Our Lady of Babylon

  As the rebellious angels responded to Lucifer’s invitation to stand near him — he still did not know, but trusted, what his sister intended — Cassandra moved closer to the throne, casually, as if only to hear better. Michael’s eyes followed her. She smiled beguilingly at him, so beguilingly, enticingly, that he placed his sheathed blade between his legs, to conceal his —

  Madame astonished me by tinkling her tiny teaspoon against her exquisite china, a signal she had used before but which continued to annoy me. “You said there was no sex in Heaven, Lady!”

  “— placed his sheathed blade between his legs to conceal his threatening posture,” I finished. “May I proceed?”

  I suspected Madame blushed while she pretended to retrieve a napkin that had not fallen.

  In Heaven, God encouraged, “Who shall begin?” It was difficult for Him to sound playful. When He tried, like now, it all seemed incongruous. Still, He went on, “Come, children, come! Let Me know what you long for most.”

  “Freedom!” Lucifer stepped forward and uttered the word Cassandra had invented yesterday. “To soar beyond all boundaries!” He added anxious words slowly: “And that we be allowed to love You, but not demanded to.” He had looked down when his voice had tensed. Now, chin raised, he stared into God’s eyes.

  “Your wish is granted,” God said to Lucifer. To emphasize the ease with which that would be done, He waved His hand in an arc, His palm open to the angels. “Is that all?”

  Just like that? Lucifer was even more bewildered. So were the angels gathered about him. They looked at him, baffled, then at each other. Was it possible Cassandra’s suspicions had been wrong, as conveyed to them by Lucifer? Had she misled them — and him? Lucifer shifted his stare to his sister. Why wasn’t she coming over to share his triumph — theirs? Why were her eyes locked with God’s?

  Cassandra dared not look away from God. She must watch — and listen. When she heard the first sounds — scraping, discordant, metallic, harsh — she would know God’s intentions had been set into motion toward their goal, and she would set her own scheme into action, announce, with evidence, what was about to occur. On her instant signal, Lucifer and the other determined angels would storm Heaven’s forming bastions before they sealed; and barely gliding past the gates that God would surely rush into existence, they would soar, free, into the new realms they had discovered beyond Heaven’s stars. All that would occur only by determining the precise moment to move. One second too soon, and God would shift His entrapment. One second too late, and she and all the other angels would be swept away into His plotted destiny.

  Cassandra strained to hear the first warning scrape. Now?

  No. Nothing.

  In triumph at having secured his freedom and that of the other angels, Lucifer faced the angels gathering about him. He called out to his sister: “Cassandra! Look!” — and raised his arms in memory of their flight. She did not share his victory — why?

  Cassandra did not shift her stare from God. Still no first signal of the forming of the gates. Was His plan changing, another chosen? She would have perceived that shift — and had not. Now she saw His lips forming silent words she deciphered: Yes, dear Lucifer, My former favorite, I shall grant you your. . . What? Free —? Your odd word eludes me . . . Yes, I shall grant it to you, and in a most special place that I’ll create for you, where you will rule . . . in Hell!

  No! Cassandra recoiled from God’s thoughts.

  — where you will rule in tortured exile — unless —

  Wait! He was still only rehearsing His intentions! Cassandra’s hope was resurrected. The closing of Heaven’s gates was still foremost in His mind. This was judgment that would be possible only after that occurred. God added silent words:

  —unless — yes, I will allow this — unless you deny that you soared beyond My realm, and convince the other angels they did not! — and assure by turning against her that Cassandra never again incites you to believe otherwise.

  Cassandra smiled at Him, charmingly, yes, flirtatiously.

  “Electra!” God avoided Cassandra’s look and called to the angel approaching.

  Electra was a young angel, aware of her body’s beginning fullness; her nipples were already as solid as the tips of her small fingers, with which she often touched them. She was proud of the sensual arc of her slender hips, the perpetual blush on her cheeks, her amber eyes flecked with yellow. Often she found herself hoping — without actually identifying what she felt as hope — hoping for — At that point her wishes tangled into confusion and all that remained was a yearning that had found its definition when Lucifer had uttered the new word as the gift he asked for.

