Michael Moorcock - Behold the Man

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Anybody who has read The Passover Plot will see what is

going on here quickly enough. This story won the Nebula

award in its category. It deals with a man who travels

through Time in search of the Christ. He is, in a very strange

way, successful in his quest. On first reading, if you're of the

Christian persuasion, this story may seem blasphemous and

irreverent. Well, maybe it is. Maybe the author is an icono-

clast. Say that. Then again, maybe you're an atheist, and a

sophisticated one, and you might say that the author is kick-

ing a dead dog. Say that. Christian or atheist, though, if these

be your initial reactions, consider the story a bit more closely.

it may just be that both reactions are wrong.

Michael Moorcock is a wondrous man, twice the size of

any of us, with a beard like Father Time and the ability to

practically kill himself for that which he loves and believes

in. He edits the British periodical New Worlds, which has

been the vehicle for some very fine tellings since he took it

over. He is a good editor, and a man who would literally give

you his shirt, if you were to stop him on the street and

demonstrate that you really needed it. He is a professional

human being. What more can I say? Plenty. I've met Michael

Moorcock a couple times, and because of this I know what I

am saying when I say that there are very few people who

could spend an afternoon with him and not come away liking

him.

Read his story very carefully, please.

BEHOLD THE MAN

Michael Moorcock

He has no material power as the god-emperors had; he has

only a following of desert people and fishermen. They tell

him he is a god; he believes them. The followers of Alex-

r;s Nebula Award, Best Novella 1967

ander said: "He is unconquerable, therefore he is a god.'

The followers of this man do not think at all; he was theil

act of spontaneous creation. Now he leads them, this mad-

man called Jesus of Nazareth.

And he spoke, saying unto them: Yeah verily I was Kari

Glogauer and now I am Jesus the Messiah, the Christ.

And it was so.

The time machine was a sphere full of milky fluid in which

the traveler floated, enclosed in a rubber suit, breathing

through a mask attached to a hose leading to the wall of the

machine. The sphere cracked as it landed and the fluid

spilled into the dust and was soaked up. Instinctively,

Glogauer curled himself into a ball as the level of the liquid

fell and he sank to the yielding plastic of the sphere's inner

lining. The instruments, cryptographic, unconventional, were

still and silent. The sphere shifted and rolled as the last of

the liquid dripped from the great gash in its side.

Momentarily, Glogauer's eyes opened and closed, then his

mouth stretched in a kind of yawn and his tongue fluttered

and he uttered a groan that turned into a ululation.

He heard himself. The Voice of Tongues, he thought.

The language of the unconscious. But he could not guess

what he was saying.

His body became numb and he shivered. His passage

through time had not been easy and even the thick fluid had

not wholly protected him, though it had doubtless saved his

life. Some ribs were certainly broken. Painfully, he straight-

ened his arms and legs and began to crawl over the slippery

plastic towards the crack in the machine. He could see harsh

sunlight, a sky like shimmering steel. He pulled himself half-

way through the crack, closing his eyes as the full strength

of the sunlight struck then). He lost consciousness.

Christmas term, 1949. He was nine years old, born two.

years after his father had reached England from Austria.

The other children were screaming with laughter in the

gravel of the playground. The game had begun earnestly

enough and somewhat nervously Karl had joined in in the

same spirit. Now he was crying.

"Let me down! Please, Mervyn, stop it!"

They had tied him with his arms spreadeagled against the

wire-netting of the playground fence. It bulged outwards

under his weight and one of the posts threatened to come

loose. Mervyn Williams, the boy who had proposed the game,

began, to shake the post so that Karl was swung heavily

back and forth on the netting.

"Stop it!"

He saw that his cries only encouraged them and he

clenched his teeth, becoming silent.

He slumped, pretending unconsciousness; the school ties

they had used as bonds cut into his wrists. He heard the

children's voices drop.

"Is he all right?" Molly Turner was whispering.

"He's only kidding." Williams replied uncertainly.

He felt them untying him, their fingers fumbling with the

knots. Deliberately, he sagged, then fell to his knees, grazing

them on the gravel, and dropped face down to the ground.

Distantly, for he was half-convinced by his own deception,

he heard their worried voices.

Williams shook him.

"Wake up, Karl. Stop mucking about."

He stayed where he was, losing his sense of time until he

heard Mr. Matson's voice over the general babble.

"What on earth were you doing, Williams?"

"It was a play, sir, about Jesus. Karl was being Jesus.

We tied him to the fence. It was his idea, sir. It was only a

game, sir."

Karl's body was stiff, but he managed to stay still, breath-

ing shallowly.

"He's not a strong boy like you, Williams. You should

have known better."

"I'm sorry, sir. I'm really sorry." Williams sounded as if he

were crying.

Karl felt himself lifted; felt the triumph. . . .

He was being carried along. His head and side were so

painful that he felt sick. He had had no chance to discover

where exactly the time machine had brought him, but, turn-

ing his head now, he could see by the way the man on his

right was dressed that he was at least m the Middle East.

He had meant to land in the year 29 A.D. in the wilderness

beyond Jerusalem, near Bethlehem. Were they taking him

to Jerusalem now?

He was on a stretcher that was apparently made of animal

skins; this indicated that he was probably in the past, at any

rate. Two men were carrying the stretcher on their shoulders.

