Raphael Redcloak

by McBrearty, Jenean

  “He's had that insight for quite some time, I think, without knowing it. It was a gift overshadowed by youth and artistic technique.” Lamentably, Angelico eschewed still life, and there were no ripe apples or pears to steal from the table. He eyed a perfect peach outside, however, and moved nearer the window.

  Angelico said thoughtfully, “One has only to look upon the Madonna of the Chair to see how he understood a young mother’s anxious affection for a squirming boy," Angelico said thoughtfully and plucked the fruit from the limb and handed it to Death. "Was Jesus as curious as all boys are?”

  The peach disappeared into the hooded void. “I was sent to Jesus' side many times when he was a child. Always invisible. Always with an angel. Once to warn Joseph to rise and take Mary and the Christ-boy to Egypt. Once in the Garden of Gethsemane I grieved with Christ as he despaired in my presence.”

  “It was you who brought the cup of suffering to our deliverer?”

  “Because the Angels refused,” Death said.

  “He begged His Father to take it from your hand.”

  “The holier the soul, the greater the sacrifice demanded of it.” He removed the pit and dropped it on a silver plate, then hurled it out the window.

  “Is such a sacrifice demanded of our friend, Raphael?”

  “You think I search for him to offer him a cup of suffering, Father?” Death said. “No. If Fate has his way, Raphael will pay dearly for his ambition for it is not God who contrives to net him in misery. If you see Raphael, tell him I wait for him at the Swallows.”

  Death was gone as quietly as he came, leaving Angelico in his studio in troubled contemplation of Raphael's fleshy experience, feeling an ancient longing. The one thing denied to Raphael in life was the sam'e as that Angelico had denied himself: the true, faithful loving of a woman. Now that Raphael knew Maddie loved him as Bianca did, he longed to quench an old thirst.

  ****

  Raphael waited for Death before the great hearth, but though the fire burned gaily, it did not melt the iciness of his fear. He had to get Death’s approval for his plan, and there was no guarantee he would be agreeable.

  “I see in your eyes the desire to incorporate has completely overruled your devotion to your job as Guardian, Raphael.” Death said when Rapahel had finished his explanation.

  “Charles was right, I am not suited for the job.”

  Death scoffed, “Charles, is the source of all your trouble, and his mischief has spilt into the lives of the living. The bastard. Look at you, shivering before the blast furnace. Is it the woman's or your own flesh that tempts you?”

  “Maddie is not a bad woman. I am a bad Guardian.”

  “Humph. The pride of the penitent. Don't bother me with your false remorse. I looked for you at Angelico’s and would have stolen a peach had not nature provided me with a free one. Do you think I waste time with silly mea culpas over fruit when I have real sins to regret?”

  “I was at the Writer’s Hostel with Verne.” Raphael said, recoiling at the word sins. He could barely lift his cloak from Charles' carpet because they weighed so heavily on his shoulders.

  “Ah, then you’ve studied running away. Verne does that to people. They’ve been escaping with him for many years.”

  “He sent me to the chemist.”

  “Merlin or Lister? No matter. I have it from the horse’s mouth you’ve put Credo out to pasture.”

  “Briefly.” Raphael withdrew his hand from his cloak. In it he held Credo’s bridle, the reins wrapped around his forearm. “You must know someone who may have need of it. Give it to Stoker.”

  Credo will have none of Stoker, and Stoker knows that. He is long on horse sense," Death said.

  Raphael unwrapped the straps and let the bridle fall. “I must reincarnate.”

  Death laughed. “Such drama! Such pathos!” Then, while towering over the resigned painter, he said, “Don’t be a fool. You can reincorporate at will—do so.”

  But Raphael stood his ground. “No, Sir. You don't understand. I want to be reborn.”

  Death braced himself on the mantle. “Why?" he said. "Only a fool would put the veil of ignorance over his eyes and roll the dice again. You'll forget all you know of your life. You will be lost to yourself and what if you don't make it back to the Spirit World?”

  “I trust my Savior will not damn me for wanting to sacrifice myself for another.”

  Death pulled back his hood, and Raphael cringed but looked directly into the horror of death, the decomposing flesh of real, physical death. “Do not think you can tempt God, Raphael. That road leads to hell. You do not fear me now, but put on the flesh and the fear of mortality returns. You will agonize again.”

  Raphael turned away and then back again with tears in his eyes. “It is the only way I can stop myself from being tempted to hurt the Rector family—a holy family as all families are holy. By the time I am grown again, Maddie will be a grandmother. She will live her life safe from my predations.”

  Death drew his hood forward. “I see, and the chemist’s role in this cabal?”

  “A few drops of this in each ear, and they both will be free of memories that threaten his sanity and her fidelity. Send Stoker to aid Alby in his search to paint the Truth, and thereby honor my pledge not to abandon him.” He put two small green vials on the mantel.

  “Does Charles know of your plan?” Death put the vials in his pocket.

  “He believes I will incorporate to fulfill my lustful desires.”

