Pilate's Wife: The Gospel According to the Eyewitness

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XXIX

Tenth day before the Kalends of Aprilis. Eleventh hour of the day. [Friday, March 23, c. 5:00 p.m.]

This morning I might have awakened in a bath of pitch. I could scarcely move within it and could see Florentina only darkly through its surface. At last Latona came and looked at me. I attempted to call to her and found I had no voice. When she went out, I truly believed that I would never again see a human face. Had she not returned with Florentina and the boys, who lifted me from my bed, I believe I would have entered a much darker place.

How long I might have stayed, I cannot say.

I went to the gardens after dressing. In company with Latona, I walked about the paths for more than an hour, crossing in the middle on each circuit. We intended to continue this course.

I would have believed myself utterly mad, had Latona not heard the sound before I did. We had just exited the grove closest to this residence. She stopped as if someone had called to her from behind. Yet one could hear only the fountains -- we were not near enough to the doves to disturb them.

She said to me, "There are spirits in this garden, mistress. You heard them the other night, didn't you? You called to them. Now I have heard them."

I also heard this sound. I knew at once that it was not the music of the great pipes, or even the Temple singers. These voices might have been the chorus of Corinth women wailing to Medea. There was a terrible shrillness to this chorus, however, an outrage or anger more piercing that any artifice would allow. It was as though the vaults of Hades had been opened, and these cries issued forth.

All at once the sound seemed to come rapidly toward us, the wailing shades advancing at a pace even a runner could not achieve. As this occurred, I could distinguish -- by what means I am not entirely certain -- that this was a single voice.

I looked at Latona. Perhaps the terror which crossed her face was a mirror of my own. "You hear them, mistress."

Perhaps I would have submitted to my own superstition regarding this sound. But I would not submit to hers. "I think there is some disturbance in the city," I told her. "We have had sufficient exercise. When we go in, I will send someone to see."

She was not persuaded by my argument. But she was only too eager to accept my decision to leave the garden.

When I returned to my rooms, I sent Atimetus to see if there was some trouble in the city. I wondered if I had falsely perceived a single voice, when in truth the crowd had received word of some catastrophe.

Atimetus returned in a half hour. "Every street-sweeper and dung-hauler in Judea is camped at the Temple, lady. This magus they call Joakanen is trying to raise up another protest."

"Is he presently speaking there?"

"Presumably so. They say he will address them with the words of their god." He shook his head. "This merely proves that their god is a minor deity. It is preposterous to think that the nameless first being requires words to reveal himself."

I cannot imagine that the man I heard speak in the Temple is capable of such a voice. So I must assume that my original judgment was correct -- a crowd made that fierce lament. Indeed, it is more unsettling to think that this fabulist has inspired the crowd to such passion, than that he alone is so possessed.

Pilate sent no news of this. I have had no word from him on these matters, or anything regarding L. V--, in two days. I can assume I am no longer to be included in this business. Such responsibility I surrender with no regret.

Each action today has seemed a triumph: To bathe, to eat, to avoid sleep. To write this. Yet now I see only the pathetic vanity of every effort, great or slight.

I hear the Sabbath trumpets.

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