The walls of the prison collapsed. Marguerite was transported to heaven.
Anna Maria’s hand moved again, exploring, probing, arousing. It was his turn to gasp. Next to him she chuckled softly.
Brazen hussy.
The chorus went wild with joy, indeed with a glee that Gounod had probably not intended. The angel brats were having the time of their life.
Sauvée! Christ est ressuscité!
Christ vient de renaître!
Paix et félicité!
Aux disciples du Maître!
Christ vient de renaître.
Christ est ressuscité!
Maybe that’s how it all does end, Neenan told himself. Maybe even poor Faust, kneeling there in desperate prayer, would also be reborn because of Marguerite’s prayers. Maybe.
So the seraph had said.
The audience rose for another standing ovation. They clapped and cheered and shouted “Bravo!” repeatedly in loud voices. The opera was a complete triumph. His wife kissed him in congratulation. People shook his hand as they walked out. He smiled and thanked them and responded with his left and his right hands, as if he were a precinct captain. Or maybe even a ward committeeman. Beside him, Anna Maria was accepting congratulations too, a grand duchess hailed by her people.
In the lobby he saw Michael and his companions at a distance. He gave them the thumbs-up signal and they responded. What were they really up to? How many birds were they killing with the same stone? No point in trying to figure out that either.
As they strolled out of the theater to Wacker Drive, he heard a man tell the Tribune music critic, “It’s the best Faust I have ever seen, and I’ve never heard a chorus like that, never.”
By the looks of him he had to be the critic from the New York Times.
Neenan hoped that the Harveys would read the paper the next morning.
In the limo he had ordered to pick them up, Anna Maria cuddled with him.
“A triumph, dear,” she sighed. “A very important night.”
“It’s not finished yet.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“There’s a woman I intend to rape in the very near future.”
She laughed. “Dearest Raymond, you respect women too much ever to force them.”
That was true too. Contradictory evidence. He was a tender and sensitive lover. How did that ever happen?
It was too late in the evening to ask that question. He was too intoxicated by heavenly music, heavenly wine, and a heavenly woman to think anymore.
Instead, in the privacy of the backseat, separated from the driver by thick, transparent plastic, he went to work on her thighs, both of them, a task greatly facilitated by the shortness of her skirt.
She groaned softly.
She wanted him more than he wanted her. As long as he lived, there would be no exits for him, no chance of going back to his pattern of indifference punctuated by occasional outbursts of passion.
As they rode up in the elevator to their apartment, he helped her off with her coat, draped it over his arm, and then, with quick and deft movements, removed her dress. As he had expected, there was not much beneath it.
She stiffened, arched her back, and turned her head away.
“You’re embarrassing me, Raymond.”
“I know that.”
“What if someone sees us?”
“In this place at this hour?”
“Don’t spoil my dress.”
“You can always tell me to stop.”
“Why should I do that?”
By the time they had reached the door to their apartment, she wore only the barest minimum of garments—and her necklace.
He fiddled with the door key, distracted by the garments on his arm.
“Are we going to make it into the apartment in time?” she asked with a giggle.
“I hope so.”
“All we need is the security guard to pop out of the elevator just now … . Hurry! It’s cold!”
“I’m trying!”
Finally the door sprang opened and they slipped into the apartment. He reached out to crush her in his arms. She ducked away.
“Not so fast, my darling one. Turnabout is fair play. You look awesomely handsome in that suit, but you’ll look even better out of it. I’m going to undress you too and I’m going to take my sweet time about it.”
She teased him for what seemed an eternity, suspending him on a tightrope between agony and pleasure.
“Not so fast, my darling,” she said again when she was finished stripping him. “I want to admire you for a moment or two … . I wonder if there is anything better in life for a woman than having a man like you.”
“You make me sound like a slave.”
“Isn’t that what men are?”
“I thought they were at best amusing twelve-year-olds.”
“Amusing twelve-year-old slaves, who have some very bad habits,” she said as she embraced him and kissed him with wild abandon.
Much later, while Anna Maria slept in the disarray of their bed, he opened the drapes and glanced at the moon as it turned the smooth waters of the lake into shimmering silver.
“You seemed to like the opera,” Michael said. The seraph was standing in the dark beside him.
“Your angel brats were wonderful.”
Michael chuckled contentedly. “They are very proud of themselves. They figured they wanted to do something to help our project.”
“All of you guys are imps.”
“Why would you expect anything else?”
“What will the Times say tomorrow?”
“How many times do I have to tell you, R. A., that we do not know the future.”
“Michael, don’t try to bullshit a bullshitter. The review is already written and you certainly had one of your crowd peering over his head while he was putting it down, maybe even feeding him words.”
“We absolutely did not do that … at least we didn’t feed him any words.”
“Only because you didn’t have to.”
