The Trial of Fallen Angels

by James Kimmel, Jr.

  My research has disclosed that your family no longer owns the property, it having been sold in 1949, at your personal direction, by Mr. Hanz Stössel, Esquire. My client has authorized me to accept the proceeds of that sale plus interest, minus the purchase price, in full payment and settlement of the Estate’s claims. We believe fair market value of the property in today’s dollars would equal at least $3,500,000 U.S. If such an agreement cannot be reached, we will be forced to initiate legal proceedings against you and your cousin, Miss Barratte Rabun, to invalidate the purchase and to recover the full value of the property. We believe the courts in this country and Germany will be sympathetic to these claims.

  My client deeply regrets the need to resort to the courts, but is firm in her resolve. She shall forever be grateful to you for sheltering her family during the war, and has expressed as much in her letters to you. This is, however, a matter of the unfair acquisition of property by your family under extreme conditions. As a result of that action, my client and her surviving family were forced to live in relative poverty compared to the lifestyle which you and your family have enjoyed. Mrs. Schrieberg-Wolfson seeks no more than to right that wrong. She bears neither you nor Miss Barratte Rabun any ill will.

  I am authorized to initiate legal proceedings if I receive no response from you to this letter. In light of your position as publisher of a newspaper, it would seem that the negative publicity surrounding such a case would prove very uncomfortable. In that regard, our investigators have learned that Otto Rabun was a member of the Waffen-SS and that your father’s construction firm, from which much of your family’s wealth emerged, was under contract to build the crematoria at Majdanek, Treblinka, and Oswiecim. Such extraordinary facts will be difficult to conceal from the public in litigation.

  I look forward to your prompt response.

  Very truly yours,

  Robert Goldman, Esq.

  “How dare she threaten me!” Amina fumes.

  Amina had received prior letters from Katerine Schrieberg and thrown all of them away. While the Soviet soldiers murdered members of Amina’s family and raped her and her cousins, the Schriebergs remained huddled in a Rabun hunting cabin nearby and did nothing, risked nothing. When she ran to them for help the next morning, they were gone. Now this, after all their cowardice, after all Amina had risked to protect them, Katerine Schrieberg repays her by threatening to ruin her? It is too much. She takes the letter to the hearth, ignites it, and places it into the fireplace on top of the charred newspaper, warming her hands by its flames.

  “What’s going on in there?” Albrecht calls from the living room. “Barratte’s on the phone, do you want to speak to her?”

  Barratte on the phone? This news startles Amina even more than Mr. Goldman’s letter because she has not spoken to Barratte in nearly ten years. The bond between cousins became strained when Amina fled Germany with Captain Meinert and took Barratte with them. Barratte despised the Americans for the death of her father in Berlin as much as she despised the Soviets for the deaths of her mother, sister, and brothers in Kamenz. Her resentment of Amina for forcing her to leave Germany and live in the land of her enemies only grew as she endured years of abuse and humiliation in Buffalo schools as the little orphaned “Kraut girl” whose parents and country got what they had coming. At the first opportunity after she turned eighteen, Barratte took control of her inheritance and left. After that, Amina heard from Barratte only occasionally and knew little about Barratte’s life. The telephone call on that cold Saturday in February came to her as a complete shock.

  “What does she want, Albrecht? Is everything okay?”

  “Everything’s wonderful!” Albrecht replies. “Barratte had a baby boy this morning! Seven pounds, five ounces! She named him Otto Rabun Bowles! You’re a grandmother, or a great aunt, or something, Amina! Here, come speak to her!”

  —

  THE COURTROOM REAPPEARS. The faceless being from the monolith is standing at Hanz Stössel’s side.

  “A decision has been made,” the being announces without emotion, in the hollow voice of a proctor calling time. The presentation of Amina Rabun is terminated before the essay on her life can be completed.

  25

  We’re going out tonight,” Nana said to me.

  It was late afternoon and we were in the study of her house. She was reading, of all things, the 1897 Farmer’s Almanac—the year she was born. I was needlepointing a Christmas stocking for Sarah. We had never gone out before. I pulled the needle through the fabric.

