by Jon Steele
‘Chemistry.’
‘Sí, chemistry. When the human form expires, a galaxy of carbon and nitrogen molecules are released in the final breath. The science of the round world calculates the number to be more than ten to the power of twenty-three. An almost infinite number of molecules set free to drift through the atmosphere and circle the earth for all time. So that thousands of years and thousands of miles from the cross, you and I breathe from the last breath of Christ. Perhaps this says something about the nature of death.’
‘According to your chemistry, Monsieur Gabriel, what’s good for Jesus is good for Jack the Ripper.’
‘Perhaps that says something about the nature of man.’
Harper stuffed his hands in the pockets of his mackintosh.
‘I would’ve thought the nature of death was rather matter-of-fact. Now you breathe, now you don’t.’
‘And perhaps this says something of the nature of the warrior returned to us.’
Harper looked around the cathedral. Not a body in sight, dead or alive. He looked at the tramp.
‘By that, I gather, you mean me.’
‘I do. Please, if you do not mind.’
Monsieur Gabriel held out his arm for assistance. Harper helped him down the steps and settled him in a chair.
‘And now you’ve come to hear the story.’
‘Actually, I came for answers.’
‘No, English, you are here so that I may tell you the story so that your awakening will be completed. This is how it works for our kind.’
‘Our kind? As in me the drunk, you the morphine freak.’
‘As in those without free will.’
‘From chemistry to metaphysics without missing a beat. Let’s try apocryphal literature for ten.’
Harper pulled his notebook and a handful of papers from his pockets, found one crumpled scrap.
‘“Evil spirits walk the earth. The spirits of heaven live in heaven but this is the place of earthly spirits, born of the earth. Spirits of giants on the earth—”’
‘“—like clouds. To occupy, corrupt, content and bruise the earth.”’
Harper looked up. The tramp smiled through yellow teeth.
‘Did I say something funny, Monsieur Gabriel?’
‘You commit the words of Enoch to scraps of paper and carry them in your pockets like a scribe at Qumran.’
‘Glad you find it amusing, but if I don’t get some answers, two innocent people are going to be killed.’
‘You cannot save the living from the time of their death, English.’
‘So I’ve been told. Tell you what, let’s you and me do something drastic and tell Inspector Gobet and his gang of whatever they are to stuff themselves. We’ll save a couple of innocent souls, make the front page of 24 Heures.’
‘I’m only here to tell you the story.’
‘I don’t give a damn about your story. Tell me why Alexander Yuriev tacked this note to the prayer board at the back of the nave. Why here? There’s a reason. What was he trying to tell me? What was he trying to give me?’
The tramp sighed. ‘You already know the answer, you’ve known the answer for millions of years.’
‘Bollocks.’ Harper reached back in his mackintosh, pulled out a photograph, held it under the tramp’s eyes. ‘Look, this is him, Alexander Yuriev. Look at him, damn it. Did you see him, talk to him? What was it he wanted to give me?’
‘Hear the story and know the truth of what you are.’
Harper took a deep breath of Jesus and Jack the Ripper and anyone else who’d lived and died in the world.
‘Right, sod this for useful.’
He turned and marched down the aisle. Gabriel’s voice chased after him.
‘No matter how much you ache to hide in their form, English, you cannot choose to leave this place.’
Harper picked up his pace.
‘Watch me.’
‘“And men, being destroyed, cried out.”’
Harper heard the words echo through the nave. Two steps later he forgot how to put one foot in front of the other. He turned slowly around, saw the tramp with an even bigger smile on his face.
‘An odd sensation isn’t it, English?’
‘What?’
‘Awakening in their form.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Finish the verse.’
Unable to resist again, Harper felt the words rise in his throat, pass his lips and echo through the nave.
‘“And their voice reached to heaven.”’
‘Sí, their voice reached to heaven.’
‘What is this, who are you?’
‘This is you awakening to what you are, a creature without free will. And I am the one men call Gabriel.’
Harper flashed through History Channel, remembered an episode called the Legends and Myths of Angels. The good, the bad, the celestial war brought to earth.
‘Gabriel, the messenger? You’re God’s messenger?’
‘Names and gods, gods and names. These are the imaginations of men, they are not the things of our kind.’
‘Making me whom, or is it more along the lines of what?’
The tramp’s hand began to rise, his gnarled finger pointing straight at Harper.
‘“Then Michael and Gabriel looked down from heaven and saw the quantity of blood which was shed on earth, and all the iniquity which was done upon it, and said, It is the voice of their cries.”’
Like getting ripped through time again.
Seeing himself in the shabby London flat across from King’s Cross. Watching the story of human slaughter on History Channel. Telephone rings. Guardian Services Ltd on the line. Passport on the table with a picture and a name.
Jay Michael Harper.
‘You must be bloody joking. The archangels exist and we’re it?’
‘Names and gods, gods and names, none of these things matter to our kind. All we know is that we are here, and that the myths, legends and religions of men point to the truth of what we are.’
‘And what are we exactly?’
