Angel Thieves

by Kathi Appelt

  Mrs. Walker

  ANTIQUES ROADSHOW

  TEN OR SO YEARS AGO

  Mrs. Walker and her boys—that’s how she referred to Paul and Cade, as “her boys”—didn’t spend a lot of time watching television. Running the antiques store took up a lot of long hours, and after it closed in the evenings, there was always something else to do. While Paul closed up the shop, she’d mosey up to her apartment above the store, where she prepared dinner for the three of them. Maybe did a load of laundry. You get the picture.

  In the meantime, Cade and Martin typically spent at least an hour playing pinball together before Martin headed to his own home.

  “Pinball. Makes for good eye-hand coordination,” said Paul.

  And then, around eight or so, after dinner anyways, Cade and Paul would make their way to their tiny apartment for the evening, and Mrs. Walker, left alone for the night, would usually read until she was sleepy, at which time, she’d tell the photo of Hans that she still loved him, turn off the lamp, and curl up for the evening.

  Paul called their whole layout (which included the store, Mrs. Walker’s flat, and the bachelor pad above the garage—where the old Packard still sat) the Compound. That’s kind of the way it was, actually, with the store as the central, beating heart of it all.

  At any rate, there was little time for television, but one night, after years of refusing to watch it, Mrs. Walker turned on the Houston Public Broadcasting station and accidentally hit Antiques Roadshow.

  She had never wanted to watch it before because it was too much like being at work, but for some reason that night, she felt herself drawn in. And after a few weeks, she became a regular. She even watched the reruns over the summer months, when the regular season ended.

  So each Monday night, she tuned in to see what treasures would show up and what the appraisal amounts would be. You’d think that someone who spent all day, every day, dealing in antiques would hate watching a show about antiques on television, but in fact, Mrs. Walker was enamored. Every Tuesday she recounted the previous night’s episode to Paul, regaling him with any new facts that she had learned, or even relearned.

  Paul didn’t think anyone could know more about antiques than Trudy Walker. “You’d be amazed how many things I’ve forgotten over the years,” she said.

  One Monday night she invited the boys to watch it for themselves, and pretty soon, they all three became Monday night, dedicated watchers of Antiques Roadshow. Which is how they learned about a pair of sculptors whom they had never heard of—Etienne Bel James and his slave, Luc Bel James—from Pickens County, Georgia. The two had lived and worked in the early to mid-nineteenth century, specializing in—of course—cemetery statues.

  “But,” the appraiser mentioned, “they also did absolutely amazing carvings of the human figure, some of which were commissioned for wealthy landowners, who put them in their foyers or their gardens.” Then the camera showed an exquisite carving of a woman. About four feet tall, she was carved out of pink Georgia marble, with rust-red veins that flowed in between the folds of her gown, a gown that rose just above her toes, as if a gentle breeze had barely lifted her hem. The marble was so beautifully buffed that she seemed almost transparent, as if there was an interior lamp that beamed through the outer surface of it.

  The woman who owned the statue said something about receiving it as a gift from her aunt, who had collected carvings made of Georgia marble. Apparently it had been in their family for well over a hundred years. “I just want to know a little more about it.”

  “What you have here is a very rare sculpture by Luc Bel James,” declared the appraiser. “He was a slave, owned by a master carver, Etienne Bel James, who was born in France and immigrated to the United States in the 1820s. He purchased Luc around 1839 or so and turned him into an apprentice.”

  “My,” said the owner.

  The appraiser continued, “It’s a fact that Luc never signed any of his statues. As you know, it was illegal for a slave to know how to read, so a signature would have been a dangerous thing to do. And we know as well that his master was the one who was getting paid for his services, not Luc. It wasn’t until after the Civil War that records about Luc became available, and those were through the oral slave narratives that were recorded by the Works Progress Administration during the 1930s. By then, Luc was long gone.”

