Angelology

by Danielle Trussoni

  Arriving at such an early hour, Evangeline had expected to find the Mission Office empty. Instead there was Sister Ludovica, the oldest member of their community, installed in her wheelchair as the early edition of a National Public Radio broadcast played from a plastic radio on her lap. She was frail and pink-skinned, her white hair springing about the bandeau edges of her veil. Ludovica glanced at Evangeline, her dark eyes glistening in a way that confirmed the growing speculation among the sisters that Ludovica was losing her mind, slipping further and further from reality with each passing year. The previous summer a Milton police officer had discovered Ludovica pushing her wheelchair along Highway 9W at midnight.

  Lately her attentions had turned to botany. Her conversations with the plants were harmless but signaled further disintegration. As she wheeled through the convent with a red watering can dangling from the side of her chair, one could hear Ludovica’s stentorian voice quoting Paradise Lost as she watered and trimmed: “‘Nine times the Space that measures Day and Night / To mortal men, he with his horrid crew / Lay vanquisht, rowling in the fiery Gulfe / Confounded though immortal!’”

  It was plain to Evangeline that the Mission Office’s spider plants had taken to Ludovica’s affection: They had grown to enormous proportions, sending shoots dripping over the filing cabinets. The plant had become so profound in its fecundity that the sisters had started snipping the baby plants and placing them in water until they sprung roots. Once transplanted, the new spider plants grew equally enormous and were stationed throughout the convent, filling each of the four floors with tangles of green spawn.

  “Good morning, Sister,” Evangeline said, hoping that Ludovica would recognize her.

  “Oh, my!” Ludovica replied, startled. “You surprised me!”

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, but I was unable to pick up the mail yesterday afternoon. Is the mailbag in the Mission Office?”

  “Mailbag?” Ludovica asked, furrowing her brow. “I believe that all mail goes to Sister Evangeline.”

  “Yes, Ludovica,” Evangeline said. “I’m Evangeline. But I wasn’t able to pick up our mail yesterday. It would have been delivered here. Have you seen it?”

  “Most certainly!” Ludovica said, wheeling the chair to the closet behind her desk, where the mailbag hung from a hook. It was, as always, filled to the top. “Please deliver it directly to Sister Evangeline!”

  Evangeline carried the bag to the far end of the Mission Office, to a darkened cove where she might find more privacy. Spilling the contents over the desk, she saw that it was filled with its usual mixture of personal requests, advertisements, catalogs, and invoices. Evangeline had sorted through such muddles of post so often and knew the sizes of each variety of letters so well that it took her only seconds to locate the card from Gabriella. It was a perfectly square green envelope addressed to Celestine Clochette. The return address was the same as the others, a New York City location that Evangeline did not recognize.

  Pulling it from the pile, Evangeline put the card with the others in her pocket. Then she walked to the metal filing cabinet. One of Ludovica’s spider plants had all but buried the tower in leaves, and so Evangeline found herself brushing aside green shoots to open the drawer containing her records.

  Although she knew that her personal file existed, Evangeline had never thought to look at it before. The only time she’d needed vital records or proof of her identity had been to get a driver’s license and to enroll at Bard College, and even then she’d used identification drawn up by the diocese. It struck her again as she flipped through the files that she had lived her entire life accepting the stories of others—her father, the sisters at St. Rose, and now her grandmother—without bothering to verify them.

  To her consternation, the file was nearly an inch thick, much bulkier than she would have thought. Inside, she had expected to find her French birth certificate, her American naturalization papers, and a diploma—she was not old enough to have accumulated more records than this—but upon opening the folder she found a large pack of papers banded together. Sliding the rubber band from the pages, she began to read. There were sheets of what appeared to her uneducated eye to be lab results, perhaps blood tests. There were pages of handwritten analysis, maybe notes from a visit to the doctor’s office, although Evangeline had always been healthy and could not recall ever having been to a doctor. In fact, her father had always resisted bringing her to the doctor’s office, taking great care that she would not get sick or hurt. To her dismay, there were opalescent black plastic sheets that upon closer inspection Evangeline saw to be X-ray films. At the top of each film she read her name: Evangeline Angelina Cacciatore.