‘Creatures of an unremembered beginning, born of light and sent to protect this place and live among men of free will. To comfort them in death and guide their souls to a new form.’
Harper chuckled to himself, he rubbed the back of his neck.
‘You know, Monsieur Gabriel, I’ve met a lot of lunatics in this town but you take the cake.’
‘And you still cannot choose to take the next step and leave this place of lost angels.’
Harper looked down at his unmoving feet.
‘There does seem to be that.’
‘Then perhaps you aren’t what you seem in this world of men. Perhaps you only wear the form of men.’
The tramp coughed and shivered as if it was killing him to breathe. Harper took a step closer, saw beads of cold sweat on the tramp’s face.
‘Medication time, is it?’
‘The weight of our eternity is difficult to bear.’
Harper stared at him a moment, knowing when all else is impossible, what’s left begins to look like maybe. He stuffed his notebook and papers in the pockets of his mackintosh, scanning the nave of Lausanne Cathedral.
‘Mate, if you and I are what passes for archangels in this world, I’d hate to see the rest of the heavenly host.’
‘Come, English, sit awhile and I will tell you the story.’
‘The story, right.’
Harper stepped closer to Monsieur Gabriel, close enough to smell the scent of decay. He stopped, nodded towards the crossing square of the transept.
‘Why do you stand up there, in the light?’
Gabriel coughed again, cleared his throat of phlegm.
‘The smell of my form disgusts you, no? I see it in your eyes. Do you know what it is you smell? You smell greed and cruelty, the toxic waste of man’s free will. It poisons the light. I stand in this place to absorb the poison from the light before it touches these stones.’
�
�Why?’
‘The earth beneath these stones is sacred.’
Harper tapped the flagstones with the tip of his shoe.
‘There’s nothing under these stones but old dirt and skeletons. What’s sacred about it?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘No?’
‘Like you, I am only the extension of another’s will. I have no choice, so here I stand.’
‘You know, I saw a programme called Great Cathedrals of the World on History Channel a few days ago. They left out the part about the earth beneath the stones of Lausanne Cathedral being sacred. In fact they left out Lausanne Cathedral completely.’
‘I have no choice but to stand.’
‘Right. No free will for our kind, no questions asked.’ Harper looked about the nave. ‘By the way, where is the rest of our kind?’
‘Slaughtered in their human forms. There are so few of us left to protect this place.’
‘This place.’
Harper stared at the great stained-glass window in the south transept wall. The Cathedral Rose of Lausanne, the sum of man’s knowledge when the world was flat. Perfectly balanced, perfectly ordered. Once upon a time there was a place called paradise.
‘Tell me something. Everything out there, everything beyond the walls of this place. This isn’t the way it was supposed to be, is it?’
‘And so you begin to see with more than the eyes of men.’
‘Not completely, but maybe I’m getting there.’
He stepped up to the crossing square, walked in a small circle at the centre, tapping the flagstones with his foot.
‘All that greed and cruelty, what did you call it, the toxic waste of free will?’
‘Sí.’
‘Where’d it come from?’
‘Man’s fear of death.’
Harper stopped walking, looked up at the stained glass, saw a local sharing a glass of wine with a skeleton, as if they were old pals.
‘But they … the locals … they weren’t supposed to be afraid of death, were they? I mean, all those molecules drifting through the atmosphere and circling the planet. The chemistry of their souls means their life never ends. That was the idea, right?’
‘Sit with me, English, and I will tell the story.’
‘Soon as you tell me why the Book of Enoch points to the truth of who we are and what we’re doing on this chunk of rock.’
The tramp scratched at the crook of his arm.
‘“And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: ‘Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.’”’
Harper knew it instantly.
‘Book of Enoch, chapter six. Fallen angels take the forms of men and create their own race of Nephilim, half-breeds to enslave mankind. That makes them the bad guys. And me, I’m one of the good guys, I take it. Come to save the world.’
‘Sí.’
‘But in the Book of Enoch the good guys win. They kill off the half-breeds, chain the bad guys to the wall of a cave in Duadel. You’re telling me the Book of Enoch got it wrong. The Bible got it wrong. Every legend of creation got it wrong. This is all the paradise there is. That’s the real story, isn’t it? Our own kind stole paradise from the locals, slaughtered most of the good guys come to save it and we’re what’s left. The war, eternal and for ever.’
‘Sí.’
‘Losing badly, I hear. Not much time.’
Gabriel nodded. Harper rubbed the back of his neck and mumbled to himself.
‘“The faithless shadows of day are running, And high and clear is the call of the bells.”’
‘Aleksandr Blok.’
‘Who?’
‘The Russian poet you just quoted,’ Gabriel said.
‘No idea, mate. Just something I heard somewhere.’
‘Another sensation I am most familiar with.’
Harper tapped a flagstone with his shoe, listening to the hollow sound below.
‘This story of yours. What happens if I don’t believe a word of it?’
‘Then the light shall become darkness and all souls will vanish from the face of the earth.’
Harper sat next to the tramp.
‘In that case, Monsieur Gabriel, you’d best get on with the telling.’
Rochat was sweeping down the steps of the northeast turret.
