Thirst

-

It’s done. It’s a performative verb. No sooner said—as it must be said, in the absolute sense of the verb—than done.

I have just saved myself, and saved, therefore, everything that is. Does my father know this? Surely not. He’s useless when it comes to doing things on the spur of the moment. It’s not his fault: to be able to do things last minute, you have to have a body.

I still have one. Never have I been more incarnate than this: suffering has nailed me to my body. I am filled with conflicting emotions at the thought of leaving it. In spite of the intense pain, I have not forgotten what I owe this incarnation.

At least I have stopped my mental torture. It makes things considerably easier to be able to look deep in Madeleine’s eyes: she can tell I’ve won. She nods.

How long have I been on this cross?

Madeleine’s lips form words I cannot hear. As she is speaking to me, I can see a golden arc of words coming in my direction. The crackling of sparks lasts longer than her sentence, and their impact goes deep in my chest.

Fascinated, I follow her example. I utter inaudible words, addressed to her, I see them leaving me in the form of a golden beam, and I know she is taking them in.

Everyone else still has that pitying look. They don’t get it. It must be said that the nature of my victory is tenuous.

I’m not dead yet. How can I hold on until the end? Strange as it may seem, I can tell that I might collapse, which means I’m not dead yet.

In order to avoid collapsing, I resort to the good old method: pride. The sin of pride? If you like. At this stage, my sin seems so ridiculous that I have already forgiven myself for it.

Yes, pride: in this moment, I am filling a space that will become the obsession of humankind for millennia. The fact that it is a misinterpretation changes nothing.

It shall be given to one person alone to have this observation post, not because I am the last man in our species to be crucified—how lovely that would be—but because no other crucifixion will ever have such a resounding impact. My father chose me for this role. It was a mistake, a monstrous thing to do, but it will remain one of the most extraordinarily moving stories of all time. It will be called the Passion of Christ.

A judicious name: a passion signifies something one is subjected to and therefore, semantically, a surfeit of feeling in which reason plays no part.

It was not wrong of my father to assign this role to me. I admit as much. I have been capable of enough blindness to be mistaken on this point, enough love to forgive myself, and enough pride to keep my head held high.

I committed the greatest of sins. It will have immeasurable consequences. And there we are: it is in the nature of sin to have consequences. If I can forgive myself, then all those who will be greatly mistaken can forgive themselves.

“It is finished.”

I said it. I realize this once I have spoken. Everyone has heard it.

My words cause panic. The sky darkens suddenly. I cannot get over the power of my words. I would like to speak some more, to unleash other phenomena, but I don’t have the strength.

Luke will write that I said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” That’s a misinterpretation. It was myself I had to forgive: I am more at fault than men are, and it was not from my father that I sought forgiveness.

I’m relieved I didn’t say it: it would have been condescending towards men. Condescension is the type of scorn I loathe the most. And frankly, I’m in no position to scorn humanity.

Nor did I say to John (who was no more present at the time than the other disciples), “Behold thy mother,” nor did I say to my mother (who showed the kindness of being absent), “Woman, behold thy son.” John, I love you very much. But that does not mean you can go around spouting nonsense. At the same time, it hardly matters.

I have to spare my strength: I’ve reached the stage where speaking is at last having the desired effect. What linguistic performance am I hoping to accomplish?

The reply leaps to my heart. From deep within a desire wells up, the desire that most resembles me, my pet craving, my secret weapon, my true identity, the thing that has made me love life and makes me love it still:

“I thirst.”

A stunning request. No one had thought of it. Really, that man who, for hours, has been suffering so greatly can still need something so ordinary? They find my entreaty as strange as if I had asked for a fan.

There’s the proof that I’ve been saved: yes, despite the degree of pain I have reached, I can still find happiness in a sip of water. My faith is that intact.

Of all the words I have said on the cross, it is far and away the most important one, perhaps the only one that matters. When we leave childhood behind, we learn how to stave off hunger the moment it appears. No one teaches us how to defer the moment of quenching our thirst. When it comes, it is invoked as an indisputable emergency. We stop whatever we are doing to go and find something to drink.

