The world pulsed.
He heard a whish past his ear and felt a sudden tug, a jolt.
The blade repulsed him and the world and its sufferings were taken away on the wings of the fine airs.
And this, after all, is bliss!
Lifted from the world, a crystalline clarity entered into him that near blinded his spirit eyes. This clarity was an angel, that great and mighty angel that had come to him in the cave came again to take him from the captivity of his body, and away towards the open spaces, towards the hills of Hebron and to the deep clefts of the Jordan Valley, to the oasis of Jericho and to the wilderness of Judea, to Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Along the way, the angel showed him all the scenes of his life, all of his labours, the sum of all his accomplishments, spread out like breeze-blown clouds over a wide expanse of sky. And he saw something else…the angel showed him what had not yet been.
‡
‘What does he see Lea?’ I asked.
‘He sees a room, pairé, and in it a painter.’
‘Oh!’
‘He is engaged in painting a picture of himself, so he is standing before a mirror. But there is a moment when he does not only see himself in the darkling reflection – he does not see the man with the heart-shaped face, with wide-spaced black eyes staring back at him. His self changes to another man.’
‘To another man? Who is it?’
‘In a far off future, men will ask the same question, pairé. They will wonder who it is that in so intimate a way, occupies a place in this painting, which he will call Self-Portrait with a Friend. They will not know that the painter sees not only his own image, as he is in that life, but also a likeness of himself when in the past he was John the Baptist. This is why he paints the two men together, for they are his two selves.’
I thought on this. ‘What is the name of the painter?’
‘He will be called Raphael, pairé.’
‘Like the Archangel?’
‘Like the Archangel, and he will paint many paintings of Mary with two children, he will even paint me, floating in the skies, holding a child in my arms…and yet it is unclear if he will come to paint the Transfiguration.’
‘What do you mean unclear?’
‘You see, a part of the future must always remain inscrutable, pairé, even for the gods who order destiny, because a man’s heart is free.’
I was about to ask her many questions, particularly concerning the creation of destiny itself but she had already begun to tell of other things.
46
BREAD OF LIFE
It was near Passover, pairé, when Jesus sat with his disciples on that mountainous fertile outcrop near the Sea of Galilee. He had brought them here, again, to teach them of those things that were hidden from others…’
‡
…Simon-Peter was sat near his master, looking out at the moon that seemed like a splinter in the flesh of the black sky and the stars that were locked in conversation. Simon-Peter knew nothing of the moon, save that it enticed the waters, and he nothing of the stars, save that they pointed the way home, so he looked at the sky is if it were a silvered sea and this calmed him.
It had been over a year since he and his fellow fishermen had left their boats to follow Jesus, and since then, Simon-Peter had seen the master turn water into wine and cause the lame to walk and the deaf to hear. He had watched, awed and fearful, as he admonished the Pharisees, as he cast out demons, and cure plagues. His wonderworking had not only brought a girl back from the brink of death, but also a dead youth back to life and at those moments he seemed like a god known only to a man in his dreams – an awesome powerful, terrible God, full of glory. At other times, when he slept and taught and walked with them, he seemed no more than a man.
In truth, when his master was not teaching or healing, he was often times quiet and withdrawn, walking ahead of them with his feet bloody from blisters and his head bent, like a ghostly shape that either melted into the heat-haze, or dissolved into the desert wind. Many times Simon-Peter found himself speaking like his master. His fellow disciples too, seemed inspired by his way of being, so that they also talked in his manner, with his voice.
These were strange goings on for a lowly fisherman, and whenever he thought on it he felt a dullness overtake him. He missed his sea and his boat and asked god for a dream, a dream of his boat, limed and new and ready, with its lateen sails full of breeze.
And so he slept. And God granted him a dream.
He dreamt of crowds on the shores of the lake. They were hungry and were fed bread and fish by his master, who seemed happy. But then his dream took him out on his new boat but it was not a calm day, the water was raging and the lateen sails were torn and the great waves broke over the bow. His master was in the water, calling out to him to come. Simon-Peter was afraid and yet he attempted it and found he could not stand on the water, he was sinking, and he knew it was because doubt had made his faith run out.