Bianka was only half conscious. The labor pains felt like worlds cracking in her womb, as if more than a baby wanted out … as if, she gasped, as if a god wanted out! She caught the blasphemy, tried to mutter, “Forgive me, Lord,” in response to her training, yet some wildly triumphant knowledge shouted that, yes, a god wanted out. The god was part her, part Josef, but mostly it was the earth turning into god, and god turning into earth all at once.

The last rays of sunlight struck at the windowpane, one ray leaping through the steamy room, and Lydia felt herself go out into the universe, disperse triumphantly into numberless knowing particles of consciousness, each shaken, cleansed, glowing, and renewed, and coming back together in a new configuration drawn by the shining door that was Bianka’s womb, from which, knowing and unknowing, the infant now emerged.

Lydia felt herself sifted through the experiences of Bianka and Josef; woke up inside their molecules so that each of their most unconscious memories were implanted in the infant. She fell through Bianka and Josef’s realities back through their parents’ lives, and back further in dizzying descent; so that in sequences impossible to follow, she touched upon the consciousness and reality of each being ever born. She fell through the chromosomes of Christ and Mohammed, of Mary and the gods of Olympus as they are known to man, and saw that all of them still live, sifted through man’s consciousness—distorted yet re-created with each birth, and with each creative thought or vision, with each impulse. Somehow she had to impart that knowledge to Tweety.

“There are no gods to be found,” Seven said, “because they were never lost. They’re so hidden in ourselves, so much a part of us and everything else, that they just are; everywhere. Yet nowhere.”

“Feel your own knowing right now,” Cyprus advised gently.

And Lydia, inside the infant, stretched her consciousness and felt earth’s great endurance; and all of nature’s parts were guests to the birth so that she was aware of endless dusks and dawns, numberless seasons, and felt the sweet couch of existence that supported her with such immense safety that it hinted of a love beyond any condemnation—as the universe in each infant, and in herself, opened its eyes again; again, yet for the first time.

The infant slept.

Lydia roused; frightened a bit now by the sense of unity. She wiggled around inside her own consciousness and her own individuality snapped back like a rubber band. She was frightened again: Where had she gone when she’d forgotten herself?

Chapter Twenty-Three

After-Birth Complications In Which Lydia Wakes Up in a Probable Life