Free John by Niall Williams

shallow breath on the ledge of death. John lifts his right hand, thin fingers moving toward the other's brow.
    'Do not touch him, Master!' It is Papias, flushed and wide-eyed in the doorway. 'Do not touch him, Master.'
    Simon cannot help himself from moving slightly back, but not John. There is a fragment of delay, no more; John's hand reaches and finds the face of Prochorus. His fingers feel the broken skin, the fury of heat, the clam and ooze, a quality waxen and lifeless in the flesh. He lays his palm against the flamed cheek, bows his head, prays.
    By the entranceway the others kneel. Discovering a shallow in their faith, they breathe through cupped fingers. The time is like a dark metal beaten thin. It stretches outwards to where it must give beneath the blows. For nothing happens. Swiftly the afternoon is taken by evening into the sea. A lamp is lit. And still the Apostle is bent down over the scribe, his hand upon the face. He prays in silence, moves slightly back and forth on the stool so its joints sing thinly.
    And still nothing happens. How often is it to be so? To the ten thousand prayers they pray these years on the island what answers come? No miracles have attended them. No signs that they are cherished, or that the long suffering of their faith is considered, that their sacrifice is measured and in the hereafter will be rewarded.
    There is nothing. There is darkness and wind off the stars. There is the same sea sighing in chains of waves. What invisible drama plays, what passes to and fro in the columns of air above them, none knows, but the disciples think: perhaps the time is arrived at last. Perhaps the bald scribe who had attended the Apostle in his revelation is himself to reveal the Lord.
    The time is beaten away, and is as nothing. No hours are measured.
    The knees of those kneeling ache, the damp of the ground travels through them. Night saddles their shoulders with cold. On the bed mat Prochorus tosses and wrestles the unseen. John says his name, but it does not still the scribe. He kicks at a beast that stalks toward him.
    This, your servant, Lord.
    If it be your will.
    Before the dawn the wind turns about and comes from the sea into the dwelling. It makes flap the canvas sides; bestirs papyrus, dried seaweed, fistful of seeds; rolls the wooden beak-cup from table to floor. The disciples are statues in half sleep, half prayer, otherliness. The wind touches them on their stooped shoulders, passes to the Apostle, who turns towards it, inquisitive of what fills the dark room where the scribe is dying. His hand is laid on Prochorus's forehead. The fever is there still. The prayers, the herbs brought and crushed, tinctures dribbled on his lips, poultices applied, all have wrought little change. Only that the patient is grown calm. Several times in the night he woke and whispered with cracked voice what could not be understood. Now the wind whirls into the hut. The lamp is out. All are in blue-black shade and do not know at first that then Prochorus opens his eyes.
    John feels it.
    'Prochorus,' he says, and leans down. He puts his head close to the other's lips.
    What the scribe says is not heard by the others. The Apostle listens at the swollen, blistered mouth. To Prochorus he says then, 'I tell you, Jesus is the Christ, truly he is the Son of God.' And leans slightly back as though he is newly aware of a task ahead of him and the enormity of it, as though he sees suddenly the frailty of faith, of Christianity itself. John sits upright. He raises his voice in the wind.
    ' "The wind blows about at will," Jesus said to Nicodemus, in Jerusalem. "You hear the sound it makes but do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone begotten of the spirit. If you do not believe about earthly things, how are you going to believe when I tell you about heavenly things? No one has gone up into heaven except the one who came down from heaven — the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the