All this was good, but it made the Hegemon's awakening all the more horrible. Banga began howling at the moon, and the light-blue road, slippery and oily-smooth, vanished in front of the procurator. He opened his eyes and the first thing he remembered was that the execution had taken place. The first thing the procurator did was, as usual, to grab for Banga's collar, then, with aching eyes, he began searching for die moon and saw that it had moved slighdy to the side and turned silver. Its light was being disrupted by an unpleasant, restless light playing on the balcony right in front of him. It came from a flaming, smoking torch held by Centurion Ratkiller. He glowered with fear and loathing at the dangerous beast ready to lunge at him.
"Stay, Banga," said the procurator with a sickly voice, and he coughed. Shading his eyes from the flame, he continued, "Even at night and in the moonlight, I have no peace. O gods! You too have a bad job, Mark. You maim soldiers..."
Mark looked at the procurator with profound astonishment, and the latter came to his senses. In an effort to smooth over the gratuitous words he had spoken when not fully awake, the procurator said, "Don't
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take offense, Centurion. My position, I repeat, is even worse. What do you want?"
"The chief of the secret service is here to see you," Mark reported calmly.
"Send him in, send him in," ordered the procurator, coughing to clear his throat, and feeling for his sandals with his bare feet. The flame played over the columns, the centurion's caligas clattered on the mosaic. The centurion went out to the garden.
"Even at night and in the moonlight, I have no peace," said the procurator to himself, his teeth clenched.
The man in the hood took the place of the centurion on the balcony.
"Banga, stay," said the procurator quietly, pressing the back of the dog's head.
Before he began to speak, Afranius, as was his custom, took a look around and stepped into the shadow, and when he had assured himself that apart from Banga, he and the procurator were the only ones on the balcony, he said softly, "I ask that you bring me to justice, Procurator. You were right. I was unable to save Judas of Kerioth. He was murdered. I ask to be tried and discharged."
Afranius felt as if he were being watched by two pairs of eyes—a dog's and a wolfs.
He pulled a bloodstained purse with two seals out from under his chlamys.
"Here is the bag of money the murderers threw at the high priest's house. The blood on it is the blood of Judas of Kerioth."
"I'm curious, how much money is there?" asked Pilate, nodding at the purse.
"Thirty tetradrachmas."
The procurator gave a laugh and said, "Not very much."
Afranius said nothing.
"Where is the slain man?"
"That I don't know," replied the man who never parted with his hood, with calm dignity. "We'll begin our investigation this morning."
The procurator shuddered, and let go of the sandal strap that refused to be fastened.
"But you know for certain that he was killed?"
To this the procurator received a dry reply, "I have worked in Judea for fifteen years, Procurator. I began my service under Valerius Gratus. I don't have to see the corpse to know that a man has been killed, and I am here to report that the man called Judas from the city of Kerioth was murdered a few hours ago."
"Forgive me, Afranius," replied Pilate. "I'm still not properly awake, that's why I said what I did. I sleep badly," the procurator gave a laugh, "and I keep seeing a moonbeam in my dream. It's so absurd, imagine... I seem to be walking along that moonbeam. And so, I would like to
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know what your thoughts are on this matter. Where do you intend to look for him? Sit down, Chief of the Secret Service."
Afranius bowed, moved a chair closer to the bed and sat down, his sword clanking.
"I intend to look for him near the olive press in the garden of Gethsemane."
"I see. And why there, precisely?"
"Hegemon, by my reasoning, Judas was killed neither in Yershalaim itself, nor very far away from it. He was killed on the outskirts of Yershalaim."
"I consider you one of the leading experts in your field. I cannot speak of Rome, of course, but in the colonies you are without equal. Explain to me, why?"
"It is inconceivable to me," said Afranius, speaking softly, "that Judas would have fallen into suspicious hands within the city limits. You don't stab someone clandestinely on the street. That means he must have been lured into some cellar somewhere. But the secret service has already looked for him in the Lower City, and if he were there, they would surely have found him. I can assure you that he is nowhere in die city. And if he had been killed far away from the city, they wouldn't have been able to throw back the packet of money so soon. He was murdered not far from the city. They managed to lure him out of the city."
"I don't see how they could have accomplished that."
