christian because he anticipated Christian thought? Christian thought! Christianity was a vehicle for ideas in circulation for centuries before Christ. Was Marcus Aurelius a Christian? He was writing in the direct tradition of Western philosophy. That’s why Christianity caught on in Europe and not in the East! You should have been a theologian with your bias, not a psychiatrist. The same goes for your friend Jung.

  Try to clear
your head of all this morbid nonsense and you’ll be a lot better at your job.

  Yours,

  Monica.

  He screwed the letter up and threw it away. Later that evening he was tempted to look at it again, but he resisted the temptation.

  3

  John stood up to his waist in the river. Most of the Essenes stood on the banks watching him. Glogauer looked down at him.

  “I cannot, John. It is not for me to do it.”

  The Baptist muttered, “You must.”

  Glogauer shivered as he lowered himself into the river beside the Baptist. He felt light-headed. He stood there trembling, unable to move.

  His foot slipped on the rocks of the river and John reached out and gripped his arm, steadying him.

  In the clear sky, the sun was at zenith, beating down on his unprotected head.

  “Emmanuel!” John cried suddenly. “The spirit of Adonai is within you!”

  Glogauer still found it hard to speak. He shook his head slightly. It was aching and he could hardly see. Today he was having his first migraine attack since he had come here. He wanted to vomit. John’s voice sounded distant.

  He swayed in the water.

  As he began to fall toward the Baptist, the whole scene around him shimmered. He felt John catch him and heard himself say desperately: “John, baptise me!” And then there was water in his mouth and throat and he was coughing.

  John’s voice was crying something. Whatever the words were, they drew a response from the people on both banks. The roaring in his ears increased, its quality changing. He thrashed in the water, then felt himself lifted to his feet.

  The Essenes were swaying in unison, every face lifted upward towards the glaring sun. Glogauer began to vomit into the water, stumbling as John’s hands gripped his arms painfully and guided him up the bank.

  A peculiar, rhythmic humming came from the mouths of the Essenes as they swayed; it rose as they swayed to one side, fell as they swayed to the other.

  Glogauer covered his ears as John released him. He was still retching, but it was dry now, and worse than before.

  He began to stagger away, barely keeping his balance, running, with his ears still covered; running over the rocky scrubland; running as the sun throbbed in the sky and its heat pounded at his head; running away.

  But John forbade him, saying, I have need to be baptised of thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him. And Jesus, when he was baptised, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

  (Matthew 3: 14–17)

  He had been fifteen, doing well at the grammar school. He had read in the newspapers about the Teddy Boy gangs that roamed South London, but the odd youth he had seen in pseudo-Edwardian clothes had seemed harmless and stupid enough.

  He had gone to the pictures in Brixton Hill and decided to walk home to Streatham because he had spent most of the bus money on an ice cream. They came out of the cinema at the same time. He hardly noticed them as they followed him down the hill.

  Then, quite suddenly, they had surrounded him. Pale, mean-faced boys, most of them a year or two older than he was. He realised that he knew two of them vaguely. They were at the big council school in the same street as the grammar school. They used the same football ground.

  “Hello,” he said weakly.

  “Hello, son,” said the oldest Teddy Boy. He was chewing gum, standing with one knee bent, grinning at him. “Where you going, then?”

  “Home.”

  “Heouwm,” said the biggest one, imitating his accent. “What are you going to do when you get there?”

  “Go to bed.” Karl tried to get through the ring, but they wouldn’t let him. They pressed him back into a shop doorway. Beyond them, cars droned by on the main road. The street was brightly lit, with street-lamps and neon from the shops. Several people passed, but none of them stopped. Karl began to feel panic.

  “Got no homework to do, son?” said the boy next to the leader. He was redheaded and freckled and his eyes were a hard grey.

  “Want to fight one of us?” another boy asked. It was one of the boys he knew.

  “No. I don’t fight. Let me go.”

  “You scared, son?” said the leader, grinning. Ostentatiously, he pulled a streamer of gum from his mouth and then replaced it. He began chewing again.

  “No. Why should I want to fight you?”

  “You reckon you’re better than us, is that it, son?”

  “No.” He was beginning to tremble. Tears were coming into his eyes. “’Course not.”

