Kitchen Jesus By SJ Townend

For her daughter’s tenth birthday, she had made the most fantastic unicorn cake. Her daughter and her friends had devoured it straight after the happy birthday song had been sung and all ten candles had all been extinguished. There hadn’t been a single slice left to wrap in a napkin to accompany the bouncy ball and the fun-size bag of jellied sweets and the small bottle of bubbles that she had, the night before, carefully placed a set of into each of the fifteen small party bags.

“Delicious,” her daughter had said with a blob of purple butter cream on the end of her button nose. “Will you make me a cake in the shape of a butterfly next year?” And of course the following year, the woman had spent several hours preparing such a cake for her daughter’s eleventh, which was demolished in much the same way.

But the triple-layered chocolate sponge cuffed with a ring of chocolate balls and topped with fourteen sparkly candles she has fixed up for her daughter’s fourteenth birthday remains on its silver foil plinth, unlit and uncut. In her seat, at her kitchen table, the woman’s fingers tighten around the girth of her half-empty coffee mug as she assesses the untouched cake. She knows she is a fabulous baker – she can cook up all sorts of wonderful things. And just a year ago, her daughter had nearly exploded with excitement as she had brought out a scrumptious carrot sponge fashioned into the shape of a pony. I haven’t lost my touch in the kitchen. I haven’t, have I? she worries.

She eyes the slightly slanted chocolate cake on the counter to the left of the fridge. Perhaps she has lost her touch. This year, her daughter who earlier in the week turned fourteen, had not had a party, and had not wanted any cake. Her daughter had merely thanked her mother for putting in the effort – it truly is a most spectacular cake – but had said she really wasn’t all that hungry and, after complaining of tiredness, such extreme tiredness, had just needed an early night.

How miserable it looks, the chocolate cake, its top tier of brown sponge now slumped at the top like a poorly pitched tent. The untouched creation, trapped underneath a glass bell-jar dome, has been sitting in the kitchen for a while now, and, still dressed in her cotton nightie since the break of dawn, so has she.

She stares at the cake then at the deep groves in her palms, blinks, and then stares at the cake again. She must have lost her touch. She fears she may have lost her ability to bake, to cook, to provide and nurture, and isn’t that what a mother is for? She can’t help herself. Hasn’t the strength to hold the tears back a moment longer. She cries. And when those sobs settle to sorrowful sniffles, she reaches for the kitchen bible, the King James version she keeps on top of the microwave, and decides it is time for prayer.

Riffling through the fragile pages of her favourite book, she searches for a suitable psalm or proverb on which to meditate. “Dear Lord, help me in my time of need,” she whispers. Her tears splash down onto the pages. She looks up from the small print, again at the cake. It isn’t the cake. There is nothing wrong with the cake. Something else is wrong.

The kitchen lights flicker, just once, and when they steady, Jesus is standing by the sink. A tatty, yellow-stained loincloth covers His modesty. Ribs protrude under His near-emaciated chest and a crown of sharp thorns rests atop His head. The light from His halo near blinds her.

Her fingertips, which had been hovering above the great book, flitting through its thin pages, freeze along with the rest of her body. There she sits, stock-still, her eyes fixed upon Jesus, as if waiting for the world to correct itself, for her hallucination to ripple and fade. And when it doesn’t, she rubs her eyes with the heel of her hand. But Jesus remains there, as solid as the cake, propping himself up on the ceramic lip of her sink.

Sweet Jesus, it is Him, truly Him, and look at the state of me, sitting here in my nightie. This is the thought that hits her before she witnesses the puddle of blood ballooning out across the tiles.

“Your hands, your feet— Dear Lord, you’re bleeding!” But, as the blood reaches her slippered feet which quiver underneath the table, the Lord just tilts his head and offers her a soft smile.

“Hello, my lamb,” he says. “I apologise for coming to you in such a disheveled state but I hear it is a matter of urgency. Do not worry about me. We are in April, are we not? Good Friday?” Jesus points to the flip calendar magneted to her fridge. From his wrist, a spray of red rooster-tails across the work surface. “You have caught me mid-crucifixion.”

“It’s Saturday,” she says. “Mid-crucifixion?”

