Angel Fire

by Andrew M. Greeley

  All the buzzwords in one paragraph. ‘Ray, Blackie!

  “Wonderful of you to call.”

  “You seemed to have learned an astonishing amount about angels.”

  “My guardian angel is a good teacher.”

  “Sister Intemerata, God be good to her, will doubtless be pleased.”

  “Not often,” Gaby said, trying to control her laughter, “when you are one up on him.”

  “First time since second grade.”

  The next day after tea, as the King, with some show of reluctance, was leading them to the door of the royal apartment, he said, “It would seem, Doctor Desmond, that the world has divided in half on your speech.”

  “Without, most of them, having read it.”

  “How true! Well, my wife and I are on your side. We must never be too solemn at these gatherings. We are very glad you came and said what you did. Men and women will read your work for many years. Maybe centuries.”

  “But what we will remember,” the Queen added, “is that you are not only a good scientist but a good man. That is more important.”

  “I’m flustered for the first time in the last twenty-four hours,” Sean admitted, kissing her hand again, “but thank you very much.”

  “Flustered indeed,” Gaby sniffed when the two of them

  emerged from the palace into the cold sunlight. “That poor child is one more conquest. I don’t know what we’re going to do about you.”

  She was obviously pleased that there was a need to do something.

  The wolfhound loves and worships his owner, but he doesn’t desire her. He desires wolfhound bitches.

  So I have to find my own wolfhound bitch. I’m a good man, it turns out, and women think me “adorable.” Shouldn’t be hard to find my own female wolfhound with those credentials.

  But what was this good man bit? The pretty Queen said it unselfconsciously. Her husband loves her too much to disagree with her, but he didn’t seem surprised. And Gaby? Well, she didn’t make one of her smart ass comments, so she must agree.

  “I don’t think of myself as a good man,” he pleaded, as they approached the launch that would take them back across Lake Malar to Stockholm from the Palace on Drottningholm Island. “What the hell’s happening to me?”

  “Angelic influences, I suppose.”

  “Is it all over, Gaby?”

  “Not quite, Seano, our big battles are still ahead of us.”

  “When? Where?”

  “Soon.”

  “I want to go home.”

  “You know,” she said, sighing, “I do too.”

  If Sean Desmond were not sleepy and hung over, he would have seen the big trawler bearing down on them as soon as it had rounded the corner of the island.

  He didn’t know what Gaby’s excuse was. And there wasn’t time to ask her.

  Gaby did not approve of the cruise in the SkargSrden archipelago. Despite the mild weather and the sunny skies, it was December. Moreover, she insisted, Sean did not realize how short were the daylight hours this far north.

  Neither did the officials of the Royal Academy or the staff of the American embassy. But Sean was adamant. He insisted that he had a powerboat on the lake at home, that he was a skilled navigator, and that he must see some of the locales of the Bergman films. He also promised to stay close to Stockholm.

  The Garden of the Skerries consists of thousands of islands, large and small, some barren, some wooded, some of the larger ones cultivated. The guidebook said that until recently the small farming and fishing population had been largely unnoticed. Now the islands were a summer playground.

  They’d have to play pretty quickly, summer was so short here.

  The academy found a boat, the embassy equipped him with a map, and a reluctant Gaby tagged along.

  He had learned early in their relationship that she would not veto any plan on which he insisted.

  She had expressed some reservations about the visit to Helm-stadt’s institute outside of Leipzig. “The man was a Nazi,” she insisted.

  “My father supported Joe McCarthy.”

  “You’re not that dumb.”

  “He’s one of the few scholars to take my acceptance speech seriously.”

  “He’s quite mad.”

  But she made the travel arrangements for Leipzig.

  She continued to pay all bills in cash, and with fresh new bills of the local currency, which she crackled in her fingers as soon as they had gone through immigration, without a visit to the currency exchange, of course.

  “We’re quite good at currency speculation, you know.”

  She also continued the game of telling him she would meet him in the lobby as he left their suite for the elevator and then greeting him with a mischievous smile as the elevator door opened in the lobby.

  “Poltergeist,” he said impatiently when she pulled her little trick the morning of their trip in the archipelago.

  “I am not the result of the neurosis of a pubescent female,” she responded with a sniff.

  “You should act your age, whatever that is.”

  “And you should realize that evolution is in the direction of laughter and playfulness.” She linked arms with him. “In your world animal infants play, but for the most part only human adults. And of course only humans laugh. I might add that you don’t play or laugh nearly enough.”

  “And I suppose you do play and laugh all the time,” he said glumly, growing weary of her brief, schoolmarmish lectures.

  “Not quite, no more than the characters in the Irish sagas, which a professional Irishman like you ought to read someday. But we have little choice in the matter. It is much more in our nature to laugh and to play than it is in yours.”

  Damn arrogance of a superior species.

  On the whole, Sean was delighted at the press reaction to his acceptance speech. The Chicago Sun Times headline had rung round the world:

  Did “ET” Sing

  at Bethlehem?

  His press conference in which he had rejected religious motives for his talk had been a huge success.

