Page 24 of Angel Down

XXXII

and the words have preternatural force, they are the same words Bagger knows from old sermons, words that angels, over and over, say to those who cower in fear, Bagger recalls his father describing to his appalled congregation how actual biblical texts describe angels, not as gloriously winged cherubs but as gyrating wheels studded in eyeballs, living chariots with multiple faces and hooves, for angels, he intoned, can appear however they wish,

and Bagger obeys, and is not afraid,

and being unafraid, all clues snap together, and Bagger whispers, “He saw you as Naomi. Veck thought you were his little girl,”

and the angel smiles and says, Sometimes, and Bagger concedes that she’s right, Veck was more certain the woman was an angel than any of them, and yet sometimes, sometimes, mistook her for his daughter, a dual vision that shouldn’t be possible, though Bagger should know by now anything is possible out here where only duality can save your sanity, you love and hate, you wail and laugh, you kill and rescue, you live and die,

and he says, “And Popkin thought you were Effie,” and the angel says, Sometimes,

and he says, “And Goodspeed,” and he has to think harder about Goodspeed, it was a hundred years ago, not yesterday, that the sniveling grave robber was lopped in half over a trench, but Goodspeed had said something odd only moments prior, “Theda,” Bagger recalls, “he called you Theda,” and the angel says, Sometimes,

and Bagger knows Vincent the Vulture didn’t want a daughter back or a girlfriend to paw, he wanted money, he wanted to barnstorm the angel before a paying public, and no one could rake in more cash than a star, and right now the biggest star in the world is an actress Bagger has whistled at on movie posters, a woman named Theda Bara,

and this leaves only Arno, and there’s no mystery to Arno, never was, from the moment the angel reached the trench, Arno was snuggling into her like the mother he always wanted, he never had to say the actual word, and neither does Bagger, the angel nods and says, Sometimes,

and even the rat-eating old man in the village died running for the angel, crying the name of a lost loved one he saw in the angel’s face, death, death, death, the angel has facilitated nothing but, and the rancid unfairness of it boils at the back of Bagger’s throat, and he says, “You’ve played me. You’ve played us. We’re all suckers for believing you,”

and she says, You see what you need to see,

and Bagger demands, “Who are you really?” and the angel asks, Who do you think I am?, a long enough string of words for Bagger to notice her lip movements don’t sync with her voice, which tells him the angel’s speech is like her physical appearance, to be interpreted differently by different people, one more facade intended to put Bagger at ease, and he can’t help but let go of his anger, for when has anyone out here done anything to put anyone at ease,

and the angel’s question lingers, then grates like sand, he still can’t place her face, her red dress, her blue cape, it’s driving him mad, he punches the frozen ground,

and the angel smiles and says, You do not need to remember, and Bagger fusses and mewls, “But I want to. I want to remember anything that’s not all this shit,” a plea the angel ignores, saying, You are the only one to ask nothing of me, and Bagger squinches in confusion, the statement has the whiff of a compliment, even though all he’s ever done is save his own ass,

and so he shakes his head, sullen, and replies, “I could wish all sorts of things from you,” and the angel asks, Oh? What would you ask for? in a tone so blithe, so unperturbed by the empyrean devastation that Bagger’s stare sharpens into an entrenching tool and digs past the angel’s poise, he’s got to think of the angel as a mark and find a way into her head,

and he says, “Veck had a wish. Look what happened to him. And Popkin and Goodspeed. Arno too. And they’re dead. They all made wishes and they’re dead. You think I’m stupid? I make a wish and you’ll murder me too,”

and the angel’s smile changes ever so slightly, the look of a sister whose much younger sibling has, for the first time, called her out on her bullshit, a mix of surprise and pride, and she replies, I am not the hand that kills. I am the sword in the hand, and Bagger understands because his father said this a hundred times, angels are neither bad nor good, what they are, all they are, is obedient to their master,

and, shit, that’s a good way to describe a soldier, too, Private Cyril Bagger is a sword in Major General Reis’s hand, if a dull and cracked one, and now the angel’s floating repose over Bagger makes more sense, they are two soldiers from different armies close enough for hand-to-hand combat, but only, it seems, if Bagger takes the first swing,

and, you know what, fuck it, maybe Veck and Popkin and Arno and Goodspeed all wished for the wrong shit, shit that made the angel’s boss tell her to strike them down, and it could be the exhaustion, could be the grief or rage, but Bagger has the unstoppable urge to call this heavenly bluff, this invitation to make a final request from inside a guillotine’s lunette, what does it matter anyway, he’s handcuffed in a poison landscape trying to catch up to a division that might be wiped out,

and so Bagger thinks of all the things he could wish for, a white-clothed restaurant table plunked down here in the forest, a tuxedoed waiter making dishes appear like magic tricks, a course of Russian caviar and canapé of anchovy followed by roast duckling with a side of lobster salad, wait, no, let’s get serious, Mary-Louise would taste even better, how about the angel whip up a hand-carved, four-poster, Regency-era bed upon which his favorite Vosges prostituée waits in the repose of a pink-ribboned satin corset,

and the smarter play, though, is to wish his way out of the war, fuck his fantasy farmhouse, materialize back in the blistering Augusts and subzero Februarys of good old Iowa with all the ascotted gamblers and sunburnt rubes he can handle, and maybe the angel, because he’s been so good, will throw in a double-breasted black tailcoat, white bow tie, and gloves, so he can be the classiest snake slithering up the Mississippi,

and Bagger wonders how much mustard gas lingers in the breeze, how else to explain the speed at which these succulent desires dry to salt on his tongue, leaving a single wish in the shadows, a little thing, really, a thing that will be of no practical help to Bagger,

and yet he coughs it out, cheeks hot with embarrassment, how has the Hawkeye Hustler, the Sioux City Sharpie, the Council Bluffs Crossroader, the Dean of Dubuque come to this lowly state of mawkish big brotherhood, but come to it he has,

and he says, “I wish for the kid. Lewis Arno. I want him back,”

and if one were to calibrate every smile the angel has given, it would be done in tenths of inches, so subtle are her tranquil adjustments, and this smile ticks a single tenth longer as she says, You are full of surprises, aren’t you?, and Bagger blushes hotter and turns away, cold cheek to cottony snow and tacky frost,

and the angel says, This is a significant wish to grant. I will do it, but only if you agree to a wager. You like wagers, don’t you?,

and though Bagger’s guts prickle with the rashlike outbreak of hope that the angel can really bring the kid back, he slits his eyes in suspicion, because the angel’s finally got something wrong, he doesn’t like wagers, gambling is for fools unless you’re the one fixing the gamble, and right now, the angel’s the one holding the marked cards, and yet the pot is too tantalizing to resist, so he nods, cautiously, and replies, “Yes,”

and she says, I will give you his life. In return, you must promise never to take another’s life for as long as you live. If you fail in this promise, a catastrophe beyond imagination will consume your entire world,

and he stares at her, and blinks, and races his mind around like a trench rat hungry for dropped crumbs but wary of homemade snares, for in theory, Bagger’s got nothing to fear, he’s not killed anyone since he killed his mother being born, he’s not the one who cut Goodspeed in half, or stabbed Arno, or made that prison wall fall on Popkin, or consumed Veck in flame,

and though worries remain, Bagger swats them aside, they are gnats weighed against the marvelous dream of the kid, alive and as irritating as ever, so he squeezes his eyes shut and says all in a rush, “I promise, I promise, I promise, I promise,” a torrent he dams with a gasp before doubling up in anticipation of the same violent climax that met the others, a second baptism, this one into the Church of Shrapnel, of Bayonet, of Rubble, of Fire,