  It wasn’t forbidden for the sisters to look at their personal files, and yet Evangeline felt as if she were breaking a strict code of etiquette. Momentarily restraining her curiosity about the medical documents in her file, she turned to the papers relating to her novitiate, a series of run-of-the-mill admission forms that her father had completed upon bringing her to St. Rose. The sight of her father’s handwriting sent a wave of pain through her. It had been years since she’d seen him. She traced a finger over his handwriting, remembering the sound of his laughter, the smell of his office, his habit of reading himself to sleep each night. How odd, she thought, pulling the forms from the folder, that the marks he’d left behind had the power to bring him back to life, if only for a moment.

  Reading the forms, she found a series of facts about her life. There was the address where they had lived in Brooklyn, their old telephone number, her place of birth, and her mother’s maiden name. Then, toward the bottom, written in as Evangeline’s designated emergency contact, she found what she was searching for: Gabriella Levi-Franche Valko’s New York City address and telephone number. The address matched the return address on the Christmas cards.

  Before Evangeline had a chance to think over the repercussions of her actions, she lifted the phone and dialed Gabriella’s number, her anticipation clouding all other feelings. If anyone would know what to do, it would be her grandmother. The line rang once, twice, and then Evangeline heard it, the brusque and commanding voice of her grandmother. “Allo?”

  Verlaine’s apartment, Greenwich Village, New York City

  The twenty-four hours since he’d left his apartment felt to Verlaine like a lifetime ago. Only yesterday he’d collected his dossier, put on his favorite socks, and run down the five flights of stairs, his wing tips slipping on the wet rubber treads. Only yesterday he’d been preoccupied with avoiding Christmas parties and putting together his New Year’s plans. He couldn’t understand how the information he’d collected could have led to the sorry state he found himself in now.

  He’d packed the original copies of Innocenta’s letters and the bulk of his notebooks into a bag, locked his office, and headed downtown. The morning sunlight had ascended over the city, the soft diffusion of yellow and orange breaking the stark winter sky in an elegant sweep. He walked for blocks and blocks through the cold. Somewhere in the mid-Eighties, he gave up and took the subway the rest of the way. By the time he unlocked the front door of his building, he had almost convinced himself that the previous night’s events were an illusion. Perhaps, he told himself, he had imagined it all.

  Verlaine unlocked the door to his apartment, knocked it closed with the heel of his shoe, and dropped his messenger bag on the couch. He took off his ruined wing tips, pulled away his wet socks, and walked barefoot into his humble abode. He half expected to find the place in ruins, but everything appeared to be exactly as he’d left it the day before. A web of shadows fell over the exposed-brick walls, the I950s Formica-topped table stacked with books, the turquoise leather benches, the kidney-shaped resin coffee table—all of his Midcentury Modern pieces, shabby and mismatched, were waiting for him.

  Verlaine’s art books filled an entire wall. There were oversize coffee-table Phaidon Press editions, squat paperbacks of art criticism, and glossy folios containing prints of his favorite modernists�
�Kandinsky, Sonia Delaunay, Picasso, Braque. He owned more books than actually fit into such a small apartment, and yet he refused to sell them. He’d come to the conclusion years ago that a studio apartment was not ideal for someone with a hoarding instinct.

  Standing at his fifth-floor window, he removed the silk Hermès tie he’d been using as a bandage, slowly working the fabric away from the scabbing flesh. His tie was ruined. Folding it, he placed it on the sill. Outside, a slice of morning sky hovered in the distance, lifting above rows of buildings as if propped on stilts. The snow hung upon tree branches, slouched down the slopes of drainage pipes, and tapered into daggers of ice. Water towers on rooftops dotted the tableau. Although he didn’t own an inch of property, he felt that this view belonged to him. Looking intently at his corner of the city could absorb his entire attention. This morning, however, he simply wanted to clear his head and think about what he would do next.

