Pilgermann by Russell Hoban Page A

end up sitting on top of her. She’s awell-built woman and I think longingly of times that will never come again. ‘Why are we fighting?’ she says. ‘We’re all God’s children, aren’t we? We’re all brothers and sisters in Christ.’
    ‘Not me,’ I say. ‘I’m a Jew.’
    ‘So was Christ,’ she says. ‘It makes nothing. Are you just going to sit there, aren’t you going to have me?’
    ‘I can’t,’ I say. ‘I’m a eunuch.’
    ‘Yet God be thanked!’ she says.
    ‘For what?’ I say.
    ‘That they didn’t cut out your tongue as well!’ she says.
    Thus, in our little dark wood in our tiny bit of background on the night side of the picture.
    The night is far gone when she takes me to a little hut deep in the wood and well off the travelled path. Hanging from a tripod over the embers of a fire is the head of the tax-collector, somewhat shrivelled and smoke-darkened. ‘God in Heaven!’ I say.
    ‘Pontius Pilate,’ she says. ‘He’s not quite done but he’ll certainly fetch twenty pieces of gold when he’s ready. You won’t get a Pilate like that anywhere for less than fifty; a Pilate like that will make any church rich, it’s really unusual.’
    ‘Why Pilate?’ I say.
    ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘That’s just how it is. When I saw him I said, “Pontius Pilate”.’
    ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘but why would a church want the head of Pontius Pilate?’
    ‘How could they not want him?’ she says. ‘What kind of relics have they got? They’ve got Christ’s foreskin and Mary’s afterbirth and three hairs from Joseph’s arse but what about the man who made Christianity possible? What if Pilate hadn’t washed his hands? What if he’d turned Jesus loose and let him go on preaching, what then, hey?’
    I ponder this.
    ‘Why were you coming through this wood?’ she says.
    ‘I’m going to Jerusalem,’ I say, suddenly remembering that I’m in a hurry.
    ‘What for?’ she says.
    ‘To keep Jesus from going away,’ I say.
    ‘He’s already gone,’ she says. ‘If Jesus had stayed buried in Jerusalem he’d have been divided up amongst all the churchesin Christendom by now. You must know he was resurrected even if you are a Jew.’
    ‘I know,’ I say. ‘I’ve seen him.’
    ‘Did you get any relics of him?’ she says.
    ‘I’m not joking,’ I say.‘I really saw him.’
    ‘How?’ she says. ‘Had you a vision?’
    ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘ wasn’t quite myself at the time. I was leaning on him, he was holding me up.’
    ‘Did he have a smell?’ she says.
    I put my mind back to when I was with Jesus. ‘He smells of stone and sweat and fire,’ I say.
    ‘Then Jesus he wasn’t,’ she says. ‘Jesus wouldn’t have a smell, that’s how you’d know him.’
    ‘Everybody has some kind of a smell,’ I say.
    ‘Well I know it,’ she says. ‘That’s just why Jesus would be different; he’s the Son of God, isn’t he? Do you think things came out of him like out of ordinary people when he was on earth? Do you think he made turds?’
    I say, ‘Well, he ate and he drank and he bled so I suppose he must have done the rest of it as well the same as anyone else.’
    ‘There you show your heathen ignorance, thou child of darkness,’ she says. ‘If Jesus had made turds they’d never have corrupted like ordinary ones and they’d be in little golden jewelled caskets in churches.’
    This also I ponder.
    ‘Maybe I should come with you,’ she says. ‘It isn’t safe to travel alone these days.’
    I look at her. She’s not at all a bad-looking woman, she’s certainly strong enough to be a helpful companion on the road and she’s good company as well. It’s true that she’s a murderess but in these times that’s perfectly acceptable to me as long as she’s murdering for me and not against me.
    ‘You owe me something, you know,’ she says. ‘After all, it was you that widowed me.’
    ‘And it was you that almost made me a relic,’ I say. I want her to come