I’m not being critical, drinking is a great delight. I’m just sorry that no one has explored the infinite nature of thirst, the purity of the impulse, the bitter nobility that is ours the moment we feel it.

John 4:14: “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst.” Why did my favorite disciple come out with such a misinterpretation? The love of God is water that never quenches. The more we drink, the greater our thirst. At last, a pleasure that does not diminish desire!

Try it for yourself. Whatever your physical or mental concern might be, combine it with true thirst. Your quest will be all the sharper, more precise, enhanced. I’m not saying never drink, I’m just suggesting waiting a moment. There is so much to explore in thirst.

The joy of drinking, to start with, which is never celebrated enough. People make fun of Epicurus’s words, “One glass of water and I die of pleasure.” How wrong we are!

Verily I say unto you, nailed to the cross though I be, a glass of water would make me die of pleasure. I rather suspect I won’t get one. I’m already proud that I can feel the desire, and glad to know that others besides me will experience the pleasure.

Obviously, no one imagined this scenario. There is no water on Mount Calvary. And even if there were, there would be no way of hoisting a cup up to my lips.

At the foot of the cross, I can hear a soldier telling his superior, “I have some water mixed with vinegar. Shall I give him some on a sponge?”

His superior allows him to do this, probably because he has no way of knowing how vital my request is. I shiver at the thought of feeling such a sensation one last time. I listen to the sound of the sponge soaking up the liquid: the sensual delight of it makes me weak with happiness. The soldier rams the sponge onto the tip of his spear and lifts it up to my mouth.

As exhausted as I am, I bite into the sponge and suck the juice. I’m elated. It is so good. That wonderful taste of vinegar. I suck at the sponge that is brimming with the sublime liquid, I drink, I am completely consumed by the delight of it. I don’t waste a single drop.

“I have some more,” says the soldier. “Shall I lift the sponge up to him again?”

His superior refuses, “That’s enough.”

Enough. What a terrible word! I say to you honestly: nothing is enough.

The superior has no greater grounds for refusing than he had for allowing. Command is a mysterious duty. I consider myself lucky to have been able to drink one last time, even if my thirst is far from quenched. I did what I set out to do.

The storm is about to break. People want me to die. I’m beginning to get fed up with this endless agony. I too would like to die quickly. It is not in my power to rush this demise.

The sky is torn asunder—thunder, lightning, downpour. The crowd scatters, dissatisfied, it’s just as well it was for free, because he didn’t even die, nothing happened.

I don’t have the strength to stick my tongue out to catch the rain, but it moistens my lips, and I feel the inexpressible joy of breathing in the best fragrance in the world one last time, a fragrance which some day will be known by the fine name of petrichor.

Madeleine is still there before me, my death will be perfect, it is raining, and my gaze encounters that of the woman I love.

The great moment has arrived. My suffering has vanished, my heart ceases to be clenched like a fist, and it receives a charge of love that surpasses everything, it’s beyond pleasure, everything opens out onto infinity, there are no limits to this feeling of deliverance, the flower of death opening again and again and spreading its corolla.

The adventure has begun. I don’t say, “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” I thought of it, much earlier, but now I’m not thinking it, I’m not thinking anything, I have better things to do. My last words were, “I thirst.”

I am allowed to enter the other world without leaving anything behind. It is a departure without separation. I am not torn from Madeleine. I am taking her love with me to that place where everything is beginning.

At last, my ubiquity has meaning: I am both in my body and outside it. I am too attached to my body not to leave some of my presence in it: the excruciating pain I felt over these last hours was not the best way to inhabit it. I don’t feel amputated from my body; on the contrary, I feel as if I have regained some of its powers, such as access to the husk.

The soldier who gave me something to drink has seen that I am dead. He is a most discerning man: the difference is not obvious. He notifies his superior, who looks at me doubtfully. The moment amuses me: and if I were not completely dead, what would that change? Does this centurion have to believe in my magic to fear deception? Frankly, if I really wanted to resuscitate, I could not, for one simple reason: I’m exhausted. Dying is tiring.

The superior orders his soldier to pierce my heart with his spear. The unfortunate man is deeply upset, because he has grown fond of me: that spear whose sponge helped quench my thirst—he’s loath to use it now in order to wound me.

