Father Eden hadn’t been to St. Bernard’s Parish in years, and the neighborhood was much worse than he remembered. He was walking through a dismal wasteland, making his way south toward Cavanaugh Street, passing one dilapidated hovel after another. He usually drove the church’s car to visit parishioners, but Sister Nancy needed it for shopping that day so he had taken the bus. The city buses mostly kept to the major boulevards these days. Many of the side streets were still too littered, and the Katrina exodus permanently trimmed the population to such a degree that several side routes had to be eliminated. If someone needed to go deep into the ‘hood these days, they took a taxi or they were on their own.
Eden didn’t mind walking; it was good exercise, and it gave him a fresh perspective on the world. Like most of the city, St. Bernard’s Parish had taken a beating, but that wasn’t what struck him as he negotiated the fractured sidewalks and the pot-holed streets. The parish itself was a wasteland. The social fabric was always threadbare in St. Bernard’s, but now it was hanging in tatters. The very culture of the parish was dying.
A gaggle of punks were playing celo outside a liquor store, one of the few businesses that weren’t boarded up. A fight erupted over an accusation of loaded dice. Suddenly all the guns came out, and teens went running in every direction. Moments later, the weapons were tucked away and everything was back to normal, but the incident tinged Eden’s perception of the entire neighborhood. He kept walking, but now he had a knot in his stomach.
A late-model Mercedes with chrome rims rolled by and parked in the driveway of a house down the block. Two young men piled out, both sporting a thick handful of gaudy gold chains, designer shades and spotless high-dollar kicks. They were wearing and driving every dime they had, while the house was a shambles. As Eden passed their open front door, a wide-screen TV that took up an entire wall roared to life and the ball game came on. It was the only furniture that wasn’t falling apart.
Eden had grown up admiring Dr. King, and it pained him to see the man’s dream fading before his eyes. St. Bernard’s had devolved into a parish terrorized by short-tempered gangbangers who were fighting and dying over turf they didn’t even own. They were renters. And ever since the flood their absentee landlords were busily condemning as many of the properties as they possibly could. Katrina was the best excuse in generations to wipe the slate clean and start over, and the city fathers were tacitly behind them every step of the way. Eden didn’t side with them, but he could understand their position.
What little money that did come into St. Bernard’s that wasn’t appropriated by mothers to feed their kids, was invested in bling. The breadwinners weren’t buying bread, they were spending it – laying their money down for the flashier things in life instead of stepping up, collectively if need be, to put a down payment on a piece of the pie.
Sadly, it was the same story all over America. People raised by television were suffering from an epidemic of Affluenza, spread by Madison Avenue and festered in the shame of being thought poor. Of all the people afflicted by the malady, it was the poor who suffered the most when they caught the bug.
While some people degraded themselves and insulted each other with epithets like nigga and bitch and ‘ho, and convinced each other that the Man was keeping them down, immigrants were stepping off the boat every day of the week with a suitcase and no English, and just rolling up their sleeves and getting to work. Ten years later, they owned their own house, their kids were in college, and they could speak fluent English. And they were discriminated against every step of the way.
Eden felt a hundred eyes on him as he approached the corner of Cavanaugh Street, but as out of place as he felt he wasn’t afraid to be there. What troubled him was that he couldn’t do much of anything to help them out. The irony was that although he dedicated his life to helping the poor and the disenfranchised, he belonged to the richest private organization on earth. If he were the Pope, he’d auction off the Church’s art collection and half their real estate, and initiate a micro-loan program for penniless entrepreneurs. Micro-loans were lifting people out of poverty in Bangladesh; there was no reason to think that it couldn’t work in New Orleans.
A streetwalker on the corner smiled at him. It wasn’t every day that she saw a handsome priest. Or any priest, for that matter. He just nodded hello and turned the corner. Some women reminded him of why celibacy could actually be a good thing, and she was one of them.
Cavanaugh Street was a dead-end, and in stark contrast to the rest of the neighborhood the cul-de-sac was quiet and orderly. Eden had no idea why, but the residents on Cavanaugh knew. Madame Zantelle was an immigrant from Benin, a beautiful manbo who lived in the pink bungalow across from the Aly place. When she moved in nine years ago, she summoned the loas to come protect her dwelling and the surrounding inhabitants as well. She made the requisite offerings, sacrificing a chicken and dripping the blood in a jagged line across the street, down at the end of the block. She did this at precisely three in the morning, by the light of the full moon.
As the weeks passed and her neighbors came to see her with their various troubles, she told them what she had done for them, expecting they would spread the word and that the proper tributes would be paid. Since the day she moved in, it was the only street in St. Bernard’s Parish that had not suffered a burglary or a homicide. Madame Zantelle’s voodoo was strong.