“Actually Ariel, Rafaella’s companion, monitored the writing of the article.”
“The blond linebacker type?”
“Naturally. Rafe is Gaby’s offspring by our lamented friend Lucifer.”
“I would have thought as much … . And the review?”
“The headline will say, ‘Another Important Triumph for Lyric.’ It will praise every aspect of the production, an unheard of event at the NYT. The chorus is mentioned in the second sentence.”
“I trust the Harveys will read it.”
“They will, I guarantee you. They will also see the photo of yourself and your companion as you walk into the lobby that the Times photographer snapped. I must acknowledge that it concentrates more on her than on you.”
“That shows good taste.”
“Indeed yes.”
“They didn’t happen to get a picture of you and your companion did they?”
“Hardly. Though sometimes certain kinds of cameras with the right kind of film do pick us up. Usually we manage to erase the traces before anyone sees them.”
“Isn’t it kind of unfair to provide, ah, extraterrestrial help to the Lyric?”
“Not really. The only ones who heard our offspring in full voice were you and your companion and a few other highly sensitive people. The rest heard only a faint background tone. What the offspring did was inspire the human chorus to sing at the maximum of their talents. That was enough.”
“I bet that tomorrow they won’t be able to figure out what happened, even if you don’t use your forgetfulness dust.”
Michael was amused. “Is that what you call it? Well, I suppose it’s as good a name as any … . The point is that the Lyric chorus will be much better for their experience because they will have more confidence in their natural talent. That’s basically what we do, you know.”
“So you’re merely enhancing my natural talents by giving me more confi
dence in them?”
“Judging by the depth and happiness of your companion’s sleep, I would say your talents in that area at any rate are improving.”
“She makes life worth living.”
“That’s what companions do to one another.”
They were silent for a moment, contemplating the chill mystery of Lake Michigan.
“So, your companion’s insight was a savage blow to you?”
“You were watching?”
“From a distance, yes.”
“She’s right of course?”
“Dead-on.”
“I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. I have been chasing women like my mother all my life, trying to punish her by capturing them.”
“There is wisdom in that insight, but it is not perfectly accurate.”
“What’s missing?”
“Ah, that is not for me to say. You must figure this out by yourself if you are to really believe it. You will see it all eventually, of that I have no doubt.”
“I don’t want to think about it anymore tonight.”
“I would advise you not to try.”
“I’ve been such a fool.”
“All creatures are fools in one way or another. As the good priest at your parish said, we don’t fully understand the implications that the Other is near, indeed at hand.”
“I suppose so.”
“You seem sad on this night of multiple triumphs.”
“Omnis animal tristis est post coitum.”
“That is less true of reflective animals … . You are unhappy now about what you see as a waste of most of your life and the brief time ahead of you?”
“You got it.”
“Yet should you not be happy that you have been granted time to reverse that waste and enjoy happiness more intense than most humans know?”
“So many mistakes to straighten out.”
“And so much joy in improved relationships.”
“Like which ones?”
“Your wife and your son, so far.”
“Do I have to apologize to all those women?”
“It would not be wise to pursue that as a project. Many of them would not understand. It would not be wise to be alone with some of them. Should you by chance encounter one of the more perceptive of them in a safe public place, you might make an effort. We would expect no more from you. Neither, it is safe to say, would the Other.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“There are your parents and your other children and Donna.”
“I don’t need you to remind me about them. I’m going to try day after tomorrow, am I not?”
“You must not expect to be successful with any of them, not immediately anyway.”
“Should I leave them more money?”
“We are not displeased with your new arrangements. More money at the present would only increase their hatred for you.”
“I guess you’re right. Those two women tonight were horrible.”
“I will not dispute that either. Yet if one views the relationship from their perspective, you did appear to betray them.”
“Betray them? That’s nonsense!”
“Is it?”
“Maybe not. It’s all too complicated for me to understand.”
“You will understand more of it on reflection. You must at least forgive them.”
“You’re right, as usual. A person who needs so much forgiveness needs to be generous in forgiving others.”
“Did not the Teacher himself say the same thing?”
“Not in so many words.”
“In those very words. Unfortunately, no one bothered to write them down when they got to that stage … . I must say, Raymond Anthony, that you are showing considerable progress.”
“Am I? I don’t know about that. I don’t know about anything. Except Anna Maria.”
“That should be more than enough.”
“For the present.”
“Forever,” Michael insisted. “Now you should join her in your bed of love and sleep.”
“I can’t sleep.”
“We should be able to help in that direction.”
The lance plunged into Neenan’s chest again. He sank back into his seat as the curtain rose on the finale, feeling that he was mortally wounded.
Then he once more had the sensation that he was collapsing, coming apart, breaking up—like the voice of a soprano who had tried to sing one year too many.
Michael touched Neenan’s head.
Instantly, Neenan was drowsy. He stumbled toward the bed and fell into it.
