She considered that these feelings of guilt may have been the cause of the frightful dream that had woken her in the night and left her drenched in perspiration.
In the dream, she had seen herself walking into a world that above and below was the colour of blood and storm cloud. Into this world, she walked towards a great gathering of people, like a statue dressed in white. In her arms she carried a ream of the finest white cotton, which was taken up by the gentle breezes and began to unspool behind her. Where it touched the ground, it became soaked in blood. The smell of blood was everywhere, and a terrifying sense of urgency. She sensed something of grand and frightening proportions awaited her beyond the crowds, but the crowds would not let her pass, and she knew the reason: within her lived the cursed blood of the Caesars! How could she cross the threshold to see the portent of her dream, when it was sure to send her mad, as it had sent her forebears before her?
When she woke she could taste blood and smell it on her hands and the smell did not go, no matter how many times she washed them.
Distressed now to think on it, she made her way to the temple on the Octave of the feast. As she pushed past the worshippers and entered through the porches to the court of the Gentiles she thought only of finding a way to Jesus to beg him to cleanse her blood of the sins of her forefathers.
When she saw him she was filled with hope. He stood in that grand court like a dream, for it seemed as if the day’s light alone had collected itself into the form of his shape. He was speaking to the Pharisees and her heart swelled to hear his voice resound with so much authority. But something caused her to pause, something not outwardly apparent, a fidget of the eye, a whispered word, she could not tell. She looked for Cassius but he was nowhere in sight. Of course! The man’s eyes were not good and she was dressed like a Jew! How could he tell her among so many? Her husband’s words of warning rang in her ears now and into her heart came Jesus’ voice.
‘‘I am the foundation of the very world! I am not only one with Abraham, but I was before Abraham was!’
The Pharisees seemed to have become incensed. A great commotion erupted all around her. She could not understand it for she only knew the language of the people, the simple and beautiful Aramaic. She knew nothing of the harsh language of the Pharisees, whose whipping words struck the crowds like blows fomenting their anger and causing them to take up stones to throw at Jesus.
She felt herself pale. She thought of her dream – the blood, the crowds! Was this the meaning of her dream? Would they kill him now? Would they stone one of their own, in their very temple? She pressed through the crowds to find Cassius. Surely he would prevent it! But the people crushed forward, clamouring to get to Jesus. She slipped on her own skirts then and fell into the tangled darkness of arms and legs.
She could not breathe.
She heard shouts in Latin and the world of bodies above her parted and a hand heaved her up and away.
Dazed, she felt herself taken through the throngs. Pilate’s guards were around her and Cassius was hitting out at the people to make them give way. He yelled and spat and cursed as his strong hands helped to move her out of the court.
‘Make way! Make way, you animals!’ he shouted.
Trumpets sounded and soldiery on horses arrived and the people dispersed in fear. Beyond the crowds, through the confusion of voices and bodies, she looked and saw Jesus. This time he was stooping over a blind man. How he had escaped the madness she did not know.
When Jesus looked up again, his eyes found hers, and into her mind he said these words:
See this man born blind? His parents have not sinned, nor has he sinned in this life, but his blindness comes from a former life in which he had sinned. I can work with what passes from life to life; I can make null and void the consequences of your former lives, so that you can start anew.
She saw him spit on his hands and take up the clay-dirt at his feet. He made a paste with it and used it to anoint the man’s eyes.
Now the words of the poet, Virgil, came to her lips:
What a sublime vision for the eye of the seer! A superman walks on earth again! A hero…a new Dionysus…a ruler over the hearts of men…full of peace!
This was not Jesus alone she could see, for she could see something else, yes…that Sun-like godhood…the Christ in him!
‡
‘What happened to her, Lea?’
‘She was born again, pairé, nine hundred years after Christ, as a blind child.’
‘A blind child? But what had she done to deserve it…is this compensation again?’ I said squinting and rubbing my own tired eyes.
‘Listen, pairé, her father was the Duke of Eticho and he wished to kill his own child because he did not want his vassals to say that her blindness was caused by some fault of his. But the mother spirited the baby away and later, when the child was baptised by a Bishop, her sight was restored and she was given a new name, Odile, which means Sun of God.’