chapter 10

Rome, the university of the ruling empire, wanted Jesus. They wanted him to teach the Holy Scriptures of his mother’s ancestors and they wanted his philosophy for his blood father’s tribe of warlords.

We sat on the balcony drinking a tea pretending to contemplate weather or not he had a choice.

“Helene, I don’t think I can say no. It is the den of the mighty ruling class and I must try to do whatever I can to poison it.”

“I know. I can see clearer than you can what you are. You will find the angels you need. Or they will find you. I will go where you go as long as you want me to be with you. As long as you are fighting your war I will be part of your army.”

Jesus laughed. He was most ignorant of his significance. For me it was becoming frightfully obvious.

“I’m certain there is some theater there without rivers of blood.”

The biggest theater was live murder shows for idiot spectators. And it sacred both of us. It was the western Mecca of madness. Everyone in Istanbul knew it as the center of trade and plunder wealth and madness. No one wanted either of us to leave to enter the den of thieves. My theater group refused to let me go till the end of our season and Jesus didn’t want to go before I was ready to go with him.

So he wrote back that he was honoured to come to the university of Rome and would make preparations for travel at the end of the summer.

The end of the summer came like the end of our last three summers in Istanbul, much too quickly.

Mother Andra told us she would die if we left. And she did. She died two days before we boarded a ship. An Imperial ship. A ship with slaves chained to oars.

On board. On deck, there was wine and a fine kitchen and we had a cabin with more luxury than our home of almost three years in Istanbul.

Jesus was constantly standing at the front of the ship trying not to think. He was trying to accept the life that had taken him. I tried not to leave our cabin in daylight and paced the deck at night. I couldn’t get it out of my mind that we had been given a prison sentence. We would learn to adhere to the laws of an Empire that was different than the tradition of our forefather’s holy genocide and hypocrisy religious campaign but if it was any better was still a big question.

The east faded behind us soon after we set sail and the west sucked us up into its grand madness. The voyage was very revealing. The ruling class ruled with tyranny over its subjects and slaves. They talked of gladiators as if it was a grand thing to be proud of. It made me weep. It poisoned me with doubt.

At the port of Rome, we were greeted by the magistrate of the university. Seeing him shine with hope and optimism took some of my fear away. He and Jesus loved one another on sight. I would get used to being in the den of the western world of mighty tyrants.

The flat that was provided for us was beautiful and the first thing I did was lay on the bed and stare at the ceiling or out the window. I felt like I was suffocating and I could not move for so long that Jesus thought my soul had slipped away from me.

“Helene. What can I do for you. Should we return to the east.”

“No. Jesus. You belong here. It is very obvious that the magistrate has been waiting for your arrival. I will not keep you from your work. I will be okay when the shock wears off and my strength comes back.”

It came back when Jesus took me north to the quiet hills of the Toscana. And I realized that I was pregnant.


chapter 11

We, Jesus and I, were brought with modesty and comfort to a piece of paradise in the Toscana. In a big stone house, lived John Camus and Mary and their two children, two dogs, goats and chickens and a stained glass business.

They had beaten their way through life in Rome until John Camus said flog it and left his unrelenting stress lawyer job and headed for the hills away from the sounds and smells of the capital of the western world.

After a few days, Jesus decided to leave me in paradise and return to the university to take and teach classes.

I missed him but part of me was him and part of him was me and I felt the space he took up in my mind and my heart. I couldn’t remember being with him in a previous life. He was certain. He was certain that we had been part of one another back before we started telling stories about ourselves. He was certain that the talking animal trying to construct meaning with its baby minds was a new adventure yet to be understood.

From my perspective, I had crossed the world and journeyed through hell to find myself back with old friends. There seemed to be no hesitation in being members of one family. It was the beautiful opposite of what I had felt on the long ship voyage.

It felt like the home I had left that I had never had because my this life blood family loved the law of their ancestors more than life. My family could not see Jesus for the true angel that he was for they had been hoping that the son of David would follow the same path as David and kill tens of thousands of the, ordained evil by Moses as worthy only of genocide, Gentiles.

John Camus thought like Jesus and assured me that my parents would some day be my children or grandchildren and they would watch and learn and if it took 10 or 20 generations, it did not matter. What mattered was life and as long as we had it we had to do all we could to preserve it, love it and celebrate it.

So that is what we did. We got up each morning and made a tea and ate a few cookies. And when someone was inspired to move to the garden or the shop, they did.

I took long slow walks up and down the hills. Sometimes we walked into the village to have a coffee, or an herbal tea for anyone pregnant, and catch up on any local news. Who was doing what or whose goat got loose and ate whose cabbage or shirt.

