Angel Time
Page 25
I was on the verge of another thought, but I’ll never remember what it was. I just started to pray. I prayed to God again to forgive me for all I’d done. I thought of the figures I’d seen in the crowd and I made a deep heartfelt Act of Contrition for every single one of them. That I could remember them all, even the men I’d first murdered so long ago, amazed me.
Then I prayed out loud:
“Malchiah, don’t leave me. Come back, if it’s just to give me some guidance as to what I should do now. I know I don’t deserve for you to come back, any more than I deserved for you to come the first time. But I’m praying now: don’t leave me. Angel of God, my guardian dear, I need you.”
There was no one to hear me on the still, dark veranda. There was only the faint morning breeze, and the last sprinkling of stars in the misty sky above me.
“I’m longing for all those people I left,” I went on talking to him, though he wasn’t there. “I’m longing for the love I felt from you, and the love I felt for all of them, and the happiness, the sheer happiness I felt when I knelt in Notre Dame and thanked Heaven for what was given me. Malchiah, if it was real, or if it wasn’t real, come back to me.”
I closed my eyes. I listened for the songs of the Seraphim. I tried to imagine them before the throne of God, to see that glorious blaze of light, and hear that glorious unending song of praise.
Maybe in the love I had felt for those people in that distant time I had heard something of that music. Maybe I’d heard it when Meir and Fluria and all the family had left Norwich safely.
It was a long time before I opened my eyes.
The daylight had come, and all the colors of the veranda were visible. I was staring at the purple geraniums that surrounded the orange trees in the Tuscan pots, and thinking how gloriously beautiful they were, when I realized that Malchiah was sitting at the table opposite me.
He was smiling at me. He looked exactly as he had the first time I ever saw him. Delicate build, soft mussed black hair, and blue eyes. He sat with his legs to one side, leaning on his elbow, merely looking at me, as if he’d been doing that for a long time.
I began to shake all over. I put my hands up, as if in prayer, to cover the gasp coming out of my mouth, and I whispered in a tremulous voice, “Thank Heaven.”
He laughed softly. “You did a marvelous job of it,” he said.
I dissolved into tears. I cried the way I had cried when I first came back.
A quote from Dickens came to my mind, and I said it out loud, because I’d long ago memorized it:
“Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.”
He smiled at this, and he nodded.
“If I were human, I would cry too,” he whispered. “That’s more or less a quote from Shakespeare.”
“Why are you here? Why did you come back?”
“Why do you think?” he asked. “We have another assignment and not much time to lose, but there’s something you have to do before we start, and you should do it immediately. I’ve been waiting all these days for you to do it. But you’ve been writing a story you had to write, and what you have to do now isn’t clear to you.”
“What can it possibly be? Let me do it, and let us be gone on our next assignment!” I was too excited to even remain in the chair, but I did, staring eagerly at him.
“Did you learn nothing practical from Godwin’s treatment of Fluria?” he asked.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Call your old girlfriend in New Orleans, Toby O’Dare. You have a ten-year-old son. And he needs to hear from his father.”
The End.
1:40 p.m.
July 21, 2008
Author’s Note
THIS BOOK IS A WORK OF FICTION. HOWEVER, REAL events and real persons inspired some of the events and persons in the novel.
Meir of Norwich was a real person, and a manuscript of his poems in Hebrew is in the Vatican Museum. But little or nothing is known about this real person, except that he did live in Norwich and he did leave us a manuscript of poems. He is described by V. D. Lipman in The Jews of Medieval Norwich, published by the Jewish Historical Society of London, and this book also includes Meir’s poems in their original Hebrew. As far as I know, there is no translation of Meir’s work into English.
Let me emphasize again that my version of Meir in this novel is fictional, and it is meant to be a tribute to a person about whom nothing is known.
Names in the novel, particularly Meir, Fluria, Lea, and Rosa, were names that were used by Jews in Norwich and are taken from V. D. Lipman’s book and other source materials. Again my characters are fictional. There definitely was an Isaac in Norwich who was a great Jewish physician, but my portrayal of this man is fictional.
Norwich at this time did have a real sherriff who can, no doubt, be historically identified, and also a bishop, but I did not want to use their names or involve any details concerning them, as they are fictional characters in a fictional tale.
