50

Scaffolding stretched over the west face of the cathedral, all along the Wisconsin Avenue side. “This thing has been under construction,” Lida said, “for as long as I can remember. But it does keep the little men who carve the gargoyles off the street.”

The cabdriver grabbed a look at her in his rearview mirror.

“You can buy a gargoyle,” she went on, “but you can’t take him home with you. He has to stay here. I think they put a little plaque under him, though, so everyone knows he’s yours.”

“What are gargoyles selling for these days?”

The cabdriver shifted his weight a bit, so that he could glimpse Duvivier as well. A couple of loonies, that’s what he had back there.

“Eight hundred and fifty dollars,” Lida said.

“That’s not bad. Considering that gargoyles are an endangered species.”

The cab halted beside a low stone wall. “Is here okay?”

Duvivier counted his change, then put his billfold away.

“They also sell crockets,” Lida told him.

“What”—he caught her hand and led her toward a slow-moving file of people—“is a crocket?”

“I don’t know. I always meant to find out.” She pulled back, opposing his motion. “Hey,” she said, “let’s go down here.” An entrance labeled “Bethlehem Chapel.”

“Why?”

“Because they probably have a bathroom down there.”

“Go,” he said, “I’ll follow.”

He pulled at his trousers, even though the wind, whipping at them, would have done the job.

He looked at the National Cathedral. It made the people look so small.

He didn’t really want to go inside. It was better out here. Here, he could watch the people.

Two nuns went in, arm in arm. They were wearing those new uniforms, so that he could see their legs. One of them really wasn’t half-bad.

He thought about what it would be like to fuck a nun. And then really mess her up afterward.

Lida had been right. A small arched door with great hinges upon it. And a plastic sign reading “Ladies.” He imagined her ducking inside.

There was a scuffle in the hall, and then the Angel Choir appeared, giggling, poking and punching each other, sliding on the gray marble floor as if it were ice. One of the boys hiccuped. But when they saw him, they stiffened and were silent. Angelic, in fact.

He leaned against the wall uneasily. He never wore a watch, and so had none to look at. But clearly the scene called for a watch, to be consulted at thirty-second intervals.

“My God”—Lida emerged, still fastening her belt—“if it isn’t the Heavenly Host.”

The boys laughed and tripped away, skidding around a corner and out of sight.

Lida alternately hummed and sang.

Duvivier looked at her questioningly.

“Jimi Hendrix,” she said.

The question in his eyes remained.

“‘Electric Ladyland,’” she said. “Aw, never mind.”

But she continued to hum the song as they took the first staircase, which, according to the placard, would take them to the north transept.

“I want to know how you found my real name,” he interrupted.

“And I’ll tell you, I promise.” And then she hummed some more.

“Would you like to sit in the balcony?” the woman at the table asked.

“Yes!” Diana blurted. “We’ll have a better chance of finding them from there.”

Allen smiled at the woman as reassuringly as he could. “Yes, the balcony,” he said, placing a twenty-dollar bill on the table.

He gathered his change in two clumps, stuffing the bills into his left pocket, then the coins into his right.

He took Diana’s arm and leaned toward her. “We could be wrong, Diana. Get hold of yourself.” But he knew they weren’t wrong. He knew it enough to have stationed Riley, like a sentry, in the vestibule.

“Wrong? No, we can’t be wrong. It fits together, all of it.”

They took seats along the rail, where everyone in the nave could be seen, though from behind and at a great distance. The others, the ones in general admission, sat in the north and south transepts.

“… and then I said, ‘Aren’t we all?’” She paused and noticed that Duvivier wasn’t laughing. “Are you sure you want to hear all this?” She asked. “I mean, it’s pretty boring.”

“Go on,” he said, “go on.” What, he wondered, was a temporary? And how could anyone so designated know anything, much less that he, Duvivier, was or had been Ronald Wendolyn?

“Well, she didn’t know, silly,” Lida explained. “All that she did was send me the list of all your books. Under whatever pseudonym. And when I couldn’t find Renaissance Stagecraft along with your biggies—in the bookstores, I mean …”

The story came together now. He didn’t need to hear the rest. Of course. He’d been so anxious, in those days, to impress. He couldn’t, there on the publicity form, leave the column demanding “Previous Publications” blank. And so he’d written in the title Renaissance Stagecraft with a firm backhand stroke. It hadn’t been a lie. Just a little something that would show Seare and Jolly—and their charming employee dispensing the forms—that this Duvivier was no fledgling.

But Carol Bradley—the charming employee of the moment—hadn’t even looked at the sheet. She’d merely tossed it to the bottom of the folder and proffered another. And then she’d done that thing with her chewing gum.