  Coffee, he realized, would be a good start. Walking to the galley kitchen, he turned on his espresso machine, packed fine-ground beans into the portafilter, and—after steaming some milk—made himself a cappuccino in an antique Fiestaware mug, one of the few he hadn’t broken. As Verlaine took a sip of coffee, the flash of his answering machine caught his eye—there were messages. He pressed a button and listened. People had been calling all night and hanging up. Verlaine counted ten instances of someone simply listening on the line, as if waiting for him to answer. Finally a message played in which the caller spoke. It was Evangeline’s voice. He recognized it in an instant.

  “If you took the midnight train, you should have been back by now. I cannot help but wonder where you are and whether you are safe. Call me as soon as you can.”

  Verlaine went to the closet, where he dug out an old leather duffel bag. He unzipped it and threw in a clean pair of Hugo Boss jeans, a pair of Calvin Klein boxers, a Brown University sweatshirt—his alma mater—and two pairs of socks. He dug a pair of Converse All-Stars from the bottom of the closet, put on a pair of clean socks, and put them on. There was no time for him to think about what else he might need. He would rent a car and drive back to Milton immediately, taking the same route he’d followed yesterday afternoon, driving over the Tappan Zee Bridge and navigating the small roads along the river. If he hurried, he could be there before lunch.

  Suddenly the telephone rang, a noise so sharp and startling that he lost his grip on the coffee cup. It fell against the window ledge with a solid crack, a splatter of coffee and milk spilling over the floor. Eager to speak with Evangeline, he left the cup where it landed and grabbed the phone.

  “Evangeline?” he said.

  “Mr. Verlaine.” The voice was soft, feminine, and it addressed Verlaine with an unusual intimacy. The woman’s accent—Italian or French, he couldn’t tell exactly which—combined with a slight hoarseness, gave him the impression that she was middle-aged, perhaps older, although this was pure speculation.

  “Yes, speaking,” he replied, disappointed. He glanced at the broken cup, aware that he had diminished his collection yet again. “What can I do for you?”

  “Many things, I hope,” the woman said.

  For a fraction of a second, Verlaine thought the caller might be a tele-marketer. But his number was unlisted, and he didn’t usually get unwanted calls. Besides, it was clear that this voice was not the kind to be selling magazine subscriptions.

  “That’s a rather tall order,” Verlaine said, taking the caller’s strange phone manner in stride. “Why don’t you start by telling me who you are?”

  “May I ask you a question first?” the woman said.

  “You might as well.” Verlaine was beginning to get irritated with the calm, insistent, almost hypnotic sound of the woman’s voice, a voice quite different from Evangeline’s.

  “Do you believe in angels?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Do you believe that angels exist among us?”

  “Listen, if this is some kind of evangelical group,” Verlaine said, bending before the window and stacking the fragments of his cup one on top of the other. The white, granular powder from the unglazed center of the cup crumbled over his fingers. “You’ve got the wrong guy. I’m an overeducated, left-of-left, soy-latte-drinking, borderline-metrosexual liberal agnostic. I believe in angels as much as I believe in the Easter Bunny.”

  “That is extraordinary,” the woman said. “I was under the impression that these fictitious creatures were a threat to your life.”

  Verlaine stopped stacking the shards of the cup. “Who is this?” he asked finally.

  “My name is Gabriella Lévi-Franche Valko,” the woman said. “I have worked for a very long time to find the letters in your possession.”

  Growing more confused, he asked, “How do you know my number?”

  “There are many things I know. For example, I know that the creatures you escaped last night are outside your apartment.” Gabriella paused, as if to let this sink in, then said, “If you don’t believe me, Mr. Verlaine, look out your window.”

  Verlaine bent before the windowpane, a strand of curly black hair falling in his eyes. Everything looked just as it had minutes before.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “Look left,” Gabriella said. “You will see a familiar black SUV”

  Verlaine followed the woman’s instructions. Indeed, at the left, on the corner of Hudson Street, the black Mercedes SUV idled on the street. A tall, dark-clothed man—the same one he’d seen breaking into his car the day before and, if he hadn’t been hallucinating, seen outside his train window—stepped out of the SUV and paced under the streetlight.

