‘Understood, Hegemon,’ replied the guest, and he got up, saying: ‘In view of the complexity and responsibility of the matter, allow me to go immediately.’
‘No, sit down again,’ said Pilate, stopping his guest with a gesture, ‘there are two more questions. First, your enormous merits in this most difficult job at the post of head of the secret service for the procurator of Judea give me the pleasant opportunity of reporting them to Rome.’
Here the guest’s face turned pink, he rose and bowed to the procurator, saying:
‘I merely fulfil my duty in the imperial service.’
‘But I wanted to ask you,’ the hegemon continued, ‘in case you’re offered a transfer elsewhere with a raise — to decline it and remain here. I wouldn’t want to part with you for anything. Let them reward you in some other way.’
‘I am happy to serve under your command, Hegemon.’
‘That pleases me very much. And so, the second question. It concerns this … what’s his name … Judas of Kiriath.’
Here the guest sent the procurator his glance, and at once, as was his custom, extinguished it.
‘They say,’ the procurator continued, lowering his voice, ‘that he supposedly got some money for receiving this madman so cordially?’
‘Will get,’ the head of the secret service quietly corrected Pilate.
‘And is it a large sum?’
‘That no one can say, Hegemon.’
‘Not even you?’ said the hegemon, expressing praise by his amazement.
‘Alas, not even I,’ the guest calmly replied. ‘But he will get the money this evening, that I do know. He is to be summoned tonight to the palace of Kaifa.’
‘Ah, that greedy old man of Kiriath!’ the procurator observed, smiling. ‘He is an old man, isn’t he?’
‘The procurator is never mistaken, but he is mistaken this time,’ the guest replied courteously, ‘the man from Kiriath is a young man.’
‘You don’t say! Can you describe his character for me? A fanatic?’
‘Oh, no, Procurator.’
‘So. And anything else?’
‘Very handsome.’
‘What else? He has some passion, perhaps?’
‘It is difficult to have such precise knowledge about everyone in this huge city, Procurator …’
‘Ah, no, no, Aphranius! Don’t play down your merits.’
‘He has one passion, Procurator.’ The guest made a tiny pause. ‘A passion for money.’
‘And what is his occupation?’
Aphranius raised his eyes, thought, and replied:
‘He works in the money-changing shop of one of his relatives.’
‘Ah, so, so, so, so.’ Here the procurator fell silent, looked around to be sure there was no one on the balcony, and then said quietly: ‘The thing is this — I have just received information that he is going to be killed tonight.’
This time the guest not only cast his glance at the procurator, but even held it briefly, and after that replied:
‘You spoke too flatteringly of me, Procurator. In my opinion, I do not deserve your report. This information I do not have.’
‘You deserve the highest reward,’ the procurator replied. ‘But there is such information.’
‘May I be so bold as to ask who supplied it?’
‘Permit me not to say for the time being, the more so as it is accidental, obscure and uncertain. But it is my duty to foresee everything. That is my job, and most of all I must trust my presentiment, for it has never yet deceived me. The information is that one of Ha-Nozri’s secret friends, indignant at this money-changer’s monstrous betrayal, is plotting with his accomplices to kill him tonight, and to foist the money paid for the betrayal on the high priest, with a note: “I return the cursed money.”’ The head of the secret service cast no more of his unexpected glances at the hegemon, but went on listening to him, narrowing his eyes, as Pilate went on:
‘Imagine, is it going to be pleasant for the high priest to receive such a gift on the night of the feast?’
‘Not only not pleasant,’ the guest replied, smiling, ‘but I believe, Procurator, that it will cause a very great scandal.’
‘I am of the same opinion myself. And therefore I ask you to occupy yourself with this matter – that is, to take all measures to protect Judas of Kiriath.’
The hegemon’s order will be carried out,‘ said Aphranius, ’but I must reassure the hegemon: the evil-doers’ plot is very hard to bring off. Only think,‘ the guest looked over his shoulder as he spoke and went on, ’to track the man down, to kill him, and besides that to find out how much he got, and manage to return the money to Kaifa, and all that in one night? Tonight?‘
‘And none the less he will be killed tonight,’ Pilate stubbornly repeated. ‘I have a presentiment, I tell you! Never once has it deceived me.’ Here a spasm passed over the procurator’s face, and he rubbed his hands briskly.
