From the Teeth of Angels

by Jonathan Carroll

  “When I asked what was wrong, he wouldn’t say. I asked all the wifely questions, but that did no good; he wasn’t going to tell me anything. Maybe, I thought, he was too embarrassed to talk about it. Fine, leave him alone; let him handle it. I went out to the kitchen.

  “Jesse is a creature of habit and always eats breakfast. One of his rules: always go out with a full stomach. I expected he’d at least have something to eat, a banana or a glass of milk to calm his stomach. But he didn’t, and the funny thing is, that worried me more than anything. I didn’t even hear when he left the house. A few hours later I did call him at his office and he sounded okay. And that night when he came home he seemed fine, but he still wouldn’t talk about what had gone on that morning. You know how it is—life is full of weird things, and you try to let them slip by without a fuss if possible. Because if you take note or complain, they stick around. So I pushed this thing aside and blamed it on a full moon or whatever. Fine.

  “Until the next night, when I woke after hearing him in the bathroom crying out, ‘I don’t want this! I don’t want it!’ Again and again. It was the middle of the night, two or three, that time when things scare you most and not just because you’re coming up out of sleep. I went in and saw him standing in front of the mirror, staring at himself. Again, when I asked what was going on he wouldn’t tell me. He was shocked that I’d come in while he was doing whatever he was doing, and said only he’d been having nightmares. I knew it wasn’t the whole truth, but what could I do? He told me to go back to bed; he’d be in soon. I wanted to stay with him, but he wouldn’t allow it. God, it was horrible and I felt so helpless…

  “I waited for him in bed and he came soon enough. What was strange, though, was that when he got there, he grabbed me roughly and made love to me as if we were two high school kids in the back seat of a car. All kinds of fumbling, flipping around, and rough, much too hard. When he… when he came, he cried out again, ‘I don’t want this!’ but before I got up the nerve to ask what, he fell asleep. Absolutely exhausted. Jesse only snores when he’s totally pooped, and that night he sounded like a truck with no muffler.

  “Next morning he was business as usual, although I kept waiting for him to tell me what the hell was going on. At least tell me something! But nope. He left for work and that was the day he disappeared. Walked out of the house, went straight to the airport, and flew away.”

  “But now he’s back?”

  “Yes, he came this morning. I was out shopping, and when I got back, there he was, sitting in the living room in his yellow bathrobe, drinking coffee.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Not a thing. And I was so relieved that I didn’t press him about where he’d been. He was very calm and didn’t say much except that he was okay and glad to be home.”

  “But you did ask again?”

  “Yes, finally. And then he said he’d been to London and Venice.”

  “Did he tell you why?”

  Sophie interrupted again. “First tell him about the bandage.”

  “Okay. Well, the sleeves on his robe are long, but once when he made a gesture I saw all the way up the left one. There was a flash of a big bright white something. I asked whether it was a bandage, and he said he’d done something to his arm while he was away. I didn’t ask about it because there were too many other questions.”

  I looked at Sophie. “What does it mean, this bandage?”

  “You’ll hear in a minute.”

  The waiter came by and asked if Caitlin wanted anything. She spoke quickly in German and he went away.

  “What was I talking about?”

  “The bandage.”

  “Right. The whole scene was loony, but you regain perspective fast. Okay, husband, so now you’re back. It’s time to answer my questions p.d.q. What have you been doing? Why did you go to London? Venice?

  “Then I got really wound up and started ranting and raving… but it was relief and fury and angst and all that stuff coming out at once. He didn’t try to say anything till I was finished blowing my top. Why hadn’t he called and at least told me where he was? Didn’t he stop even once to think how worried I’d be? Oh, yeah, my gun was full of bullets.

  “After a while, I ran out of them and we sat there, silent, looking at each other. Then he asked if I had ever had a real enemy, someone I wanted either dead or destroyed. Huh? What? The question stopped me cold. What was he talking about? I wanted to know about his disappearance; what did enemies have to do with it? When I asked what he meant, he said, “Do you remember Ian McGann in Sardinia?” Caitlin turned to Sophie and asked if I had read the letter. Sophie nodded.

