They spent a quiet afternoon together. It was weird, because Jeremy actually felt pretty good, as if the young woman gave off some sort of majestic calm.
Jeremy spent a lot of the afternoon whispering in her ear: questions, millions of questions. But apparently they were running into a brick wall because she didn’t once start talking to herself, or say anything to clear up the mystery around his murder. He finally gave up trying and contemplated Allison. All the puffiness from her crying had finally gone away, and her face was back to normal. She really was pretty. She had blue eyes, a stubborn chin, a broad, intelligent forehead, and full, gorgeous lips.
Now he realized why she had the big bed—she must have had tons of lovers. But no one called her that evening. When she finished correcting her papers she stripped down to her underwear, catching Jeremy totally by surprise, and started making all kinds of strange movements on a weird machine that bucked and lurched about until he thought she would have a hernia. After an hour of strenuous exercise, she was beet red, sweaty, and much less pretty than earlier, but the Mist that rose from her had turned a pure white. She went into the bathroom to take a shower, put her pajamas back on, grabbed her parka and took Frankenstein for another walk.
When she came back up, she wolfed down a bowl of cereal in front of the TV. Then she surprised Jeremy when, before heading to bed, she pulled out her books and began studying. He leaned over her shoulder again. Of course! She wasn’t a grade school teacher yet; she was a student teacher, working toward her diploma. Allison soon began to nod off, and finally went to bed. Jeremy couldn’t help but sigh: His investigation certainly hadn’t gotten very far. Lost in his thoughts, he passed through the door of her apartment and went for a walk in the streets. He stopped by a subway station and ate some blue Mist that was floating out, then headed back to Allison’s place. For some reason, he didn’t want to feed off the young woman. And he didn’t want to leave her either.
It turned out to be a good thing that she had such a big bed: He carefully lay down next to her and dropped off to sleep.
When Jeremy woke up he was naked again, and …
… Allison was staring at him.
“You’re such a handsome fellow, you know that?” she purred in a soft voice.
He yelled out in surprise, jumped backward and fell flat on the floor. Then Jeremy heard the dog yap in response to Allison’s words, and he realized that Frankenstein had been sleeping in Jeremy’s spot on the bed. She had been talking to the dog.
“Yeah, I know.” She sighed. “Flattery will get me nowhere with you. You want to eat your breakfast and go for a walk. Maybe not in that order. All right, I’m coming already!”
She grumbled and climbed slowly out of the bed to take care of Frankenstein, while Jeremy, his heart still pounding in his chest, quickly got to his feet and scampered out to make himself another loincloth. Being naked made him feel funny.
When he came back, after having eaten his own breakfast as well, Allison was already all set to go. She went down to her car and drove to a school about twenty minutes away. Jeremy had gotten in the car with her, and now followed her into her classroom. There were many blue Angels and a few Reds in the room. The Blues were whispering in the children’s ears to try to help them, while the Reds did their best to distract the most undisciplined kids. Jeremy was once again struck by the fact that the living were much more receptive to the red Angels than to the Blue ones. Some of the more lively kids, the brightest ones, even seemed able to hear what the Angels were saying.
He was admiring how well Allison was looking after her kids—helping one over here, then giving encouragement to another over there, under the watchful eye of a gray-haired teacher—when suddenly, a very familiar voice made him snap to attention.
Claire, his mother, walked into the classroom. Her makeup was impeccable, as was her tight-fitting black dress and her matching gray shoes and handbag. But she couldn’t hide how desolate she must be feeling inside.
What the heck was his mother doing here?
The older teacher greeted her warmly, which showed that the two knew each other. Allison suddenly turned pale—and even more so when Angela appeared behind her mother, her eyes still slightly glazed from five straight days of crying, almost without interruption. It broke Jeremy’s heart.
Once again, a dirty brown Mist—from feelings of guilt—began rising from Allison, but also the darker-colored Mists that showed she was afraid. Jeremy raised his eyes in surprise, and gave Allison an inquisitive look: He had finally realized how Allison had gotten her hands on his business card.
Angela had given it to her.
A couple years earlier, his mother had come to visit him at his office with Angela. Even though Jeremy loathed Frank, he knew he couldn’t show it to Angela, who he had snubbed along with her parents back then. He had been very cold and polite with the girl, as if she were just some stranger. Of course, she had adored her big brother, and he recalled that she had snatched up a few of his business cards. But why had she given one to Allison, and even more importantly, why had he been murdered when—
He held his breath, playing the scene over in his mind. Of course! When he had turned into an Angel, just after his death, he remembered seeing the killer.
He had been just about to kill Allison as well.
Allison had repeated over and over how it was all her fault. That he had died because of her. She had probably been waiting for hours out in front of his apartment building. She couldn’t have known that he would come home so late that night. And when she had finally seen him on the street, she had walked up to him, and—
There was only one possible explanation.
The killer hadn’t been looking for Jeremy.
The killer had come … for her!
