Not like the air where? In Jerusalem? In A.D. 36? Wake up! The dream has ended. The big daddy of all dreams was just that—a dream. But how could that be? Is it possible to dream odors? How do I know they’re different here from there? And what about Joseph and James and Matthew and Peter and Caiaphas and Mark and Pilate. Pilate? I reached for my right shoulder. Then I raised my right arm over my head. No pain. But didn’t I throw those javelins? Didn’t I almost nail the procurator? Fool! It had Just been a dream, a wild and sensational technicolor special; twenty years of frustrated research on Jesus Christ all climaxing with some egotistical boasting on the Carson show plus too many scotch and sodas and a punch to the jaw.

But how could I remember so many details if it had been only a dream? Aren’t dreams usually fragmentary bits of dialogue and action that rarely make any sense? When do they ever have a beginning and a middle and an end with all the intervening chapters in their proper place and all the settings identifiable? I could still close my eyes and see Gethsemane and Golgotha and the Temple and the tomb, and if I concentrated I could even recall the fragrance in the garden of Nicodemus! Who has dreams like that? Was all of it just the product of an overactive mind accustomed to creating thousands of fictional plots and subplots, actions and scenery, and even smells in book after book?

I heard the flutter of wings. Three dingy-looking pigeons landed on the railing of the balcony, eyed me expectantly until I made no move to feed them, and then flew off. Now I was beginning to pick up the sounds of the city. Not trumpets blasting from the Temple tower or vendors screeching from their stalls in the market but automobile horns, screeching brakes, a 747 descending to the west, sirens. I leaned forward and watched an ambulance roar past, its lights blinking furiously.