The superior gets annoyed, demands to be obeyed at once. They have to verify whether I am dead: execute! The soldier aims his spear at my heart, deliberately avoids it, as if he wanted to spare that organ, and pierces me just below it. I’m not that well versed in anatomy to determine where he struck me; I feel the blade of his weapon inside me, but it doesn’t hurt. A liquid flows out that is not blood.

Satisfied, the centurion announces:

“He is dead!”

The handful of individuals still standing below me walk away, heads lowered, both sorry and reassured. Most of them expected a miracle: the miracle did occur, although no one noticed. None of this was the least bit spectacular, it was an ordinary crucifixion; if there had not been a storm at the end, it really would have seemed as if the Eternal did not give a damn.

Madeleine runs to inform my mother:

“Your son suffers no more.”

They fall into each other’s arms. That part of me now flying above my body sees them and is moved.

Madeleine takes my mother’s hand and leads her to Mount Calvary. The centurion has ordered the soldier and two other men to remove me from the cross, which is lying on the ground. They are kind enough to pull the nails from my hands and feet before detaching me, so that they won’t be torn to shreds. I confess I am touched by their attentive gesture: I like my body, I don’t want it to be mistreated any more than it has been already.

My mother asks them to return my body to her, and no one questions her right to it. Now that the Romans no longer doubt that I am dead, it is amazing how nice they’ve become. Who would think these are the same men who brutalized me all morning long? They seem sincerely touched by this woman who has come to ask for her son’s remains.

I love this moment. My mother’s embrace is extremely gentle, and these are our last moments together, I can feel her caress, her love; mothers who have lost a child need its body, precisely so that the child will not be lost.

Though I hated seeing my mother after I first fell under the weight of the cross, now I love being in her arms one last time. She is not weeping, you’d almost think she can sense this well-being of mine, she says the sweetest things to me, my little boy, my baby bird, my little lamb, she places kisses on my brow and my cheeks, I am trembling with emotion, and, oddly enough, I know she can tell. She doesn’t seem sad; on the contrary. This thing they call my death has made her thirty-three years younger, how pretty she looks, my adolescent mother!

Dearest mother, what a privilege to be your son! A mother who has the gift of making her child know how much she loves him: that is absolute grace. I take in this headiness that is less common than you might think. I am swooning with pleasure.

What a strange state my body is in, dead to suffering but not to joy! I don’t even know if I have access to the power of the husk—it’s as if the miracle was springing spontaneously from it, my skin is alive, vibrant with happiness, and my mother gathers this quivering into her arms.

The descent from the cross is a scene that will inspire a multitude of artistic portrayals: the majority will depict this ambiguity. Mary almost always looks as if she has realized something out of the ordinary is happening, but she will not speak of it. As for my swooning, it is there every time.

This is spot-on: even the least mystical painters suspect that my death is a reward. My well-earned rest. Whether or not his soul has survived, how can we not sigh with relief on behalf of this unfortunate man whose torture has now ended?

Since I have access to works of art the world over, and for ever and ever, I like looking at the descents from the cross. I never so much as glance at scenes representing my crucifixion, nothing that reminds me of the torture. But I am very moved by those statues or paintings where I see my dead body in my mother’s arms. The precision of the artists’ gaze is striking.

Some of them, important ones at that, have captured my mother’s sudden youthfulness. None of the texts mention it, probably because it’s not meant to be important. The mater dolorosa has other fish to fry besides her wrinkles, I agree.

As a rule, it is the deceased who look younger on their deathbed. That is not the case where I’m concerned. Indeed, a crucifixion puts years on you. It looks as if my mother has been able to take advantage of the famous postmortem blush of youth. I like the way this links our two bodies.

On the Pietà at the entrance to Saint Peter’s Basilica, Mary looks sixteen years old. I could be her father. The relationship has been so strikingly reversed that my mother has become my orphan.

Whatever the case may be, representations of the mater dolorosa are always hymns to love. The mother holding her child’s body and seeming all the more enraptured, knowing it is for the last time.

She will be able to go and pray at his grave every day, but she knows that nothing can ever equal an embrace: yes, even with a dead body, all the love in the world is never better expressed than through a mother’s embrace.