5
The Taste of Others
Jeremy had been waiting impatiently for the meeting for two days, splitting his time between Allison and his half sister. Rose’s & Blues was amazing. It was in a former luxury hotel built in the 1930s by William Van Alen, the same architect who built the Chrysler Building. Walking into the club was like traveling in a time machine back to the days when the ladies were all dolled up in long glamorous dresses and mink stoles, the gangsters were ruthless outlaws, and the only alcohol you could get was sold in a back room.
But what took Jeremy most by surprise when he entered were the tables.
That were floating.
Up above the living.
The Angels had found a place up beneath the vaulted ceiling to set up their own lounge, complete with floating tables, chairs, and sofas. They lolled about, talking and laughing loudly, making just as much noise as the people down below. Once the surprise wore off, Jeremy began looking around the room. It was eight o’clock sharp. His grandfather and father were nowhere to be found. The place was packed and everyone was digging a great jazz quartet. There was a throng of blue and red Angels feeding on the white, gray, and blue vapors, but there was no sign of Paul or James. He thought that he’d caught a glimpse of Tetisheri again, but the chubby blue Angel melted away in the crowd of living people down below.
Jeremy took a seat at the edge of a booth, unable to contain his impatience. He balanced unsteadily on the edge, unable to sit back and relax on a living human being, as many of the Angels were doing.
“Oh please, would you put a sock in it already!” he growled after a few minutes, fed up with the flighty woman splayed out next to him on the burgundy-colored cushion who was going on and on about her mind-numbingly boring life.
“You know, you can go on talking to her until the next big bang, and she still won’t hear a word you say,” exclaimed a jovial voice right beside him.
Jeremy almost jumped through the roof. Heart racing, he turned to see a young blue-and-red boy staring at him, sitting comfortably on the sofa.
“Shit!” Jeremy cursed. “I almost—”
“Had a heart attack?” quipped the boy. “Nah, that’s impossible. But I couldn’t resist
the temptation.”
“Hey! I remember you; didn’t you—”
“Ja, ja, the one who explained the difference in velocity between two bodies in motion driven by non-equivalent modes of propulsion when you were desperately trying to catch up with your cadaver in the ambulance. Yes. The name’s Albert Einstein, passed over in 1955.”
Jeremy shook his hand without thinking, his eyes wide as saucers. Was the kid serious or what?
“Einstein. Albert Einstein? E=mc2? The letter to the president? The Manhattan Project?”
“That’s the one,” sighed the boy. “That letter hounded me throughout my life and, alas, even after my death. But let’s get one thing straight: I never took part in that project. The atomic bomb and all that crap? All I did was write a stupid letter to President Roosevelt to let him know that the Nazis were about to get their hands on some uranium from mines in the Congo, and were studying the possibility of developing a new kind of bomb. I should have just kept my mouth shut.”
It was true that Jeremy had seen many a strange thing since he’d passed over to the afterlife, but he still found the boy’s story hard to believe. He looked him over suspiciously.
“Einstein was seventy-six years old when he died. Excuse me for saying so, but you look a tad young to be someone so old!”
“Ja, ja, ich weiss,” the boy nodded. “I’ve made myself look younger, in order to keep my brain in good shape. But go ahead! Ask me a few questions. I’ll be more than happy to answer.”
Jeremy had been a boy genius in math, and had spent most of his time creating equations to help his computer processors anticipate the reactions of financial markets. It wouldn’t be too difficult for him to show up the kid as an imposter.
For about the first four minutes, he could still figure out some of what the physicist was saying, and after five minutes he was completely lost.
OK, it really was Einstein—or else someone who did a heck of a job imitating him!
“I’m … I’m very honored to meet you, sir,” he finally stammered, hoping his words would put an end to the endless stream of equations that were filling his head. “But—”
“But what am I doing here?” Einstein asked. It was annoying the way he kept finishing his sentences for him. “Well, let’s just say that I often drop by Rose’s & Blues. This is where all the Angels who’re the most curious about their deaths get together, and I myself am very curious.”
“Curious?”
“Yes. I try to uncover the secrets of this new universe we now call home. I’ve been at it for years now. I’ve been able to figure out a few of the main principles, but new things keep happening that mess up my theories. It drives me nuts. Physics is based on laws, and in this world, the laws are very difficult to determine. But I will figure them out; I’m certain of it!”
Jeremy studied his childish face as the boy gave him a mischievous look. For some reason, it made Jeremy feel uncomfortable.
“Fair enough. But tell me this, sir: Why do I get the strange impression that you were looking for me, and that our meeting was hardly a coincidence?”
“Forget about all the sir stuff. No, there’s no reason to start getting paranoid. I wasn’t looking for you in particular, even if I know that all the most interesting Angels come here to meet, and I did find your death very interesting. Getting your head chopped off is hardly ordinary. I do my best to keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary that happens, and I’m hoping one day to understand Him and what He hopes to accomplish.”
Jeremy’s eyes grew wide. He’d clearly understood the capital H’s in the young boy’s words.
“Understand Him? Understand who?”
Einstein leaned closer and whispered, as if he were afraid someone else might be listening: “Why, God of course!”
Jeremy was so surprised by his words that for a few seconds, all he could do was stare at the boy with his jaw hanging open.
“God?”