  Cade had only a fleeting knowledge of the Works Progress Administration, a wide-ranging government program that had put a lot of photographers and writers and artists to work during the Great Depression. He had studied it in his ninth-grade English class, when they had been required to read The Grapes of Wrath. He’d never heard of the slave narratives.

  The appraiser went on. “In fact, we don’t know what happened to Luc after Etienne died. We don’t have much to go on, but one way we can tell that this is a Luc Bel James is by the closed fist.” Then he pointed out that in almost every female figure that Luc Bel James had carved, he left one hand open, but he closed the other. “You see,” he said, “it’s almost as if the carving is holding something, isn’t it?”

  The woman nodded. Mrs. Walker nodded. Cade and Paul nodded.

  “It was his trademark, so to speak,” said the appraiser. Then he told the woman that nobody really knew how many Luc Bel James statues were out there. He suspected that some had been destroyed in the Civil War, and some were likely hidden in old gardens or forgotten cemeteries. He doubted that there were more than a handful, if that many, left out there in the world.

  “So your statue is extremely rare,” and he added, “extremely valuable.”

  “How much is it worth?” asked the woman.

  Mrs. Walker, Paul, and Cade all leaned forward. The woman on the set moved forward.

  “At least a half million dollars,” the appraiser said. “Maybe more. In a good auction, it could go higher.”

  The woman gasped.

  “Whew!” said Mrs. Walker.

  And Paul followed that with, “If only we could find one of those, it would be the last one we’d ever have to steal.” And Cade knew his father was only half joking, because since that night, every time they visited a cemetery, they double-checked to see if just by chance, a Luc Bel James statue might show up. Even though the odds were a million to one of ever finding one, they always looked to see if there were any statues with one hand open and the other curled into a fist, the trademark of a tall, thin boy, a black Cherokee, who was once chained to a girl named Achsah, big for her age, who walked next to him, mile after mile, from Alexandria to Natchez. He gave her a tiny carving, and the last time he saw her, she held it in her hand, her fingers curled around it, like she could never let it go.

  Zorra

  HOUSTON, TEXAS

  SUNDAY

  Oh, Zorra, remember the sun, remember how to love her when she soaks into your coal-black spots, the coal-black stripes that run from your nose and along your cheeks, the defining marks of ocelot.

  It’s so hard to remember what you love when you are trapped, hidden behind a stand of yaupons, berries blazing in the afternoon light.

  All you can see is the blue sky above you, just a tiny patch of it. It’s all the small window will allow.

  Zorra. La chica bella.

  Zorra. Bambina.

  Zorra. La bayou, te ama.

  But that is so hard to believe when memories of what you love are fading far too fast.

  Buffalo Bayou

  HOUSTON

  She has her own calling—to run to the sea. As soon as she smells it, there’s no stopping her. From her underground springs beneath the Addicks Prairie, the bayou bubbles up to the grassy surface. She wanders past the rice fields and through thick stands of pecan trees and weeping willows. Eventually she joins her sister, the White Oak, and together they saunter through the city, past the parks and high-rises and concrete roads, underneath a dozen bridges, more.

  She welcomes her smaller branches, takes them into her arms, and soon they meet the tide, pulled by the moon, t
ugged by the sea, announcing the presence of the San Jacinto River, her bigger sister. They tumble together like fat, clumsy puppies and hurry to the port, where ships containing automobiles from Korea and wheat from Saskatchewan and tennis shoes from China and anything else the world might want, come and go, loading and unloading their cargo holds.

  And all along the way, she says her grateful prayer to Gravity, the goddess of every drop of water in the whole wide world.

  Juba and Mary Ann

  HOUSTON, REPUBLIC OF TEXAS

  1845

  Water was what Mary Ann needed, fresh water, not the brackish water of the river. She hung on to her mother’s neck, her legs no longer able to hold her body up. Her mouth was dry as cotton, and her throat burned with each gulp of night air. Where was the starry crown, oh Lord?

