The men held me down, said the prayers over me and made me say the refrain, and then they poured the cold water over me while I lay in the bath, which was more like a drain.

When I got out and went back to retrieve my underpants I was shaking. I hated being held down. I had expected to be allowed to lower myself into a tub of cold water in my own time. But I had also felt something of the power of the place, the amount of hope and spirit which had been let loose within these walls over all the years. I was confused by this mixture of hatred and fear of the church's authority with my susceptibility to its rituals and its sheer force. I wanted to go away on my own and curl up in the dark. And in my confusion as the man unloosed my towel and held it so that no one could see me in my nakedness and told me to put on my underpants without drying myself, I put them on the wrong way around. He noticed then as I was about to go back and put on my clothes, and suggested that I come back and do it right. There was all the time in the world, he said. He held the towel to protect my modesty once more. I went out, then, and like everybody else, put on my clothes without drying myself, still shaken by taking the waters. Outside, the light seemed blindingly sharp and intense as I walked back to my hotel to meet my friends.

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