And there, in the gullet of the Seare and Jolly publicity department, the form had lain. Until regurgitated, at Lida’s request, by some temporary. What a mess to clean!

Lida didn’t see his frown. “… guessed Ronald Wendolyn rather than Bishop—you’d told me about Grisone, remember?—because the Wendolyn book came out in the sixties, and the others …”

Guessed Wendolyn rather than Bishop. Guessed it. Duvivier turned to watch her wrap the story up. “Lucky, huh?” was how she tied the bow.

“Oh, God, we’ll never find them,” Diana said. She tried to remember Lida’s various coats, but could only think of two. She looked for someone in a fur jacket. Or someone wearing a green wool coat with a hood. She tried to remember what Wendolyn looked like, but could conjure only that mouth of his. Tight, cruel. The mouth of a murderer.

“Our seats are in the nave, I think.” He gave the tickets to an usher, who led them to the third row.

“Whew!” Lida whistled, “the big ten-buck seats, eh?”

He handed her a program absentmindedly. He had already begun to read his own.

Lida folded it and placed it in her purse. She turned around, looking toward the rear of the church.

“Counting the house?” he asked, without looking up from his reading.

“No. I want to see the rose window. It’s brand-new and world-famous. A real dazzler.”

“Who did it?” He twisted in his chair.

“Who knows?”

“I think we’ll have to come back in the morning to see it,” he said.

Just then the lights faltered, then fell. The Play of Herod began.

Darkness. And then the rustle of bells, fragile in the vast, vaulted hall. The procession of players moved toward the stage in a shiver of candlelight. Sturdy male voices channeled down the left aisle, and from the right, the spare song of the women.

“It’s too dark,” Diana whispered. “I can’t see.”

The man behind her cleared his throat pointedly.

“Allen,” she said, “I can’t see!” With the last word her whisper broke.

A sibilant wave of protest behind, and then a tap on her shoulder. “Madam,” the man said, “some of us would like to hear!”

The antiphon resolved and the voices joined. Diana would have thought it wonderful had she heard. But all of her energy, all of her concentration, was taken up by her search. She strained against the railing.

A splinter of light. The archangel, wings wide, in lean tenor prophecy: “Nolite timere vos!”

Allen found the irony wan. He looked to see if Diana, too, had translated the words: Be no more affrighted.

She had not.

The spotlight illuminated the manger. And in it, Mary and the Babe. Behold! The shepherds were singing, their Latin scrupulous, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son.

“Ever notice,” Lida whispered in his ear, cupping her hand over her mouth, “how virgins always smirk?”

Gloria in excelsis Deo!

et in terra pax hominibus

bonae voluntatis

The Angel Choir, frail, boyish, childishly solemn.

Alleluja! Alleluja!

A long, hollow pause. And then two voices lifted and entwined, fluid. Ethereal threads spun skyward:

Alle-psallite cum-luja!

Alle-concrepando psallite cum-luja!

Alle-corde voto Deo toto psallite cum-luja!

Alleluja!

“Allen,” Diana said, “I can’t stand it!”

The Angel Choir again, to sing the second Gloria. But just as they began, a ragged alien voice came from behind. It bounded through the hall. “Lida,” it called.

Lida turned and stared into the darkness.

“Lida, he’s a murderer!”

The choir went on, as though it hadn’t happened. And Lida rose, wondering if she had imagined it. “I …”

Alleluja! Alleluja!

She looked to see if Duvivier had heard.

He had. He was gone.

The troupe of actors and musicians paraded past him, a smear of bright color and bright sound. Duvivier waited until they had gone and then slipped silently through the corridors. At his back the music frolicked, faint, then fainter still. In mocking merriment.

And then he was outside, in the chill night quiet.

Lida made her way up the center aisle, reaching the midpoint just as the players turned and started toward her. The man with the recorder spotted her, and played with his eyes wide, moving to the side to make way.

The woman with the vielle followed, giving Lida a sour stare. Lida gave the bagpiper a shove, and broke into a run amid a flurry of cymbals, tambourines, and jingles.

“No, she’s quite all right,” Allen was telling a little knot of people. “Thanks very much. We’re leaving now. Yes, thank you.”

Diana leaned against him, like a rag doll.

“What the hell is going on?” Lida asked.

Riley, with sullen interest, watched her approach.

Diana stretched both hands forward. “Oh,” she said, “oh, Lida!”

“Hey”—Lida touched Diana’s hair—“whatever it is, it’s okay now.” She looked at Allen and Riley, distributing her distaste equally. “Who are these creeps?” she asked.