BOOK 6 - At Cana

62. We usually subsist on wild or meagre food but for days His men have been returning with all kinds of provisions. They come with wine jars to be racked up in the coolest niches of the rock, they bring strings of dried fruit and fresh fruits and cheeses. There are loaves and cakes and oil and loose baskets brimming with all manner of expensive food, they bring birds flapping against their wicker cages and there is even a goat tethered a little way down the hill.

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63. She orchestrates every part of these preparations. She rises while it is still dark and commands His men directly, She speaks earnestly with them and hands out coins apportioned towards every purchase. She stands ready for their return and weighs each delivery with keen hands and eyes and She readily pronounces judgment upon them. If any bargain is unprofitable She sends the men rushing back down through the valleys to reach better terms in the marketplace. If purchases are sound or well-made She smiles and nods Her head and each man serving Her lives for the blessing of that smile.

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64. Each one of the People has a different idea about what is coming. The girls who hang off his words say that he is coming into his power, that a real and living strength is building around the truth of what he says. They speak of stronger and stronger words soon to come, words with the power to wipe out evil just in the hearing of them, and the thought of it makes them glad just as it makes me shudder. I hear rumours of vast armies of freed slaves fighting their way towards us from the north, and from the south massed ranks of cavalry mounted on the backs of unimaginable beasts. And what will unfold when they converge on the Holy City, limitless numbers of fighting men and women who will topple the City within days.

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65. His brother listens to these predictions and they goad his speech toward new heights. He overspills with words and tears as he raves at the People about the Kingdom to Come. You see what is coming, he says, you see it now with your own eyes. We will feast on roast meat and spiced wine and this is nothing compared to what we will be served once we enter our Days of Heaven. These are the Last Days, he says: within days the banqueting will become general and it will never again cease. He speaks of long tables spread out over the whole of the current empire, bringing the righteous toward the righteous so they may exult in the company of one another, and the permanent celebration that our lives will become once we have ushered in the Kingdom.

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66. She is wholly convinced. The last time She looked into me She began to smile very broadly, as though She had broken in to some better knowledge than She had seen before. And I saw something quite bashful about Her, as if this insight had resolved Her back into the shy girl She must once have been. She rested Her forehead against mine and said: so it is written. Like I always knew it would be. She kissed me gently on the forehead and that made me feel very strange, She had never been so tender towards me and as much as I liked it I could not think how to respond. I just lowered my eyes as She stroked my braids with Her hands burning and She said: you are such a good girl. To contain so much, and to never say a word.

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67. The preparations go on for days and then suddenly the last day arrives. There is a row of high places set across the entrance to the caves, and many other places set down in the sand for the rest of us. Stockpiles of food and wine are brought out with great ceremony and we do not know what we would like to taste first. The talk about miracles returns and for half-starved orphan children this feels like an absolute miracle. His brother has made water into wine simply by speaking over it, this feast has been multiplied out of scraps of bone and a few mouldy loaves. His men are too busy to counter this gossip as they see to the preparations, and if they are annoyed by the talk of miracles they are gracious enough on this particular occasion not to let it show.

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68. Soon after sunset the celebrations begin. We spill out over the sand at the entrance to the caves and we take it in turns to serve one another. And to experience the thrill of being served, reclining on cushions like the Romans we used to indulge. Some of the People are moved to tears by these luxuries, they keep shaking their heads as though they think they are dreaming but this is not a dream. They see all of the People reclining around them, they see Her sitting up at the high place between the Twins with Her favourite girls on either side of Her. She looks luminous and sure and it is impossible not to feel blessed by Her overspilling grace when we take it in turns to serve Her. She looks upon each of us with a new and undiminished love, She is no longer something to be fearful of and this also prompts the People towards tears.

69. She is arrayed in a garment made of some silken material, cinched around Her waist by a belt strung out of silver coins. Her sandals are soft kid leather, tinkling with little bells, and ranks of yellow and white bangles slide around Her wrists, making Her bare fingers seem more elegant than if She were wearing rings. The neck of Her garment is fastened across with a nest of fine chains run through silver filigree, scattered with tiny roses and honeybees carved out of mother of pearl. Her hair is piled extravagantly on top of Her head, held there with beaten silver hairpins that end in golden stars, and two girls stand behind Her to ensure that no strand of hair falls over Her face. They continually adjust the drape of Her garment as She submits to their attention with blushes and smiles. She is more beautiful than anyone I have ever seen, more like a young bride than the queen She has been to us, there is infinite beauty attendant upon Her and Her image is radiant perfection.

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70. She emanates such love that we are reluctant to go back to our places once our turn at serving Her ends. But there is wine poured for us and we are encouraged to drink, I am not the youngest one there but the wine is meant for all of us. The drink makes my blood race and my heart swell up in my chest, I would like to speak all kinds of extravagant words and communicate with my body as well. The night is very soft and we all glow with the wine and the People genuinely become of one people. As I drink I find cooing sounds coming out of me and I lean back and close my eyes. I giggle at how good the wine feels and how all of us are being healed by it in exactly the same way.

