Thirst

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Pilate was right. Until that night, I had never really known what fear was. In the Garden of Gethsemane, the night before my arrest, it was sorrow and dereliction that had caused my tears.

Now, I was discovering fear. Not the fear of death, that most common of abstract notions, but the fear of crucifixion: a very concrete fear.

I have the unerring conviction that I am the most incarnate of human beings. When I lie down to go to sleep, the mere abandonment of it procures such pleasure that I have to stop myself from moaning. Eating the humblest gruel, drinking even standing water would cause me to sigh with delight if I did not keep myself strictly in line. More than once, I have wept with bliss on breathing in the morning air.

And the opposite is also true: the most benign toothache can cause abnormal torment. I recall cursing my fate over a splinter. I hide this sensitive nature as carefully as the previous one: it does not tally with what I am supposed to represent. Yet another misunderstanding.

In my thirty-three years here on earth, I have had time to notice it: my father’s greatest success has been incarnation. That a disincarnate power could come up with the idea of inventing the body remains a masterful stroke of genius. Is it any surprise the creator was overwhelmed by his creation, the impact of which he could not foresee?

I’d like to say that this is why he created me, but it would not be true.

It would have been a good reason.

Humans complain, rightfully, of the imperfections of the body. The explanation is obvious: what would a house be worth if it were designed by a homeless architect? We only excel at things we practice daily. My father never had a body. For an ignorant sort, I think he did a remarkably good job.

My fear that night was a physical dizziness at the thought of what I would have to go through. Those who are tortured are expected to rise to the occasion. When they do not scream with pain, we say how brave they are. I suspect it is something else: I will find out what it is.

I feared the nails through my hands and feet. That was stupid: there would surely be greater pain. But that one I could imagine at least.

The jailer said to me:

“Try to get some sleep. You need to be in good shape tomorrow.”

On seeing my ironic expression, he added:

“Don’t laugh. It takes good health to die. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

And that is true. In addition, this was my last opportunity to sleep, and I do so like sleep. I did try, I lay down on the floor, I surrendered my body to rest: it wanted nothing to do with me. Whenever I closed my eyes, instead of finding sleep, I came upon terrifying images.

And so, I did what everyone does: to fight off the unbearable thoughts, I turned to other ones.

I relived my first miracle, my favorite. I realized, to my relief, that the newlyweds’ appalling testimony had not tarnished this memory.

It had not, however, gotten off to a very good start. Going to a wedding with one’s mother is a trying experience. My mother may well be pure of soul, but she nevertheless remains a normal woman. She kept looking at me out of the corner of her eye as if to say, well, my son, what are you waiting for to find yourself a bride? I pretended not to notice.

I must confess I do not much like weddings. I cannot really work out why. It’s the sort of sacrament that fills me with anxiety, something I understand all the less in that it does not concern me. I will not be getting married and do not regret it.

It was an ordinary wedding: a celebration where people displayed more joy than they really felt. I knew they were expecting something more from me. What could it be? I had no idea.

A distinguished meal: bread and grilled fish, wine. The wine was not great, but the bread came warm from the oven, with a lovely crust, and the fish was salted to perfection and filled me with delight. I concentrated on my food so I could enjoy all of the flavor and texture. My mother seemed embarrassed that I was not talking with the other guests. In this respect, I resemble her: she’s not very talkative. Making small talk is something I cannot do, and neither can she.

My feelings for the bride and groom were those of amiable indifference, of the sort one feels for the friends of one’s parents. It must have been the third time I had met them, and, as always, they exaggerated, “We knew Jesus when he was a little boy,” and, “You look different with a beard.” The excessive familiarity of humans makes me feel slightly ill at ease. I wish I had never seen those newlyweds. Our relationship would have been more authentic.

I missed Joseph. That good man, who was hardly more talkative than my mother or me, excelled at playing the part: he listened so carefully that you thought you could hear his reply. I did not inherit that virtue. When people are making small talk, I don’t even pretend to listen.

“What are you thinking about?” my mother murmured.

“Joseph.”

“Why do you call him that?”

“You know why.”

I was never sure she really did know why, but if you have to explain that sort of thing to your mother, you’ll never see the end of it.

There was a sudden commotion.

“They’re out of wine,” said my mother.

I couldn’t see the problem. No more of that plonk, and so what! Cool water was better at quenching one’s thirst, so I went on eating conscientiously. It took me a moment to grasp that, to this family, a lack of wine was a source of irredeemable dishonor.

“They are out of wine,” my mother said again, pointedly.

An abyss opened at my feet. What a strange woman my mother is! She wants me to be normal, but at the same time I’m meant to work miracles!

How alone I felt at that moment. But I couldn’t put it off any longer. Then I had a flash of intuition. I said:

“Fetch two pitchers of water.”

