Virgin

by F. Paul Wilson

  SEVENTEEN

  Manhattan

  “Damn that Pilgrim!” Dan said softly as the door shut behind the two CDC investigators. “Why can’t he keep his big mouth shut?”

  Poor Dan, Carrie thought as they stood together by the serving counter. She repressed a smile and laid a gentle hand on his arm.

  “He doesn’t know the trouble he’s causing. Preacher’s his friend. He was blind and now he can see. He witnessed a miracle and he wants to tell the world about it.”

  “And he seems to be doing just that—literally.”

  “Let him.”

  “Let him? I have no choice. And I wouldn’t care, but now he’s telling anybody who’ll listen that if they’re looking for a miracle cure, go to Loaves and Fishes!”

  “And what if he does?”

  “We just saw the result! Two guys from the CDC asking us about what we’re serving the guests! Wanting to know if we’re using any ‘unusual’ recipes! Good God, I thought I was going to have a heart attack!”

  Carrie had to laugh now.

  “What’s so funny?” Dan said.

  “You should have seen your face! You started choking while you were reading off the ingredients in my seven-grain bread!”

  Dan’s reluctant smile broke through. “I did fine until he asked me about any ‘special additives!’ That was when I almost lost it.”

  “You were very good. Very calm. The picture of innocence.”

  “I hope so. We don’t need a bunch of epidemiologists sniffing around. I have visions of them doing these in-depth interviews with anyone around here who’s been cured of anything in the past few months and entering it all into a computer, then asking the computer to find the common denominator and having it spit out, Loaves and Fishes … Loaves and Fishes … Loaves and Fishes.”

  “Oh, Dan. Don’t worry so much.”

  “I can’t help it, Carrie. At the very least we have a smuggled artifact in the basement. At the very most, if what you believe is true—”

  “What I know is true. And you know it’s true as well.”

  Dan blinked, tightened his lips, and gave his head a quick shake. Why wouldn’t he let his lips speak what he knew in his heart?

  “At the very most,” he continued, “we’re sitting on something that could shake up all of Christianity and Judaism, and possibly all of Islam as well.”

  “But no one but you and I will know,” Carrie said patiently. How many times did she have to explain this to him? “The Virgin’s existence was meant to be kept secret, and we are honoring that secret.”

  “But just moments ago we had two government investigators here!”

  “So? Let’s just suppose that when they’d asked you about any ‘special additives,’ you’d told them, ‘Oh, yes. I almost forgot. We’ve got the Virgin Mary stashed away in the subcellar and we’re adding smidges of her finely-ground hair and fingernails to the soup.’ What do you think they’d put in their report?”

  Dan sighed. “Okay. You’ve got a point. But still …”

  She reached across the counter and grasped his hand.

  “Have faith, Dan. We’re not alone in this. Everything’s going to work out. Just believe.”

  Dan looked into her eyes and squeezed her hand in return.

  “I used to believe in us, and look what happened to that.”

  Carrie’s heart sank. Not this again.

  “Dan … we’ve been through this already. Something bigger than you and I has come into our lives and we have to put our own wants and desires aside. You said you understood.”

  “I do. At least partially. But even if I understood fully, I’d still be hurting. I haven’t been able to put out the fire so easily.”

  But you must, she thought, hurting for him. You must.

  “Don’t the miracles make it easier?” she said, hoping to see the pain fade in his eyes. “Don’t they make you feel a part of something glorious?”

  “The cures are wonderful.”

  “And they happened because of us! The blind see, the terminally ill are cured, the deranged become lucid. Because we brought her here.”

  “I just hope those same miracles aren’t our downfall. Look what’s happening around us. People are seeing the Virgin Mary everywhere, the streets are acrawl with epidemiologists by day and Mary-hunters by night, there’s a candlelight vigil on every other corner, and every AIDS patient in the city seems to be trying to move to the Lower East Side. It’s getting crazier by the minute out there. It all seems to be building toward something. But what? And if someone puts all the pieces together, we may find ourselves in big trouble, a lot more trouble than we can handle.”