"Yes, Procurator, that is the most difficult question of all, and I don't even know if 111 be able to solve it."
"A mystery indeed! On the evening of a holiday a believer forsakes the Passover meal and goes out of the city for some unknown reason, and there he perishes. Who could have lured him and how? Could it have been a woman?" asked the procurator with sudden inspiration.
Afranius answered calmly and gravely, "Absolutely not, Procurator. That possibility is ruled out entirely. One must reason logically. Who would have an interest in Judas's death? Vagrant dreamers, a group of them, a group, first of all, that doesn't include any women. One needs money to get married, Procurator, money is also necessary to bring someone into the world, but to murder someone with a woman's help, one needs a great deal of money, and vagrants don't have money. No woman was involved in this affair, Procurator. What's more, I would argue such a hypothesis can only serve to throw us off track, impede the investigation, and complicate things for me."
"I see your point completely, Afranius," said Pilate, "and I was only taking the liberty of offering my supposition."
"It is, alas, a mistaken one, Procurator."
"But, then, what other possibilities are there?" exclaimed the procurator staring at Afranius with avid curiosity.
"I think it was still the money."
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"A remarkable idea! But who could offer him money at night outside the city? And for what?"
"Oh, no, Procurator, it didn't happen like that. I can offer only one supposition, and if it's wrong, then I probably won't come up with any others." Afranius leaned closer to the procurator and added in a whisper, "Judas wanted to hide his money in a safe spot only he knew about"
"A highly subtle explanation. That must have been how it happened. Now I follow you; it wasn't people who lured him out of the city, but his own idea. Yes, yes, that must have been it."
"Precisely. Judas didn't trust anyone. He wanted to hide his money."
"Yes, in Gethsemane, you said. But why is it precisely there that you intend to look for him—that, I confess, I can't understand."
"Oh, Procurator, that is the simplest thing of all. No one is going to hide money on a road or in an empty, open place. Judas wasn't on the road to Kedron or to Bethany. He needed to be in some safe, secluded spot with trees. It's so simple. And there's no place like that near Yershalaim except Gethsemane. He couldn't have gone far."
"You've convinced me completely. So, what is to be done now?"
"I'll start an immediate search for the murderers who followed Judas out of the city, and in the meantime, I will, as I have already reported, turn myself over for prosecution."
"What for?"
"My men lost him this evening in the marketplace after he had left Kaifa's palace. How that happened, I do not know. It has never happened to me before. He was put under observation right after our talk. But in the vicinity of the marketplace he got away and covered his tracks so thoroughly that he vanished without a trace."
"I see. But I am informing you that I do not deem it necessary for you to be prosecuted. You did everything that you could, and no one in the world,"—here the procurator smiled—"could have done more than you did) Reprimand the men who lost Judas in the marketplace. But here, too, I warn you: I do not wish you to reprimand them too severely. After all, we did everything we could to look after that good-for-nothing! Oh, yes, I forgot to ask," said the procurator, wiping his forehead, "how did they manage to throw the money back at Haifa?"
"You see, Procurator... That wasn't particularly difficult. The avengers went to the back of Kaifa's palace, where the street looks down over the rear courtyard. They threw the packet of money over the fence."
"With a note attached?"
"Yes, exactly as you had imagined, Procurator. And, by the way,"—here Afranius broke the seals on the packet and showed its contents to Pilate.
"Take care what you're doing, Afranius. After all, they're temple seals!"
"The Procurator need not trouble himself about this question," replied Afranius, closing the packet.
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"You mean you have all their seals?" asked Pilate, laughing.
"How could it be otherwise," replied Afranius dryly, with no trace of laughter.
"I can just imagine Kaifa's reaction!"
"Yes, Procurator, it caused quite a stir. I was summoned immediately."
Even in the semidarkness, Pilate's eyes could be seen glittering.
"That's interesting, interesting..."
"I beg to differ, Procurator. It was not interesting at all. It was a supremely tedious and wearisome business. When I questioned them as to whether money had been paid out to anyone in Kaifa's palace, they told me categorically that it had not."
"Is that so? Well, then, if the money wasn't paid, it wasn't paid. It will be that much harder to find the murderers."