Others walked on both sides. There was a smell of sweat

and animal fat and a musty smell he could not identify.

They were walking towards a line of hills in the distance.

He winced as the stretcher lurched and the pain in his

side increased. For the second time he passed out.

He woke up briefly, hearing voices. They were speaking

what was evidently some form of Aramaic. It was night, per-

haps, for it seemed very dark. They were no longer moving.

There was straw beneath him. He was relieved. He slept.

In those days came John the Baptist preaching in the

wilderness of Judaea, And saying, Repent ye: for the king-

dom of heaven is at hand. For this is he that was spoken of

by the prophet Esaias, saying. The voice of one crying in

the -wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his

paths straight. And the same John had his raiment of camel's

hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his meat was

locusts and wild honey. Then went out to him Jerusalem,

and all ludaea, and all the region round about Jordan, And

were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins.

(Matthew 3:1-6)

They were washing him. He felt the cold water running

over his naked body. They had managed to strip off his

protective suit. There were now thick layers of cloth against

his ribs on the right, and bands of leather bound them to

him.

He felt very weak now, and hot, but there was less pain.

He was in a buildingor perhaps a cave; it was too

gloomy to telllying on a heap of straw that was saturated

by the water. Above him, two men continued to sluice water

down on him from their earthenware pots. They were stern-

faced, heavily-bearded men, in cotton robes.

He wondered if he could form a sentence they might

understand. His knowledge of written Aramaic was good,

but he was not sure of certain pronunciations.

He cleared his throat. "Wherebethisplace?"

They frowned, shaking their heads and lowering their

water jars.

"IseekaNazareneJesus. . . ."

"Nazarene. Jesus." One of the men repeated the words,

but they did not seem to mean anything to him. He shrugged.

The other, however, only repeated the word Nazarene,

speaking it slowly as if it had some special significance for

him. He muttered a few words to the other man and went

towards the entrance of the room.

Karl Glogauer continued to try to say something the re-

maining man would understand.

"Whatyeardoththe Roman Emperorsitin Rome?"

It was a confusing question to ask, he realized. He knew

Christ had been crucified in the fifteenth year of Tiberius'

reign, and that was why he had asked the question. He tried

to phrase it better.

"How manyyeardoth Tiberius rule?"

"Tiberius?" The man frowned.

Glogauer's ear was adjusting to the accent now and he

tried to simulate it better. "Tiberius. The emperor of the

Romans. How many years has he ruled?"

"How many?" The man shook his head. "I know not."

At least Glogauer had managed to make himself under-

stood.

"Where is this place?" he asked.

"It is the wilderness beyond Machaerus," the man replied.

"Know you not that?"

Machaerus lay to the southeast of Jerusalem, on the other

side of the Dead Sea. There was no doubt that he was in the

past and that the period was sometime in the reign of

Tiberius, for the man had recognized the name easily enough.

His companion was now returning, bringing with him a

huge fellow with heavily muscled hairy arms and a great

barrel chest. He carried a big staff in one hand. He was

dressed in animal skins and was well over six feet tall. His

black, curly hair was long and he had a black, bushy beard

that covered the upper half of his chest. He moved like an

animal and his large, piercing brown eyes looked reflectively

at Glogauer.

When he spoke, it was in a deep voice, but too rapidly for

Glogauer to follow. It was Glogauer's turn to shake his head.

The big man squatted down beside him. "Who art thou?"

Glogauer paused. He had not planned to be found in this

way. He had intended to disguise himself as a traveler from

Syria, hoping that the local accents would be different enough

to explain his own unfamiliarity with the language. He

decided that it was best to stick to this story and hope for

the best.

"I am from the north," he said.

"Not from Egypt?" the big man asked. It -was as if he had

expected Glogauer to be from there. Glogauer decided that if

this was what the big man thought, he might just as well

agree to it.

"I came out of Egypt two years since," he said.

The big man nodded, apparently satisfied. "So you are

a magus from Egypt. That is what we thought. And your

name is Jesus, and you are the Nazarene."

"I seek Jesus, the Nazarene," Glogauer said.

"Then what is your name?" The man seemed disappointed.

Glogauer could not give his own name. It would sound

too strange to them. On impulse, he gave his father's first

name. "Emmanuel," he said.

The man nodded, again satisfied. "Emmanuel."

Glogauer realized belatedly that the choice of name had

been an unfortunate one in the circumstances, for Emmanuel

meant in Hebrew "God with us" and doubtless had a mystic

significance for his questioner.

"And what is your name?" he asked.

The man straightened up, looking broodingly down on

Glogauer. "You do not know me? You have not heard of

John, called the Baptist?"

Glogauer tried to hide his surprise, but evidently John the

Baptist .saw that his name was familiar. He nodded his shaggy

bead. "You do know of me, I see. Well, magus, now I must

decide, eh?"

"What must you decide?" Glogauer asked nervously.

"If you be the friend of the prophecies or the false one

. we have been warned against by Adonai. The Romans would

deliver me into the hands of mine enemies, the children of

Herod."

"Why is that?"

"You must know why, for I speak against the Romans who

enslave Judaea, and I speak against the unlawful things that

Herod does, and I prophesy the time when all those who

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Michael Moorcock - Behold the Man

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