The Sixth Lamentation

Second Prologue

‘I shall be your amanuensis,’ said Wilma with theatrical gravity. Agnes nodded. It would be the only way now that she could not write. ‘There isn’t much to say but I’d like it set down.’ Ever since she had completed her notebook, Agnes had pored over that dreadful time, rehearsing the order in which things had happened. The act of committing herself to a narrative had lit the past with a new light. She saw new shapes and the hint of an outline she partly recognised.

Agnes opened the drawer of her bureau and took out the remaining school notebook she’d bought six months earlier. She gave it to Wilma, who settled herself down at the table.

‘Start when you are ready,’ said Wilma ceremoniously pen poised.

Agnes closed her eyes, feeling her way And then she began:

“‘Night and day I have lived among the tombs”, comma, “cutting myself on stones”. Full stop. ‘

Wilma wrote slowly, in great swirls. ‘I like that story.’

‘What story?’ asked Agnes sharply wondering if this was a sign of things to come.

‘The one about the poor chap in the hills. He was possessed by so many demons that no one could control him. He lived night and day just as you said, among the tombs. Like we do.’

‘Why do you like it?’ enquired Agnes with feeling.

Wilma put down her pen. ‘Because help eventually came, after everyone had given up and when he was unable to ask for it.’

Agnes’ memory flickered. ‘What happened?’

‘The Saviour sent the lot of them into a herd of pigs grazing on the fat of the land.’

‘That’s right,’ remembered Agnes. ‘The demons were called “Legion” because there were so many of them: Father Rochet had likened them to the German army in France, just as the Roman legions had occupied Palestine.

‘They charged over a cliff into a lake and drowned,’ said Wilma with great satisfaction. ‘And the poor young man was returned to his family’

Oh yes, that’s it, thought Agnes. Father Rochet had said there were plenty of pigs, but no cliff, and as yet, no Messiah. ‘So we have to act while we wait,’ he’d said.

‘Did I say who this was addressed to?’ breathed Agnes, weakened by a new, unexpected certainty.

‘No.’

‘Go back to the beginning them, please.’ She closed her eyes, trying to conjure up an old friend.

‘Dear—’