Everyone wanted to know who I was, what brought me to the hills of Toscana, who my man was, what did he do. Why did he leave me.

But as beautiful as it was in the Toscana, when Jesus returned, I was ready to go back to Rome with him. Even if we lived forever, there was no forgiveness for not taking love when it was there. The now was what mattered. No matter when it was.

When we were back in Rome, Borus Charus helped me set up a theater group at the University. He and Jesus were my biggest fans. They often sat and discussed with me the philosophy of theater and the necessity of creating a real life theater.

Borus had much influence and won the support of Rome to execute what he called the great conspiracy. Not with the Roman officials. With them he called it the New Church.

“Helene, the world has become our stage. The play has run its course and Jesus was born to change the world. All he needs is a few thousand angels and to rewrite the theater.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Angels he already has. They have been waiting for him. The rest of it will demand many years of work.”

The architecture was the part that had to be developed. For the planning of the event, Borus gave me all the support I needed to teach Jesus theater and to become natural in it. And he put together a think team of great minds from the east and west.

And as a beautiful surprise for me, he brought John and Susanna and their two children to Rome.

Jesus told me we were expecting company for dinner and when they came I could not at first believe I was awake. It wasn’t till I was ready to go to bed that I could accept that Susanna was again in my near. That she was still a part of the yet to be decided on war against a yet to be decided on enemy. It made me think our chances were getting better.


chapter 12

With the think team of Jesus we went back to the Toscana to visit John Camus and Mary for some fun and a little light hearted conspiracy.

Jesus was a children magnet. It was nice to see the children of John and Susanna telling Jesus stories. It was clear to see that they already knew him even though they had never met him before. As Jesus would say, at least not in this carnation of life.

Jesus felt me watching him and looked over at me and smiled.

“King of the Jews.”

“Goddess of life.”

Jesus and I left the others and walked barefoot through the woods to a small stream. The sun shared the sky with the clouds and we put our feet in a cool stream and let go of the world of our ancestors and let the world of the animals take us where it pleased.

When Jesus and I had sex, or even when we didn’t and let the world of Law and chaos fall away from us, there was a hyper reality that embraced us. Heaven became obvious and questions obliterated.

And when I opened my eyes after an orgasm, Jesus was smiling at me like a god watching a goddess.

And it was simple and real.

We fell asleep holding one another with the stream running over our feet. And we didn’t wake up until my stomach rumbled.

“I think our child is hungry.”

“We mustn’t forget to feed the children.”

Jesus drank from the stream, as did I. Then we walked back to our party of angels and soaked up love and prepared the evening feast. Jesus and John Camus prepared a leg of lamb over an open fire. Potatoes and other vegetables were cooked with herbs and spices in a big iron pot.

“Jesus, have you ever thought of opening a restaurant.”

“I’ve thought of many things John Camus. Perhaps when I have finished my contribution to the establishment of the animal virus in the new church of Rome, I will come back here and we will make a road side inn and restaurant.”

“Till then he can cook for his women and children.”

Fau smiled at me. I could have been jealous of her, for all the time she spent with Jesus and her obvious love of him, but she was hard not to love and adore. She was a genius of language. She could read and speak all the languages of the think team and knew languages none of us had heard of. She came from a culture that was just as much ruled by tyrants but without religion. He mind was noticeably different from any of the rest of us.

And as it always was in the Toscana, it was too soon again that Jesus and I had to return to Rome. The belly of the ruling class beast. The beast that ruled over all other beasts with a load roar and large military power.

Its tragic brutality was becoming more obvious to me while I watched the effort with which Jesus and his seven friends went about preparing for the grand theater.

With Francis on my breast, our golden son, I was forced to slow down and act less. Borus made Jesus drop a couple of his classes so that he could spend more time being a father to his child and a man to his woman. And focus his remaining energy on the New Church of Rome.

And I almost started liking Rome after getting used to it. I was well protected from most of its brutality in the sanctuary of the university. The university was an island of hope and beauty. An oasis for learning in a world of blinding and brutal entertainment and bloody wars.

Before John and Susanna seemed to be part of Rome, they left to return to our bloody holy land. After a few more years, the think team of Jesus was moving to the stage where the next big event would take place. Some times I thought it a mad notion to pay so much reverence to the religion Jesus had rejected but not when I saw how Borus shone with hope every time he talked of our show.

“A mind virus, Helene, can be a terrible thing. Or. It can be a beautiful thing. And all I have to do is see you and I know that no one has a better chance than Jesus to save the world of the animals.”

“If I thought there was a choice, I would have done all I could to keep him away from this campaign. It is clear that the angels are us and that we are doing what must be done to win heaven back from the tyrants who stole it.”

“We shall over come.”


mary helene chapters 13 - 15