Belief
CASSANDRA
Cassandra sees snakes that no one else sees, their dry scales scratching over the stone pavers of the temple. Their green-and-yellow striped hides flash between columns as they follow her, several steps behind. When she was a child, they curled up in her bed at night, kept watch over her as she walked through the fields, a secret.
She carries candles, throwing their flickering light up the columns as she passes by. At the altar, she replaces those that have burned down, touches a flame to those that have burned out. The snakes’ small rushes of movement flicker in and out of the light. The snakes always come when she needs them, alone in the dark. She steps back, and kneels.
She tips her dark head forward, her veil blinkering her view of the temple, of the snakes that wind up the columns like restraints.
She shifts her weight, wedges the fabric of her tunic between her cold knees and the flagstones. Anything to take the edge off.
There is grit trapped in Cassandra’s sandal. She flexes her toes to try to dislodge it. She slips the sandal off and the arch of her foot is white against the grime of her heel.
The draft that pushes in from the edges, gathering dust and circling the columns, catches her veil. She sighs and pushes it back, the linen falling to snake down her back.
Cassandra is alone in the dark, in the warmth, with the flickering light of candles and the hissing of snakes, and who cares if she sinks low onto the steps? If she slips an arm under her head to buffer it from the cold, if her long hair tumbles before the altar like an offering? Who cares if the snakes that only she can see creep closer, winding their bodies around hers, brushing their faces along the lines of her cheek, her jaw, whispering secrets in her ear?
CLAUDIA
Jerusalem gives Claudia a headache. The sun here hangs like an eye, with a heat that beats down against her skull and the place has been on edge for days, the air hot and dry, the people brittle. She can feel it when she walks in the garden, the red soil blowing across the ground until it’s red dust streaking the bottom of her legs, getting in her eyes. She has grit in her teeth, sees it in her spit. She sees it in her sleep.
She wakes up with a throbbing head and dreams that hang in her mind, heavy and angry, like salt in the water. She calls for wine. She knows she shouldn’t, first thing in the morning. But Pontius has already left, early in the morning, to go down to the courts in the half-light. So Claudia calls for wine.
It comes with the ancilla, her feet scuffing quietly along, her wraps swishing. She holds the carafe with one hand, the other carrying a platter of bread and cheese, a tumble of grapes. She sets it on the low table beside the bed, and fills the beaker. The noise grips Claudia’s head and she sits, slowly, and holds the drink in two shaking hands.
It tastes metallic, thick, bloody, but she looks down and it’s just wine. She eats bread to get rid of the taste. It sticks to the roof of her mouth and she gulps more wine to wash it down.
Claudia sits still. The linen bedding under her fingertips is fine and soft, and her fingers rub the surface as though she is trying to rub something away. She tries to hold the dreams in her mind, tries to reconsider them, but they skid away under her attention and she just has fire and hunger left.
Claudia takes another gulp, and the wine burns down her throat. If she sits still enough, she can feel it trace through her veins and spread out through her body. She stands slowly to get dressed. The world is fuzzy, dark around the edges, as though she’s spent too long under the Jerusalem sun.
JANE
Jane (or Bri, or Hana, or Rangimarie) sits at the small square table in an otherwise empty interview room. The lights hum slightly and she looks up, finds herself looking for patterns in the small regular holes of the ceiling tiles. She’s holding a cup of tea. Someone made it for her, but the interaction has been forgotten, leaving only the tea. The cup was too hot for her to hold at first, but now it’s tepid, and too weak to be desirable. The brown glass mug is familiar and comforting. Like the ones in her staffroom (or in her student dorm, or in her mother’s kitchen).
She clutches her sweatshirt to her body (or she pulls up the shoulder of her shirt where the rip is, or she pulls the strap of her party dress back up onto her shoulder). She’s cold and suddenly, as the door clicks opens, very aware of how she looks.
Her eyes are gritty, and dry. There’s an ache in her back and she sits uncomfortably. The chair is hard. If she rocks her weight onto one side the pain is less, but only a little.
Jane lifts the cup of tea to her lips and drinks.
CASSANDRA
Cassandra is alone, as alone as you can be in a god’s house. And when the god wakes her up, she’s afraid. Her tangle of snakes flee, the trails of their passage visible in the dust that’s blown in with the god. He is looking at her and she must look away, look down.
Apollo slides down onto the temple steps beside her.
‘Cass-ss-andra,’ he says, and all she hears is the hissing of snakes in the sibilance of her name, like a draught under the door, like the pouring of cold water.
Apollo looks at her: her hair catching the red light of the candles, her wet eyes like prey. The nape as she looks away, the place a blade would strike a sacrificial victim, but that’s not the kind of sacrifice he wants her to make. Apollo makes her a proposition.
On the cold temple steps Cassandra plays for time. She doesn’t like either side of the bargain. She feels the slow scaly creep of a snake returning to wind around her ankle, another at her waist. She rests her hand on the head of the nearest and it steadies her, holds her still.
Apollo leans close and the snake hisses at him, its body coiling around her until it reaches her face. It tells her the truth about the god.
When he steps closer, ready to claim his side of his one-sided deal, one hand already pulling at the front of her dress, Cassandra shrinks back. She can see it now, the greed simmering just below his beautiful skin.
Cassandra speaks quietly, softly into the darkness of the temple.
‘No.’
CLAUDIA
The girl comes back in and does Claudia’s hair, pulling it forward, then arranging the curls high on her head. Each pin, each pull makes her wince.
The girl leans in close. ‘There’s trouble in the city,’ she says. ‘A man, in the temple. I wonder if the prefect will have to deal with him.’
Claudia’s dreams rise up, a hot flush. She can feel sweat pricking under her arms. She feels Pontius’s absence from the house like a threat.