  “What letter?” I definitely was not tuned to their channel.

  “The letter Jesse wrote me about their trip to Sardinia. Remember I showed it to you? About the man there who dreamed he talked to Death and asked Him questions?”

  The two women watched me expectantly, hoping I’d make the essential connection without having to be told. A quiet fell over the three of us that lasted while I searched their faces for further hints. It was as if we were playing charades and they’d given a brilliant final clue.

  “London. Venice. A bandage. The cut has something to do with all this?”

  They nodded.

  “McGann. His girlfriend’s name was strange. She was Dutch.”

  “Miep.”

  My eyelids got it before my brain did. I felt them rising and for a few seconds didn’t know why. Then my tongue knew it before my brain because it started saying “Mc-Gann!” a moment before all the pieces snapped together like train cars connecting. KA-CHUNK! MC-GANN!

  “Jesse went to London to find McGann!”

  Neither moved. Waiting to hear more.

  “The bandage. A wound. Like McGann’s! Oh, Jesus Christ, your brother is having those dreams too?”

  “Yes.”

  Then I remembered with another KA-CHUNK the policeman, Death, in the Hollywood mask store saying sometimes He came early so that people could get used to Him or ask questions. He had told me Ian McGann was not dead. I’d not forgotten any of that day; I’d simply worked hard not to remember. When I was in college, someone I knew had a snake for a pet. He fed the thing mice and once asked if I’d like to watch what happened at mealtime. What interested me most was the mouse’s reaction. After being dropped into the terrarium, it ran to a corner and washed itself furiously. When it was finished it stood there, motionless, and appeared to look out through the glass. Didn’t it know what was in there with it? Animals have all those hyperaware senses; didn’t one of them warn the poor creature that Death was nearby? Watch out! Run for your life! No. The snake oozed over, opened its mouth, and struck. The mouse got away once, but not the second time. I couldn’t believe it. So calm, yet the little thing had to know somewhere in itself its enemy was inches away. Why hadn’t it run or gone mad? Then again, why hadn’t I when Death offered me a picnic lunch?

  “What did he mean when he asked if you’d ever had a real enemy?”

  “Because the minute he had the first dream, he knew the person who spoke to him was his enemy.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Norman Ivers. Jesse’s best friend when he was a boy. Norman drowned their first year in high school.”

  “A boy? But it makes sense. It could be anyone who’s dead, right? Why not a boy? Did Jesse tell you what he said?”

  “He couldn’t. But he can tell you, Wyatt. He said he can tell you.”

  “Why me?”

  “You know why.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Because you’re terminal.”

  Sophie said it. Caitlin wouldn’t even meet my eye. When she did speak, she addressed the table top. “That’s why I couldn’t let you into our apartment. Jesse and I were arguing about how it should be done. I said we shouldn’t involve you, but he insists. He said you’re the only one he can tell these things to because of your condition. If he said anything to Sophie or me, we’d get infected the way he
did. We’d start dreaming the dreams and get scarred when we didn’t understand Death’s answer.”

  “But what can I do? All I can do is listen.”

  “He thinks that’s terribly important. He said—” The last word fell apart as Caitlin began crying. A silent crier. Tears rolled down her face, and her voluptuous mouth shrank into an old woman’s mouth. Pinched, wrinkled, nothing but years of sadness and pain there.

  Sophie got up and moved around the table to sit next to her. The silence came back. So did the waiter, who put a cup of coffee in front of Caitlin. When he saw her face, he shot disapproving glances at Sophie and me and left in a hurry.

  “You don’t have to do it, Wyatt. You have enough trouble in your life as it is. I told him I’d tell you but that I didn’t think it was right. If you don’t want to see him, he’ll understand. I know he—” The tears got hold of her again and she tried to wave the rest of the sentence to me with a hand.

  “Sophie?”

  “Yes?”

  “What do you think?”

  “It’s my brother. It’s hard to be objective. I think different things with my head and my heart. You know what they are.”

