Thought Tapestries

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Walt had added three index cards to the table, set in a row beside the jar of pencils. Each one had a word printed on it in his square teacher’s hand. TEXT. SUGGESTED. OUTSIDE.

Denny picked up the middle card and turned it over to see whether anything was written on the back. “What’s this, a game?”

“A habit.” Walt was cutting a stack of blank cards in half with a pair of kitchen scissors. “Whenever somebody says something tonight, I’ll ask which card it goes under. Text is what Luke actually writes. Suggested is what the text points to if you line it up with the rest. Outside is anything we bring in from somewhere else.”

“This sounds like a trap,” said Denny.

“It’s a drawer,” said Walt.

Amara had her phone propped against the jar and a pen already uncapped. “I like it. I’ve been wanting somebody to make us do this.”

“Who’s ‘us’?” said Denny.

“You.”

“Fine.” Denny sat down heavily. “But I’m reserving the right to say stuff that doesn’t go anywhere.”

“Then you’ll need a fourth card,” Walt said, and slid him a blank one. Denny looked at it for a while, picked up a pencil, and wrote DENNY’S across it in block letters. Tomás, who had been reading with the paperback held up in front of his face, made a noise that might have been a laugh.

“Before we read a word,” Walt said, “where is Paul? Walk me through it from twenty-one.”

Amara went fast and flat, the way she did. “Twenty-one, he arrives in Jerusalem, goes into the temple for the vow, gets grabbed, the mob drags him out and the soldiers carry him up the stairs. Twenty-two, he speaks from the stairs, they riot again, the soldiers get ready to flog him, he says he’s a Roman citizen. They stop. Then the tribune calls the chief priests and the council and brings Paul down and stands him in front of them.”

“And twenty-three starts there,” said Denny. “Looking right at them.”

“‘Earnestly beholding the council,’” said Tomás.

“So where’s he go from there?” said Walt.

“Out of Jerusalem by night, through Antipatris, down to Caesarea,” said Amara. “And twenty-four starts with him at Felix’s court.”

“Every chapter hands him to the next place,” said Tomás. “The temple to the stairs. The stairs to the council. The council to the road. The road to the governor.”

“A relay,” said Denny. “Somebody’s always got the baton.”

“Twenty-two thirty,” Walt said. “Read it again, Amara. Slowly this time.”

She read it. “‘The next day, because he wanted to know for certain why he was accused by the Jews, he released him from his bonds and commanded the chief priests and all the council to meet. And he brought Paul down and set him before them.’”

“Which card?” said Walt.

“Text,” said Amara. She slid it onto the first pile. “It’s in the verse.”

“What’s the plan, then?”

“Find out why they’re all screaming,” Denny said. “He’s a soldier. He’s got a riot on his hands and no idea what started it. So he goes to the people who ought to know.”

“And what does he get?” said Walt.

Denny leaned back, hands behind his head. “I’ll tell you what he gets. A Roman officer’s been in that city for who knows how long. These people have rituals for everything. Don’t touch this, wash that, don’t eat the other thing. He’s seen it a hundred times and none of it ever mattered to him. And now one of these rituals has turned into a riot, and he’s trying to get a straight answer, and every time he asks a question there’s another explosion over some detail that wouldn’t be worth a sentence in a Roman report.”

“Which card?” said Walt.

“That’s Denny’s.”

“Is it Outside?”

“It’s mine,” said Denny. “I’m making a guess about what a man in his seat probably thought.”

“Put it in the fourth pile,” said Walt, not unkindly. “And hold it up against the letter when we get there. Verse one.”

Tomás read it from the old book, slowly. “‘And Paul, earnestly beholding the council, said, Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.’”

“And the high priest Ananias commands those standing near to hit him on the mouth,” said Amara.

“Over that sentence,” said Denny. “A man says he’s lived with a clear conscience, and he gets hit.”

“No hearing. No evidence,” Amara said. “He’s barely opened his mouth.”

“Text,” said Tomás, and Amara put the card down.

“Verse three,” said Walt.

Amara read it. “‘God is going to strike you, you whitewashed wall! Do you sit to judge me according to the law, and in violation of the law order me to be struck?’”

“Wall,” said Tomás. “Not tomb.”

“Jesus said tombs,” said Denny. “Matthew twenty-three. ‘Whitewashed tombs.’”

Amara was already scrolling. “Same verb. Whitewashed. In Matthew it’s tombs and here it’s a wall. The word for the action is the same.”

“Ezekiel thirteen,” Tomás said quietly. “There’s a wall.” He paged back through the old book to the middle of the prophets. He read the way he always did, with the old thees. “‘And one built up a wall, and, lo, others daubed it with untempered morter. Say unto them which daub it with untempered morter, that it shall fall: there shall be an overflowing shower; and ye, O great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall rend it.’”

