“He calls himself Carlisle. But he’s a Brit named Mike Mealy, and he’s is a drug addict. He won’t have time to finish this work because he’ll die tonight of an overdose of heroin. He fancies the drug is his Muse, but it’s my invitation. He’s a useless drag on society.”
They moved on through the crowd. “Does this woman have talent?” Death asked as they stood over the shoulder of a middle-aged woman who was using a small pair of sewing scissors to cut out the silhouette of a thin, wan girl of ten.
“She has a good eye for outline detail, “Raphael replied.
“In a hospital not far from here her father, Jean-Louis, is receiving chemo-therapy for cancer. They pray he will not die, and he won’t for another fifteen years. But she will die tomorrow when her bicycle is hit by a speeding tour bus. What is seen depends on whose eyes are looking.”
Raphael put his hand on the arm of Death’s black cloak. “Take us back to the Swallows! I don’t want to know anymore about your grisly business.”
“You sound like Ebenezer Scrooge. What a fool you are.” Death said. “These artists would give anything to know the time of their doom.”
“Not a fool, but impatient to solve this mystery. Take me to Kahz’ar. He can see all manner of wickedness, can he not? Suppose we prevail upon him to tell us what we are not seeing in Seurat’s painting.”
Death laughed at the suggestion. “What makes you think a demon will co-operate in discovering the evil deed doer for us? It would be his pleasure to frustrate an act of justice, especially because it’s his subduers who ask him!”
“We have the instrument of persuasion,” Raphael said.
“Torture?”
“Torture only to one for whom the gaze of ultimate good would be ultimate agony—what was it Mephistopheles said? Hell is where God is naught. For a demon, hell is where God is. Let me bring him to Judas’ old cell and let him gaze upon the image of Him who is the King of Justice until he agrees to tell me what I want to know.”
Death loomed large, towering over Raphael like night itself. “And have the demon blaspheme in that holy place where a miracle occurred? Never! Begone, Guardian.”
But Raphael stood firm. “Sir, ‘tis but a picture, and demons are created to blaspheme wherever they are. Right now he curses our dear Lord, and spews hate upon the ground and walls such that the entire corridor is befouled. If he is to be tamed, only the power of Christ can do it. Would you deny sweet Elise justice because you believe Christ to be weaker than Kahz’ar? Anyone who can self-inflict a crucifixion can with withstand a few dirty words, I assure you.”
"I cannot pass into the cell. You'll be alone," Death reminded him.
"Jew and gentile, centurion and tax collector—He is for all. Did not Faustus acknowledge that one drop of the Precious Blood could save him though he be damned? Where is your faith? It is all you need."
The Red Parasols II
Madison Rector lathered herself in sunscreen including her swollen belly that was beginning to push hard against the rims of her two-piece bathing suit. Her Irish skin had always recoiled from the sun, and now that she was pregnant, she paid even closer attention to every detail of her health. If I’m going to be a vessel for the seed of my man, she told herself, then by Jove, I’m gonna’ do it right. She let her fingertips caress her expanding navel. Be healthy, little one, she prayed.
She looked towards the jetty where Albion had set up his easel. He was sitting there now, flanked by his brushes on a small table and a pitcher of lemonade on a black rock, painting the water. Since returning from New York, where they celebrated a hasty wedding ceremony on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, they had settled into a half-life, as Maddie called it.
They each had their own separate lives, returning to their life as a couple only in the afternoons. A creature of the day, she still taught her classes at the university while he painted furiously at night what was revealed to him in his “dreams”. The press loved him as did and the art critics, but it was his dream paintings that commanded his devotion and drew the attention of serious artists around the world. They seemed to understand what she couldn’t—all this muse and influence stuff—as though they had a secret language.
“It is another world,” Father Kellan had told her when she expressed her frustration to him over coffee at Maggie Moos Coffee House. “Alby’s part of a tradition that goes back thousands of years. Like the Church, actually. It takes us newbies a while to come to grips with that.”
“Yeah, but you don’t have a wife and a child on the way. You can afford to be introspectively celibate. No one expects you to be romantic at night.” She saw his shoulders shake in amusement.
“Well, sometimes when a woman is pregnant, hubby gets, let’s say afraid to touch her. Men don’t really know what goes on inside.”
“Sounds like malarkey to me.” She swayed side to side to relax her back.
“Oh, so that’s it. You’re jealous of his muse. Perhaps you should get to know her.”
Maddie felt her body tense. “Or him.”
Father Kellan eyed her suspiciously. “Maddie Rector, what aren’t you telling me?”
“I know this is going to sound as crazy as my dotty husband,” she said after telling him about the strange figure she had seen in the mirror, “but he was real and I tell you, the picture that Alby had been painting changed. I swear it did. Alby says he doesn’t remember what he painted but I remember. At first there were two males figures and this ugly little demon thing inside one of them, and when we I left for New York, the guy had turned into a me and a baby.”