Before he went completely under, he had time to say, “Have a good time with Gaby tonight.”
“Insolent human,” Michael said with a complacent laugh.
15
Look, occupant, or Occupant if you prefer, I am now prepared to believe that there is someone or Someone out there who is remotely interested in us and listens to us on occasion. I have no idea what you’re like. Nor am I sure that your little friends are all that clear either, despite their pose of superiority. I am, however, prepared to believe that You had something to do with putting them on my case. So on the premise that you might be listening and might even care—though on the face of it that seems unlikely—I am going to try to talk to You. You can call it prayer if You like. I don’t much care what it’s called.
There is some remote possibility that you are linked to these feelings of ecstasy that I have been experiencing lately, especially when I’m with Anna Maria. Which reminds me, you were apparently there again last night, three of us instead of two in bed together. I want to thank You for that—what should I call it? will interlude do? Insofar as you were responsible for it. It was unbearably good..
If You are what some teachers claim You are, I suppose You are present in any act of love which is really love. I can understand that, I think. But it still seems strange.
You seem to want me to think that You touch me and I touch You through her. If that is true, it is a very clever scheme and I certainly won’t complain.
If You are really the Third that explodes into my life through my wife, then You are not only the Other, but Something Else Altogether and I’m afraid of You and deeply in love with You. I’m not sure I can separate You from my wife or that I should even try. If You are that Someone Else Altogether, it is a privilege to get to know You. I hope I don’t say anything to offend You. However, it might turn out that You are beyond being offended after the long centuries and millennia of dealing with our kind.
I’m not sure what I’m doing here at Old St. Patrick’s Church. It could get to be a bad habit.
But I need to talk to You.
Only I’m not sure why. Maybe I feel the need to go to the top instead of communicating through that damn imp of an angel. Or seraph. Or whatever. I accept his word that there is no devil, but they are so tricky and so vain and such incorrigible show-offs that I can understand why some people might have been confused.
I am thankful you sent the whole crowd of them to me, even though they think they can take over my life completely.
What I’m trying to say, not very clearly I admit, is that I am grateful to You for everything that has happened to me during the last couple of days, even if the price I have to pay is an early death. I am not going to ask you to change that. Such a prayer would be intolerably churlish. I only ask that You help me through the days ahead and take care of Anna Maria after I’m gone. Michael and his bunch promise me that they will take care of her and I believe them, but it still seems to be better that someone at the top also look after her.
Mind you, I don’t want to die. I’m afraid to die. But I accept it. I will have to die eventually anyway, and I may as well die now and get it over with.
Right?
As I ramble on, I want to ask You about what happened yesterday. My wife undressed me twice. In the afternoon she turned on the energies of ecstasy, You maybe, as she stripped me physically. At the theater she tore me apart wit
h her insight into the women I have pursued all my life, thus stripping me spiritually. I felt like I was a wave breaking up into tiny drops of foam as it crashes on the beach.
Michael thinks that this experience of coming apart is good for me. Maybe it is. But it’s terrifying. Is it part of coming to terms with death? Or merely coming to terms with life, my life to be specific? Or maybe both?
I’m sure that I’ll have to undergo it many more times before I find out what You’re really like. I want to go on the record now as saying that I’ll be terribly disappointed if You’re not like that experience of love and laughter and joy and peace and the coming together of everything that I now seem to encounter often.
You might well say in response that You offered that touch of Yourself often before and I shied away from it. You might even add that I’m still very frightened by it. Especially here in this church where I expect you’re lurking everywhere.
In a way, both experiences of nakedness were similar. While I like it when Anna Maria strips me, I am also mortified. Her desire for my body, her admiration of its nakedness, is, like everything else about sex with her, open and frank and consuming. That is the way men act with women. They should not act that way with us. Usually they don’t probably because they are afraid to abandon all inhibitions lest they be totally unprotected. For me it’s a completely new experience and I’m not used to it yet. I’m glad I’m in pretty good shape.
I guess I’ll have to get used to it, won’t I? By the time I do, it will probably be too late.
But that’s the way of things, isn’t it?
Well, it’s Communion time. So I’m going to go up and receive for the first time in many years. Don’t be surprised if I come back.
One more thing as I go up the aisle. It’s implicit in what I’ve been saying. But, knowing what lovers are like, I’d better be explicit:
I don’t know who You are or what You are really like. I’m not even absolutely convinced that You are there or that, if You are, You give a damn about me. Nonetheless, I must say what I must say.
I love You.
16
“I am of course delighted,” Neenan began his preliminary statement at the press conference, “to hear that World-Corp has denied that it has any interest in acquiring National Entertainment, in either a friendly or an unfriendly takeover. I must add two qualifications. The first is that they’d better not try it and the second is I almost believe them.”
Contract with an Angel Page 17