The master of the house gave orders, I must be obeyed, and a great silence fell over the gathering. If I stopped to think, all would be lost. What was required was the opposite of thought. I obliterated myself. I knew that just beneath my skin there lay power, and that to get there, thought must be abolished. I yielded the floor to what, from that moment on, I would refer to as the husk, and I do not know what happened. For an insurmountable lapse of time, I ceased to exist.

When I came to, the guests were ecstatic:

“This is the best wine we’ve ever drunk in all the land!”

Everyone was tasting the new wine; their faces wore the sort of expression expected of them during religious ceremonies. I repressed a colossal desire to burst out laughing. And so, my father had deemed it fit for me to discover this power during a shortage of wine. What a sense of humor! And how could anyone disapprove? What could be more important than wine? I had been a man long enough to know that joy is not a given, and that very good wine is often the only way to find it.

The wedding was flowing with good cheer. The newlyweds looked happy at last. The urge to dance came over them, and the spirit of the wine left no one untouched.

“One must not serve the best wine after the inferior one!” people remarked to their hosts.

I can attest that it was not said in a critical way. Moreover, this assertion is quite open to debate. I believe the contrary. It is better to begin with an ordinary wine in order to instill joy in people’s hearts. For it is when people are as joyful as they can be that they are capable of welcoming a great wine and giving it the supreme attention it deserves.

That is my favorite miracle. It was not hard to choose—it’s the only miracle I like. I had just discovered the husk, and I was dazzled. The first time you do something that is so far beyond you, you immediately forget the disproportionate effort it took, and remember only the wonder of the result.

And besides, the issue was wine at a feast. Later on, things took a turn for the worse—at stake were matters of suffering, illness, death, or catching poor fish I would have rather left alive and free. Above all, knowingly resorting to the power of the husk has turned out to be a thousand times harder than its discovery.

The worst thing is people’s expectations. No one in Cana, apart from my mother, required anything of me. Later, wherever I went, they had seen me coming, they’d left a leper or an invalid in my path. When I accomplished a miracle, it was no longer a gift of grace, but the fulfillment of my duty.

How many times did I read in the gaze of a dying person or someone holding out his stump to me, not an entreaty, but a threat! If they had dared to formulate their thought, it would have been, “You’ve become famous with your nonsense, now you’d better take responsibility for it, otherwise, just you wait and see!” There were times when I did not accomplish the miracle they’d asked for because I didn’t have the strength to obliterate myself and release the power of the husk: how they hated me for it!

Later on, I gave it some thought, and I did not approve of my wondrous feats. They gave the wrong impression, this was not what I had to come to deliver; love was no longer free, it had to serve a purpose. Not to mention what I discovered this morning, during the trial: none of those who had benefited from my miracles felt the slightest gratitude. On the contrary, they reproached me bitterly for those miracles, even the bride and groom from Cana.

I don’t want to remember any of that. All I want to remember is the joy at Cana, the innocence of our happiness, drinking that wine that had come out of nowhere, the purity of our initial intoxication. Such intoxication is only worth it if it’s shared. That evening at Cana, we were all drunk and in the best way. Yes, my mother was tipsy, and it suited her. Since Joseph’s death, I had rarely seen her look happy. My mother was dancing, I danced with her, my dear old mama I love so well. My drunkenness told her that I loved her, and I could sense her response, even though she said nothing, my son, I know there is something special about you, I suspect someday it will it pose a problem, but for the time being I’m just proud of you and happy to be drinking this good wine you made for us with your magic.

And that night, I truly was drunk, and my drunkenness was holy. Before the incarnation, I did not weigh anything. The paradox is that in order to experience lightness you must weigh something. Inebriation frees you from weight and gives you the impression you are about to take flight. Our spirit does not fly, it moves unhindered, and that’s very different. Birds have a body; their flight is nothing less than conquest. I can never repeat it often enough: having a body is the best thing there is.

I expect that I will think just the opposite tomorrow, when my body is being tortured. And yet, for all that, can I disown the discoveries it has given me? The greatest joys of my life are those I have known through my body. And must I point out that my soul and spirit played an important part as well?

The miracles, too, I obtained through my body. What I call the husk is physical. To have access to it presupposes the temporary obliteration of the spirit. I have never been any other man than myself, but I am deeply convinced that every one of us has this power. The reason it is so rarely put to use is that it’s very difficult to access. One must have the strength and the courage to elude the spirit, and that is not a metaphor. A few human beings managed to do this before me, and a few human beings will manage after me.

My knowledge of time does not differ from my knowledge of my fate: I know Τι, but I know nothing of Πώς. Names belong to Πώς, and so I don’t know the name of a writer in the future who will say, “The most profound thing in man is his skin.” He will come close to a revelation, but in any case, even those who glorify him will not understand the concrete nature of his words.

It’s not exactly the skin, it’s just beneath. Therein lies omnipotence.