Friday, August 10, 2007

Death at Golgotha-5th part

Novel published in Serbian as “Smrt na Golgoti”, Prosveta 1965, © Borislav Pekic, English translation © by Lovett F. Edwards.

for the 6th part HERE

... oh, how that wedge under my balls huts and that lie in the breast

I want to think straight

how many hours to death to God to vengeance to mother

give me back my palm Temna which lies forgotten lost on you since I need it to defend myself these palms are pierced and limp and give me back my accidental deaths preserved in you if you remember them to introduce them to this painful death

really painful Temna and to unite them with death which hates me maybe because it’s not mine but I grabbed it by the hair and begged it to be mine and now I want to return it only I have no one to return it to there’s no God among the red blue yellow white green black clothes or Tempo dei miracoli (Il).jpgamong the hairy legs to scoop it up from the dusty altar for what will the omniscient prophets who crave fulfillment say and what will their prophesy who all crave fulfillment say what will Jeremiah Isaiah Amos lament

and the children of Israel who wait for him to die for them but know nothing of me and what will Jehovah say when I come before him without proof that I did anything of what was ordained on this earth and all that work and torment where are they?

...squandered otherwise I could probably have set on the right hand if I could be sure that there’s something on which right hand side one could sit water and not the truth water men Romans mother of mine I don’t want vinegar you son of a bitch

and Rufus my son why didn’t you look better at the bearer of the cross as the procession passed through the Gate of Justice to see your father that was and not the father of the world or of Jerusalem or of Israel but your father crushed under the weight of another’s cross

don’t believe my son don’t believe anything don’t believe anyone I can’t think of anything but water give me water I didn’t want to become God how can he who is deceived become God he who lugged the cross for another like a donkey caught by the roadside and harnessed to a robber’s cart


for whom for who’s happy hours placed at the table placed at the table at the right hand side go away Temna when I call God how it hurts how it hurts oh my God is that Lazarus hanging about my neck half alive half dead and aren’t I the one the blind first saw the deaf heard the paralyzed followed

the lepers embraced the dumb greeted and when everything was known in advance why didn’t they prophesy of me and say take this cross carry it when the time comes bear it to Golgotha and then turn so that all is fulfilled according to the Scriptures I am not the Word Temna I am the error give me water

for the lie for those who call a lie I am the only lie and all else is truth there’s no lie except the servant who is endue it and there is no lie where is no faith and here there is no fait at all for the most beloved and so there is lie or is this truth this pain this pain of mine is greater than the world Romans water

Romans vinegar Romans even if you are mocking the pain even if you don’t know what you are doing the torments will come tomorrow and there are no pain which will never come or which will be spared or which will come different and I could have died on the cool grass in a bed of juicy icy leaves

in the shadow of freezing branches as on holiday wandering holding my Temna by the hand and not under these dry Hebrew and Greek and Latin inscription O God be damned why have you forsaken me water I beg you vinegar I beg you brothers give me and let there be a miracle as at Cana when water became wine vinegar to become water how it gives pleasure how it cools how it heals...

When he came to, he heard a dry rustling and thought cheerfully: perhaps my bereaved God is weeping? Instead, rain fell and washed the blood from him, refreshed him, renewed the capacity of his body to endure new suffering.

Why are those sluts in the bushes wailing? What if I sent them for God? But where is God now? Who can find a god at the time when one dies? Couldn’t I send them for Temna? Temna could collect our friends and go to the High Office, but they are so far away that they can barely see me so how could I send them?

Who can get these women, Salome and Mary Cleophas, or the mother of Zavedeiev’s sons, to give up this sight: before their eyes the Savior of the world is dying, before their eyes – so they hope at least – unrolled the mysterious and unique process of the universal redemption of sin, and they believed that with every breath of my death rattle a stain of the filth of original sin is being washed from them.

Also they have been too far away from the gallows to be able to see what is happening up there on the crosses.

Oh, you mother-fuckers, he swore shaking his thorn-crowned head, ah, Mediterranean worms, Misirian bug, Sodom and Gomorrah, the victor’s wreath swayed like a pendulum this way and that, this way and that, this way and that, ah the dumbest of all dumb sons of Israel, whom that old mongrel Moses dragged into the land of Canaan! What’s your God doing now? Where’s your God now?

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the inscription above his head, in Hebrew, Latin and Greek:

JESUS OF NAZARETH, KING OF THE JEWS

“Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani!” he whined.

Which means: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

“Let me die in peace, you son of a bitch,” bellowed the Bear. “If you are Christ and the Son of God, get down from the cross and help us to get down, too. If you aren’t, shut up!”

“I am not the Son of God.” he admitted depressed

Zachary played up to him but reprimanded the Philistine:

“Bear, Bear, you Philistine nitwit. Doesn’t it pay off to hang at the right or the left side from Christ? Doesn’t your adopted brother Erinei, a thief and blasphemer from Ascalona, become a government official in Gaza? I am telling you until everything is over you don’t know a thing. And, Bear, where is the end?” and turning to the one who was dying in the middle he added: “Remember me when you get home, Son of God!”

“I am not the Son of God.”

“Whoever you are, remember me when you get home.”

for the 6th part HERE

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