  “Where?” I asked.

  I had started the stocking when I was pregnant with Sarah. It would have been finished in time for her second Christmas. I picked it up again when I went home to meet Elymas after the presentation of Amina Rabun. I wanted him to take me back to see Bo, but Elymas never came. Doing something for Sarah became my way of protesting her death. I decided to act as though she were still alive—that we were both still alive. I made bottles of formula for her every morning and ran her a bath. I washed her clothes and crib sheets. I drove to the day care and then to work, and back to the day care and then to the convenience store. Every place was vacant. I drove through ghost towns. The unmarked police car flashed its lights to pull me over, but I kept driving until it disappeared from the mirror. When the loneliness became too great, I returned to Nana’s house and brought the stocking back with me to finish.

  “It’s a surprise,” Nana said, her lips spreading into a smile. This was actually the first time we’d spoken since I came back. We had spent several days silently passing each other in the house.

  “I don’t think I can take any more surprises,” I said.

  “Elymas does have a flair for them,” Nana replied. “It’s part of his charm, I suppose. But I wouldn’t trust everything he says and does.”

  I looked at her. “Should I trust you?”

  “You should trust the truth, child.”

  I put down my needle. “And what is the truth, Nana?”

  “The truth is what makes you feel calm and loved, nothing more than that.”

  “That’s meaningless.”

  “No, it isn’t. It’s the only meaning. Truth is never anger or fear. They’re illusions, and Elymas traffics in them.”

  I picked up the needle again, looped the thread, and pushed it through the fabric. I was working on the toe of an angel blowing a trumpet.

  “He told me you would call him a false prophet,” I said.

  “He also told you that I’d be upset, but I’m not. You’re free to follow false prophets if you wish. They all expose themselves eventually. Truth is never far away.”

  “I saw Bo and Sarah with my own eyes. I held them in my arms.”

  “I know, dear, I know. And you sailed on a caravel and walked through Tara, and everything around you here seems so real. But it all disappears. Things and bodies are not real. They’re symbols, and symbols are impermanent. Life is impermanent.”

  “Bo’s life has been ruined.”

  “According to Elymas, it has. But who’s to say? Can you trust Elymas? Can you trust your own memories? Would Bo be closer to the truth by working at a homeless shelter or sitting in front of a television camera?”

  “What happened to her? What happened to me? What are you hiding?”

  “I’m not hiding anything, child. It’s you who doesn’t see the truth all around you.” She closed the almanac and pushed herself up from the chair. “When you’re ready to see it, you will. But it’s time now for us to get ready.”

  “For what?”

  “You’ll need an evening gown.”

  That got my attention. “Where do you expect me to find one of those in Shemaya?”

  She had the devious look of a grandparent teasing a child with a present. “In your closet.”

  I went upstairs and opened the closet in my mother’s room. There were five different gowns—beautiful silks, satins, and crepes with matching stockings and shoes. I was thrilled. Nana stood at the door, watch
ing me.

  “They’re beautiful,” I said, holding each one in front of me. “Won’t you tell me where we’re going?”

  “I can’t,” Nana said. “It’s a surprise.”

  She sat on the bed as I tried on each gown, twirling past her. They all fit perfectly, but we most liked the black satin gown with straps and the low bodice that exposed my shoulders and back. I was actually enjoying myself.

  We went through the same process in Nana’s room, settling on a gown for her with more color and a high neckline. She pulled two strands of pearls and two matching pairs of earrings from her jewelry box and gave a set of each to me. Standing before the mirror, we made a striking couple, and neither of us needed hairbrushes or makeup. Hair and complexions are always perfect in Shemaya.

  We left the house with the last of the four suns from the four seasons dropping beneath the treetops. Nana led me out the back door and through the woods on foot to the entrance of the train station. There were strange new sounds when we entered the vestibule, mystical and resonant—the sounds of water rushing and wind blowing, of dolphins laughing and birds singing, of children talking and parents sighing, of all creation living and dying. It turned out to be the sounds of a band. A handwritten note on the doors read “Reception for New Presenters.” We walked in.

