Fifth Gospel by Adriana Koulias

hand, once so malformed, had nurtured him through illness and health and raised him through the various stages of his youth.
    She narrowed her eyes to look at him and made her voice practical, ‘You like to see into the hearts of others, Jesus, which is a fine gift…but you hold your own thoughts close to you…so that even I cannot see them.’
    He acknowledged this with a nod of the head. ‘Yes and it is a strange thing to me also, Salome. Strange and yet familiar! When I am working with my father and my hands are busy,’ he looked at them, ‘I feel like I am one man: I think I know who that man is, this son of a carpenter…but when I am with myself, when I gaze at my thoughts, I find that I am a different man. I find myself full of memories of things that I have not seen or heard or felt! I am a stranger…even to myself.’
    Salome had a gift of second sight which ran in all the women of her family, and so years ago, after the death of Yeshua, she had seen the reason for the change in him, which even Jesus himself did not seem to understand. She had waited for him to find a quiet space in which to speak with her.
    ‘You are full of restlessness Jesus, I sense it, and I also sense that you will soon leave because of it…the question is, where will you go?’
    Jesus looked at her with surprise. ‘Well…you have surely read my mind! As you know, this village is small and has never supported us. And father is too unwell to travel in search of work…so I am of the mind to go alone this year.’
    Salome passed a hand over her face. ‘You see? I had guessed it! Promise me you won’t venture outside the land , where my forefathers once dwelt…you know that in those places you will find only darkness. Even the dust under your feet will be unclean on your return and all will think you defiled. The dirt of those places is like death and putrid things to a Jew. Will you seek to bring death home, so that men will have no traffic with you?’ She looked at him, to make sure he had taken it in and he matched her gaze with his own steady eyes.
    ‘ How should I concern myself with men whose view of the world is narrowed?’
    This was his other self , the one full of defiance!
    ‘What do you hope to find in that wider world beyond your homeland?’
    ‘ A teaching that is true, that can help me to understand why everything is falling into ruin. This, I shall not find here in Nazareth.’
    ‘You know, ’ Salome said, ‘my mother once told me a story about a mule who wandered the world looking for the source of a wonderful perfume. One day the poor thing realised that the perfume came from a twig of jasmine caught behind its ear.’
    ‘When did the mule realise it?’
    ‘ Not until the jasmine was already dead and withered, and had fallen to the ground.’
    Jesus nodded. ‘And the meaning of the story is that I will go in search of something I already have, something right behind my ear, is that it?’
    ‘That is it, for certain,’ she said.
    ‘Even so…I must go,’ he told her cheerily. ‘I am a stubborn as a mule!’
    She paused a moment , listening to the ring left behind by his voice. ‘Yes…yes,’ she confirmed it, ‘so you are…I know…and that is what I told my mother, and if I hadn’t wandered the world I wouldn’t be here with you this night. You see…all is as it should be.’ She looked at him. ‘Have you told your stepmother?’
    He gave her a sideways glance . ‘Not yet.’
    ‘Oh Jesus! ’ she chided. ‘You mustn’t be unkind to her. Her life has been a puzzle. Take a moment to think on it. First she loses a husband, then she loses her son, not long after that her other son moves into the Nazarite order to live a solitary life. Of the two youngest children, one has fallen into the lap of the zealots and the other is too young to help her. All of them have disdained their stepfather’s trade as something beneath them. Since your father’s illness, you have been her handhold in the