“Mine says whitewash,” said Amara. “‘Plastered with whitewash.’”

“Different translations,” Tomás said. “It’s a rare word.”

“So Paul’s calling him a wall that somebody coated to look sturdy,” said Denny.

“What does Paul say about it?” said Walt.

“He doesn’t say Ezekiel,” said Amara.

“Which card, then, for Ezekiel thirteen?”

They looked at each other.

“Suggested,” Tomás said. “It recalls it. I’d say that much. I wouldn’t say Paul had the page open in his head.”

“Fair,” said Walt. “Put it down.”

Amara dropped the card on the middle pile. It made a very small sound against the table.

“Who was Ananias?” Walt asked.

“I looked him up,” said Amara, and picked up her phone. “Ananias, son of Nedebaeus. He became high priest around forty-seven or forty-eight, appointed by a Herodian king, and he held it until around fifty-eight or fifty-nine. So this is near the end of his run. The dates are approximate.”

“And what do we know about him?” said Walt.

“From Josephus, which makes it Outside,” Amara said, and slid a card across. “He had servants who went to the threshing floors and took the tithes by force from ordinary priests. He got a reputation for greed and for bribing officials. At one point he was sent to Rome in chains, and he came home.”

“That’s the man hitting Paul on the mouth,” Denny said.

“That’s the man Josephus describes,” said Walt. “Luke hasn’t told us a word of it.”

“Did Paul know him?” said Tomás.

“That’s the other thing.” Denny tapped the page. “Verse five. ‘I did not know, brothers, that he was the high priest.’ How does a man not know who’s sitting at the head of the table?”

“Luke doesn’t say,” said Amara.

“There are a few ways to take it,” said Tomás. “He could be answering with a kind of bite. ‘A man who orders this couldn’t be the high priest.’”

“Or he really didn’t know,” said Amara. “It’s an unusual session. Called by a Roman officer, not the regular meeting. People are standing, people are shouting.”

“Or it’s been years,” Tomás said. “The high priest he used to carry letters from is long gone.”

“And Luke picks none of those,” said Walt.

“None.”

“Then they’re all Suggested,” Walt said, “and I’d keep them loose. What does Paul do right after, though? That one’s in the text.”

“He quotes Exodus,” said Tomás. He found it. “‘Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people.’”

“The second somebody points to the book, he goes back to the book,” said Denny.

“Text,” said Amara, writing.

“Verse six,” said Walt.

Denny had been waiting for this one. He sat forward. “This is the one. Everybody’s lined up against him and Paul looks around and sees half the room’s one thing and half’s the other. Sadducees on one side, Pharisees on the other. And he drops it in like a lit match. ‘I’m a Pharisee. The son of a Pharisee. It’s about the resurrection that I’m on trial.’ That’s straight out of Sun Tzu. Divide them and let them fight each other.”

“Luke wasn’t reading Sun Tzu,” said Amara.

“I’m not saying he was.”

“Which card?” said Walt.

Denny put his palm flat on his own fourth card. “Mine.”

“Read what Luke actually says,” said Walt.

Amara read. “‘But when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council—’”

“Perceived,” said Tomás.

“He sees it,” said Amara. “Luke tells us what he saw. Luke doesn’t tell us what he planned.”

“He saw it and he said it,” said Denny. “That’s a plan.”

“It’s a man saying something true that also happens to land right on the crack,” Tomás said. “He is on trial for the resurrection. That’s what he’s been preaching. He isn’t making anything up.”

“So it does both,” said Amara.

“It does both,” Tomás agreed. “He answers the question honestly and the room does what the room does.”

“Does he lie?” said Walt.

Nobody said anything for a second.

“No,” said Denny, finally. “Not a word.”

“Then that’s Text, and the rest is Suggested,” said Walt. “And Sun Tzu stays in the fourth pile.”

“Fine,” said Denny. He did not sound unhappy. “I’d still call it three moves, though. He says his piece. Ananias hits him. He shows the man’s own law out of his mouth. Then he sets the one thing everybody’s been shouting about on the line down the middle of the room. Three moves. Like chess.”

“Luke didn’t write a chess match,” said Amara.

“As a reading device.”

“As a reading device,” said Walt, “go ahead. I’d say there’s more than three, but that’s for later.”

“Seven,” said Tomás. “Eight,” he added, and went back to reading.

Amara kept going. “Seven and eight. The room splits down the middle. The Sadducees say there’s no resurrection, no angel, no spirit. The Pharisees affirm all three.”

“And nine,” Denny said. “‘A great cry. The scribes of the Pharisees’ party stood up and fought it out. ‘We find nothing wrong with this man.’”