  The bearded Latino Jesuit denounced him as a traitor in the class war and a social parasite.

  “Does God exist?” asked a supercilious English reporter.

  “I’m not sure whether She does or not,” he replied. “That is a question beyond biology.”

  The denunciations were violent. A group of biologists had formed a caucus to oust him from professional societies.

  The New York Times at its grave, gray best had defended him editorially. “The attacks on Professor Desmond reveal that the antiscientific dogmatism of many scientists is as serious a problem as his brilliant satirical acceptance speech suggested that it is.”

  Point made.

  He certainly was the center of attention at the ball in the Town Hall, the night after the presentations. Until Gaby, dressed in an off-the-shoulder Roman-style dress, which he suspected was totally authentic, insisted that they dance. She again rejected his insistence that he did not dance.

  “You have forgotten already about last night?”

  “That was different,” he replied stubbornly.

  “Remember the musical plays at St. Ignatius.” She took both his hands in hers.

  “You know too damn much,” he grumbled as he permitted her to lead him on to the dance floor. ‘Tour dress is stunning by the way, but it is not in any of the magazines, is it?”

  “Different magazine.”

  Dancing with her was like being swept away on a gently flowing river, as it wound its way through Swiss mountain valleys. After the first few moments, Sean was convinced that his feet were no longer touching ground and that soon they would be dancing again over Lake Michigan.

  Which reminded him of a question he had yet to ask. “You didn’t say anything about my reference to the angels at the empty tomb.”

  “And I’m not going to either. Be quiet and concentrate on your feet. These lessons would cost you a lot of money anywhere else.”
/>
  “Wonderful dancers,” said the economic laureate, smiling for the first time in the week.

  “Dr. Light dances like an angel,” Sean replied.

  His toes were promptly stepped on, gently and affectionately. Each day, he thought, he was becoming more the lovable little lapdog.

  After the ball, however, Gaby became solemn and nervous, apparently sensing more trouble. She would not give him any hints. She insisted, however, that she would sleep on the couch in the parlor of their suite, a couch which had somehow moved itself to the door of his bedroom.

  “You’ve had a bit too much of the Creature, Jackie Jim. Get some rest for our little voyage tomorrow.” She arranged blankets and pillows on the couch. “And don’t worry. Leave that to your guardian angel.”

  “I won’t worry,” he promised. “I wish I were back in Chicago.”

  “We don’t have to do that boat ride tomorrow.” She pulled the Roman gown over her head and laid it carefully on a chair.

  “Yes, we do. I’ve always wanted to.”

  “Don’t forget to say your prayers.” She slipped under the blankets. “Now that you believe in God again.”

  He sighed his County Kerry sigh, a sound that had absolutely no effect on her. Obviously such sighs did not represent the direction of evolution.

  Later in the night, he peered through the tiny opening between the door and the door frame of his bedroom. Unlike the other nights, she was curled up in the blanket, visibly present. Well, in her analog.

  She looked innocent and youthful, almost childlike. He felt a strong affection for this dutiful guardian angel. He wanted to go home, but he would miss her.

  The next morning, in clear December sunlight a few miles outside Stockholm harbor, looking like a silver-haired Liv Ullmann in a multicolored wool jacket (produced from nowhere, of course), she seemed relaxed and at ease.

  They, whoever they were, could not threaten him out here.

  “You want to go home too?” he asked as he guided the boat carefully between two islands.

  It was a twenty-eight-foot cruiser, notably bigger than the sixteen-foot outboard on which his kids water-skied during the summer. He had not told the whole truth about his boating skills.

  A boat was a boat, wasn’t it?

  Would the pretty Queen think he was still a good man if she knew he had, uh, exaggerated about his boating skills?

  There wasn’t any danger. His guardian angel didn’t seem particularly worried. She could probably drive a battleship if she had to.

  “Oh yes, indeed.” She leaned back against the plush leather seat in the cabin. “Does it seem strange to you that I should want to go home?”

  “I didn’t know that angels had a home.”

  “We’re bodily creatures, we occupy space, though a bit differently than you do. So naturally there is a space that is our special place.”

  “A long way from here?”

  “Uh-huh. Well, not too far away. It takes longer than flying across the Atlantic, but our time frame is different.”

  “A little less than the speed of light?”

  “How else?” She unzipped her jacket.

  “Is it a planet or something like that?”

  “Something like that. It’s a place. If you were there, you’d be able to see it. Quite beautiful.”

  “Similar to Earth?”

  “Not greatly dissimilar. You would not be completely disoriented. Lots of green hills.” Her eyes were far, far away. “Lakes— these islands remind me of them—and flower-filled fields.”

  “Sounds idyllic.”

  “It is.”

  “What do you do all the time? Sort of sit around and loaf and sleep?”

  “One of our evolutionary advantages”—she tilted her nose—“is that we require much less sleep than you do. Sleep is only pleasurable for your species because your body needs it so much. Actually it is an inefficient use of time.”

  “And it takes weeks for you to screw, doesn’t it?”

  “Whatever made you think—? I told you that, didn’t I? But you knew I was joking?”

  “Did I?”