He’d been up and down the turret and around the balconies twice already, but the angel was still dressing in her new clothes and told him he couldn’t come in the loge yet. The small windows of the loge were open and he could hear her ripping open the things he’d bought. She peeked through the window once with a towel wrapped around her hair.
‘You did great with the shopping, Marc.’
‘Why is there a towel on your head?’
‘That’s what I like about you, Marc. You forget everything, so everything is a surprise.’
She left him thinking about it. He was still thinking about it as he swept his way along the west balcony. He saw Clémence, the execution bell, brooding in the timbers. He swept the wood planks under her bronze skirt.
‘You really shouldn’t be so glum, Clémence, I’m very sure she made a very funny joke.’
The bell remained unlaughingly still.
‘Of course, why should I expect an execution bell to know a joke. Crack you on the head with a broom or tell you a joke, you wouldn’t know the difference.’
He swept along the south balcony and stood at the railings. He watched dark stringlike clouds drift high and fast from behind the French Alps. He jumped up through the timbers, gave Marie-Madeleine a gentle rap. The bell hummed sleepily.
‘Yes, I know, you were only resting. But I thought you should know the wind is coming from the southeast, madame. And I can smell the ice from Mont Blanc. That means another storm is coming. And that means the pigeons will be hiding in the rafters and I’ll have to brush the poop from your heads before la grande sonnerie times tomorrow.’
The steel hammer cocked back and slammed down on Marie’s iron skirt five times. Rochat watched her, waiting politely for her to finish ringing the hour, then he went back to sweeping the balcony. He stopped and listened. Something was strange. The wind should have carried Marie’s voice away, but the sound hovered as if clinging to the timbers, afraid to leave. Rochat shuffled back, reached through the carpentry and touched her.
‘What’s wrong, Marie? You sound sad. I thought you’d be happy the angel’s going home soon.’
The bell vibrated still with the slightest hum. He jumped on a timber and pressed his ear to the edge of her skirt. He listened to her fading voice.
‘Why would you say that, Marie? I’m not going anywhere. Rochat will always be with you. Don’t worry.’
He climbed into the great bell’s timber cage and shuffled to the snowman in the corner, pretending to rearrange the scarf around its neck.
‘Monsieur Neige, please keep an eye on Marie. She’s imagining sad things. Tell her snowman jokes if you know any.’
‘Marc?’
He turned, looked through the carpentry and saw a pretty girl with short black hair standing on the south balcony. The girl’s eyes under black eyebrows looked familiar but Rochat couldn’t be sure.
‘Who are you?’
‘It’s me, Katherine.’
He looked from her black trainers to her black jeans, her black jumper and up to her face, to her black eyebrows and the short black hair on the top of her head. He saw small Band-Aid strips across the scar on her cheek.
‘They won’t know it’s you.’
‘Who?’
‘Those men.’
Katherine smiled.
‘Except when you smile. You look like you when you smile.’
‘Believe me, I bump into those freaks again I won’t be smiling.’ She shivered in the wind. ‘Jeez, it’s getting c
old.’
‘The sun’s going down and a storm is coming.’
She leaned next to a stone pillar.
‘Gosh, it really is like being on the edge of a cloud up here. You feel like you can see the whole world. Hey, I can see a Christmas tree in somebody’s window.’
Rochat jumped through the timbers with the broom in his hands, and landed next to Katherine. They watched lights come alive over Lausanne. Streetlamps on corners, headlamps of cars and trams moving through the streets and over the bridges, frosty windows of the old city glowing with warm light. They took turns spotting Christmas lights on buildings, strung on the construction cranes high above Flon, in the windows of people’s homes. He heard Katherine sigh.
‘It’s all so different from up here, I feel like … I don’t know.’
Rochat looked at her face again. Her skin was so much whiter with black hair. And her eyes, when he first saw her, her eyes were hazel colours. But now in the fading light they were green, like emeralds. She shivered again.
‘Man, it really turned cold.’
‘Do you want to go inside the loge now? I can make tea.’
‘No, I want to watch the lights for a while. It’s kind of like watching your candles in the nave. It’s so pretty.’
‘D’accord.’
Rochat rested the broom against the iron railings, shuffled in the loge, came back out with Monsieur Buhlmann’s black cloak. He helped her put it on.
‘You know, you’re quite the gentleman, Marc. That girl you’re going to meet for Christmas lunch will be knocked out.’
Rochat wasn’t sure what that meant.
‘Is that a good thing?’
‘Oh yeah, that’s a great thing. And I like the way you’re picking up LA speak. I’m telling you, Marc, you should reconsider being a hair designer. Open a shop on Melrose Avenue and you’d clean up.’
Rochat picked up the broom from the railings.
‘I already do that in the tower.’
She laughed, closing the cloak around her body.
‘Man, sometimes you’re so funny it hurts.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No, it’s great, it’s wonderful.’
She fixed the collar of his coat, brushed away flecks of dust and ice from his shoulders.
‘Does she have a name, the girl you’re going to meet?’
Rochat thought carefully till he remembered.