‘Understood,’ the guest obediently replied, stood up, straightened out, and suddenly asked sternly: ‘So they will kill him, Hegemon?’
‘Yes,’ answered Pilate, ‘and all hope lies in your efficiency alone, which amazes everyone.’
The guest adjusted the heavy belt under his cloak and said:
‘I salute you and wish you health and joy!’
‘Ah, yes,’ Pilate exclaimed softly, ‘I completely forgot! I owe you something! …’
The guest was amazed.
‘Really, Procurator, you owe me nothing.’
‘But of course! As I was riding into Yershalaim, remember, the crowd of beggars … I wanted to throw them some money, but I didn’t have any, and so I took it from you.’
‘Oh, Procurator, it was a trifle!’
‘One ought to remember trifles, too.’ Here Pilate turned, picked up the cloak that lay on the chair behind him, took a leather bag from under it, and handed it to the guest. The man bowed, accepting it, and put the bag under his cloak.
‘I expect a report on the burial,’ said Pilate, ‘and also on the matter to do with Judas of Kiriath, this same night, do you hear, Aphranius, this night. The convoy will have orders to awaken me the moment you appear. I’ll be expecting you.’
‘I salute you,’ the head of the secret service said and, turning, left the balcony. One could hear the wet sand crunch under his feet, then the stamp of his boots on the marble between the lions, then his legs were cut off, then his body, and finally the hood also disappeared. Only here did the procurator notice that the sun was gone and twilight had come.
Chapter 26, The Burial
And perhaps it was the twilight that caused such a sharp change in the procurator’s appearance. He aged, grew hunched as if before one’s eyes, and, besides that, became alarmed. Once he looked around and gave a start for some reason, casting an eye on the empty chair with the cloak thrown over its back. The night of the feast was approaching, the evening shadows played their game, and the tired procurator probably imagined that someone was sitting in the empty chair. Yielding to his faint-heartedness and ruffling the cloak, the procurator let it drop and began rushing about the balcony, now rubbing his hands, now rushing to the table and seizing the cup, now stopping and staring senselessly at the mosaics of the floor, as if trying to read something written there …
It was the second time in the same day that anguish came over him. Rubbing his temple, where only a dull, slightly aching reminder of the morning’s infernal pain lingered, the procurator strained to understand what the reason for his soul’s torments was. And he quickly understood it, but attempted to deceive himself. It was clear to him that that afternoon he had lost something irretrievably, and that he now wanted to make up for the loss by some petty, worthless and, above all, belated actions. The deceiving of himself consisted in the procurator’s trying to convince himself that these actions, now, this evening, were no less important than the morning’s sentence. But in this the procurator succeeded very poorly.
At one of his turns, he stopped abruptly and whistled. In response to this whistle, a low barking resounded in the twilight, and a gigantic sharp-eared dog with a grey pelt and a gold-studded collar sprang from the garden on to the balcony.
‘Banga, Banga,’ the procurator cried weakly.
The dog rose on his hind legs, placed his front paws on his master’s shoulders, nearly knocking him to the floor, and licked his cheek. The procurator sat down in the armchair. Banga, his tongue hanging out, panting heavily, lay down at his master’s feet, and the joy in the dog’s eyes meant that the storm was over, the only thing in the world that the fearless dog was afraid of, and also that he was again there, next to the man whom he loved, respected, and considered the most powerful man in the world, the ruler of all men, thanks to whom the dog considered himself a privileged, lofty and special being. Lying down at his master’s feet without even looking at him, but looking into the dusky garden, the dog nevertheless realized at once that trouble had befallen his master.
He therefore changed his position, got up, came from the side and placed his front paws and head on the procurator’s knees, smearing the bottom of his cloak with wet sand. Banga’s actions were probably meant to signify that he comforted his master and was ready to meet misfortune with him. He also attempted to express this with his eyes, casting sidelong glances at his master,
