otille’s rude words were a revelation. The night my beloved healed Sazia’s hand was the first time I’d truly seen myself.
I’d been a child. A weak and whining, petulant child, crying out to my beloved that he should fix all my troubles. Spare me any pain, and run at my summons. Deliver me from dark roads and vulgar sinners and crude peasants.
How could I have been so blind?
Whose prayer did my beloved answer? Botille’s, not mine. Whose hands did he send to help me? Peasants’. Botille’s. Plazensa’s. Even the whore Jacotina’s.
To love as my beloved does, I must love all those whom he loves. In heaven, there are neither nobles nor peasants. Only children of God.
I saw my pride and vanity stripped bare. With shame I remembered that my bitter cup, though bitter indeed, was nothing to his. It was time to rise up and become a true woman, a worthy and courageous bride. Rise up, o my soul!
Yet in spite of my resolve, I could only pine for him, only wish him there with me.
I sat in my room long after the sisters had gone to sleep. Maybe, I thought, tonight he would come to me. Hadn’t he heard my prayer? Wouldn’t he now break his silence, part the curtains that had so recently hidden his heaven from my view? Wasn’t Sazia’s healing a sign that our estrangement was at an end?
I waited hours to hear his voice. All I heard was the wailing infant across the wall.
Come back to me, I pleaded. If ever my love pleased you, let me see your face and hear your voice.
Stillness. Nothing but the baby’s cry.
Why would you heal her, I pleaded, and not visit me? I who long for none but you!
And then, this chilling thought: What if I never saw or heard my love again? Could I love him still? Could I prove my heart faithful in endless isolation?
Hadn’t my beloved done the same, until his lonely, bitter death? My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
All I had ever done was seek gifts from my beloved. It was time to offer them in return.
My love, for my love you will always be, what, I pray, would you ask of me?