It disturbed her that the Alys weren’t coming to her for help, since it was quite obvious that their brother’s death was the work of the Devil. The manbo sat in her front room gazing at the Aly house across the street, but their curtains were drawn tight, the same as they had been since the day of Fareed’s suicide.
When the priest appeared, she finally had her answer. The Alys were afraid to summon the dark forces. They had called for a lily-white, watered-down version of spiritual succor instead. She sniffed in disgust. A priest had no inkling of what to do in a situation like this. He wouldn’t have the power to wrestle with Satan. He was a piteous, ignorant fool to even try. She smiled, watching him.
Eden paused before the careworn house, his back to the tidy pink bungalow across the street. The Aly home was a cottage built back in the Twenties that probably should have been torn down after the flood. A FEMA symbol had been spray-painted on the siding to indicate that the place was condemned, but someone removed the strips of wood and the city never got around to enforcing the declaration. The exposed tarpaper flapped in the afternoon breeze, revealing glimpses of the lath and plaster interior walls.
Eden checked the address against a slip of paper in his pocket, and climbed the loose plank steps to the porch. He tried the bell but it didn’t work, so he knocked on the screen door and waited, keeping his eyes on the closed front door.
It was opened by a thin Egyptian-American woman in her forties, wearing a starched housedress and nervously fiddling with a small Coptic crucifix on a chain around her neck. A man stood behind her, the same age and just as thin as she was, dressed in a perfectly clean undershirt and a pair of crisp khakis. He was smoking a cigarette and had a rosary wrapped around his hand, the crucifix clutched in his sweaty palm.
Seraj and her twin brother Eli didn’t look much alike, but they were cut from the same mold, an ancient bloodline of tall, lanky herders that could be traced back thousands of years to the headwaters of the Nile. Even when they were at peace with the world they both tended to stoop, since they were taller than almost everyone they encountered. But now their world had turned ugly and they were hunched over, burdened by a constant sense of foreboding. They just wanted the nagging fear to subside and the nightmares to stop.
Eli turned away and slouched into the shadows of the front room. Even though he was clutching a rosary, he didn’t want to talk to a priest, when push came to shove. The man wouldn’t understand what he and his sister were going through. The voodoo lady across the street probably knew better than some damn priest, but she wanted money, and for the last few years the Alys were flat broke. Fareed had been helping them with the mortgage, but now he was gone.
Eli was half-hoping that the visitor was their neighbor Mr. Morris. Fareed had given Eli a car stereo for Christmas, and it was still in the original boxes, sitting with the speakers in a couple of shopping bags by the front door. Mr. Morris was rebuilding his ’56 Buick for his boy Cleon, and Eli offered to sell him the stereo for a good price. Although it pained Eli to sell off a present from his dead brother, it would bring in a good piece of the mortgage, and since Fareed had been helping them with the payments anyway, Eli reasoned that Fareed would have understood.
Seraj looked through the neatly stitched door screen at the handsome priest and gave him a thin, puzzled smile. She had no idea why he came calling, but her cordiality was impeccably intact despite the stress she was under. Still, as the days wore on, it was getting harder and harder to summon her manners for a stranger, even a priest. Nevertheless, a little voice in her head told her to be nice, considering what just happened to poor Fareed, God rest his tortured soul.
“We heard the sad news about your brother.”
Seraj just looked at him for the longest time; the fresh wound tore at her heart, and she was well aware that it probably always would. Fareed’s pain was over, but hers and her brother’s had just begun. Seraj unlatched the screen and pushed it open for the priest to come in. She glanced over his shoulder at the bungalow across the street. Madame Zantelle was sitting in her big chair in the front window, watching as usual. Seraj closed the door and locked it as soon as Eden stepped inside.
The place was tidy, but it was clear that like so many people in town, and so many more all over the country, they had fallen on hard times. Eden ministered to the poor before so there was little he saw that shocked him. Mostly it just made him sad, particularly the newly-poor. They always seemed to have the hardest time of it.
There were several votive candles flickering around the room. Portraits of Coptic saints, rendered in the iconic Orthodox style, were hung about the room, and a Last Supper tapestry on black velvet bordered with Arabic inscriptions was hung over the dining table.
Seraj offered him a seat in an overstuffed chair with embroidered doilies draped over the armrests. Eden sat down across from the sofa, where Eli’s thin frame seemed to be all but swallowed up by the sofa’s soft cushions. Seraj went into the kitchen. Her brother’s bare feet were nervously flexing in his leather sandals under the coffee table, in rhythm with his fist as he unconsciously clutched at the rosary in his hand. He was looking at the priest, smoking an unfiltered cigarette and wondering what the man had to say.
Seraj came back from the fridge with a soda for Eden, and put one on the coffee table in front of her brother. She sat beside him, and a billow of dust wafted up from the sofa cushions. The particles lingered in the afternoon sunshine.