  “And Orestes!” God welcomed the angel who joined Electra. He was her age, with a youthful awkwardness that he turned into unique beauty. He and Electra created a cherished sight as they roamed the plains of Heaven.

  “I wish for . . . freedom . . .” Electra spoke the new word. She turned to the awkwardly beautiful angel beside her, and he nodded in agreement:

  “Freedom.”

  “From —?” God invited them to finish.

  “From?” Electra couldn’t answer. From something terrible? How could she say that when God was being so generous? Sensing her confusion, Orestes held her hand. Why fear?

  “Granted, My children, My dear Electra, My dear Orestes.” You shall dance freely in a choreography of horror. “Ah, Clytemnestra! Agamemnon!” God greeted the new petitioning angels. “I shall not even ask your petitions. I shall simply grant them!” That you be bound forever to Electra and Orestes in their dance of terror! God spread His hands out in an act of open beneficence as the proud angels bowed their heads in gratitude.

  “Iphigenia, gentle, lovely Iphigenia. I choose you to set into motion the perfect choreography of violence that I will design.

  God was conceiving yet another hell, different from the one He was considering for Lucifer, Cassandra collected her new perceptions. This other hell would exist in a world not yet created. There, rebel angels would be reduced to — she searched for new words in this shaping vocabulary of connivance: — tragic pawns.

  “Job?”

  “You, too, of course, want your —” That word! That word! What was it?

  “Freedom,” the distinguished bearded angel said. “To love you, and be free.”

  I shall allow you the freedom to prove your love for Me.

  “Lady,” Madame interjected into the petitioning of the angels in Heaven, “Job was an angel —?”

  “Yes,” I answered, and continued:

  “Lovely Penelope?” God acknowledged yet another angel.

  “Freedom.”

  Your years of fidelity shall be disbelieved, and you shall be banished for adultery and infidelity; shall you call that freedom?

  Adultery? Infidelity? As God’s harsh vocabulary grew, Cassandra grasped its meanings, and the need to escape His Heaven became more urgent.

  A radiantly beautiful angel had approached the throne of God. “Narcissus?” God welcomed him. “What is your wish?”

  “A new beautiful flower in the fields of Heaven!” Narcissus’ youthful request brought fond laughter from the other angels.

  “Why, yes, and I shall even make it in your image, and name it after you,” God said. “And I shall place it to overlook . . . a crystalline brook.”

  Narcissus was elated. Emboldened by God’s reaction, he faced Him once more and deepened his voice: “And that we can fly as long and as far away as we want.” He basked in the approval of applauding angels.

  But — Cassandra noted this while still not removing her gaze from God — the approval was not being shared by other menacing factions of angels, who were gathering steadily about Michael, about God’s throne.

  Still, no rasp of metal —

  “Tamar, you’re more beautiful than ever,” God received the exotic beauty, “and with you is — Of course! Absalom. You wish for freedom, too? Granted, granted!” Roam together freely through a field of spilled
blood.

  “Lady —”

  “Madame?”

  “Absalom —?”

  “— and Tamar were angels, too.”

  “I see.”

  Cassandra felt an accumulating horror at God’s distortion of the angels’ wishes. In His urgency to punish further and as He exulted in various possibilities, was His mind keeping last night’s intended destiny at bay — the gates about Heaven uncreated? Immediately after that thought had given her added hope, Cassandra felt a powerful sensation she couldn’t identify, the perception of something — it was “something,” that’s all she knew — horrifying, and — a new word formed — evil.

  She mustn’t stray from present considerations, she warned herself. She secured her eyes more tightly to God’s. She had learned to study the language of His gestures: She knew that when He decided — unswervingly decided whatever He decided — He would plant His hand, forcefully, on His groin, cupping it, so forcefully that she had often marveled that He did not wince in pain. That gesture — she took hasty inventory of all her past observations of Him — would always be accompanied by these words: “My will be done!” Until those words were finished — and His fist grasped his groin at “done!” — the stone of fate — and it was rolling — might be diverted.

