The Valkyries

Of course. Paulo always had contacts. He referred to such people as members of the Tradition; but when Chris described them in her diary, she referred to them as the “Conspiracy.” Among them were sorcerers and witch doctors—the kind of people one has nightmares about.

“Someone who speaks with angels?”

“I’m not sure. One time, J. referred—just in passing—to a master of the Tradition who lives here, and who knows how to communicate with the angels. But that might just be a rumor.”

He might have been speaking seriously, but Chris knew that he might also have just selected a place at random, one of the many places where he had “contacts.” A place that was far from their daily life, and where he could concentrate better on the Extraordinary.

“How are you going to speak to your angel?”

“I don’t know,” he replied.

What a strange way to live, thought Chris. She looked at her husband as he walked over to pay the bill. All she knew was that he felt he had to speak with the angels, and that was that! Drop everything, jump on a plane, fly for twelve hours from Brazil to Los Angeles, drive for six hours to this gas station, arm himself with enough patience to remain here for forty days: all of this in order to speak—or rather, try to speak—with his guardian angel!

He laughed at her, and she smiled back. After all, this wasn’t all that bad. They had their occasional daily irritations—paying bills, cashing checks, paying courtesy calls, accepting some tough times.

But they still believed in angels.

“We’ll do it,” she said.

“Thanks for the ‘we,’” he answered with a smile. “But I’m the magus around here.”

Chapter 2 (#ulink_7f845d8f-e395-5560-817e-5b3436076001)

THE WOMAN AT THE STATION HAD SAID they were going in the right direction—about ten more minutes. They drove in silence. Paulo turned the radio off. There was a small elevation, but only when they reached the top did they realize how high up they were. They had been climbing steadily for six hours, without realizing it.

But they were there.

He parked on the shoulder and turned off the motor. Chris looked back in the direction from which they had come to see if it was true: Yes, she could see green trees, plants, vegetation.

But there in front of them, extending from horizon to horizon, was the Mojave Desert: the enormous desert that spreads into many states and into Mexico, the desert she had seen so many times in Westerns when she was a child, the desert that had places with strange names like the Rainbow Forest and Death Valley.

It’s pink, Chris thought, but she didn’t say anything. He was staring out at its immensity, trying to determine where the angels dwelt.

If you stand in the middle of the main park, you can see where the town of Borrego Springs begins and where it ends. But there are three hotels for the winter tourists who come there for the sun.

They left their luggage in the room and went to a Mexican restaurant for dinner. The waiter stood nearby for some time, trying to determine what language they were speaking. Finally, when he couldn’t figure it out, he asked. When they said they were from Brazil, he said he had never met a Brazilian before.

“Well, now you’ve met two,” Paulo laughed.

By the next day, the entire town will have heard about it, he thought. There’s not much news in Borrego Springs.

After their meal, they walked about the town, hand in hand. Paulo wanted to wander out into the desert, get the feel of it, breathe in the air of the Mojave. So they meandered over the desert’s rocky floor for a half hour, at last stopping to look back at the few distant lights of Borrego Springs.

There in the desert, the heavens were clear. They sat on the ground and made their separate wishes on the falling stars. There was no moon, and the constellations stood out brilliantly.

“Have you ever had the feeling, at certain moments in your life, that someone was observing what you were doing?” Paulo asked Chris.

“How did you know that?”

“I just know. There are moments when, without really knowing it, we are aware of the presence of angels.”

Chris thought back to her adolescence. In those days, she had had that feeling very strongly.

“At such moments,” he continued, “we begin to create a kind of film in which we are the main character, and we are certain that someone is observing our actions.

“But then, as we get older, we begin to think that such things are ridiculous. We think of it as having been just a child’s fantasy of being a movie actor. We forget that, at those moments in which we are presenting ourselves before an invisible audience, the sensation of being observed was very strong.”

He paused for a moment.

“When I look up at the night sky, that feeling often returns, and my question is always the same: Who is out there watching us?”

“And who is it?”

“Angels. God’s messengers.”

She stared up at the heavens, wanting to believe what he had said.

“All religions, and every person who has ever witnessed the Extraordinary, speak of angels,” Paulo went on. “The universe is populated with angels. It’s they who give us hope. Like the one who announced that the Messiah had been born. They also bring death, like the exterminating angel that traveled through Egypt destroying all those who did not display the right sign at their door. Angels with flaming swords in their hands can prevent us from entering into paradise. Or they can invite us in, as the angel did to Mary.

“Angels remove the seals placed on prohibited books, and they sound the trumpets on the day of Final Judgment. They bring the light, as Michael did, or darkness, as Lucifer did.”

Hesitantly, Chris asked, “Do they have wings?”

“Well, I haven’t seen an angel yet,” he answered. “But I wondered about that, too. I asked J. about it.”

That’s good, she thought. At least I’m not the only one who has simple questions about the angels.

“J. said that they take whatever form a person imagines they have. Because they are God’s thoughts in live form, and they need to adapt to our wisdom and our knowledge. They know that if they don’t, we’ll be unable to see them.”

Paulo closed his eyes.

“Imagine your angel, and you will feel its presence right now, right here.”

They fell quiet, lying there on the floor of the desert. There was not a sound to be heard, and Chris began once again to feel like she was in a film, playing to an invisible audience. The more intensely she concentrated, the more certain she was that all around her there was a strong presence, friendly and generous. She began to imagine her angel, dressed in blue, with golden hair and immense white wings—exactly as she had pictured her angel as a child.

Paulo was imagining his angel, as well. He had already immersed himself many times in the invisible world that surrounded them, so it was not a new experience for him. But now, since J. had assigned him this task, he felt that his angel was much more present—as if the angels made themselves available only to those who believed in their existence. He knew, though, that whether one believed in them or not, they were always there—messengers of life, of death, of hell, and of paradise.

He dressed his angel in a long robe, embroidered in gold. And he also gave his angel wings.

Chapter 3 (#ulink_6e280ae4-b0ba-52ec-bb0d-20097053b53b)

THE HOTEL WATCHMAN, EATING HIS breakfast, turned to them as they came in.

“I wouldn’t go out into the desert at night again,” he said.

This really is a small town, Chris thought. Everybody knows what you’re doing.

“It’s dangerous in the desert at night,” the guard explained. “That’s when the coyotes come out, and the snakes. They can’t stand the heat of the day, so they do their hunting after the sun goes down.”