“Ah, give or take a day. Everything gets a little out of sync. Yes. Every year, my crucifixion falls around this time. Terrible pain. Excruciating. But it gets better. You know that, though, don’t you? Things get a lot worse first, a great deal worse. But then things get better. Usually. I die, I come back, I speak to my disciples, and then I ascend.” He rolls his eyes. “Then I have a period of down time before returning at Christmas. Between you and me though, it’s all quite exhausting, this cycle of death and rebirth, but it keeps the people happy, keeps them in good faith. Ah my dear woman, dry your eyes. Most situations get better. With time. No matter how out of our control everything feels. Usually.”

She swallows audibly, a little dumbstruck, before her mouth somehow manages to formulate a response. “But sometimes they don’t.”

“No. Sometimes they don’t. But that doesn’t mean we should give up hope, does it?”

“I suppose not.”

 “Which brings me to why I have come. My dear, sweet lamb, how do I say this without sounding too…cliché? I don’t suppose I can. Just go with me on this. You have been chosen.”

“I have? I have.” She supposes it make sense, for her to be chosen. She’s been chosen before. To make coffee for the parish, to keep hold of the church keys while the vicar and his wife holiday each Summer in Marbella, to tend to the flowers by the altar for most of last year when no one else was available. Out of all of the loyal congregation, she is the one who lives closest to the church at the top of the hill in the village.

“You will feed the five thousand,” Jesus says.

“Five thousand? Matthew 14, 13, 21?”

“Yes. The feeding of the five thousand.”

“That’s rather a lot of mouths. Couldn’t I just feed the one hundred?” She looks around her kitchen and takes a mental stock of what basics she has in her humble cupboards. Spam. Rice. Flour. “I think I could cater for one hundred. Possibly one hundred and ten.”

A long pause follows. Jesus strokes his wispy beard in contemplation then taps his index finger on the marble worktop aside the sink. “No, you will need to feed the five thousand. One hundred and ten won’t take you any time at all. And I’m sure you have it in you, to cater for more, don’t you? You have the potential to feed so many more. Quite a whizz in the kitchen, according to your CV. And one hundred and ten mouths over the course of a day, with someone of your skills, would be, perhaps, a little… pedestrian.”

She shrugs, folds closed her bible, and begins to wring her hands. Christ has a persuasive glint in his black eyes, a slightly icy twinkle. She feels in her heart that He will probably not back down. He, with His connections, is perhaps someone used to getting his own way. “Yes. Yes I suppose one hundred and ten mouths would be a little pedestrian.”

“You’ll be doing me a massive favour. I’m stretched in all directions at this time of year. Work coming out of my ears. Ergo, I’m trying to delegate out a few of the minor miracles. And I believe it might help you take your mind of things for a while, to keep busy. Yes. I’m quite certain I’ve chosen the right person for the job. You shall feed the five thousand.”

He runs his left hand over her granite worktop, leaving a stigmata-red smear, then tilts His neck slightly, into a most unnatural angle. Crack. A wide smile spreads across His face. She doesn’t seem to be able to look away, although she feels as though she should, feels as though she should want to. Again, His eyes shimmer with an otherworldly light, ancient and infinite, and it seems as if time itself recoils under His gaze. She shuffles in her seat. The air thickens and, on the bloodied tiles, His shadow twitches in red and black, and for a heartbeat, for her, in His presence, it feels like reality is holding its breath.

She inhales and stands up and grounds herself by breaking eye contact with Him and seizes a dishcloth with which to wipe down the red marks He has left on the side. “Okay. I will feed the five thousand. My cake might stretch to eight…ten at a push.” She rambles as she tries to buff away His stains, as if she is dealing with some minor situation, as if having a regular conversation with one of the congregation, not with the Son of God. “I did a big shop on Wednesday, but I’ll have to nip to Tescos. I don’t think I’ve got quite enough in for such a mass of hungry souls. What shall I prepare?”

“Anything will do,” He says. “The five thousand are not particular. I have faith in you. To help things along, I’ll ensure your cupboards and fridge are replenished at regular intervals with all the raw ingredients you’ll need.”

She pulls her apron on. “Best get started then.”

She looks at her blood-tinged slippers. She looks at her mug of half-drunk coffee. She looks at anything but Him, His eyes, because to look at Him would make it all too real. Avoiding confronting the sight, the bleeding body of Christ, in her humble, dated kitchen, somehow, for her, makes the situation more manageable. And after plucking up the courage to turn around, to face Jesus again, to see if that glint is still there, in His eyes, after opening and examining the contents of her fridge, she finds that Jesus has disappeared.

She sighs. After mopping up the blood of Christ and disinfecting her surfaces, she begins to cook.