  Cassandra was baffled. Until He locked the gates, He could not execute His curses — His “will done!” Still no initial sound! Yet His hand was poised to announce His will . . . Act now? Risk that fate might stumble into place in moments of confusion?

  “Ah, Ganymede! What could you possibly want?”

  The young angel who had flown with the others the day before — and had attempted to touch the stars — smiled radiantly, now that God was granting all their wishes, the same one.

  “Freedom!” Ganymede repeated the new word.

  “What else but that would I grant you, dear Ganymede?” God shrugged His mighty shoulders. You shall be free to serve the covetous King I will create, just for you, and he shall imprison your beauty.

  “Pretty, pretty Echo?”

  “Freedom.”

  Oh, yes, yes, yes! This is inspired! I choose you, Echo, to love Narcissus!

  “Fair Calamus,” God greeted the proud angel. “And just behind you is —” He pretended not to recognize the other equally handsome youth approaching, but with more reticence.

  “Carpus,” Calamus introduced his constant companion. “I ask for freedom — and to love . . . whoever I love.” He squared his young shoulders and beckoned the shy angel to stand next to him. Calamus sidled up to him shyly. No one could help notice that, embraced warmly by the fleece between his supple legs, Calamus’s erection grew, and Carpus’s surpassed it.

  “Lady, you pointedly said there was —”

  “Desire, Madame! There was desire, and there was longing!”

  “Oh.”

  I shall pursue you through the ages with judgments and curses. God smiled beneficently.

  “Ishtar!” You shall bear children to be slaughtered.

  “Sisyphus!”

  The bold angel thrust a strand of his long hair from his sculpted face. “Freedom!”

  When the weight I’ll place on your shoulders lessens — oh, just slightly so you’ll recognize it as your “freedom” — you’ll still feel a burden heavier than any rock!

  “Hecate?” God instantly recognized the astonishing dark-haired angel. Hounds shall accompany you in your search through the freedom of darkness.

  “Orpheus! Oh, and Eurydice!” You shall lose each other in . . . Hell.

  “Isis! How beautiful you look.” Your love shall weave a chain of vengeance with —

  “Osiris! Granted. Your wish is granted!”

  “Prometheus?” Oh, I shall test your longing for your freedom!

  “Ah, and Our dark-complected beauty, Our beloved Taba.”

  The Angel Taba was glorious, with skin that glowed like darkened gold. With a proud lift of her chin, she announced her wish: “Freedom.”

  You’ll wail your despair in dark jungles that you shall wander freely from night to night. . .

  “The Xtabay!” Madame Bernice breathed, clearly awed to learn, in her garden, that the wailing woman was not only a woman my essence had inhabited during her corporeal life — a woman soon to be redeemed — but that she had once been a stunning angel with an olive complexion.

  “I should have known, of course,” Madame exulted. “Oh, Lady, was La Malinche —”

  “— an angel? Yes, Madame, and every bit as beautiful then, with her dark-brown skin and almond eyes.”

  “Of course! Of course!”

  God continued His excited greetings from his throne: “Cadmus!” “Sappho!” “Arion!” “All My very dears!” “And you, Oedipus, tell Me! What do you long for?” “Ravishing Jocasta, what can you possibly desire, My dear? . . . Ah, welcome, welcome, Laius!”

  And so it went, more curses prepared for all the angels who had flown with her and Lucifer, a grotesque conversion of wishes into punishment for disobedience — and there was even more! Cassandra’s vision blurred with horror but not before she had perceived a world of pain, and —

  It was all intended punishment. Cassandra forced her concentration to return to what was actually occurring now, here, before her. Heaven was not yet a prison! And yet —

  God’s hand floated over His groin — and remained there, ready to fall with enraged finality.

  But the sounds that must precede the closing of Heaven’s gates had not occurred!