"Quite true, Procurator."
"You know, Afranius, something just occurred to me: couldn't he have killed himself?"
"Oh, no, Procurator," replied Afranius, leaning back in his chair in surprise. "That is, if you will pardon me, highly unlikely!"
"Ah, in this city anything is possible! I would argue, in fact, that in no time at all rumors to that effect will be spreading throughout the city."
At this point Afranius gave Pilate that particular look of his, thought for a moment, and replied, "That may be, Procurator."
The procurator obviously could not relinquish the subject of the man from Kerioth's murder, even though it was already clear what had happened, and he commented wistfully, "I wish I could have seen how he was killed."
"He was killed with great artistry, Procurator," replied Afranius, giving him a somewhat ironic look.
"How do you know that?"
"Just take a look at the bag, Procurator," replied Afranius. "I can promise you that Judas's blood flowed freely. I've seen my share of murdered bodies, Procurator!"
"So, then, of course he will not arise?"
"No, Procurator, he will arise," replied Afranius with a philosophic smile, "when the trumpet of the Messiah, whom they await here, sounds above him. But until that he will not arise."
"Enough, Afranius! This subject is clear. Let's go to the burial."
"The executed men have been buried, Procurator."
"Oh, Afranius, it would be a crime to prosecute you. You deserve the highest reward. How did it go?"
Afranius began an account of how, while he was busy with the Judas affair, a secret service team under the command of his assistant got to the hill before nightfall. One body was missing from the hilltop. Pilate shuddered and said hoarsely, "Ah, why didn't I foresee that!"
"It is not worth getting upset about, Procurator," said Afranius and
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continued his account.
The bodies of Dismas and Gestas, their eyes pecked out by birds of prey, were picked up, and then a search was undertaken for the third body. It was soon located. Some man had...
"Levi Matvei," said Pilate, stating rather than questioning.
"Yes, Procurator..."
Levi Matvei had been hiding in a cave on the northern slope of Bald Skull, waiting for it to get dark. He had Yeshua Ha-Notsri's naked body with him. When the men entered the cave with a torch, Levi flew into a fit of rage and despair. He shouted that he had committed no crime and that anyone had the right, according to the law, to bury the body of an executed criminal if he wished to. Levi Matvei kept saying that he did not want to part with the body. He was agitated, and kept shouting something incoherent, begged, then threatened or cursed..."
"Did they have to seize him?" asked Pilate gloomily.
"No, Procurator, they did not, answered Afranius very soothingly, "The daring madman was calmed when it was explained that the body would be buried."
Levi, after absorbing what had been said, quieted down, but declared that he wasn't going away, and wanted to take part in the burial. He said he would not go away even if they were going to kill him, and even offered them the bread knife he had with him for this purpose.
"Did they chase him off?"
"No, Procurator, they did not. My assistant allowed him to take part in the burial."
"Which of your assistants was in charge?" asked Pilate.
"Tolmai," replied Afranius, adding with alarm, "Did he perhaps make a mistake?"
"Go on," replied Pilate, "there was no mistake. In general, I am beginning to feel somewhat at a loss, Afranius, since apparently I am dealing with a man who never makes mistakes. And that man is you."
They put Levi Matvei into the cart along with the bodies of the executed men, and two hours later they arrived at a deserted canyon north of Yershalaim. There the men worked in shifts and in about two hours they had dug a deep ditch and buried all three of the bodies.
"Were they naked?"
"No, Procurator. The men had brought chitons for that very purpose. Rings were put on the fingers of the corpses. Yeshua's ring had one marking, Dismas's two, and Gestas's three. The ditch was filled in and covered over with rocks. Tolmai knows what the identifying marker is."
"Ah, if only I had foreseen it!," said Pilate, frowning. "I would have liked to have seen that Levi Matvei."
"He is here, Procurator."
Pilate's eyes widened and he stared at Afranius for some time before he said, "Thank you for all that was done in this matter. Please have
278 The Master and Margarita
Tolmai sent to me tomorrow, and in the meantime tell him that I am well pleased with him. And I ask that you, Afranius," —here the procurator took a ring from the pocket of his belt, which was lying on the table, and handed it to the chief of the secret service—"accept this as a token of my esteem."