  Carrie just shook her head. Didn’t Dan know? Couldn’t he feel it? Everything was going to be fine.

  She is here.

  Kesev had sensed that the instant his flight had touched down at JFK. Now he sat on a filthy bench in a litter-strewn park named after Sara D. Roosevelt, whoever she was. On the far side of the chainlink fence, across Forsythe Street, stretched a row of dilapidated houses, worse than in the poorest sections of the Arab Quarter in Jerusalem, except for the brightly colored and well kept building on the corner, the only clean structure on the block. Kesev had found it especially interesting because of the six-pointed star of David in the circular window near the top of its front gable. He’d thought it a temple at first, but had been confused by the inscription over the entrance: Templo Adventista del Septimo

  But much closer at hand—directly in front of him—was a hoarse-voiced street preacher. Lacking anything better to do, Kesev listened to his rant.

  “Forget not what Saint Paul said to the Thessalonians: ‘The Day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.’ The End Times are soon upon us. First there will come the Rapture, then the Tribulation, and then the Son of God will come again. But only those who believe, only those who are saved will be caught up in the Rapture and spared the Tribulation. As Paul said to his church: ‘But you, brothers, are not in darkness that that day will overcome you like a thief … For God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain deliverance by our Lord Jesus Christ!’ Heed those words. Repent, believe, be not caught unprepared!”

  “Amen, brothers!” cried his helper or disciple or whatever one might call the little man who followed him around like a puppy. “Amen! Preacher should know! Preacher was blind and now he can see! He sees everything!”

  “First will come war—and that is already here. Then will come plague and famine and plague—listen to the news and you’ll know that a plague is crouched in the wings, waiting to spring—followed by worldwide starvation. There will be a great shaking of the earth, the skies will darken, the seas will die, the river Jordan shall run red.”

  What nonsense is this? Kesev thought irritably. While I suffer the frustration of my fruitless search for the Mother, must I also suffer the words of fools and madmen? If he doesn’t shut up I will wring his neck. And that of his prancing disciple as well.

  Weeks here and no luck. Roaming these mean, sinister streets at night, hearing of the apparition, rushing to its reported location, always too late to see it. The frustration was making him ill tempered, building to a murderous rage. If something didn’t break soon …

  She must be aware that I am here. Why is she toying with me?

  “Repent, brothers and sisters,” Preacher said. “Repent and take Jesus as your Lord. For the dark End Times are soon upon us, followed by the dawn of the Second Coming of the Lord!”

  “Listen to him!” the little sidekick said. “Listen!”

  But the half-dozen people who had paused a moment to listen to the raggedy man had heard it all before, so they moved on. And with no audience, the man called Preacher and his lone disciple moved on as well.

  Leaving Kesev and a thin, sickly-looking old man sharing the bench.

  Good
riddance, Kesev thought.

  Monsignor Vincenzo Riccio shifted his weight on the bench as he watched the Preacher shuffle off. His wasted buttocks offered no padding against the hard, rough planked surface. He wanted to get up and continue his search for the vision, but he didn’t know which way to go in the fading light.

  Fading like my body, he thought. Like my life. Slowly, steadily, inexorably.

  He was beginning to think his chance to see the vision again would never come. He’d been traveling down from the Vatican mission to the Lower East Side night after night, hoping, praying, beseeching God and Jesus and Mary herself to honor him with the vision once more, just once more before the cancer took him. It had become a contest of sorts, a race between the tumor and his determination to last until he saw her again.

  He glanced at the bearded man a few feet to his right.

  “Do you think he’s right?” he said.

  The bearded man started, as if surprised that someone would speak to him. Most New Yorkers were shocked initially when a stranger like Vincenzo opened a conversation with them.

  “Sorry. Do I think who is right?”