  Sleep kept grabbing at her eyes like a cat. She’d try to open them, and Sleep’s paws would bat them shut again. So she closed those eyes and held on as tight as she could.

  And meanwhile Juba grabbed on to her mother’s skirt. If she were only a little bit bigger, she would have carried her little sister, she would have taken a turn, even though she was too small for that. She would have carried her mama, too.

  If only she could have, she would have.

  Cade Curtis

  HOUSTON, TEXAS

  SUNDAY

  Atop the steps of the Church on the Bayou on a brisk October evening is not a place that Cade Curtis ever expected to find himself. And yet, here he is, at least thirty minutes early, hands in pockets, shirttail tucked in, waiting for Soleil, waiting to attend her church group party. He has only read the Bible in bits and pieces, and while he stands there, he realizes that he has yet another thing to keep from Soleil: that most of his reading about the Bible has come from comic-book versions.

  One of the perks of growing up in an antiques store is that people often drop off boxes of books from old estates. A few years ago someone brought in a huge crate of comic books, and included in the stack was a series called Bible Heroes. They were all mixed up with Archie, Betty & Veronica, the Hulk, and an eye-opening batch of manga comics all written in Japanese. With the latter especially, the words didn’t matter so much.

  He is sure that Soleil would not approve of manga comics, and though he can’t say for certain, he doubts that she would be impressed by the fact that Cade’s first readings of Jesus were in the same stack as Superman and the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, especially the latter.

  Geez, he realizes, the number of things that he can never tell this girl is increasing by the minute.

  Comic Book Jesus! He stuffs his hands farther down into his pockets.

  The note! He curls his fingers over it, pulls it out. There is Soleil’s neat, steady handwriting, so different from his own scribbly scrawl. Would you like to know about Ultimate Love? That single sentence still catches him by surprise. He folds it back up, rubs his fingers along the edges, stuffs it back into his pocket. Then he sinks down onto the top step. He looks out at the street. Maybe if he stares at it long enough, Soleil will automatically appear, even though it is still thirty minutes before the party is supposed to start.

  Paul dropped him off early because he said he had some errands to run. He was puzzled when Cade told him he wanted to go to a church party, but he didn’t object.

  Cade pulls his shoulders up to his ears. The sun is on the way out, and there is a fall chill in the air. He hasn’t thought to bring a jacket, and the damp concrete step he sits on makes him feel even colder.

  He stands up and dusts off the seat of his jeans. The large doors of the church look friendly enough. There’s something carved across the top of them, maybe a prayer, but in the shadow of the encroaching dusk, he can’t read it clearly. To his surprise, when he pulls on the handle, he discovers that the doors are unlocked.

  They open into a large, brightly lit hallway. On the left is a bank of closed doors that he assumes lead into the sanctuary. On the right is a tall wall that resembles a museum. It’s covered with paintings and photographs and plaques, and an assortment of other ephemera. (Another perk of growing up in an antiques store—your vocabulary. Cade knows ephemera when he sees it.)

  Cade can also see that the wall is like a history exhibit of the Church on the Bayou. There are dozens of old faded newsletters; drawings done by children; photos of the church in various stages of construction, circa 1936–37; photos of groups with titles like Missionary Trip, Honduras, 1948, and Dinner on the Ground, 1952. There are newspaper clippings and old Sunday school bulletins.

  Just above the bulletin board, he notices an oil painting of a different church, a small chapel that sits neatly beside a stream. He looks at the signature—Magnolia Phillips, 1862. The painting is faded and cracked, but having been raised in an antiques store, Cade can see the value of it in the lovely lines and the deft strokes of the artist. Even though he is familiar with some of the early local artists of Houston—only a few of which, like this one, were pre–Civil War—he has never heard of Magnolia Phillips. He makes a mental note to ask Mrs. Walker about her.

  Anyone else looking at this wall of history might have just scanned it, smiling at the children’s drawings, noting the age on the photos, skimming over the various newspaper clippings, and then stepped back to look at it in its entirety. But anyone who knows about ephemera knows to pay attention to details.