  “I want to talk to him on the phone before I make a decision. Can I do that?”

  “Of course.”

  “Then let’s call right now.”

  Caitlin and I went to the public telephone and she dialed her home. Jesse must have picked up on the first ring because she started speaking almost as soon as she stopped dialing.

  “Honey? Yes. Yes, I told him. He’s right here with me. We’re still in the café. Wyatt says he wants to talk to you on the phone.” She paused and gave me a small false smile while he spoke. It didn’t reassure me. “No! But he—” Her mouth moved to say more but she was being interrupted and he was so loud that I could hear his flood of words coming in a jumble. “No, but Wyatt said—” Again she was stopped. She nodded, closed her eyes, tried to speak, couldn’t. After many more long seconds she was able to slip in “Yes. I’ll tell him. What? I said I’d tell him!” Putting a hand over the mouthpiece, she seemed to gather her strength before saying whatever it was to me she was meant to convey. “Jesse says he can’t talk to you over the phone. It has to be face to face. It can’t be any other way. You’ll understand when you see him.”

  What was this nonsense? I reached for the receiver. She pulled it way back behind her ear, her other hand still over the lower part. “No! He said no. He can’t talk to you this way. He’s crazy over there, Wyatt. He’s shouting at me and cursing. He never curses at me, never. And now he’s shouting and… he’s crazy. I don’t care what you do, but you can’t talk to him this way. I can’t let you. It’ll make him even crazier.”

  No one was crazier than Caitlin at that point. Her face was a shiny mess; she was holding the receiver so tightly that I could see the red and white of her clenched knuckles. Crazy, crazy. Everyone around me was bent in different directions.

  “All right, all right! Tell him I’m coming over now. Tell him to take it easy till we get there.”

  She nodded like a little girl getting reassurance from a parent after having had a nightmare. Slow dips of the head, eyes wide and hungry to trust.

  “He’ll come, Jesse. What? No, I’ll tell her to stay here. I’ll bring him to the door, then come back here and stay with her till you’re finished.”

  Sophie didn’t protest. She took my hand, thanked me, and watched as we walked out. Traffic on Gumpendorferstrasse was brisk. We had to stand in front of the café a while before there was a chance to go. I wished we could run across, run to their apartment, run to Jesse, get all the information in two seconds—everything fast forward. Whether it was going to be good or bad, this was one of those times when I wanted the speed of life to double so that I could know much sooner what was next. Zip fast boom – here we are; now you know what’s what.

  “He’s been talking about birds since he came back.”

  “Excuse me?” A long champagne-yellow Mercedes shushed by, wearing a German license plate. I was in Europe. God, I was in Europe again for the last time in my life. Last times. Days full of last times.

  “Jesse’s been talking about birds, but I don’t understand what he’s getting at.”

  I looked at Caitlin, but before either of us had a chance to say more there was a break in the traffic, and we scurried across the street. Once there, we walked quickly back toward Laimgrubengasse.

  “What about the birds?”

  “He has this book with him constantly that he brought back. He keeps reading passages from it to me.”

  “Are birds his hobby?”

  “Not at all. That’s what’s strange. I’ve never known him to be the least bit interested in them.”

  “What else has he been talking about?”

  “This is it—turn right here. About Venice; about how expensive it’s become and how grouchy the people are.”

  “How long was he there? Why did he even go?”

  “He got in touch with the place in Sardinia to ask for Ian McGann’s address in London. He called and called, but there was no answer. So he went up there to look for him. It wasn’t easy, because the people in the travel agency where he worked weren’t helpful. But he did get hold of McGann’s brother and learned that Ian was in Venice with Miep; they’d been there since they left Sardinia. He flew directly there from London, which, if you knew my husband, is so utterly unlike him it’s astonishing. He doesn’t just jump on planes and jet off to Italy or England or anywhere. It’s not in his nature.”

  “Why is McGann in Venice?”

  “He wanted to spend time there with Miep before he died.”

  We arrived at their building. Caitlin started to open the door.

