‘Niza!’
The woman turned, narrowed her eyes, her face showing cold vexation, and replied drily in Greek:
‘Ah, it’s you, Judas? I didn’t recognize you at once. That’s good, though. With us, if someone’s not recognized, it’s a sign he’ll get rich...’
So agitated that his heart started leaping like a bird under a black cloth, Judas asked in a faltering whisper, for fear passers-by might overhear:
‘Where are you going, Niza?’
‘And what do you want to know that for?’ replied Niza, slowing her pace and looking haughtily at Judas.
Then some sort of childish intonations began to sound in Judas’s voice, he whispered in bewilderment:
‘But why? ... We had it all arranged ... I wanted to come to you, you said you’d be home all evening ...’
‘Ah, no, no,’ answered Niza, and she pouted her lower lip capriciously, which made it seem to Judas that her face, the most beautiful face he had ever seen in his life, became still more beautiful. ‘I was bored. You’re having a feast, and what am I supposed to do? Sit and listen to you sighing on the terrace? And be afraid, on top of it, that the serving-woman will tell him about it? No, no, I decided to go out of town and listen to the nightingales.’
‘How, out of town?’ the bewildered Judas asked. ‘Alone?’
‘Of course, alone,’ answered Niza.
‘Let me accompany you,’ Judas asked breathlessly. His mind clouded, he forgot everything in the world and looked with imploring eyes into the blue eyes of Niza, which now seemed black.
Niza said nothing and quickened her pace.
‘Why are you silent, Niza?’ Judas said pitifully, adjusting his pace to hers.
‘Won’t I be bored with you?’ Niza suddenly asked and stopped. Here Judas’s thoughts became totally confused.
‘Well, all right,’ Niza finally softened, ‘come along.’
‘But where, where?’
Wait ... let’s go into this yard and arrange it, otherwise I’m afraid some acquaintance will see me and then they’ll tell my husband I was out with my lover.‘
And here Niza and Judas were no longer in the bazaar, they were whispering under the gateway of some yard.
‘Go to the olive estate,’ Niza whispered, pulling the veil over her eyes and turning away from a man who was coming through the gateway with a bucket, ‘to Gethsemane, beyond the Kedron, understand?’
‘Yes, yes, yes ...’
‘I’ll go ahead,’ Niza continued, ‘but don’t follow on my heels. Keep separate from me. I’ll go ahead ... When you cross the stream ... you know where the grotto is?’
‘I know, I know ...’
‘Go up past the olive press and turn to the grotto. I’ll be there. Only don’t you dare come after me at once, be patient, wait here,’ and with these words Niza walked out the gateway as though she had never spoken with Judas.
Judas stood for some time alone, trying to collect his scattering thoughts. Among them was the thought of how he was going to explain his absence from the festal family meal. Judas stood thinking up some lie, but in his agitation was unable to think through or prepare anything properly, and slowly walked out the gateway.
Now he changed his route, he was no longer heading towards the Lower City, but turned back to Kaifa’s palace. The feast had already entered the city. In the windows around Judas, not only were lights shining, but hymns of praise were heard. On the pavement, belated passers-by urged their donkeys on, whipping them up, shouting at them. Judas’s legs carried him by themselves, and he did not notice how the terrible, mossy Antonia Towers flew past him, he did not hear the roar of trumpets in the fortress, did not pay attention to the mounted Roman patrol and its torch that flooded his path with an alarming light.
Turning after he passed the tower, Judas saw that in the terrible height above the temple two gigantic five- branched candlesticks blazed. But even these Judas made out vaguely. It seemed to him that ten lamps of an unprecedented size lit up over Yershalaim, competing with the light of the single lamp that was rising ever higher over Yershalaim - the moon.
Now Judas could not be bothered with anything, he headed for the Gethsemane gate, he wanted to leave the city quickly. At times it seemed to him that before him, among the backs and faces of passers-by, the dancing little figure flashed, leading him after her. But this was an illusion. Judas realized that Niza was significantly ahead of him. Judas rushed past the money-changing shops and finally got to the Gethsemane gate. There, burning with impatience, he was still forced to wait. Camels were coming into the city, and after them rode a Syrian military patrol, which Judas cursed mentally ...
But all things come to an end. The impatient Judas was already beyond the city wall. To the left of him Judas saw a small cemetery, next to it several striped pilgrims’ tents. Crossing the dusty road flooded with moonlight, Judas headed for the stream of the Kedron with the intention of wading across it. The water babbled quietly under Judas’s feet. Jumping from stone to stone, he finally came out on the Gethsemane bank opposite and saw with great joy that here the road below the gardens was empty. The half-ruined gates of the olive estate could already be seen not far away.
After the stuffy city, Judas was struck by the stupefying smell of the spring night. From the garden a wave of myrtle and acacia from the Gethsemane glades poured over the fence.
No one was guarding the gateway, there was no one in it, and a few minutes later Judas was already running under the mysterious shade of the enormous, spreading olive trees. The road went uphill. Judas ascended, breathing heavily, at times emerging from the darkness on to patterned carpets of moonlight, which reminded him of the carpets he had seen in the shop of Niza’s jealous husband.
