Another amber jitterbug.
I was overly aware of the tightness of her bodice.
With the soft light on her face, the vista of the pines and ocean framing her refined beauty with their own rugged majesty, I wanted to grasp her, to draw her to me, hold her, kiss her. At the same moment I felt myself gripped by that desire, I experienced a counter-emotion, a disgust and a deep fear. It was connected to The Fear, to the wombs, to the first moments of my conscious life when I first knew what I was-and what I wasn't.
I brought a hand to that bare shoulder, felt her flesh, resilient and warm, scintillating beneath my fingers.
I took my hand away, breathless and confused.
Turning from her, I began to pace the room, holding my wine glass so tightly that it must surely soon snap in my fingers. I examined the original oil paintings on the walls, as if I were looking for something, though I could not guess what. They had hung here so long that I knew their every detail. There was nothing new in them, not for me.
What did I fear? What about her terrified me so much that I could not bring myself to complete the advance I had made, to draw fingers downwards from her shoulder, to touch the thinly sheathed roundness of her breasts? Was it only what the computerized psychiatrist in the den told me it was-? Was it only that I feared making too many contacts in the world and then discovering that I did not belong? It seemed to me that it ran deeper than that, though I could not find any other motivations that made as much sense.
She had turned away from the window, and she looked at me curiously. I suppose I looked like a caged animal, prowling that room, sniffing the brilliant canvases for solace and finding no solace.
I turned and looked at her. But when I tried to speak, there was nothing to say. I thought, perhaps, in some way I could never understand, she realized the nature of my problem more completely than I did.
She crossed the room, her body doing wonderful things to the clinging black fabric of her dress, and placed a soft hand upon my lips. "It's getting late," she said.
She took her hand away.
"When do we start?" I asked.
"Tomorrow. And we tape all the interviews."
"Tomorrow, then," I said.
"Tomorrow, then."
And she was gone in a whirlwind of efficiency that left me standing with my drink in my hand and my "goodbye" in my mouth like a lump of used lard.
I went to bed to dream and I woke up needing comfort, a strange comfort that I could find but one place:
IT IS FOUR O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING, the metal headshrinker said as it swallowed me and thrust its ethereal fingers into the pudding of my brain.
I know.
RELAX AND TALK.
What should I say? Tell me what it is that I could-that I should say to you.
START WITH A DREAM IF YOU'VE HAD ONE.
I always have one.
THEN START.
There are storm clouds in the sky: dark, thick, mysterious. There is no place where the sun shows. Below all this piling grayness, beneath the scudding harbingers of rain, there is a hill, a large and rounded hill formed by Nature into a grotesque, gnarled lump, a blemish upon the face of the earth. There are people people…
GO ON. The same old urging-go on, go on, go on
There are people and there is a cross a wooden cross
FOCUS ON THE CROSS. WHAT DO YOU SEE THERE?
Me.
YES?
Nailed. Blood. Much blood. White, festered wounds dribbling rusty blood around the edges of little holes, neat little holes like the cavities left when you rip the buttons from the faces of rag dolls Rusty blood there
WHO IS IN THE CROWD?
Harry. I see Harry there. He's weeping.
WHY IS HE WEEPING?
For me.
WHO ELSE?
I'm thirsty.
WHO ELSE?
I'm thirsty. Very thirsty.
THEY WILL GIVE YOU WATER SOON. THEY
WILL SLAKE YOUR THIRST. NOW WHO ELSE IS
IN THE CROWD?
Morsfagen is casting dice for my cloak. And over there, beyond him, is a pregnant woman who is
GO ON, PLEASE
.
Please this time?
GO ON.
I look at her belly and there is Child. He is weeping too. But he is not weeping for the same reason that Harry is. He isn't weeping for me. It's because he wants up there where I am. He wants out of that woman's womb and up on the cross, nailed and bleeding and thirsty and dying. He wants it so bad that he writhes inside her in fury, wanting out
DO YOU KNOW WHY HE WANTS OUT?
For the same reason I am happy to be there.
YOU ENJOY BEING ON THE CROSS?
Yes.
WHY?
WHY?
I don't know.
DO YOU SEE ANYONE ELSE IN THE CROWD?
No! Oh, no! Oh, my God, my God, my God!
WHAT IS IT? WHAT IS THE MATTER?
No! You'll spoil it/me! I can't! Don't you see my station, my purpose, my nature? It must be my purpose! I haven't got another one, there isn't another one, this must be it! Get away from me! No!
WHAT IS IT? WHO DO YOU SEE?
Melinda. Floating, naked. Floating toward the cross. No!
Stay away! You'll spoil my purpose!
STOP IT.
Help! Help me! Don't let her touch me! Forgod'ssakeshe'snaked naked nakednakednakednaked!
STOP DREAMING! WAKE! LISTEN TO ME; HOLD
YOURSELF TOGETHER AND LISTEN TO ME.
IQUIET. COMPOSE YOURSELF. I WILL INTERPRET YOUR DREAM. THOUGH I MUST SAY THAT
THIS THROWS A NEW LIGHT ON YOUR PSYCHE.
DO YOU SEE WHY YOU ARE THE ONE ON THE
CROSS? NO NEED FOR AN ANSWER, PURELY
RHETORICAL. YOU SEE YOURSELF AS CHRIST WHAT A NEW DEVELOPMENT! — MORE PRECISELY, AS THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST AS REPRESENTED BY THE SECOND COMING. THERE
ARE PARALLELS, OF COURSE, BETWEEN YOUR
CONDITION AND THE STORY OF THE CHRIST.
YOU COULD SAY THAT YOUR OWN BIRTH WAS A
VIRGIN BIRTH, FOR EXAMPLE. YOU WERE NOT
CONCEIVED BY FLESH IN FLESH AND THE SPILLING OF SEED, BUT BY THE GENETIC ENGINEERS
AND THE COMPLEX CYBERNETIC ARTIFICIAL
WOMBS. AND THERE ARE YOUR SUPER-HUMAN
POWERS. PERHAPS THEY ARE NOT AS ALL-ENCOMPASSING AS THOSE OF THE CHRIST MYTH,
BUT THEY ARE SUFFICIENTLY STRONG TO NURTURE YOUR DELUSIONS.
YOU WERE NOT ABLE TO SEE A PURPOSE TO
YOUR LIFE, SO YOU CHOSE TO CAST YOURSELF
IN THE ROLE OF A SAVIOUR. IT SERVES A DOUBLE PURPOSE: FIRST, IT REINFORCES ALL YOUR
CHRISTIAN MORES, ALL THE THINGS THEY
THOUGHT YOU SHOULD BELIEVE AS YOU WERE
RAISED (THOUGH THEY WERE AS INTERESTED
IN SUPPLYING YOU WITH MORES THAT WOULD
KEEP YOU IN LINE AS MUCH AS THEY CARED
ABOUT YOUR HAVING A CHRISTIAN UPBRINGING); SECONDLY, IT GIVES A PURPOSE AND
MEANING NOT ONLY TO YOUR LIFE BUT TO THE
ENTIRE UNIVERSE WHICH SOMETIMES SEEMS
UNEXPLAINABLY CHAOTIC TO YOU-THE WARS
AND THE SUFFERING, THE REST OF IT.
I am thirsty.
IN A MOMENT. I MUST FINISH WITH THIS FIRST.