  “You did ... it’s hard to make time comparisons across species— Don’t run into that little reef, Seano.”

  “What little reef?”

  She turned the wheel slightly to the left. “The one we just missed.... Naturally, we spend much time in the various aspects of love, especially when we have been separated from our complements for a time.”

  Her voice drifted off into melancholy. How long has he been dead? Better not ask.

  “Angels get horny?”

  “That’s a very bad analogy.” She frowned her disapproval.

  “Sorry.”

  “We sing a lot,” she went on softly, “and dance. We’re pretty good dancers, aren’t we? You seemed to enjoy dancing with me the last several nights.”

  “It was better than a visit to the dentist’s office.”

  “Drink your hot chocolate!”

  “Actually it was like floating on a cotton candy cloud.” He filled her hot chocolate cup.

  “I’m thought to be a very skillful dancer.”

  “And singer and everything else you folks do.”

  She waved her hand as if rejecting his praise. But she didn’t deny it. “And I’m also thought to be quite vain, I fear.”

  “Impossible.”

  “We talk a lot. Well, that’s not a precise word. Language for us does not require voice boxes. I should have said we communicate

  a lot. And argue___Oh, Seano, we’re such terrible arguers. We

  don’t fight in our arguments. We just argue, on and on and on. The silly folk tale that the author of Revelation uses to illustrate the problem of good and evil ... ?”

  “ ‘Michael and his angels did war with—‘”

  “It is such an absurd misunderstanding.” She pounded her thigh impatiently. “Michael and my complement were the closest of friends since they were tiny ones. So they loved to argue. Once they had an argument so big that all of us who were present were on one side or the other.” She laughed like a happy young girl. “I was on the other side, which delighted my complement greatly. It is most rewarding to argue with those you love. That’s where the story started.”

  “Who won?”

  “No one wins our arguments. If someone won, then the argument would have to stop and the fun would be gone.”

  “Michael is kind of, well, the boss?”

  “In some sense, I suppose. But not even as much as that adorable young King is the boss of this country. We need rather less coordination than you. Still we need some.”

  “You guys play a lot?”

  “As I’ve said, it is in our nature.” She rolled over on her belly, as relaxed as Sean had ever seen her. “One of the more difficult aspects of working on this planet is that your species is disinclined to play, even as much as its limitations permit. It is a specially burdensome trait”—she jabbed her finger at him—“in creatures like you who have strong play propensities.”

  He didn’t think he wanted to touch that one. Better to continue with the interview about her while she was in a talkative mood.

  “I’m sorry, guardian angel, ma’am. I’ll try to do better.”

  “You will indeed.” She stared at him thoughtfully. “Perhaps more than you could imagine.”

  “Well, I think you definitely sound Irish to me, like I said the other day.”

  “So?” She raised both eyebrows.

  “You live in a place with green hills and lots of lakes. You lie around and loaf and do nothing except screw and sing and dance and argue and tell stories, and you probably drink a lot too.”

  “I didn’t say we told stories.”

  “But you do, I know you too well to doubt it.”

  “Okay, we tell stories.”

  “And you drink a lot?”

  “Only in moderation.”

  “So all right, angels are Irish.”

  “No.”
/>   “Why not?”

  She hesitated, looking for a response. “Because you don’t like sex enough.”

  “We did till the Church took over.”

  “And even after the Church took over, till the famine. All right, all right, I’ll tell my associates. If they ever want to settle permanently on Earth, Ireland might be a congenial place.”

  They paused, briefly worn out by their argument. The woman could go on all night this way.

  “It must be hard, then, to leave your home planet.”

  “Region might be a better word.... Yes, it is. However, we are a strange species. We are impelled to go forth and return. We do our work, messengers, secret agents, overseers—however you want to describe it—because it is in our nature to do so. We are not just altruists, Jackie Jim. We are explorers of beauty and goodness, companions on pilgrimage, as I have often told you.”

  “You’re driven to leave home and find patterns to protect?”

  “And to enjoy, don’t forget that. We enjoy observing and sustaining patterns of beauty and goodness. We could not live, and I mean that literally, unless we did so. We are beauty-hungry creatures.”

  “My problems must not be all that satisfying,” he said uneasily, “to beauty-hungry creatures.”

  “You said that, I didn’t.” She tossed her short silver hair impatiently. “I can see much more of your story than you can.... Anyway, we love to venture forth and we love to go home.”

  “When you go home—R and R, as our military calls it— someone else takes over your projects?”

  “Oh no.” She twisted into a more comfortable position. “Why would we do that?”

  “So you go home only when your projects are finished?”

  “Some projects go on for centuries of your time.”

  “How do you manage it, then?”

  “It’s hard to explain ... the concepts are so different. Let me

  think___Well, I’ll be concrete. When you and I have solved your

  little problem, our little problem ... and you’re relieved of wondering every day what fashions my vanity will dictate as clothing

  for my analog... I will return to our region. But I will not be gone from you.”

  “Not ever?”

  “Not ever,” she said firmly. “You won’t be able to see this clumsy analog—“

  “Nothing clumsy about it, woman.”