She then saw, beyond the circle of the people encircling her, a vast mansion with beautiful, red titles and she thought about how good it might be to find rest under the shade produced by those titles. So very good, after her long and painful voyage. And as she thought this, all the members of the circle picked her up gently, without touching any of the very sensitive and hurt parts, and carried her inside the refreshing mansion. Then all the men went away and only the women stayed with her. They laid her bruised and hurting body on the floor, on top of a mattress made of green palm leaves and they then took turns to wash and cleanse this body that had been so abused and poisoned by the evil men and their biting, long snake. Their touch was of such gentleness and compassion that Avó Magda felt that God had not abandoned her and that her spirit was well alive, well alive, and so was the world’s spirit, despite what had just happened to her by the roadside. The cleansing of the body was done not only with water but also with liquid incense. The women touched each part of her body in order to remove all the traces of the poison deposited there by the evil men and their companion snake. When washing her middle, which was bruised to the point of making anyone cry and roll on the floor in utter desperation, the women took the most care. They used for the purpose, a simple, white cloth, soaked in menthol aroma and they motioned the motions necessary to attain purity and healing. As they did this, their eyes were very shining and then you could see the thick tears running down their faces, like rivers in a hurry to reach the great sea, where all is one, and all is washed to nothingness. To wash grandma’s breasts, the women chose a light lilac, simple cloth, which had been soaked in the juices of Mediterranean multicoloured hydrangeas. They gently rubbed one breast and then the other, one nipple and then the other, several times until the engorgement and the sore wounds started to give in, little by little, little by little, until you could start feeling the natural softness of that life giving part of a woman’s body. When grandma was fully clean and able to sit down, the women dressed her body with a white and lilac gown, made of a material that was very soft, so soft that she felt her body was the most sacred temple there is on the face of this earth, being adorned with precious garments, sent down by the gods above. At the end of this long, cleansing ritual the women all encircled grandma Magda and chanted to her in soft gestures. They chanted the rosary again in all its beautiful mysteries, inverting the natural order of the mysteries a little: the Sorrowful, the Joyful, the Glorious, and the Luminous. When singing the Hail Mary section their voices did not change intonation like before. The voices kept low and soft, low and soft in the manner of the Gregorian chant, yet a little less melancholic so that Grandma Magda would feel the rising of the soul without feeling that deep-seated sadness that can come when listening to the profoundly melancholic Gregorian chants. Grandma was feeling good, so good with all the care that the women and men of this mansion had given her. She was also very curious about these people: who were they, where had they come from, who built the beautiful and fresh mansion with the red tiles were they lived, who was that solemn figure that she saw leading the crowd to her, when she was on her knees by the entrance of the city, like a prayer to the invisible? Instead of giving a straightforward answer to all these questions grandma Magda posed, the women’s answer came in the form of a long poem, sung in unison, just like they had chanted the rosary previously, when ending the cleansing ritual meant to make Magda’s entire being, body and soul, innocent and oblivious to the deeds of evil:
St. Lazarus of Jerusalem
Is indeed my favourite saint
This saint of remote pristine antiquity
Was the holy person responsible for the miselli
The miselli are the very ancient lepers
Brought back to life by our very old and kind Jesus Christ…
— Irene Marques, Excerpt from my novel My House is a Mansion (Leaping Lion Books/York University, 2015) https://www.amazon.ca/My-House-Mansion-Irene-Marques/dp/1772210064