Walt held up a finger. “Say that one again.”

“‘We find nothing wrong with this man.’”

“That’s Pharisees,” said Walt. “Members of the same council. Lysias’s question was why Paul was accused. What did he get?”

“Some of the council telling him there was nothing to accuse,” said Amara.

“Text,” said Tomás. “Mine goes on. ‘But if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him, let us not fight against God.’”

“Mine stops at the angel,” said Amara.

“Some old copies add that last bit,” Walt said. “It’s worth holding loosely. Whichever way it goes, the Pharisees have turned into his defense in about thirty seconds.”

“Gamaliel said something like it,” Tomás said, slowly. “Back in chapter five. ‘Lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.’”

“Gamaliel’s student,” said Denny, with a sound that was almost admiration.

“Don’t push it,” said Walt. “But note it.”

Amara was writing something along the margin of her page. When she finished she held it up. “Look at the sequence. Lysias wants to know why they accuse him. They bring him in. Paul says his piece. A man’s hit. The room splits. Pharisees say they find no fault. Then, verse twelve, a plot to kill him.”

“What gets stronger as it goes?” said Walt.

“The accusation?” asked Denny.

Amara shook her head. “That stays thin. Nobody ever says what it is.”

“The plan to get rid of him keeps growing,” said Tomás.

“Ten,” said Walt.

Amara read it. “‘And when there arose a great dissension, the tribune, fearing lest Paul should be pulled in pieces by them, commanded the soldiers to go down and take him by force from among them and bring him into the barracks.’”

“Lay it out in order,” said Walt. “Just what Luke says.”

Amara counted on her fingers. “Lysias called the hearing. The hearing turned violent. Lysias feared Paul would be torn apart. Lysias sent soldiers to take him out by force.”

“That’s all of it,” said Denny.

“What else do you need?”

“Nothing.”

“Text,” said Tomás, and Amara dropped the card on the top of the pile, which was getting tall.

“There’s a different way to say that,” said Walt. “Rome isn’t taking Paul’s side. Rome has a problem.”

“A citizen in his custody,” Denny said. “Who’s about to get killed on his watch.”

“Gallio said nearly the same thing in Corinth,” said Amara. She had her finger in chapter eighteen. “‘If it’s a question of words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves. I refuse to be a judge of these things.’”

“A magistrate’s line,” said Tomás.

“Is that the same Rome?” said Walt.

“Suggested,” said Amara. “It’s two different men saying the same thing.”

“Verse eleven,” said Walt.

For a moment nobody read. Amara found it and then did not say anything.

“‘And the night following the Lord stood by him and said, Be of good cheer, Paul, for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome.’” Tomás read it low and slow.

“Another night,” said Amara. “Another vision. There’s one in Corinth.”

“Eighteen nine,” said Tomás.

“‘Be of good cheer,’” said Denny. “You don’t say that to somebody who’s already cheerful.”

“No,” said Walt.

“He’s just been slapped, shouted at, and almost pulled in two,” said Denny.

“And the Lord tells him where it ends,” said Amara. “Rome.”

“Before you say it,” Denny said, pointing at nobody, “I told you. Kings.”

“It says Rome,” said Amara.

“Rome’s got a king in it.”

“It has a lot of things in it.”

“Look at what verse eleven does to everything around it,” said Walt. “Read me the rest of the chapter, and each time somebody tries to stop Paul, tell me what the verse has already said.”

“Twelve,” said Amara. “‘When it was day, certain of the Jews banded together and bound themselves with an oath, saying they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. There were more than forty.’”

“Starving for a murder,” said Denny.

“They go to the chief priests and elders,” Tomás said. “And they ask them to petition the tribune to bring Paul down again tomorrow. As if the council wanted to look into it more carefully.”

“What do the chief priests say?” Walt asked.

Amara read ahead, looked up. “It doesn’t say.”

“Not a word?” asked Denny.

“They’re asked. Luke doesn’t tell us what they answer.”

“Then leave it there,” said Walt. “That’s a gap, not an answer.”

“Sixteen,” said Tomás. “Paul’s sister’s son.”

“Nephew,” said Denny. “First we’ve ever heard Paul had family. Anywhere.”

“How did he know?” said Amara.

“Luke doesn’t say that either.”

“But he gets the whole story to Paul,” Tomás said, “and Paul calls a centurion and says take this boy to the tribune. And the tribune takes him by the hand.”

“‘Took him by the hand,’” said Amara, “‘and went with him aside privately.’”

“A soldier who runs a barracks,” said Denny, “stops everything and takes a kid by the hand to hear what he has to say.”

“Text,” said Walt.

“And he tells the boy to keep quiet,” said Tomás. “Twenty-two.”