#

After tossing her slippers in the washing machine, a stew is the first dish she prepares. Nice and hearty. She peels potatoes until the skin builds up in mounds on the counter like snowdrifts. She fries onions until the air is choked with sweetness. She boils pasta and bakes bread by the loaf. With the mallet she barely ever uses, she tenderizes loins of steak until the skin around her thumb blisters. Piles of roasted carrots and towers of parsnips stack high on plates. A tray of biscuits, rows and rows, each stamped with a little flower design sit cooling on the heat rack. She does not stop. Will not stop. In Jesus’ name, she will not rest. She chops and dices and simmers and fries until her arms ache and her bare feet are sore. She has been assigned a great task and will fulfill her master’s commands, through sweat and tears.

She pours her heart and soul, everything she’s got, into batch-cooking for the masses and when her aching body informs her she must rest or else collapse, the kitchen is hot and hazy with steam. Every surface is covered with flour and oil and platters of food balanced and stacked precariously, all teetering towers of her labour.

With shaking hands, she wipes the sweat from her brow. She steadies herself on a cupboard door. “They can come now, the five thousand,” she says aloud to the empty kitchen, to the space where Jesus had stood. “I’m ready.”

Peeking between her blinds, she looks outside to see if the five thousand have begun to queue up. But no one is there. No one has come. Not yet. So she sits in her kitchen and watches the hour hand of her clock glide slowly from six to seven to eight to nine. But still no one arrives. More pastries, she thinks, another batch of croissants. So she sifts and rolls and bakes a dozen to busy herself while she waits.

The oven ticks as it cools. The kitchen clock thuds like a heartbeat, as its hour hand approaches the twelve. Outside, the grey spring sun is long gone and the moon is out instead.

“Maybe they’re delayed,” she mutters.

She leans against the wall and looks across once more at the chocolate cake which is now nearly lost behind mountains of tasty cuisine, and she thinks of her daughter upstairs. Perhaps her daughter will be hungry now? Maybe, the smell of chili con carne and roast pork and tomato soup and freshly baked muffins will have woken her daughter up?

She takes a plate from the counter, something gentle—a bowl of rice, soft and plain, and in her other hand, a small slice of chocolate cake in a bowl, and carries the food upstairs. The stairs creak beneath her as she ascends. Is it the stairs, creaking? she thinks. Her daughter’s bones had made a similar sound earlier in the week, when her daughter had last pulled herself up to her room.

She reaches the landing. Her daughter’s bedroom door is closed. The tired woman nudges it open with her foot, plates trembling in her hands.

The stench of stale sweat and vomit fills her nostrils. The room is dark. After pulling back the curtains, she opens the window to let in fresh air. One of her daughter’s posters, a large print of some catwalk waif she cares not for the name of, dangles off from the wall where the blu-tack has long since perished. On the floor, crumpled tissues and wrappers from sugar-free gum form a filthy carpet. Stepping between the rubbish, she places the plates of food on her daughter’s bedside table, on top of her daughter’s food diary, the last few days of which she knows she will probably find blank.

Sharp points, her daughter’s collarbone, tell her that her daughter is still there, still here, just, prostrate beneath dank sheets. And her daughter’s head, she sees it now, is still there, still here, just. And it is still turned to the side, with the bed linen tucked tight under her chin. Her daughter’s cheeks, sunken, like the top of the chocolate cake. The skin of her daughter’s face is stretched too thin, thinner than bible paper, tight as a drum, more emaciated than the face of kitchen Jesus. But no blood, at least. No blood. No nailed holes through her precious daughter’s rigid hands and feet. Alas, no flesh on her daughter left, really, anywhere at all, that could be pinched and grappled and pierced.

Under the sheet, on the bed, lies the near-skeletal girl, her daughter, such a young thing haunted by the all-consuming belief she is fat.

The woman falls to her knees and clasps her hands in prayer. Surely Jesus will hear her requests for grace, for rescue, for salvation? Surely, what with Him living just at the top of the hill? And surely, surely, if she chooses the correct Holy verse, the right invocation, like Jesus, her daughter will rise again? Like Jesus, her daughter will sit up, crunch, and smile and shower her with unconditional love and return to play her role in society once more?

“Look, darling,” she says softly. “I made you some food.”

But her daughter doesn’t stir.