Eden nodded a thank-you for the soda, popped the top, and took a sip, grateful for her hospitality. “You’ve both just been through a dreadful loss,” he began. “We want you to know that your brother Fareed is in our prayers down at the Church of the Rebirth. It may not seem like it now, but the comfort of God is always close at hand.”
Seraj’s eyes drifted to the floor, and Eli slowly shook his head. Eden thought the man was going to launch into a sour rejection of what he just said, but Eli was melancholy, not confrontational.
“I don’t think God has much to say about it, one way or the other,” Eli said, almost in a whisper, and he stubbed out his cigarette in a full ashtray.
Eden was thrown by his comment. Despite their anguish and loss, he thought that they still were God-fearing people. Sister Nancy told him that the extended Aly family had long been a part of their Roman Catholic city, participating in the culture to one degree or another for several generations. Their great-grandfather came from Cairo to build riverboats and allowed himself to be adopted by the Catholic Church, although the family always kept the Coptic tradition. The New Orleans diocese had already absorbed Voodoo and Santaria; by comparison, Coptic Christianity was an easy accommodation to make.
“How do you mean, Eli?”
Eli didn’t answer, but simply shrugged like a shy child. He couldn’t find the words to express what he was feeling, any more than he could make sense of it in his own mind. He just wanted to turn off the bad feelings, and he couldn’t find a way to do it.
“You believe in God, don’t you, Father?” Seraj asked Eden. He pursed his lips, puzzled at the thrust of her inquiry, but it was more of a statement than a question.
“Well, yes. Of course,” was all he could think of saying in reply. He hoped it didn’t come off as rude, but he was wondering where this was going. For her part, Seraj was embarrassed by her own directness. She realized that it was an awkward thing to ask a priest.
“We don’t question your faith,” she stammered, fingering her silver crucifix. She sensed that she had just driven into a ditch, and didn’t know any graceful way to back out. Eden could see how she was feeling and he wasn’t offended, but he was puzzled by what she was driving at.
“Then what is your question?” he asked.
Eli interrupted the moment by getting up and going over to the liquor cabinet. They watched as he poured himself a shot of Absolut Vodka. Then he leaned into the kitchen, opened the freezer door, and retrieved a handful of ice cubes. He came back to the sofa, set his drink on the coffee table and sat across from Eden.
Seraj was embarrassed for what her brother had done, and wanted to get the conversation back on track as smoothly as possible. But she couldn’t think of how, exactly. She cast about for a way to explain what she meant, but it was clear that Eli had more than enough. He felt bad and he needed to feel good again; it just came down to that.
“Do you think that God loves the Devil?” Eli asked Eden.
“Pardon me?” the priest stared at him in surprise.
Eli looked away and Seraj glanced at her brother, embarrassed by his behavior once again.
“You’ll get through this,” Eden said gently. “God will show you the way.”
Eli was gazing out the window, at Madame Zantelle’s house across the street. Seraj knew what he was looking at, and why.
“Yeah, well, God don’t come ’round here no more,” Eli finally replied.
Eden pursed his lips, wondering how to respond, but Seraj thought he was silently chastising her brother. She frowned, waving off his reaction as if it were an annoying fly buzzing around her tidy household.
“We didn’t call for no priest!” she shot at him. “We don’t need no lectures.”
Eli backed her up by raising his glass to her in a toast. “Absolut!” he said, and downed the shot.
Seraj looked at the floor again and ground her teeth in frustration. She felt like she had just sinned for talking harshly to a priest, but the truth was that he had no idea what they were going through. For all his good intent, he was out of line. Still, he did come to give them whatever comfort he could, and for that he deserved better than a taste of her temper.
She collected herself and tried to explain. “You don’t know what happened on that balcony.”
“Shit, lucky for him,” Eli said quietly.
Eden and Seraj looked back at him, and for his part Eden was thankful that Eli said something. It broke the confrontation with Seraj, and he knew he wasn’t going to get anywhere with her when she was being so testy.
But it was cold comfort, because Father Eden had a gathering sense that he didn’t have a clue about what was going on. He might have had the angels on his side, but he was flying blind. Something was bothering them, and it was more than the simple fact of their brother jumping to his death.
“What?” he asked them, but they didn’t answer. Eden looked to Seraj, and her eyes welled with tears. He reached over and touched her shoulder, and the tears came on stronger.
“Seraj. Tell me,” he prompted her.
As the words came to her throat, she grew more agitated. “We just trying to avoid dealing with... Oh, Lord...!”
She clamped a hand over her mouth, and her eyes scanned the room as she felt a sudden stab of fear. Eden was perplexed by her sudden unraveling and leaned closer to her as a gesture of support, but she didn’t respond or reply. She just kept her hand over her mouth as if she were afraid she might say more. He heard her breath rush past her fingers and realized that she was hyperventilating. She grabbed her brother’s hand with her other one and squeezed as hard as she could. Eli stroked her forearm to soothe her.