“That’s the whole plot, then,” said Denny. “Forty men, an oath, the priests, a nephew. All of that’s in one chapter.”

“Twenty-three,” said Walt.

Amara read, and her voice had a sort of wonder in it. “‘Make ready two hundred soldiers to go to Caesarea, and seventy horsemen, and two hundred spearmen, at the third hour of the night.’”

“That’s four hundred seventy,” said Denny.

“For one man,” Tomás said.

“At nine at night,” said Amara.

“The third hour of the night,” said Walt, with a faint smile. “Which is about right, as we count it.”

“And beasts for Paul to ride,” said Amara.

“Everything that could go wrong, he’s covered,” said Denny. “I’ve never seen a man so thorough about not being blamed.”

“That’s Denny’s,” said Walt, gently.

“That’s Denny’s.” He gave a short laugh and laid his hand on the fourth pile. “The numbers are in the text, though.”

“The letter,” said Walt. “Twenty-six to thirty. Who’s got it?”

Amara read it. Lysias greeted the most excellent governor Felix. This man was seized by the Jews and was about to be killed by them, when Lysias came with soldiers and rescued him, having learned he was a Roman. Wanting to know the cause of the accusation, he brought him down to their council. He found that Paul was accused over questions of their law, with nothing charged against him worthy of death or chains. When Lysias was told of a plot, he sent Paul at once and told the accusers to state their case before Felix.

“Stop,” said Tomás. “Twenty-eight. ‘When I would have known the cause wherefore they accused him.’”

“He says it himself,” said Amara. “That’s why he brought them together. Lysias’s own letter says so.”

“Text,” said Walt.

“And twenty-nine,” said Tomás. “‘Questions of their law.’ Nothing worthy of death or bonds.”

“That’s better than anything Gemini could have written,” said Denny.

“Who?” asked Amara.

“Never mind. Somebody I read.”

“Look at twenty-seven,” Amara said slowly. “‘Having learned that he was a Roman.’ He says he rescued Paul after he learned he was a Roman.” She flipped back. “He rescued him in twenty-one. He didn’t find out until twenty-two. The order’s backwards.”

“Is that Luke’s comment?” said Walt.

“No. Luke just puts the letter next to the story.”

“So it’s Suggested,” said Tomás. “That he’s smoothing it.”

“Every contractor’s got one of those letters,” said Denny.

“Antipatris,” Walt said. “Thirty-one.”

“The soldiers take him by night to Antipatris,” said Amara. “In the morning the horsemen go on with him and the rest go back to the barracks.”

“The danger’s behind them,” said Denny.

“Suggested,” said Tomás. “They don’t need the whole force once they’re out of the city.”

“And at Caesarea they deliver the letter to Felix,” Amara read. “He reads it, and he asks Paul what province he’s from. ‘Cilicia.’”

“Tarsus,” said Denny. “That’s his business card again.”

“And Felix says he’ll hear him when his accusers have come,” said Tomás. “And has him held in Herod’s judgment hall.”

“That’s the end,” said Amara. “Thirty-five.”

“Is it a cliffhanger?” said Walt.

They all checked.

“No,” said Denny. He sounded startled. “He says he’ll hear him when the accusers come.”

“It’s a hand-off,” said Tomás. “And twenty-four starts.”

“‘After five days,’” read Amara. “Ananias comes down with some elders and a lawyer.”

“Five days,” said Denny, and began, slowly, to grin. “That’s an honest break. Five chapters in a row it cut in the middle of something.”

“That’s six,” said Amara.

“This one is a real one,” said Denny. “Five days. First honest break.”

“Look at the cards,” said Walt.

The Text pile stood almost as tall as the jar of pencils. The Suggested cards sat in a loose little stack beside it. Outside was one card, with Josephus on it. The fourth card sat by itself at Denny’s elbow.

“Look at who we’ve met in this chapter,” said Walt. “Everyone who tries to settle the question.”

“The mob couldn’t say what the charge was,” said Amara. “Lysias asked. The council couldn’t answer. Some of the Pharisees said they found nothing wrong. Then forty men skipped the question and decided to kill him.”

“And Lysias protected him,” said Tomás.

“And now Felix,” said Denny.

“What do you notice?” said Walt.

Amara took a long time. “Every authority that looks at him ends up unable to name a charge.”

“Why does Luke keep putting him in front of them?” said Walt.

Nobody had an answer. The kettle began to tick as it cooled, and outside there was a small wind in the maple.

“Eleven,” said Tomás at last. “Because the Lord already said where it ends.”

“Put that one on top,” said Walt.

Amara took the TEXT card, the one that was nearest, and set it very carefully on the center of the pile.

“Five days,” said Denny, and stood to put his coat on. “Bring a pencil.”