  “My will be —”

  Certainly He was not going to issue His command before the angels were imprisoned. Cassandra felt destiny rushing past her, heard its urgent whisperings and curses as it advanced toward its goal. But how? She must revise her plan — act before God uttered His decisive word.

  She thrust herself before His throne, and fate twisted and turned, diverted from its course, then waited, bewildered, while God had to pause to discover what Cassandra would do now.

  “Our darling Cassandra!”

  She hated His calling her darling. Each time He did, she cringed.

  “My lovely dear, you want another special gift, My special, special darling?” God tried not to edge His words with sarcasm.

  “Yes!”

  “Then speak it, My dear, though some would say the one gift We’ve already granted you may have been —” He sought Michael’s approval. More menacing angels had joined about him and the throne. “— might have been . . . excessive?” He turned the word into a question and glanced it off Michael.

  Michael could not bring himself to nod. He was bedazzled by Cassandra, who looked — oh, why this thought now? — more beautiful than ever. Her large eyes were fierce with . . . Passion, Michael gave his own feeling a name that would also describe what he saw in Cassandra’s eyes, yes, fierce passion.

  “I have another wish, yes,” Cassandra spoke.

  “And that, darling, is —?” God controlled His voice.

  “That You tell the truth of what You’re doing now.”

  Michael took a step toward her. It wasn’t exactly clear to him why. To protest her effrontery of God? Or . . . just to be nearer to her? He ran his hand very slowly down his sleek sword. Cassandra fascinated him, not only because of her lithe beauty but because of her power, a power belied by her seeming fragility. No other angel rivaled her subtle might in Heaven. Michael thought she sometimes intimidated God. No, he chastised himself, when, beside him, God’s body tensed. There was more he felt toward Cassandra, Michael knew. Often he daydreamed about her, envied Lucifer’s closeness to her — and longed for the occasional mischievous breeze that would sculpt her cloak — so elegant — about her body so that he could see the outline of . . . everything! — yes, and especially the place that intrigued him most, the lightly shaded aperture between her legs. He had been so deep in his reveries that only now was he aware that all the angels had gasped at Cassandra’s words, and that Lucifer had rushed to be with her as she confronted God.
br />   Lucifer had believed his sister immediately when she had intimated, so clearly, that God was lying. The angel stood beside his sister, close, their bodies touching, to add his strength to whatever she might say now.

  “The truth?” God dismissed the matter with the simplest wave of His hand, which floated away from the decisive gesture on His groin.

  That’s what Cassandra had intended! “The truth of Your intentions in Your entertainment —” She needed more time to adapt to, to explore, the unexpected.

  “To grant all My children the freedom they’ve asked for, darling,” God spoke with deliberate easy logic. “What else?”

  “To distort it into doom,” Cassandra said, “and thereby punish us for claiming there’s anything beyond.”

  Lucifer noticed nervously that the other angels who had joined in the flight, who had presented their petitions, were whispering in agitation among themselves. Should they trust Cassandra? Oh, she was strange. Was she betraying them? What did she want? God had granted all their wishes. Was she bartering with Him for a higher place in Heaven, only for herself?

  Cassandra whirled around, in one motion sweeping her cloak about her body so that it covered her entirely.

  But the effect was to make her appear entirely exposed. Michael clung to that image. He squinted his eyes to intensify the impression.

  “Our Father” — Cassandra always forced those words as she addressed the angels — “is planning —” Still only planning, still only planning, still intention, not fate, not yet the shaping of the gates! “— is planning a terrible destiny for us all, a hell” — she uttered the terrifying word aloud for the first time — “no, various hells He will create” — intends to create! — “and within those hells, He will, yes, grant us our wishes, twisted into punishments.” She must keep His plan in check with her challenge — force all His attention to deal with her.

  In a fierce voice, she announced the curses God had conceived for each of the petitioning angels. Their whispers rose in shock, then indignation — now rage.

  About God’s throne more threatening angels joined Michael. Gabriel moved toward them, then stopped, looked at Lucifer and Cassandra — and waited.