Eden cocked his head and tenderly frowned at her, silently urging her to speak, and she finally uncovered her mouth just a little.
“He made Fareed do it!” she told Eden breathlessly. “Our brother didn’t jump!”
He was growing uneasy now. Something had climbed on her back and wouldn’t let go, and he didn’t think it was the pain of her loss. It was something else entirely.
“Who?” he insisted.
Seraj tilted her head closer to him and removed the hand from her mouth. “He heard that voice in his head!” she told Eden in a hoarse whisper.
He swallowed hard. He had a growing sense that this was more than he bargained for. Much more.
“Who was it, Seraj?”
She pursed her lips and pulled her head back, gripping her brother’s hand even tighter, turning his fingers pale.
Eli smirked at the priest. “You know who it was, man.” Eden glanced at him, and Eli slowly nodded, his eyes narrowing, certain of himself.
“You know,” Eli said again.
Eden was beginning to catch on. His throat was suddenly dry and he tried to swallow. He turned back to Seraj.
“Who was it?”
But she was so frightened that she could only manage the barest of whispers. He had to lean close to hear what she was saying.
Father Jean Paul Eden was completely ashen, and had to hold onto the handrail to keep from stumbling down the rickety stairs. He negotiated his way down the worn wooden steps of the Aly’s front porch as if he were disconnected from his lower body, as if his legs had suddenly gone numb from a deathly chill in the air.
Mas’ BMW was parked at the curb in front of the house, her helmet clipped to the frame. She stood by her bike, checking the house address with a piece of paper. Three young studs on the porch next door were leering at the attractive young woman, but whatever was on their minds quickly evaporated when she brushed aside the hem of her jacket to slip the paper in her pants pocket. Her badge and her holstered 10mm were prominent on her hip.
She ignored the teens, although she knew exactly where each of them were standing, and what each of them held in their hands – beer bottles, a TV remote, a cell phone, a lighter and a hash pipe.
Her eyes were on the priest. She couldn’t remember ever seeing one who was more distressed. But Eden paid no attention to her. Absorbed by what he had just been told, he walked right past her as if she wasn’t even there and headed down the sidewalk, pale and lost in troubled thought.
She watched him go for a moment, and decided not to disturb him. It looked like he was grappling with something he might have caught by emotional contagion from Fareed’s surviving kin. But there was something else etched into his face as well, something that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. She mentally filed it away and trotted up the steps.
Across the street, in the driveway of Madame Zantelle’s house, a man sat behind the wheel of a rental car, idly fiddling with the gold Rosicrucian ring on his finger and watching everything.
Mas was in the same armchair that Eden occupied just minutes before. Seraj and Eli were across from her, sitting close together on the sofa. Eli was in a mellow mood from his first shot of Absolut, and poured himself another one. Seraj was still in a knot of anguish, her eyes puffy and red. He mixed her a drink when the priest left, but she hadn’t touched it.
Seraj sniffed, and wiped her nose with a handkerchief that she kept tucked in the pocket of her housedress. Her clothes and her house were as neat as a pin, but she was a mess.
“He lost his job,” she said to Mas, “and was finding his way back to God. The bishop was bringing him back to Jesus.”
Mas tilted her head. “The bishop?”
Seraj nodded. “Yeah! He saved Fareed’s soul!”
Eli took her hand in his. She grasped his hand tightly in response, hanging on for strength. The love they had for each other was nearly all they had left.
Mas slowly nodded as she digested this latest bit of information, her mind racing.
She sat on her idling BMW, talking on her iPhone to Kaddouri. The three studs on the porch behind her were enjoying the view, and admiring the quiet purr of the tuned exhaust. She was their new fantasy, and they were absorbing every detail they could before she raced down the road and out of their miserable lives.
“Mark, send me that video clip, the pan shot of the crowd.”
She took the phone from her ear and shaded the display with her hand, watching the file download. She tapped play and viewed the clip.
She saw the cops, the roadblock, the paramedics, and Thorrington standing beside his cruiser, the megaphone in his hand. Nano’s limo was in the background, but it wasn’t at the roadblock like Nano told her. It was parked at the curb.
She got back on the horn to Kaddouri. “Nano wasn’t stuck at the roadblock, Mark. He was parked on Fareed’s street. Check out the video. And Seraj told me that a bishop visited Fareed just last month.”
“If Nano’s our killer...” Kaddouri began, and she finished the thought for him:
“He’s also a diplomat.”
“Exactly,” he said to her. “We won’t be able to stop him from leaving the country.”
“Any luck on the chauffeur?” she asked him.
“Yeah. We found out he’s been working for the archdiocese for over thirty years.”