I cannot plead submission to my father. Where he’s concerned, I’ve racked up my acts of disobedience. Starting with Madeleine: I had no right to sexuality or to being in love. With Madeleine, I did not hesitate to carry on regardless. And I was not punished.
Oh, come on, that’s not true either. I’m a laughable idiot if I think I was entitled to impunity in overstepping my father’s ban regarding Madeleine. In truth, I was punished in advance.
Or maybe my mistake was to believe that I was. I believed so fundamentally that I would be condemned that I could not imagine any other outcome.
Even if it’s too late for all that, let’s imagine.
In the Garden of Gethsemane, Madeleine would have come and joined me. With a few kisses, she would have convinced me to choose life. We would have run away together, we would have gone to live in a faraway country, unsullied by my reputation, and we would have enjoyed the wonderful life of ordinary people. Every night, I would have fallen asleep holding my wife in my arms, and every morning, I would have woken up at her side. No happiness can equal these imaginings.
The only thing wrong with this version is that I have made my choice depend on Madeleine. What was stopping me from coming up with the idea all on my own? All I had to do was find her and reach out to her. She would have followed me without hesitation.
I never even thought of it.
I certainly accomplished my share of miracles. Now I no longer can. I’m in too much pain to reach the husk. I could only obtain the power of the husk through complete unconsciousness. This extreme pain blocks the way now. I swear that if I could perform one last miracle, I would set myself free from this cross.
You idiot visionary, are you going to stop hurting yourself? Yes, it’s me I’m speaking to.
I have to forgive myself. Why can’t I?
Because I’m thinking about it. The more I think about it, the less I forgive myself.
What’s stopping me from forgiving is thinking.
I have to forgive myself without thinking. It depends solely on my decision, not on the horror of my act. I have to decide that it’s done.
I was ten years old, playing with the other village children: we were jumping into the lake from the top of the overhang and I couldn’t do it. One of the kids said, “You have to jump without thinking about it.”
I managed to empty my mind, and I jumped. A long time went by before I landed in the water. I loved the exaltation of it.
I have to empty my mind, in the same way. Create a void where currently a great noise is plaguing me. What is pompously referred to as “thought” is nothing more than tinnitus.
There, I’ve done it.
I’ve forgiven myself.
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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 stilclass="underline"
“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.