The girl holds Claudia’s hair in place and reaches for a pin. She continues, ‘He let out all the doves. And they all flew up the to the roof. He pushed over the stalls.’
Claudia knows the temple. She knows it by the smell of the sheep huddled on the steps, by the clicking of coins counted out. A tremor runs through her.
‘That’s enough. You can stop,’ Claudia says. She pushes the girl away, her hair shaking loose as she stands and turns to look at the mirror. She’s pale; makeup streaks down her face like doves’ shit on the side of temple buildings. She thinks about finishing the bread but she finishes the wine instead. Her hands shake less than before.
In the atrium, the boys sit at the feet of their tutor, listening as he talks. Claudia doesn’t care what he’s saying, the monotony of the man’s voice is soothing. The dog lying in the corner lifts its head to watch her come in. Its tail lifts and thumps softly on the dusty floor, fluttering the paper the boys have left scattered about.
Claudia closes her eyes tight, trying to remember just what it was she had seen in her dream. Instead she sees her husband, walking out of the house that morning, his toga flapping behind him like broken wing. She leans and picks up a piece of paper.
She picks up a stylus and scratches against the papyrus. She writes:
‘Pontius, I am afraid. Be careful. Come home to me and …’
At the rustle of her writing, the boys turn to look at her. The tutor pauses, and then continues. She tries again:
‘My head, Pontius, my head, it breaks open and I am full of fright. I need …’
The dog looks at her from its corner with big brown eyes. Claudia can’t get this right. In the last corner of the paper, she prints:
‘Have nothing to do with that man: I have suffered many dreams today because of him.’
She can’t be any more specific than that; the dream is still drifting in and out of clarity for her. She tastes salt and the red dust of Jerusalem. She folds the paper and tucks it inside her stola to hide it from the children.
JANE
Her voice cracks when she speaks. At first she’s startled at the openness of the detectives’ questions; they allow her to speak, and she is not sure where to start. Jane has been alone in the interview room, in her thoughts, for so long she’s forgotten that anything else exists.
She puts the cup of tea down on the table. It clicks against the Formica, sloshing in the cup, and some of the lukewarm brown liquid pools in a ring around the base of the cup. She stares at it.
She’s not sure what to say. Or how to say what she wants to. Or whether she should. She opens her mouth: ‘I …’ and then there is nothing more. She looks down at her hands, the long fingers, the short-clipped nails (or the red polish gleaming, one long nail ripped away; or the chewed stubs of nail surrounded by picked skin). She lifts the cup to her mouth.
The men sit loose and easy in their chairs, their legs falling open, occasionally leaning forward to make a note. They nod, and prompt when Jane’s words slow. Every once in a while, they look at each other.
CASSANDRA
Apollo rises like the flare of a temple candle flame, and she shrinks back further. His anger comes off him like smoke, and the snakes in Cassandra’s clothing and on the temple floor are startled, hissing in anger.
He comes closer and Cassandra steels herself for the blow, for the grip of his hands on her arms. She closes her eyes.
There is no blow, only the sound of Apollo spitting, the shocking wetness on her face. She opens her eyes to see his contorted face, the residual saliva flecked on his lips.
‘No one will believe you,’ he says.
Cassandra wipes her face with the corner of her veil. His spittal leaves a dark grimy patch on the white.
The god raises his arms and the candles go out. The dust and grit whirl in a flurry and Cassandra’s eyes are full of sand. Then he is gone, and she slumps to the floor.
And who cares if she stays there all night? If she prays and sleeps and prays on her knees, the cold stones cutting through? Who cares if the snakes whisper terrible truths as she cries? Who would care, even if she told them? No one believes Cassandra.
CLAUDIA
Claudia stands and hurries to the front door. The guard is there, leaning on his spear, his smiling eyes on the girl carrying water.
‘Take this to Prefect Pilate,’ Claudia says, and she takes his hand and crushes the paper into it. ‘Take it now.’
The guard looks at her blankly. ‘But Procula—’ he begins.
‘Now,’ she says, and her voice cracks. The guard looks at her and she wonders what he sees, but she’s past caring. She feels the cold wet nose of the house dog press up under her other hand. The soldier blinks, looks at the street, and then back at Claudia. He takes the paper from her hand, and smooths the creases out of it. He tucks it under his breastplate and turns, begins to walk in the direction of the courts. Claudia lets out her breath.
She watches him walk, the red of his tunic flashing between the straps of his baltea. The dog sits, leaning against Claudia’s leg. The soldier turns to look back at her and the light glints off the metal of his helmet. Claudia cannot see his face.
There is stabbing pain behind Claudia’s eyes, as though that hot Jerusalem sun has burned its way from the street through to her brain. The red grit from the street crunches beneath her feet and Claudia’s mouth is dry. Pontius will believe her. Surely.
JANE
One detective leans forward. He’s tightened his eyebrows together into the appearance of concern. The other leans back into his chair.
The first detective makes his voice warm, and Jane wonders if this is the voice he uses at night, when he’s reading his children a bedtime story. He repeats back to her things that Jane has just told him. He lets his voice rise at the end of the sentences. It’s a nice trick. It puts doubt into her words, even when she had none. Jane can hardly hear what he’s saying, though, and she can feel the tears gathering in the bruised wells of her eyes.
He finishes speaking and looks over at his partner beside him. They hold eye contact, smile. One man raises his shoulders and lets them fall as he turns back to look at Jane, the now steady line of tears dribbling off her chin. They mottle her grey sweatshirt (or are hidden in the flannel of her shirt, or darken the satin of her party dress).
‘It’s not that we don’t believe you, love, but …’
