And also Messala, Ben-Hur’s enemy, who is trampled by chariot wheels and the hooves of galloping horses until he’s the bloodiest wreck imaginable. The theater was almost empty during the matinee and I didn’t dare move in my seat, it was Aminta who took me, I think, because that afternoon my mother was sick, Leave your mother alone, she’s depressed, said Aunt Sofi who didn’t live with us yet, and I see Messala smashed and bloody and those two women with pasty white skin broken out in blisters who cover themselves up with cloaks and rags. Aminta tells me, Don’t be afraid, child, these are things from the Bible. But I’m afraid of the Bible, it seems a terrifying book to me; my mother, who is religious, has put one in each bedroom but at night I shut mine up in the garage, because it’s full of lepers. No matter how well those two women cover themselves, the stink of their sores gives them away and that’s why they take shelter in the abandoned courtyard of the house that used to be theirs when they were well, a grand house.