“Yes, I prefer the generic term God. The ‘Great Architect’ seems a bit pompous to me. I already didn’t like the term much when I was alive, and even less now that I’m dead. And even if it is a feminine concept, the term God works just fine.”
“Why? Because you’re not sure?”
“No,” Einstein shrugged.
Jeremy wasn’t sure he wanted to get into any long theological discussion, but his father and grandfather hadn’t arrived yet, so he still had some time.
“Stephen Hawking was wrong,” he finally said to Einstein as he contemplated the Angels. “He thought he could prove that God didn’t exist because the principles developed by Edward Witten in his M-theory—the multiverse with the simultaneous existence of millions of different universes—made God unnecessary!”
Einstein sighed.
“I can’t even be sure of that. It is precisely the M-theory, which groups together the various string theories into one Theory of Everything, that is giving me fits. What if the universe that we now inhabit turns out to be one of those parallel worlds that were created in the Big Bang? When just a few millimeters of matter were overheated 13.7 billion years ago and then Boom! Explosion and creation—but not of a single universe, as we once believed, but of millions of universes, infinitely more vast and cold than we’d imagined, including our own, where by some incredible stroke of luck, life was created, and—better yet!—intelligent life.”
Jeremy could feel his neurons heating up.
“So you think we might now be in some alternate universe, created at the same time as our own; is that it?” He struggled to put his thoughts into words. “Like the pages of a book? A point where they all intersect, but with no interaction between the pages, which lay one on top of the other? Layers of universes?”
“Maybe.” Albert extended his hands, placing one on top of the other. “This hand is the world of the living, and the other one, just above, is our universe, the world beyond. Empty, of no use, until the very first souls passed over and, desperately desiring not to die a second time, ‘imposed themselves’ on this universe. And what if ours was a protean universe, capable of changing, of adapting to the creatures that enter it? In that case, what could God’s role possibly be?”
Just then the saxophone player began a solo that was so perfect, so joyous in its desperation that it sounded like the instrument was crying and singing with one voice. It was … magic.
“You see?” Einstein smiled. “On the other hand, when you hear something as marvelous as that, how can you possibly doubt that God exists— He’s the Angel! And He speaks through us.” He gave the red Angels in the room a black look before adding bitterly: “Just as the Devil speaks through them.”
Jeremy nodded, but also couldn’t help noticing that everyone in the club—the blue and red Angels and the living—were all enraptured by the music. When the solo ended and the other musicians picked up the theme again, he felt a twinge of regret as he picked up their conversation again.
“Why can’t I touch the living, even though walls and objects seem solid? Why do I have to use their vehicles in order to get around? Why do I feel gravity? Where do the food and the emotions that I eat go?”
Einstein hadn’t developed any theories about the food. However, if it were true that multiple universes actually existed, he thought that there might be some sort of membrane between the two universes, which surrounded inanimate objects and made them solid for the Angels, but which didn’t surround the living. Which was why the Angels could feel inanimate objects but passed right through anything that was living, as if humans and animals had no substance. He didn’t know why; that was just the way it was.
OK, then that would explain why Jeremy had fallen through the ceiling of the elevator and had felt pain. He hadn’t really crashed down on the metal floor, but on the membrane of the universe surrounding it. And when he had managed to pass through the membrane and had fallen into the elevator, it was because he had been able to dematerialize. But in that case, why didn’t the living see him when he demat
erialized and passed through the membrane?
“The membrane separating the two universes does not make it possible for the living to see us,” Einstein explained patiently. “Even when we pass through solid objects, it prevents the living from seeing us. But some are able to see, which proves once again that, in this world, there seems to be an exception to every rule. I think that there are places where the membrane is less impermeable, or maybe there are times when the brains of the living are more receptive to our presence. Which may explain why the living continue to believe that Angels have wings.”
Jeremy looked totally lost.
“The very first Angels, when they were alive, were hunters,” explained Albert. “Their imagination was dominated by all the terrible dangers that roamed the Earth. As far as they could tell, only the birds were capable of escaping from these dangers. Their imagination was still quite crude, and so when they passed over, and with time learned how to modify their physical appearance, they created birds’ wings in order to fly over the living and nourish themselves. This continued up through the nineteenth century, and the advent of the industrial revolution. Even though Newton had already demonstrated the theory of universal gravitation in the seventeenth century, it wasn’t until the nineteenth century that the Angels finally realized that they didn’t need wings in order to fly. All they had to do was modify their body weight to become lighter than air. But before they’d finally figured it out, the living had seen them.”
Jeremy quivered at his words. He thought that the living had no way of perceiving Angels! Before he could say anything, Einstein began to explain: “I have talked a great deal about this with the disciples of the great prophets. They told me that, especially when they were dehydrated or famished, they had many visions of our world. In moments of extreme thirst or hunger, they were able to perceive some of the Angels, and even hear them. They saw brightly colored beings with large wings. They described what they’d seen, and illuminators, sculptors, and craftsmen who made stained glass read about their visions and represented us Angels in their work. But over time, as human beings made more scientific progress, they lost their ability to see us. Maybe their minds became closed off to us, or maybe the space that separates our two universes has grown; I can’t be sure. In any case, only a very few of the living can see us now, and the majority of them are in the loony bin.”
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