  “Now, if you look to the right,” Gabriella said, “you will see a white van. I am inside. I’ve been waiting for you since early this morning. At my granddaughter’s request, I have come to help you.”

  “And who is your granddaughter?”

  “Evangeline, of course,” Gabriella said. “Who else?”

  Verlaine craned his neck and spotted a white van tucked into a narrow service alley across the street. The alley was far away, and he could hardly see a thing. As if the caller understood his confusion, a window descended and a petite, leather-gloved hand emerged and gave a peremptory wave.

  “What exactly is going on?” Verlaine said, abashed. He walked to the door, turned the bolt, and secured the chain. “Do you mind telling me why you’re watching my apartment?”

  “My granddaughter believed you were in danger. She was right. Now I want you to gather Innocenta’s letters and come down immediately,” Gabriella said calmly. “But I advise you to avoid exiting the building through the front door.”

  “There’s no other way out,” Verlaine said, uneasy.

  “A fire escape, perhaps?”

  “The fire escape is visible from the front entrance. They’ll see me as soon as I start down it,” Verlaine said, eyeing the metal skeleton that darkened the corner of the window and worked its way over the front of the building. “Could you please tell me why—”

  “My dear,” Gabriella said, interrupting Verlaine, her voice warm, almost maternal. “You will simply have to use your imagination. I advise you to get yourself out of there. Immediately. They will be coming for you at any moment. Actually, they don’t give a damn about you. They will want the letters,” she said quietly. “As you perhaps know, they will not extract them gently.”

  As if taking their cue from Gabriella, the second man—as tall and pale-skinned as the first—stepped out of the black SUV, joining the other. Together they crossed the street, walking toward Verlaine’s building.

  “You’re right. They’re coming,” Verlaine said. He turned from the window and grabbed the duffel bag, stuffing his wallet, keys, and laptop under the clothes. He took the folder of Innocenta’s original letters from his messenger bag, placed them inside a book of Rothko prints, slid them gently into his duffel bag, and pulled the zipper shut with swift finality. Finally, he said, “What should I do?”r />
  “Wait a moment. I can see them very clearly,” Gabriella said. “Just follow my instructions, and everything will be fine.”

  “Maybe I should call the police?”

  “Do nothing yet. They are still standing at the entrance. They will see you if you leave now,” Gabriella said, her voice eerily calm, a strange counterpoint to the rush of blood screeching in Verlaine’s ears. “Listen to me, Mr. Verlaine. It is extremely important that you do not move until I tell you.”

  Verlaine unlocked the window and heaved it open. A gust of freezing air swept his face. Leaning out the window, he could see the men below. They spoke in low voices and then, inserting something into the lock, pushed the door open, and entered the building with astonishing ease. The heavy door slammed hard behind them.

  “Do you have the letters?” Gabriella asked.

  “Yes,” Verlaine said.

  “Then go. Now. Down the fire escape. I will be waiting.”

  Verlaine hung up the phone, threw the duffel bag over his shoulder, and crawled out the window into the icy wind. The metal froze against the warm skin of his palm as he grasped the rusty ladder. With all his effort, he pulled: The ladder clattered to the sidewalk. Pain shot through his hand as the skin stretched, reopening the wound from the barbed-wire fence. Verlaine ignored the pain and climbed down the rungs, his sneakers sliding on the ice-glazed metal. He was nearly to the sidewalk when he heard an explosive crack of wood above. The men had broken down the door of his apartment.

  Verlaine dropped to the sidewalk, making sure to protect the duffel bag in the crook of his arm. As he stepped onto the street, the white van pulled to the curb. The door slid open, and an elfin woman with bright red lipstick and a severe black pageboy haircut beckoned for Verlaine to jump into the backseat. “Get in,” Gabriella said, making room. “Hurry.”