“Psychologists would say you were simply projecting. Religious people would say you were projecting the reality that was forming inside of you, transforming you into a woman. Medical people would say you’re a victim of hormonal changes. Choose one, some, or all of the above. Perhaps you and Alby have a stronger spiritual connection than you know. It’s possible he was painting what was happening to you physically. As for your handsome stranger in the mirror—fantasy lovers are safe as long as you don’t take them seriously. Don’t let the nine month nutsies become permanent.”
“I do want this baby, Father,” Maddie whispered, a little embarrassed.
“Of course you do. Society may scoff at psychic connections between men and woman, but society never made a new life. Word of warning, just because Alby isn’t going through the physical changes you are, doesn’t mean he’s not going through changes.”
Maddie remembered Kellan’s words as she watched her Alby diligently working at his easel. The dream picture remained unfinished, stashed in the closet with his other “to finish” pictures, pictures she hoped would eventually be painted over. As for the man she saw in the mirror, she tried to forget him and ignore the nagging thought that she did know him. “Alby, there’s sandwiches,” she called out. “You gotta’ eat.”
But Alby didn’t respond. It was summer and there would be light till nine. He would work till the Ocean Beach sky turned scarlet and the gentle breezes turned cold.
****
In an instant Death and Raphael were in the Swallows. What was once a silent passage was now filled with the screams and shouts and threats from Kha'zar’s prison cell where he hung from the ceiling in the net that captured him. Death had snared entire armies in it, but now its ropes strained from Kha'zar’s incessant struggling.
Sensing visitors, Kha'zar ceased his writhing and hissed. “You come to taunt me, foul captors? My Master will avenge your interference. You'll see…”
Death drew his gleaming sword from its sheath and the two entered, and struck a blow at the rope that held the net to the beam, and Kha'zar fell to the stone floor with a dull thud. He and Raphael dragged the net to another cell. Kha'zar, recognizing the doorway, began clawing at the ropes with all his might, though his might had diminished greatly since his arrival. He knew what awaited him if the two spirits managed to drag him inside, and yelled out, “Whatever you want, I will do it! Whatever, your desire I will fu
lfill it, but do not take me into that place where Judas was delivered! I beg of you!”
Raphael winked at Death. “Then cease your racket and don’t struggle,” he commanded. The demon fell silent and let himself be dragged into an unmarked cell without resistance. Inside was Seurat’s painting propped up against the stone wall. “Do you recognize anyone in this painting, Demon,” Death demanded.
“I recognize the man sitting by the Seine,” Kha'zar cackled. “Yes, oh yes, it’s him, Stephan Griffin sitting by the river.”
Raphael yanked the rope that encircled the demon’s neck. “You’re lying.”
“Easy, Guardian," Death cautioned, "Kha'zar wouldn’t know the man’s name unless…”
“He’s a liar, Dark One,” Raphael insisted.
Kha'zar shot them a crafty grin. “Good Spirit, bad spirit—is that your game? Then don’t believe me.”
“Georges told me Stephan had been gone two weeks,” Raphael said, ignoring Kha'zar. “What do you think?”
“That doesn’t mean he didn’t return, secretly perhaps. We could ask Charles,” Death suggested.
“No!” Raphael said.
“Harboring a grudge, Guardian?” Kha'zar snickered.
Raphael turned to Kha'zar, and the demon, seeing the anger in his eyes, looked away. “Charles won’t help us,” Raphael said.
Death pulled Raphael by the sleeve. “Then take me to Seurat.”
“And Kha'zar?”
“We’ll Leave him here.” Death threw the ropes over the I-beam and hoisted Kahz’ar off the ground again, leaving him to dangle again like a grotesque piñata. He slammed the door in back of them, muffling Kha'zar’s loud accusations of betrayal along with his blasphemies. The two Spirits hurried to Seurat’s studio where the painter greeted them with shaking hands and a quivering voice.
“What’s he doing here?” Seurat whispered to Raphael as Death silently passed him.
“He can’t hurt you,” Raphael said.
“No, but he can sure scare me.” Death was removing his hood and Georges steeled himself for a vision of horror. Death was in his flesh form, however, and was examining the old painting as Georges let out a long sigh.
“The demon says the figure in the background is Stephan Griffin although you said he was in London when Victoria let Elise go to the country,” Raphael told George as he pointed to an indistinct figure of a man in a brown suit.
Death sat down at the table. Before him was a bowl of apples, and he helped himself to a crisp delicious, biting into it before he noticed Seurat’s easel where he had been working on a still life of apples. “Sorry,” he said.
“I...I didn’t know.” Georges stammered.
“That I eat? Don’t have to. Like to,” Death said.
“We captured a demon who likes to talk,” Raphael explained. “Horrible creature. But he confirmed it—Stephan was there that day.”
The information sank in slowly. “A plot? It can’t be,” Georges said.
“You said the Griffins were in financial difficulties. Maybe they kidnapped their own child. Did the Fruif’s pay the ransom for Elise?” Raphael picked up an apple and looked at Georges who nodded yes to his silent request. He joined Death at the table.