  “’Course not, son.”

  He moved forward again, but they pushed him back into the doorway.

  “You’re the bloke with the kraut name, ain’t you?” said the other boy he knew. “Glow-worm or somethink.”

  “Glogauer. Let me go.”

  “Won’t your mummy like it if you’re back late?”

  “More a yid name than a kraut name.”

  “You a yid, son?”

  “He looks like a yid.”

  “You a yid, son?”

  “You a Jewish boy, son?”

  “You a yid, son?”

  “Shut up!” Karl screamed. He pushed into them. One of them punched him in the stomach. He grunted with pain. Another pushed him and he staggered.

  People were still hurrying by on the pavement. They glanced at the group as they went past. One man stopped, but his wife pulled him on. “Just some kids larking about,” she said.

  “Get his trousers down,” one of the boys suggested with a laugh. “That’ll prove it.”

  Karl pushed through them and this time they didn’t resist. He began to run down the hill.

  “Give him a start,” he heard one of the boys say.

  He ran on.

  They began to follow him, laughing.

  They did not catch up with him by the time he turned into the avenue where he lived. He reached the house and ran along the dark passage beside it. He opened the back door. His step-mother was in the kitchen.

  “What’s the matter with you?” she said.

  She was a tall, thin woman, nervous and hysterical. Her dark hair was untidy.

  He went past her into the breakfast-room.

  “What’s the matter, Karl?” she called. Her voice was high-pitched.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  He didn’t want a scene.

  It was cold when he woke up. The false dawn was grey and he could see nothing but barren country in all directions. He could not remember a great deal about the previous day, except that he had run a long way.

  Dew had gathered on his loincloth. He wet his lips and rubbed the skin over his face. As he always did after a migraine attack he felt weak and completely drained. Looking down at his naked body, he noticed how skinny he had become. Life with the Essenes had caused that, of course.

  He wondered why he had panicked so much when John had asked him to baptise him. Was it simply honesty—something in him which resisted deceiving the Essenes into thinking he was a prophet of some kind? It was hard to know.

  He wrapped the goatskin about his hips and tied it tightly just above his left thigh. He supposed he had better try to get back to the camp and find John and apologise, see if he could make amends.

  The time machine was there now, too. They had dragged it there, using only rawhide ropes.

  If a good blacksmith could be found, or some other metal-worker, there was just a chance that it could be repaired. The journey back would be dangerous.

  He wondered if he ought to go back right away, or try to shift to a time nearer to the actual crucifixion. He had not gone back specifically to witness the crucifixion, but to get the mood of Jerusalem during the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus was s
upposed to have entered the city. Monica had thought Jesus had stormed the city with an armed band. She had said that all the evidence pointed to that. All the evidence of one sort did point to it, but he could not accept the evidence. There was more to it, he was sure. If only he could meet Jesus. John had apparently never heard of him, though he had told Glogauer that there was a prophecy that the Messiah would be a Nazarene. There were many prophecies, and many of them conflicted.

  He began to walk back in the general direction of the Essene camp. He could not have come so far. He would soon recognise the hills where they had their caves.

  Soon it was very hot and the ground more barren. The air wavered before his eyes. The feeling of exhaustion with which he had awakened increased. His mouth was dry and his legs were weak. He was hungry and there was nothing to eat. There was no sign of the range of hills where the Essenes had their camp.

  There was one hill, about two miles away to the south. He decided to make for it. From there he would probably be able to get his bearings, perhaps even see a township where they would give him food.

  The sandy soil turned to floating dust around him as his feet disturbed it. A few primitive shrubs clung to the ground and jutting rocks tripped him.

  He was bleeding and bruised by the time he began, painfully, to clamber up the hillside.

  The journey to the summit (which was much further away than he had originally judged) was difficult. He would slide on the loose stones of the hillside, falling on his face, bracing his torn hands and feet to stop himself from sliding down to the bottom, clinging to tufts of grass and lichen that grew here and there, embracing larger projections of rock when he could, resting frequently, his mind and body both numb with pain and weariness.

  He sweated beneath the sun. The dust stuck to the moisture on his half-naked body, caking him from head to foot. The goatskin was in shreds.