Afranius bowed and said, "It is a great honor, Procurator."
"I ask that you reward the men who took care of the burial. And reprimand those responsible for losing Judas. Now send me Levi Matvei. I wish to hear more details about Yeshua."
"Certainly, Procurator," replied Afranius, and he began bowing as he withdrew. The procurator clapped his hands and shouted, "Come here! Bring me a lamp in the colonnade!"
By the time Afranius had reached the garden, lights were seen flickering behind Pilate in the servants' hands. Three lamps were placed on the table in front of the procurator, and the moonlit night retreated into the garden, as if Afranius had taken it away with him. Taking Afranius's place on the balcony was a short, scrawny stranger and beside him was the giant centurion. The latter, at a glance from the procurator, withdrew to the garden and disappeared.
The procurator studied the new arrival with avid, and slightly fearful eyes. It was the kind of look one gives someone one has heard of and thought a lot about, and whom one is meeting for the first time.
The newcomer was about forty, ragged, black, caked with dried mud, and glaring wolfishly from under his brows. In short, he was very unprepossessing and resembled hundreds of other beggars in the city who flocked around the temple terraces or marketplaces of the dirty, noisy Lower City.
The silence between them lasted for some time and was broken only by the strange behavior of the man who had been brought before Pilate. A change came over his face, he tottered, and would, in fact, have fallen if his dirty hand had not grabbed onto the edge of the table.
"What's wrong with you?" Pilate asked him.
"Nothing," Levi Matvei replied, and made a movement that looked as if he had swallowed something. His dirty, bare neck bulged out and then sank in.
"What's wrong, answer me," Pilate repeated.
"I'm tired," Levi replied and stared gloomily at the floor.
"Sit down," said Pilate, pointing to the chair.
Levi looked distrustfully at the procurator, moved over to the chair, cast a frightened eye over its gilded arms, and then chose to sit not on it, but on the floor beside it.
"Why didn't you sit on the chair?" asked Pilate.
"I'm filthy, I'll soil it," said Levi, staring at the ground.
"Then I'll get you something to eat right away."
"I don't want to eat," replied Levi.
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"Why lie?" asked Pilate softly. "You haven't eaten for a whole day, perhaps longer. All right, then, don't eat I sent for you because I wanted you to show me the knife you had."
"The soldiers took it away from me when they brought me here," replied Levi sullenly, adding, "Get it back for me. I have to return it to its owner. I stole it."
"Why?"
"To cut the ropes," replied Levi.
"Mark!" shouted the procurator, and the centurion stepped into the colonnade. "Give me his knife."
The centurion removed a dirty bread knife from one of the two sheaths on his belt and handed it to the procurator. He then withdrew.
"Who did you steal the knife from?"
"From a bread store at the Hebron Gate, right on the left as you enter the city."
Pilate looked at the wide blade, tested its sharpness with his finger for some reason, and said, "Don't worry about the knife, it will be returned to the shop. And now I want something else: show me the parchment you carry around with you, where Yeshua's words are written down."
Levi looked at Pilate with hatred and smiled such a malicious smile that his face became all distorted.
"You want to take that away? My last possession?" he asked.
"I didn't say: hand it over," replied Pilate, "I said: show it to me."
Levi rummaged inside his shirt and pulled out a roll of parchment. Pilate took it from him, unrolled it, spread it out between the lamps, and with a frown on his face began studying the barely decipherable ink markings. The scrawly lines were hard to follow, and Pilate frowned as he bent over the parchment, running his finger over the lines. He did manage to make out that the writing was a disconnected set of sayings, dates, household jottings, and poetic fragments. He was able to read: "There is no death... Yesterday we ate sweet spring figs..."
Grimacing from the effort, Pilate squinted, and read, "We shall see the pure stream of the water of life... Mankind will gaze at the sun through transparent crystal..."
Here Pilate shuddered. In the parchment's concluding lines he could make out the words, "...greater vice... cowardice."
Pilate rolled up the parchment and handed it brusquely back to Levi.
"Take it," he said, and after a brief silence, added, "You are, as I can see, a learned man, and there is no reason why you, who are alone, should be wandering about in rags without any place to go. I have a large library in Caesarea, I am very wealthy, and I want to take you into my service. You will arrange and care for the papyri, and you will be well fed and clothed."