Little St. William of Norwich did indeed exist, and the tragic story of Jews accused of killing him is told in Lipman’s book, and also by Cecil Roth in A History of the Jews in England, published by the Clarendon Press. The same holds true for Little St. Hugh of Lincoln, and for the riot in Oxford by the students against the Jews. Roth and Lipman were immense resources for me.
Many other books were of invaluable help to me in writing this book, including The Jews of Medieval Western Christendom, 1000–1500, by Robert Chazan, published by the Cambridge University Press, and The Jew in the Medieval World: A Source Book, 315–1791 by Jacob Rader Marcus, published by the Hebrew Union College Press in Cincinnati. Two other valuable resources were Jewish Life in the Middle Ages by Israel Abrahams, published by the Jewish Publication Society of America, and Medieval Jewish Civilization: An Encyclopedia edited by Norman Roth and published by Routledge. I consulted many other books which are too numerous to mention here.
Readers interested in the Middle Ages have abundant resources, including books on everyday life in the Middle Ages, and even large picture books on medieval life intended for young people but illuminating for everyone. There are numerous books on medieval universities, cities, cathedrals, and the like.
I am especially grateful to the Jewish Publication Society of America for its many publications on Jewish history and life.
In this book, I have been inspired by Lew Wallace, the author of Ben-Hur, who created a great and seminal classic which both Christians and Jews can enjoy. It is my hope that this book will appeal equally to Christians and Jews, and to readers of all faiths, or no faith at all. I have endeavored to paint an accurate picture of the complex interaction between Jews and Christians even during times of danger and persecution for the Jews.
As one scholar has observed, one cannot think of the Jews of the Middle Ages only in terms of their suffering. Jewish scholarship included many great thinkers and writers, such as Maimonides and Rashi, who are mentioned more than once in this novel. Jewish communication, community organization, and other aspects of Jewish life are all richly documented today by many scholars, and information is still being vigorously collected as to Jewish life during earlier times.
On the subject of angels and their role in human affairs, I would like to refer the reader to the book mentioned in the novel—The Angels by Fr. Pascal Parente, published by TAN Books and Publishers, Inc., which has become a little bible for me in this work. Also of great interest is Peter Kreeft’s Angels (and Demons), published by Ignatius Press. A great and venerable source of information on angels and Christian beliefs about them is St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologica.
I want to thank Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, for quick reference to Norwich, Norwich Castle, Norwich Cathedral, Maimonides, Rashi, and St. Thomas. Other Internet sites were also helpful, and again they are too numerous to mention here.
I should also thank the Mission Inn and the Mission o
f San Juan Capistrano for being real places, which obviously and greatly inspired me in this book.
This novel was written to provide enjoyment, but if it inspires further research on the part of readers, I hope these notes will be of help.
Lastly, let me include my fervent prayer:
Angel of God, my guardian dear,
to whom God’s love commits me here,
always and forever, I thank you.
Anne Rice
Bless the LORD, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.
Bless ye the LORD, all ye his hosts; ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure.
Bless the LORD, all his works in all places of his dominion: bless the LORD, O my soul.
—Psalm 103
King James Version
This Is a Borzoi Book
Published by Alfred A. Knopf
and Alfred A. Knopf Canada
Copyright © 2009 by Anne O’Brien Rice
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and
in Canada by Alfred A. Knopf Canada, a division of Random House of
Canada Limited, Toronto.
www.aaknopf.com www.randomhouse.ca
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks
of Random House, Inc.
Knopf Canada and colophon are registered trademarks.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Rice, Anne, [date]
Angel time : a novel / by Anne Rice. —1st ed.
p. cm. —(The songs of the seraphim ; 1)
“This is a Borzoi book.”
1. Angels—Fiction. 2. Assassins—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3568.1265A84 2009
813'.54—dc22 2009015470
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Rice, Anne
Angel time / Anne Rice.
(The songs of the seraphim)
eISBN: 978-0-307-27328-4
I. Title. II. Series: Rice, Anne. Songs of the seraphim.
PS3568.122A84 2009 813′.54 C2009-902612-0
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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