  A strange accent. Middle Eastern, certainly, but where? The features framed by the beard and dark hair were Semitic. A Palestinian?

  “That preacher. Do you think we’re headed for the Second Coming?”

  “You mean, the Second Coming of the Master?”

  Vincenzo wondered at this fellow’s use of the term, “the Master.” Surely he was referring to Christ. Who else could be expected at the Second Coming. But it was such an archaic reference, the way the early church referred to Jesus.

  “The Second Coming of Jesus, yes. Do you—?”

  The bearded man shot to his feet. “Good-bye. I must be going.”

  “If you must. Perhaps we’ll meet some other time.”

  “I do not think so.”

  He walked off.

  Vincenzo wondered if he was another “Mary-hunter,” as one of the local papers had dubbed the hordes of faithful roaming the Lower East Side streets in search of the Blessed Virgin.

  Perhaps, perhaps not, Vincenzo thought as he pushed himself to his feet. But certainly something strange about that fellow. Not very friendly, which he supposed was to be expected in New York, but this fellow was almost furtive.

  As he crossed Pearl Street, a man ran out of an alley, frantically waving his arms in the dusk.

  “OhmyGod! OhmyGod! I think I saw her! I think it’s her!”

  Vincenzo’s heart leapt. “Where?”

  As the fellow pointed toward the black maw of the alley behind him, Vincenzo tried in vain to make out his features in the dusky light.

  “Back there! She was just standing there, glowing.”

  “Show me,” Vincenzo said. “Please show me!”

  “Sure,” the fellow said, waving him to follow. “Come on!”

  An alarm clanged faintly in a corner of Vincenzo’s brain, but his mind was too suffused with glorious anticipation to pay it proper heed.

  The darkness of the alley swallowed him. He saw nothing.

  “Where?”

  He was shoved roughly from behind and fell to his knees on the garbage strewn pavement. Fear pounded through Vincenzo as he realized he was being mugged. He’d heard about the predators who’d begun stalking the defenseless Mary-hunters. The papers had dubbed them “Holies-rollers.” He began shouting for help until a heavy boot slammed into his ribs and drove the wind out of him.

  “Shuddup, asshole, an’ gimme your wallet!”

  Vincenzo shouted again and was kicked again. The mugger grabbed his wrist and pulled off his watch.

  “Where’s your wallet? Gimme your fuckin’ wallet or I cut you!”

  Vincenzo was reaching for his back pocket when he heard a groan above him. He heard scuffling feet, and then a heavy weight slammed onto the pavement next to him.

  “Did he stab you? Do you need a hospital?”

  Vincenzo recognized the accent—the little bearded fellow who’d been sitting on the bench with him moments ago.

  “No. I’m only bruised. Could you help me up, perhaps?”

  He raised his hand and felt another grasp it and pull him to his feet.

  Immediately the man began to move off.

  “Wait. I haven’t thanked you. There must be something—”

  “You can say nothing of this,” the fellow said, stopping and turning. “That will be thanks enough.”

  “But people should know! You’re a hero!”

  “That man behind you will be dead before help arrives. I am a stranger in this country. I do not wish to be arrested.”

  “What did you do to him?”

  “My knife did to him what his knife was going to do to you.”

  “But why?”

  “I needed to.”

  Weak and trembling, Vincenzo leaned against a wall and silently watched the stranger hurry off. The parting words turned over in his mind. I needed to. Something about the way he’d said that …

  Needed to what? Help somebody … or stab somebody?

  He turned for one final look into the alley that might have been his grave and saw her.

  She was only a few feet away, moving closer … flowing toward him … her faint glow a beacon in the black hole of the alley. Her robes were the same as in Cork, only now he was close enough to make out some of her features. The tears in his eyes blurred them but he thought he detected a hint of a smile as she looked at him.

  “It’s you!” he sobbed, overcome by an unplumbed longing within. “I’ve been searching for you. I knew I’d find you again!”