  All the postulants were gone, and with them the static discharge of their memories and the sad, horrifying, but sometimes beautiful, states of their deaths. On an elevated stage, near the board showing arrivals but no departures, hovered four faceless minstrels like the being from the Courtroom, each dressed in a long gray cassock. Two played violins, one a bass, and the other a cello, all of which vibrated in colors: auroral greens, violets, and blues. Before the band milled a crowd of formally attired men, women, and children, some off by themselves enjoying the performance with a plate of hors d’oeuvres and a glass of champagne (or milk for the children), others gathered into small groups, talking and laughing.

  Banquet tables had been erected in the four corners of the hall and piled high with pâtés, caviar, cheeses, fruits, and other delicacies, and next to these were bars fully stocked with wine, liquor, and other refreshments. A small army of faceless, gray-dressed creatures tended the tables and bars and collected the empty glasses and plates from the guests. A magnificent crystal chandelier and a constellation of lesser chandeliers bathed the room in a warm, sparkling light. I looked around, trying to gain my bearings. Luas emerged from the crowd, dressed handsomely in a single-breasted tuxedo.

  “Welcome! Welcome!” he said, greeting us. “We’ve been waiting for you!” He gave each of us hugs, then turned and waved his arms over the crowd. “Grand, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I shouted over the din.

  “And all in your honor, my dear. You’ve graduated with flying colors, and now you’re ready for your first client. I must say, we’ve got an excellent group of new presenters. Time for a little play before the work begins. You both look wonderful.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “But I really don’t feel like I’m ready to graduate or represent anybody. I barely understand the process . . . and I don’t think I agree with the results.”

  “Have no worries, Brek,” Luas assured me. “Everyone’s nervous the first time, you’ll do just fine.”

  Nana winked at Luas. “Brek was very suspicious about tonight,” she said. “She almost forced me to ruin the surprise.”

  “Was she now?” Luas said. “Ah, but she’s an inquisitive one. That’s what we love about her.”

  “Here’s another question, then,” I said. “What have you done with all the postulants? The hall was filled a few days ago.”

  “And a perceptive question as usual. Didn’t I tell you, Sophia?” Luas said. “They’re still here, actually. Come, I’ll show you.”

  We walked out of the train shed and closed the doors. “Okay,” he said, “now, open them again.”

  All at once the music was gone, along with the minstrels, food, tables, chandeliers, and beautiful guests. The postulants were back—thousands of intensely bright spheres filled with memories floating in the dim, sulfurous light of the train station.

  “How can they be here?” I said to Luas.

  “Creation is a matter of perspective and choice,” Luas replied. “What one wishes to see becomes what one is able to see. You have never seen the subatomic particles pulsating in the furnishings of your living room, nor the minuscule particle of your living room in the pinwheeling galaxies of the universe, but this does not mean subatomic particles and galaxies do not coexist. Your powers as a presenter are maturing, Brek. You are seeing more of what there is to see. You are seeing as if through microscope and telescope.”

  Walking among the spheres halfway across the train shed, I saw a man dressed in rags with bulging eyes and a shaved head. He glanced at me but quickly looked away. Following behind him was a young girl, also dressed in rags. She stared at me with haunted, defiant eyes. Her right arm was missing, and she reminded me of myself as a girl.

  “Are they presenters?” I asked Luas. “They don’t seem to be dressed for the party.”

  “No,” Luas said. “They’re souls like all the others, but you’re only able to see a small portion of their memories at this time.”

  “Maybe I could represent the little girl. It looks like we have something in common,” I said.

  “That is not possible,” Luas replied. “The girl already has a lawyer, and your first client has already been selected.”

  26

  Back at the party, my new colleagues—the many honorable and long-standing members of the bar of the High Court of Shemaya—were eager to celebrate my graduation and share stories of their first presentations. Disturbingly, they all related tales of trials terminated before a defense could be made, and what seemed like eternities spent trying the same soul over and over again to the same conclusion.