  “Rejoicing in your self-destruction, I suppose.”

  “I suppose,” Raphael said sadly.

  It was clear to Death that Raphael had devised yet another plan to overcome destiny’s decrees, a plan that relied wholly on his unshakable faith in God and not in omens or his own ambition. Greater love than this, no man hath that he give up his life for a friend, unless it be to give up his death. Raphael was safe in the Spirit World. He had only to stay and enjoy the blessings bestowed on all who made it this far. No demon or fiend could menace him except those within himself. Yet, he was willing to die to this safety rather than jeopardize the souls of those he loved. Charles could not be allowed to thwart a greater love. “I will miss you Guardian,” he said, lifting the bridle from the floor.

  “Three score and ten and I will be back.”

  “You talent will go with you, but you’ll have to discover it again. You know that, and fame may elude you in this next life.”

  “I’m prepared to meet the unknowns of life though I fear it as much as the living fear the unknown of death.”

  Death raised his arms in prayer, and then pronounced the words of reincarnation: Return to the flesh.

  Raphael felt himself falling into darkness, and was no more.

  A Little Calm

  Midst all the grandiose commotion, no one thought about the lower realm where Satan sat growling and snarling at being ignored. “It isn’t it enough that this Italian painter captures my oldest and dearest demon and holds him in the Swallows. No, the Spirits adorn him with laurel leaves, call him Guardian, and now he has delivered Beethoven's mawkish sop to winged beings to earth! I’m treated like a tin eared nobody.”

  “You hate music, Great One,” Medusa hissed. “Better to avenge than to sulk in anger when I've found one willing and able to assist you.”

  “You trouble me, woman, of whom do you speak?”

  A thin, olive-complexioned man with a sliver of a moustache and a pointed beard drew nearer Satan’s throne. His lack of stature, bearing and personality made him invisible to most. Medusa had slithered over him as he slept in a foul room reserved for foul-weather friends, and would not have paid him any mind except that he called out to her in the same low-hissing voice they shared.

  “Who is this shark-eyed man?” Satan demanded.

  The man bowed low and as he walked to the front of the throne, and knelt on the wide steps. “A friend, Sir. A friend to all in need of friends.”

  “I hear betrayal in your voice, thou fool,�
�� Satan said with a wave of his hand, dismissing the slight figure.

  “Yes, but others are not as perceptive as you, Great One. That is the beauty of my handiwork. Because I am a nobody, those who are somebody trust me. They feel superior to me, and judge me so weak as to be harmless. They do not know that words are often sharper than daggers, and the cuts go unnoticed till too late to stop the bleeding. A few well chosen words of flattery or hints of possibilities that stoke the imagination, and mistrust and deceits are born.”

  “What is your name subtle demon?”

  “Iago, Sir. Created by the Bard, and so true he was to betrayal’s character, I am as you see me. I sit among the Villains, waiting to accompany your demons into the dreamscapes of those who would do harm to their so-called friends. To tutor them in the art of planting the seed of doubt.”

  Satan rubbed his phallus with the pleasure of one who contemplates a future triumph. “Medusa, tell me of your plan for this walking snake.”

  “Let him go to one who is lonelier than any other in the Spirit World, the one who simmers in hatred for the Guardian as much as you, Sir.”

  Satan clawed hands griped the skull adorned chair arms tightly and groaned. “Fate.”

  “Yes, Great One, the very man who, like you, has lost his power over the lives of millions who now decide their own future, who attempt to do good even as they avoid your temptations to do evil." Medusa stroked his fetlock. "Let the silver-tongued Iago gain his confidence and learn the way to rescue Kha’zar from Death’s Swallows. Think of the bitter price Fate would pay for his folly, and the glory that would come to you by outwitting those pompous Spirits. Sweet revenge!”

  Iago looked up into the face of evil and smiled humbly. “The time is right, Master. All spirits and earth is agog with Beethoven’s symphony, and are thus distracted. Even the heavenly hosts speak of nothing else in anticipation. There is talk of Beethoven’s ascension. If you could prevent his release from purgatory, would it not be a feather in your cap as well?” He extended a tentative hand and touched the red hot hoof that was now inches away from his face, and caressed it as he drew his cold lips to kiss it. His submission was real even if his motive was as phony as his affection, for no one save the Dictators really loved King Satan.

  “Save your obsequious disloyalty for the peacock,” Satan said. “Go and work your magic arts on Fate.”

  ****

  No longer troubled by lurid scenes of savagery against women and children, Alby slept the night through for the first time in five years. It surprised Maddie, waking up and finding him next to her instead of before a dimly lit canvass. She wasn’t used to seeing him in such peaceful repose, the sharp edges of his face were now relaxed into the soft contours of an infant, angelic and helpless. She kissed him lightly on the cheek but he didn’t stir. They had said an intimate good-bye the evening before. Her two weeks had gone by swiftly and it was time for her and Lupe to take the children home.