Georges spoke again. “Of course. They paid immediately. The Fruif’s were humiliated and affronted by the boldness of the crime. The days they spent with Elise were precious to them…according to the newspapers, they were adamant about finding the child. Where did you find the child, Sir?” Georges asked Death.
Death heard the pain in Georges’ voice. “She was by a still, glassy pond, waiting. She wasn’t alone, if that’s what you want to know. Her angel was with her, holding her on his lap and reading her favorite story.”
“He doesn’t come as the Grim Reaper to children, Georges,” Raphael said. “Death is easier than birth for innocents.”
“Is there any way to find out if Stephan and Victoria killed Elise?” Georges’ hands were knotted together in anger behind him as he quietly paced the floor.
With deadly aim, Death threw his apple core into the trashcan. “Well, Columbo here and I can hunt down their spirits—since we’re not going to ask the one in the know—if you’re prepared for the worst. We’ll go where I saw their bodies last. Who knows where their spirits are now.”
Georges looked at Death and blinked several times. Did the face turn into half a skull and back again? He wasn’t sure. Death seemed terrible and angelic at the same time. Death pulled his hood forward and snapped his fingers.
It was dusk and the night fog was rolling over the Isle of Jatte. The three invisibles walked slowly along the riverbank towards the pier. As they came closer, they could hear people talking in low, throaty tones, and though they were straining to be heard.
“I’m so cold. It’s so cold,” a man said.
“You! I’m freezing. I hate water. Hate it!” It was a woman’s voice this time.
The invisibles followed the sounds to the pier and there, lashed to the pylons facing each other, were the naked bodies of the shivering couple only exposed because the tide was out.
“Brackish water to drink. Garbage to eat. How long must we put up with this?” The woman’s hair hung loosely over her shoulders and stopped just above her knees. Her eyes were rimmed with the blackness of decay and her skin seemed like scales over her bloated tissues. “It was you—all you!,” she hissed as the river rose above her ankles. “Here it comes again.”
The man spat at her and strained against his bonds. “Curse the day I met you and curse those beasts you bore me, damned stupid cow.” He too was in the first stages of decomposition, his belly a mound of putrid fluids waiting to explode. Soon the water was swilling around their waists. They were going to drown. Again.
Georges recoiled at the sight of them, but Death held his arm fast and pushed him nearer. “Do you recognize them?”
Georges turned his face away, and said to Raphael, “It’s the Griffins.”
Raphael reached down and fished a blood-stained white dress from the icy gray water, then let it fall back into the river. It floated to Victoria and wrapped around her breast. “Ahhh,” she screamed, “Get it away! Get it away!” She wiggled and twisted as the cloth rose with the water and tightened around her neck. Stephan watched as she choked, gasping for air. Then it was his turn. A toddler’s leash ensnared in by a small blue shirt floated towards him, and eventually found his bulging throat. He shook his head vehemently, attempting to uncoil the leather strap from his head, but it only held him tighter.
“Enough!” Georges yelled.
Death swung his cloak over the two invisibles, and when Georges opened his eyes, he was once again in familiar surroundings. He was sweating and panting, and ran to the sink for a glass of clear water. “What horror. How long will they be as we saw them?”
“Until they repent, Death?” Raphael said hopefully.
“Can’t we do something for them? Get them out of that awful place?” Georges continued.
Death stood as silent as a twelve foot granite column that emanated a frosty breath. “Would you take their place, compassionate ones?”
“Dear God, no,” Georges stammered. “It’s just…”
“Yes,” Death interrupted, “It is just.”
Raphael and Georges were alone now, in a sunlit kitchen far from France’s infamous isle. Georges sank down into a chair. “God’s punishment is hideous.”
“You think God put the monsters there? No, Georges, this is Kha'zar’s work. The Griffins themselves gave him permission to do such evil to them when they killed their children.”
“How could they do it, Raphael? How could they kill their own?”
“They came between Stephan and the woman he loved….once. She must have tried to protect Elise from him by sending her to the country. But, when he returned from England he was desperate for money. Elise was their only way to buy him out of a prison sentence, I imagine.”
Georges thought for a few minutes, testi
ng his recall of those long-ago days. “I heard he replaced the money in the customer’s accounts and had plenty left over to invest. He and Victoria lived well, especially when Victoria’s mother died. He killed her too, didn’t he?”
“Death said she was poisoned. Probably the same poison he gave to the children,” Raphael said. “It would explain why Elise was on the lap of the angel—and dry. She was dead before her body was in the water.”
Georges caressed the image of Elise with his fingertips. “The Fruif’s were brokenhearted. They blamed themselves, you know. They paid for the funeral, comforted the parents, and even bought the headstone, a kneeling weeping angel holding two lilies. One for each child.” Georges picked up the paring knife that lay beside the apple bowl, dropped to his knees, and raised the knife to stab the figures of Victoria and Stephan on the canvass. “How can I be at peace knowing that I painted the day the heinous crime was set in motion?”
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