  Constantin, for example, an older man with blackened teeth and scars on his face, told me he presented the soul of a police officer whose duty and pleasure it had been to torture prisoners into making confessions. “He was a singularly cruel man,” Constantin explained, “yet the Judge sees fit to end the presentation each day before I can inform the court of his fondness for abandoned animals found on the street, which he sheltered in his apartment.”

  Another presenter, Allee, a pregnant teenager with swollen cheeks and hands, presented the soul of a young man who left his girlfriend after impregnating her. “He risked his life to save a child from a fire that swept through his neighbors’ house one day,” she said. “I try to bring it up in the Courtroom, but we never seem to get to it. I guess God doesn’t think it matters.”

  I lost Luas and Nana in the crowd and continued on alone to a banquet table. Talking to the other presenters made me feel nervous and uneasy and I wanted to be left alone. After helping myself to some food, I drifted off toward a stone sculpture in the corner of the room that I hadn’t seen earlier. It was a perfectly smooth sphere as tall as me and resembled a globe of the earth. A miniature stone figurine of a woman with long hair and wearing a skirt stood on the surface of the sphere at the top with three miniature pairs of stone doors arrayed before her.

  When I looked more closely at the figurine of the woman, the sculpture reconfigured itself, so that I was now seeing the three pairs of doors before me, as though I were now the figurine. Over the first pair of doors in front of me was a sign that said “Self,” over the second, a sign that said “Others,” and over the third, a sign that said “Spirit.” All three pairs of doors had mirrored surfaces, and I could see my reflection in all of them, but the left and right doors of each pair reflected different images of me.

  The left doors displayed the image of me I had always wanted to see: taller, with more pronounced cheekbones, fuller breasts, and two complete arms. This Brek Cuttler was witty and sophisticated, a loving mother, brilliant lawyer, devoted daughter, exquisite lover, competitive tennis player, accomplished violinist, and won
derful chef. She was the perfect specimen of a woman, envied for having a perfect career, perfect body, perfect mind, perfect husband, perfect children, and perfect home.

  The right door of each pair reflected a far less glamorous image. This Brek Cuttler was rounder and plainer, with a blemished face, thin lips, small breasts, limp hair, and no right arm. Yet she seemed nobler and less frantic than her twin reflected in the other doors. This Brek Cuttler defined herself by everything the other Brek Cuttler was not: comforting rather than competitive, spiritual rather than intellectual, forgiving rather than condescending, complimentary rather than complimented, trusted rather than feared. She was perfectly defenseless and, thus, perfectly indestructible, dependent upon everything and therefore perfectly independent.

  “Love me,” pleaded the perfect Brek Cuttler reflected in the left doors of each of the three pairs with the signs above them. Behind her in the mirror assembled the trappings of her success—the awed glances of men and women, the beautiful clothes and home, the powerful friends and powerful titles, the luxurious vacations, the coveted invitations, the ruthless victories. Her peculiar little twin reflected in the right doors of each of the three pairs said only, “I am.” Behind her assembled the trappings of her freedom—represented by the universe itself, from the smallest gnat to the brightest star, each perfect in its own way, and in its own time.

  The magical sculpture divided my miniature avatar into three, and each of us stepped forward to make our choices between the three pairs of doors. We were greeted at the thresholds by parents, teachers, and friends: to the left they all pointed, and through the left doors we went, finding behind them three more sets of doors requiring the same choices. Receiving the same guidance, to the left we went, and to the left again, again, and again, as we had been taught and raised, eventually choosing on our own. The sculpture rotated slowly, like a boulder being pushed uphill, the doors opening and closing.

  Suddenly the sculpture transformed itself back to the way it had been, a large sphere with me no longer part of it but standing by its side. Looking down upon its surface, I saw, as though viewing the earth from high altitude, a labyrinth of doors, paths, and choices crisscrossing the surface like so many rivers and highways.