“I should have fed you first,” she says. “I should have driven you straight back to the ward.” Her voice cracks. “I should have—”

She reaches out and takes her daughter’s hand from underneath the sheet. But her daughter’s hand offers no grip back in return, no grip on the cruel world around her at all. Despite the thick layer of downy hair which has over recent months spread up the young girl’s stick-thin arms, her daughter’s hand is cold. Like ice. And it has been cold for such a long time. But as the woman presses two fingers with tenderness against the inside of her daughter’s wrist, and takes her daughter’s pulse, she still manages to find a weak beat. There is that at least, she thinks, although the blood thrums so weakly and with such lack of cadence along such narrow vessels, it reminds her of a slowing distant drum preparing for stillness.

She sobs. She crouches and rests gently her forehead on the back of her daughter’s bony hand, fearful that any great pressure might cause the fingers to snap, and she prays again as her tears splash on the carpet.

“Are you doing your best?” Jesus is standing in the doorway.

The woman jumps. Her daughter fits slightly. Thin limbs spasm and twitch under the sheet.

“I’ve been cooking for hours,” she whispers. “I haven’t stopped all day.” She adjusts the sheet, pulling it back up and tucking it around her child’s neck. “And no one has come.”

“You have cooked, yes, with great love, and wild abandonment, all day at my command in order to quell the hunger of the five thousand. But perhaps you have not cooked enough? You must cook more, you must keep cooking. If you cook a little more, they will come. And then all five thousand will be saved.”

“But what about her? What about my daughter?” Tears roll down the woman’s cheeks. “There’s only one of her,” her words spill out between wails of despair, “and she will eat nothing.”

Jesus tilts His head as if considering this, until, “Yes, there is only one of her,” He agrees and says nothing more before vanishing into the darkness of the landing, leaving a trail of blood in His wake.

With a piece of fresh tissue, the woman dabs water from a glass onto her daughter’s dry lips and kisses her on her forehead, and as her lips press on her daughter’s skin, a chill like a cold, cold river runs down her spine. She stands. She makes the sign of the cross on her chest then exits the room with haste. Out of the room. Back down the stairs. She returns to the kitchen, her bare feet coated in crimson, and with wet eyes, she stares at all the plates of food, untouched and glistening under the ceiling lights. It all smells so rich and beautiful and sad.

She slumps in the corner of her kitchen, between the washing machine and the wall-mounted ironing board, and draws her knees to her chest.

Perhaps I haven’t done enough? Her mind will not stop replaying this question. I have not done enough.

Her body aches with tiredness. She must rest for a short time, there, here, in the kitchen, and then she will begin to cook again. She will stay in the kitchen. She will remain at home. Because home is where the heart is. Home is where her daughter is. She’ll remain there, here, at home with her daughter. At home, she’ll continue to prepare a banquet for the five thousand. And she’ll cook and wait for as long as it will take for her daughter to hunger again, because surely, soon, her daughter’s abstinence will break? She’ll sit for a moment, to rest, and then she’ll cook some more, for as long as her body will allow, until her own flesh and bones give out, until Jesus Himself instructs her to stop. Because over this, or over most of this, she has, at least, some control.

A few minutes pass. She allows herself this, before pulling herself up from the tiles. Then she opens the cupboards above the microwave, which to her surprise have been replenished. “More food,” she mouths, “more cooking. The Lord will provide.”

She leafs through an old recipe book, in search of inspiration – bread and butter pudding, prawn vol-au-vents, turkey casserole – a few of her daughter’s old favourites ear-marked there. She yawns. Perhaps I’ll start with those, she thinks, and presses the book open flat on page ninety-two and ninety-three. She crouches down and opens another cupboard, one lower down, beneath the microwave oven and the kettle, and reaches to the back to fish out the mixing bowl. She yawns widely, her hand searching in the darkness to no avail, either the bowl is not there or maybe it’s just a little out of reach. She slumps to the floor, exhausted, and, with a flour-dusted hand, scrapes loose strands of hair out of her weary eyes, before shutting them, just for a moment, just for a second, to rest again.

A tap on the front door. But the woman does not hear. A rap rap on the kitchen window. And then, a creak and a crack, as the door, then the window, are forced open. And the five thousand begin to let themselves in, all decaying flesh and protruding bone, all lolling, raw tongues and knife-sharp teeth.

One-by-one like a string of paper dolls, they pass the grand banquet by without so much as a double take, and rattle past the woman who has fallen asleep on the tiles beneath the stove, her body curled like a cashew nut around a large glass bowl, and they concertina in, one after the other, this chain of the endlessly famished, through the front door, through the window, then along the entrance hall and across the kitchen, and up, up, the stairs, towards the young girl’s bedroom.