Judas

Judas

He washed my broken feet. I put them in a pale blue bowl and he bathed
them with warm water. Soft soaping the flannel he took each foot and
cleaned them. In his hands they were rare antiquities, waterford
crystal.

He restored them as would an archaeologist. Reading my ancestry between
my toes, unravelling their travellings, his fingers traced back my
heritage until it met up with his.
He said my feet gave him more information than my face. I can't read
you at all.You never give anything away. Then I can never betray you I
replied.

His wife was dying in the bedroom. I knew he washed her feet, knew he
washed her whole body. Knew he fed and clothed her and made her
lukewarm milk on request.

I took the towel from him. He wanted to bind them in bandages, rub them
with liniment, lay squares of soft lint across them.

You can't leave them like that he laughed.
They'll be fine I said. I'm from a long line of warriors.

He stayed with her to the very end. I'd already walked away. He
chastised me for leaving him with nothing. I said I couldn't wait
whilst he played the martyr, not when he didn't truly believe. He said
I was descended from errant disciples. I took it as a compliment.