  The Baron had arranged for his car to take them to the airport. As they made their way through the maze of airport security, the memories of all he had done for them flooded over her. Von Manstein was a true gentleman of the old school. Nothing inconvenienced him when it came to his guests, not even the suggestion by one of them that some of his art treasures may not be worth what he paid for them.

  “But how do you know these are fakes?” he'd said gently as he perused the list Alby handed him.

  “My wife says one of your Italian workman reported he suspects these are copies.”

  “I have no Italian workmen here. Just Germans and a few Turks.” He turned to Maddie with questioning eyes. “Would you recognize him again, if you saw him? The hallways are dark for the time being.”

  “He told me he was Italian, that his work in Rome made him sure they were not authentic. But he said they're good copies.”

  Manstein called an expert from Berlin who delivered the bad news to him with trepidation. “Call Interpol,” Manfred Erlichman suggested, and Manstein had his art agent arrested for fraud.

  “I owe you many thanks, Mrs. Rector, you and your mysterious Italian. Whoever he is, he has the eye of a genius, although the raven’s missing beak is so obvious, it’s a humiliation no one saw it but him.”

  “Perhaps this will compensate you for your bad investments, Herr Manstein.” Erlichman handed Manstein a stack of composition paper. “I found these in the back of the Beethoven portrait. The painting may be a copy, but from what I can tell, this score is authentic.”

  Manstein’s hand began to shake with excitement as he looked over the sheet music. He sat down, with the score in front of him, and slowly turned the pages over one by one, reading the notes. “My God, Sir, do you realize this is true Beethoven? Look, here is his familiar scrawl in the margins.”

  “I’ll have to have the paper carbon dated, Herr Manstein, but I have little doubt what we are looking at is Beethoven’s last complete symphony,” Erlichman assured him.

  “And to think,” Manstein said, “I wasn’t even going to hang that old painting. A Turk found it in the basement, and, bless me, I was going to burn it. An original but worthless, I thought, because the canvass was warped, and the frame. Ugly. Too ugly.”

  Maddie remembered thinking how close he’d come to destroying a Masterpiece, and thought about how risky life was for people as well as pictures. What ifs filled her head. What if she and Alby had never gone to Germany? What if she hadn’t been walking down that hallway? And what if she’d never met the Italian stranger whom everybody denied knowing?

  As soon as she returned to California and settled the twins back into their routines, she called Father Kellan. “You won’t believe what I have to tell you,” she said. And for the better part of three hours, he listened intently as she told him about the handsome art expert in Manstein’s hallway and the series of coincidences that ensued, including the discovery of the Maestro's symphony.

  “You’re sure it was the man in the mirror, aren’t you?” Kellan said.

  “Absolutely. It was him, Father. But now I know why he made contact with me. It was to make sure the symphony was found. I’m sure of that too.”

  “What is it like? The symphony, I mean.”

  “Well, I haven’t heard it played by a full orchestra, just von Manstein playing the piano. He’s quite an accomplished musician.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “The piece was indescribable, and he was so moved, he had to stop playing because his tears made reading the notes impossible. I was moved too, Father, and Alby too. He’s like a new man—or rather like the old Alby I fell in love with. No more brooding. And no more dream paintings.”

  “And no more genius?”

  “His pictures of the Manstein estate are incredibly detailed…”

  “Then why not just take a photograph?”

  “Von Manstein’s pleased with them. He’s going to show them when the house is opened to the public. It means more good publicity for Alby’s work. He’s been successful, of course, but now he's arrived you might say.”

  “That’s important to him.”

  “Of course it is. The starving artist thing got awfully old soon after we were married. The Medici’s have given way to the Murdochs and Gates, but artists still need patrons. Canvass and paint aren't cheap. As someone once told me.”

  “If Alby’s going to have patrons, a Baron now and then can’t hurt.”

  “If melancholy has given way to mediocrity, I don’t care. I’d rather have him sane and concerned about me and the kids. No art is worth the self-absorption and despair I saw in Ably, Father. I was getting scared.”

  “And if the Italian shows up on your doorstep while he’s still in Germany? What then?”

  “Then nothing. I can barely remember what he looks like.” Maddie transferred her gaze to the mirror near the door. “It’s so strange. I suppose I should be frightened that I saw my apparition in the flesh, but I’m not. He turned out to be a nice man and obviously a friend of our M
r. Beethoven.”

  “Then you’re not in love with him anymore?”

  “What a question, Father! I was never in love with him.”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes it seemed you were the one slipping into the melancholy of contemplation. One can get lost in eternity.”

  “Eternity is both past and future, and both are unimaginable. When I think of them, I shudder. Yet, they’re real. I know the man I saw lived. He was here and breathed and laughed and ate and cried. How is it possible for those experiences to come into being and then not be ever again?”

  Kellan had no answer for her. Like all religious people, he simply remained silent, silence being the ultimate testimony of universal ignorance of those matters. People live and die, and where they came from and what happens after, no one knows. Not even God’s priests.