  “What’s McGann’s condition?”

  She stopped turning the key and looked at me, poised to say something, but she stopped. “Jesse should tell you. I don’t want to get anything wrong.”

  The door was one of those enormous wooden things you often see in Europe that date back to a time when the purpose of a door was not only to close off the outside world, but also to keep out the demons and hounds of hell. Caitlin needed both hands to struggle it open.

  A lovely thing appeared—a shady silent courtyard with a marble water fountain in the center and well-kept flower beds. The centerpiece of the fountain was a child angel looking up to heaven with an impish smile on its face. Although we were in a hurry, I had to stop to have a look. The figure was startling in its mix of the sacred and the naughty, with even a bit of the sexy thrown in. A devout, naughty, erotic angel.

  “Isn’t she a joy? It’s one of the reasons we took the apartment. We get to look at her every day. The first time we came here, both of us stopped as you did and just gaped at her. Now look up for the full effect. See how the walls of the building are brown and narrow? It’s as if the angel’s sitting out there in the middle of the Hof taking a sunbath and smiling like that because she’s able to get a little light on her face.”

  “You think it’s a girl?”

  Caitlin smiled, then checked to see if I was kidding. “You don’t? That’s funny, because both of us immediately assumed it was a girl.”

  “I don’t agree. I’d have to study it a while. But no, I wouldn’t jump right in and say that.”

  “Oh, look, there’s Jesse! Do you see? He’s waving.” She pointed up in a vague direction, but I saw only windows, most of them sealed to the eye by the afternoon’s white sunlight. “Come on.”

  Walking around the fountain, I watched the smiling angel as long as I could, and then we entered a cool dark entrance-way with, far at the end, a winding staircase and a massive wooden banister. When we’d walked to it, I looked around worriedly for an elevator. There was none.

  “Where’s the elevator?”

  Caitlin shook her head.

  “How many flights up?”

  “Three.”

  I took a deep breath and created a smile for her. “Let’s go.”
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  The steps were deeply worn stone and very wide. I watched Caitlin’s feet climb and tried to match her pace because, living here, she obviously was an expert on climbing stairs. When going up Mount Everest, aren’t you supposed to do what the sherpas do? Nevertheless, I was quickly winded and had to stop twice to catch my breath on the way up, while she danced her way farther and farther ahead. “Didn’t I read somewhere that for every stair you climb, you live three seconds longer?”

  “Something like that. If it doesn’t kill you first.” She smiled happily over her shoulder and kept on climbing.

  The door to the apartment was high and wide and made of some impressive wood. Old wood doors and stone steps. How many people had lived in this place, come to answer this doorbell when it rang? Lived on the stone and behind the wood, planning and plotting, hopeful or weeping over things no one on earth would remember today?

  Caitlin rang the bell. Short seconds later Jesse opened the door as if he had been waiting right on the other side.

  “I’ll go back down to Sophie now, honey.” She gave him a kiss on the cheek and turned. When she got to the top of the stairs, she looked back once over her shoulder and smiled, shrugged, and walked quickly down.

  He was wearing gray: pullover, trousers, socks. No shoes. He saw me looking at his feet and grinned. “Hello, Wyatt. I changed, but didn’t get around to my feet yet. Come in.”

  Their apartment began with a long gloomy hall that led into an equally dark living room crammed, to my great surprise, with gigantic pieces of furniture. Hanging on every wall were corny oil paintings that hurt your eyes just to look: mountain scenes or portraits of fat men with thick beards and an air of dumb self-satisfaction. I knew Jesse Chapman was square, but this square?

  He saw me checking out the room. “Wonderful pictures, aren’t they? They’re not ours, thank God. We discovered a strange Viennese rule when we moved to this town. If you rent a place that’s ‘furnished,’ that means whatever furnishings are there stay – forever – whether you like them or not. We hate this trash. It looks as if someone a hundred and fifty years old lives here. But when we asked the landlord if we could move it out and bring our own things in, he was really, seriously offended. So it’s your home and you certainly pay enough for it, but at the same time it’s not.”