Levi stood up and replied, "No, I don't want to."
"Why?" asked the procurator, his face darkening. "Do you find me
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unpleasant, are you afraid of me?"
The same malicious smile contorted Levi's face, and he said, "No, it's because you'll be afraid of me. It won't be easy for you to look me in the face after you killed him."
"Be quiet," said Pilate, "take some money."
Levi shook his head in refusal, and the procurator continued, "You, I know, consider yourself a disciple of Yeshua, but I can assure you that you have learned nothing from what he tried to teach you. Because if you had, you would certainly have accepted something from me. Remember that before he died, he said that he didn't blame anyone,"— Pilate raised his finger meaningfully, and his face twitched. "And he himself would undoubtedly have taken something from me. You are cruel, and he was not a cruel man. Where will you go?"
Levi suddenly walked over to the table, rested both hands on it, and, staring with burning eyes at the procurator, whispered to him, "Know, Hegemon, that I am going to murder a certain man in Yershalaim. I am telling you this so you will know there will be more blood."
"I, too, know there will be more blood," replied Pilate. "Your words do not surprise me. You, of course, wish to murder me, isn't that so?"
"I would not be able to murder you," replied Levi, baring his teeth in a smile, "and I am not stupid enough to expect that I could. But I shall murder Judas of Kerioth, even if it takes me the rest of my life."
A gleam of pleasure shone in the procurator's eyes. Beckoning Levi Matvei closer, he said, "Don't worry yourself, you won't succeed. Judas was already murdered this very night."
Levi jumped back from the table, his eyes staring wildly, and cried out, "Who did it?"
"Don't be jealous," replied Pilate, baring his teeth, and rubbing his hands, "I'm afraid you weren't his only admirer."
"Who did it?" repeated Levi in a whisper.
"I did it."
Levi's mouth fell open, and he gaped at the procurator, who said quietly, "It wasn't very much, of course, but nevertheless it was I who did it." And he added, "Well, will you take something now?"
Levi thought for awhile, relented, and finally said, "Tell them to give me a piece of clean parchment."
An hour passed. Levi was gone from the palace. Now the only thing that disturbed the early morning silence was the quiet sound of the sentries' footsteps in the garden. The moon was rapidly fading, and at the other edge of the sky the whitish speck of the morning star appeared. The lamps had long been extinguished. The procurator lay on his couch. He slept with his hand under his cheek, breathing soundlessly. Banga slept beside him.
Thus the dawn of the fifteenth day of Nisan was greeted by the fifth procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate.
XXVII
The End of Apartment No. 50
W |
hen Margarita got to the final words of the chapter— "...Thus the dawn of the fifteenth day of Nisan was greeted by the fifth procurator ofjudea, Pontius Pilate,"—morning had arrived.
From the yard came the cheerful, exdted, morning sounds of sparrows conversing in the branches of the white willow and the linden tree.
Margarita got up from her chair, stretched, and only then realized how worn out her body was and how much she craved sleep. It is interesting to note that Margarita's soul was in perfect shape. Her thoughts were not in disarray, and she was not at all unnerved by having spent the previous night supematurally. Memories of her time at Satan's ball did not disturb her, nor did the fact that the Master had been returned to her by a kind of miracle, that his novel had risen from the ashes, and that everything was back in place in the basement apartment, from which the informer Aloisy Mogarych had been expelled. In short, her encounter with Woland had caused her no psychic distress. Everything was seemingly as it should have been.
She went into the adjoining room, assured herself that the Master was sleeping deeply and peacefully, turned off the desk lamp, which was no longer necessary, stretched out on the small couch along the opposite wall, and covered herself with an old, torn sheet A minute later she was asleep, and that morning she had no dreams. All the rooms in the basement were silent, the private home builder's entire small house was silent, and silence also reigned in the deserted lane outside.
Meanwhile, at the same time, that is, at dawn on Saturday, an entire floor of one of Moscow's official buildings was wide awake, and its windows, which looked out on a large, asphalt-covered square being cleaned by the whirring brushes of special, slow-moving machines, were all lit up with a stark light that outshone the rising sun.
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