  She flowed closer without slowing … closer …

  Vincenzo backed up a step but she never slowed her approach. It was as if she didn’t see him. When she was within inches he cried, “Stop!” but she continued her irresistible course, pressing against him—but he felt nothing. She had no substance. And then his vision was filled with light that blotted out the alley and the street and the city, light all around, light within him …

  Within him …

  The apparition had merged with him. Was he within her or was she within him?

  He froze, he sizzled, dazzling spots flashed and swelled and danced before his eyes, he floated, he plummeted …

  And then the light faded and the city night filled his eyes again. He whirled and saw the apparition directly behind him, flowing away.

  She walked … right … through … me!

  And then she began to fade. Within seconds Vincenzo was alone again. The wonder that filled him also began to fade as the pain began, searing bolts of agony lancing through his chest and abdomen, doubling him over, driving him to his knees.

  IN THE PACIFIC

  7o N, 150o W

  The clouds and wind have organized into a pocket of turbulence with sharply demarcated borders. The pocket begins to drift eastward, drawing warm moist air up from the ocean surface into its high, cool center where the moisture condenses into droplets. Thunder rumbles and lightning flashes as rain and wind whip the churning ocean surface to a froth. The storm swells as it accelerates its eastward course.

  EIGHTEEN

  Manhattan

  “Okay, Monsignor. Another deep breath, and hold this one.”

  Vincenzo Riccio filled his lungs while Dr. Karras’s fingers probed his abdomen under the lower right edge of his rib cage. The young oncologist’s normally tanned-looking skin was relatively pale today. The overhead fluorescents of the examining room reflected off the fine sheen of perspiration on his forehead.

  “Damn!” he muttered as his fingers probed more deeply under Vincenzo’s ribs.

  “Something wrong?” Vincenzo said, exhaling at last.

  “No. I mean, yes. I mean …”

  Vincenzo sat up and pulled down his
undershirt.

  “I don’t understand.”

  Karras ran a hand through his short black hair. “Neither do I.”

  “Perhaps you’d better tell me the problem, Doctor. I think I deserve to know.”

  The examination had started out routinely enough, with Vincenzo arriving at the outpatient cancer clinic, reading in the waiting room until his name was called, and then being examined by Dr. Karras. But after examining him just as he had now, Karras had stepped over to the chart and pulled out yesterday’s blood test results. After checking those for what seemed like an unduly long time and shuffling through the sheaf of previous reports, he examined Vincenzo’s abdomen again, then sent him for a CT scan of the liver, with comparison to the previous study.

  “Stat,” he’d said into the phone. “Double stat.”

  So Vincenzo had allowed himself to be swallowed by the metal gullet of the scanner where his liver could be radiographically sliced and diced, and now he was back again on the examining table. He had an inkling as to the nature of Dr. Karras’s discomfiture, but dared not voice it … dared not even think it.

  “The problem is—”

  The intercom beeped. “Doctor Weiskopf is here.”

  “Weiskopf?” Karras said. “From radiology? What’s—? Oh, shit. Excuse me.” He all but leapt for the examining room door.

  A few moments later he was back, trailing in his wake a tall, bearded man whom he introduced as Dr. Weiskopf. He looked about fifty and wore a yarmulke; a large manila x-ray envelope was tucked under his left arm.

  “I’ve never met a walking miracle,” Weiskopf said softly as they shook hands.

  Vincenzo suddenly felt weak. “Miracle?”

  “What else can you call it? I looked at your scan from today, then called up your initial scan from July, and I said to myself, Moshe, a trick this Karras kid is playing on you, trying to make a fool of you by asking you to compare the very sick liver of one man to the perfectly healthy liver of another. And then I spied an osteophyte—doctorese for a bone spur—on one of the vertebrae of the new scan; much to my shock, there was the very same spur on the old scan. So I had to come and see this man for myself.”