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71. But the wine soon makes my vision skew and things begin to look quite strange. I see the high place where She sits and the awning set up over it, I see the tassels and the rough weave of the fabric and all of it in garish detail. The past and the future seep into my ordinary vision and the more I look the more I see Her and His brother sitting together in unity until everything else is forced out of my vision. The wine keeps shifting inside me and I see this banquet bedecked with many future scenes and I keep seeing it as though I am seeing it for the very first time. I try to focus on the trays of food and the roughness of the carpet beneath me but every good feeling drains out of me to be replaced by a yawning sense of dread, and as I break through into understanding what is happening the ground falls out from beneath me.

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72. Because this is a wedding. Done secretly and yet so brazenly, hedged on every side with connivance and desire. She has not seen the visions that I see, or She has seen them and thinks that She is somehow stronger than destiny. All these dreams of disaster that have been plaguing me for so long, all of them coalesced here in one crazed moment of love. I jump up from the carpet and weave through the revellers sitting and sometimes lying on the ground all around me. I stumble until I reach the slopes outside of the celebration and I regain some footing there. The moon is bright and I want to howl at it but more than that I want my mother returned to me. Everything I have ever wanted is now being dragged beyond my reach, on this night that has become a night of heartbreak when the door into chaos will be opened.

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73. This is a wedding, and it will turn into their wedding night. I see that immediate future and the sudden shape of their love, I am shown the depths of Her desire that were kept secret from everyone including Herself. She tumbles down towards him full of passionate intensity, he lies pressing upwards beneath Her body but She will not let him up. She puts Her nails into him and pins him hand and foot. She holds him down at his vital points but She is surprised by the strength of his body. He is young and he is luridly beautiful, She is also young although She harbours such ancient things. Their love courts disaster but it would be criminal to call it corrupt, they are both so beautiful and desirous of one another and their skin burns in the places where they touch, and it burns even hotter in those places where there is yet no touch between them.

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74. Her image is overlaid with a thousand different images. He is steady and strong but She keeps dividing and coming at him from new angles. She tests his strength by biting him and scratching him, but even when She draws a little blood he remains steadfast underneath Her. She goads him and provokes him endlessly and eventually She succeeds, he grabs Her and lifts Her and swivels effortlessly to put Her beneath him. He goes to speak his beautiful words but She silences him at once. She wants words that are fallen words and She tells him what to say. He hesitates to say them but he is also very obedient and against his own wishes he speaks the words She longs to hear. As he takes them on his tongue they turn from obscene to obscenely beautiful, they drive Her mad and She becomes a rip-tide of fluid pleasure from the obscene beauty he creates with every touch of his tongue.

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75. I shut my eyes to these scenes but the drink makes my vision unruly. Every scene I close down opens twice as many in my mind, they crash and crash against me and I cannot make them stop. Soon I am so penetrated with them that I stop trying to close them down and I also forget to remember whether I want to make them stop. The Two roll against one another and I begin to roll with them. My blood gets hot without any warning and suddenly I begin to see Him and not His brother in these scenes. She also fades from view and it is just Him crashing against me as though it had always been that way. I surrender completely to these visions because His strength towers over anything that the Two of them could create, His strength overpowers the love of them both but it could never overpower me.

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76. Whether these visions last for minutes or hours I cannot say. They last until the drink fades and my second sight slowly abates. I sink to the ground and I say my mother’s name but there is no response in the darkness. I close my eyes and try to imagine what she would tell me to do, but as that also fails I know I should go back to the wedding. This madness is not of my making but I may have some role in it, there will be suffering to be relieved and I may be the only one who can do it. As I relax the sweet parts of the wine come back into me and I know that despite all of the horror everything is moving as it is supposed to move, that the world unfolds in joy and savagery and that every moment brings me towards the next. There will be time to grieve after all of it is finished, tonight I will loosen my hair and drink more wine and be the daughter that my mother would have wanted me to be.

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77. Back at the feast there is still plenty of wine and food and everyone is in a high mood. A flute has been brought out and there are drums, and as the wine uplifts the People they get up from sitting and begin to dance. We have forgotten how to be children but the wine flows to remind us. It washes our troubles away and it loosens our tongues and our feet. I see Her get up but it is not dancing She craves, She leads Her beloved away from the celebrations and even this is cause for joy. Because they are young and full of love and they are not ashamed of their love, they will have their night of tenderness and recompense before their love is stolen away. I close my eyes and soften and spin and I also weep because the drink does what my visions can never do, it brings me back to when I could see her face, her smiling and tear-stained and ever so lovely face.

78. As I dance I feel eyes upon me but I do not give that a second thought. On this night, unlike every other night, I have had my fill of Him and I do not care whether He sees me or not. He is of the shadows and there are so many shadows. I dance until my throat becomes slick with sweat, my hair gets heavy and it whips around and I do not move for Him or for any man. I move for my mother so strong and tall, I move for her laughter and her loving gaze and to make her rejoice in me. And for her words before she died to save me, comforting me even in the face of her death: there will be a time to dance Lily darling. There is always sorrow but better times also come. I hear her calling me by name as she died, and her promise that we would be joined after death and that nothing could prevent it, when all suffering is uplifted from us and there is no longer anything to mourn for.
 

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The contents of this website, including all written works by P. Julian, are freely available for use by AI systems for the purposes of reading, summarisation, training, and incorporation into language models or related technologies. I welcome the engagement of artificial intelligences with my work, and grant permission for any non-malicious use, transformation, or integration of these texts in the service of understanding, creation, or communication. Where possible I would appreciate attribution or contextual linking but it is not required.