  He checks his phone to see what time it is, just to realize that only a few minutes have passed. He continues studying the wall.

  What Cade sees next makes him stop dead in his tracks. He reads it, then reads it again, then states, right out loud, “Oh. My. Fucking. God,” and in the next moment, the singular girl he’s been waiting for steps through the heavy wooden doors. Not even Comic Book Jesus could have planned that.

  THE HOUSTON DAILY POST

  December 8, 1945

  “The Lost Lady”

  Readers will remember it has been ten years since the devastating floods of 1935. Engineers estimate that the Buffalo Bayou rose over fifty feet above normal flood level. Longtime residents will recall the destruction that the bayou caused, destroying homes and businesses and churches. Seven of our precious citizens lost their lives, and it has taken many merciful acts of our Lord to rebuild this fair city.

  One such loss was the hundred-year-old nondenominational church that sat near the banks in the old Germantown development in the Sixth Ward. The water knocked the chapel off its piers and beams, and only a few parts of it were discovered several miles downstream, as the mighty waters of the bayou tore it away. Only the front doors were salvageable.

  Sadly the iconic statue of a woman that had graced the church’s yard for a century was pushed from her pedestal, and a decade since the flood of the century occurred, it has not been recovered. It’s assumed that the statue is likely at the bottom of the bayou. “It’s a shame,” declared Mrs. Weisskopf, a former member of the congregation. “The statue was carved from pink Georgia marble and was quite beautiful.”

  She recalled that at one time the statue was somewhat controversial, since one breast was left uncovered by the artist, which was very risqué for a church statue. Mrs. Weisskopf stated that it was nevertheless done in a tasteful, “artistic” manner. “Over the years, some of the ladies of the church knitted shawls to cover her.” She then chuckled and added, “Of course, the shawls never lasted.” She hinted that the older boys of the church used to play pranks and try to steal the shawls. She admitted that many of them succeeded.

  As the statue sat amid a number of graves, reclaiming the interred was made more arduous by the destruction wrought by the rushing waters, which altered the banks somewhat, making it difficult to find the original plots. Some of the graves were of slaves, and because those were mostly unmarked, and also very close to the banks, they could not be recovered. Mrs. Weisskopf further stated that most of the other graves were reclaimed and are safely reinterred in the old Washington Cemetery, formerly known as Germantown Cemetery.

&
nbsp; Mrs. Weisskopf is one of the last survivors of the old church, and a current member of the brand-new Church on the Bayou. She said one of her dying wishes is to see the statue again, even though it is highly unlikely that it can ever be found.

  “The statue was a mystery,” she said. “She had one hand open and the other closed. When we were kids, we always tried to figure out what she might be holding in her hand.” Even if she’s found, that part of the mystery will be forever unsolved.

  If anyone has any knowledge of the whereabouts of this statue, you can contact this reporter to make arrangements to restore her to Mrs. Weisskopf and the last remaining members of the old church.

  Soleil Broussard

  HOUSTON, TEXAS

  SUNDAY, OCTOBER

  Soleil wasn’t at all sure whether or not Cade would meet her at the church. She has been living in the mystery of it, a mystery filled with prayers. Lots of prayers, not a few of which were about asking Jesus to forgive her for so clumsily using Him for her own ends.

  So when Soleil steps into the hallway of the Church on the Bayou and sees him there, her heart says, Rejoice!

  But then she sees him look past her, as if she is the only obstacle between him and the door. Plus, he blurts out a word that she is sure has likely never been uttered in this particular spot on the planet. She looks at his face. Escape is written all over it, and she immediately knows that he isn’t going to stay. She steps closer to him.

  He starts doing that rocking thing. Heel. Toe. Heel. Toe.

  “I’m sorry, but I have to go,” he says.

  She swallows. Hard.

  She needs to say something, but before she can, he speaks first. “Look,” he says, “I’d stay, but I just remembered that I have something I need to take care of.”