The Messenger (6 page)

****

“Clarice, over here! Hello, hello, how wonderful to see you again.” The handsome man wore an elegantly cut dark suit with a gray silk tie to match his hair. A gold cross sparkled on his lapel. “I do so wish you would have let me fly you down.”

“Nonsense. Especially when the bus station is only blocks from your church. How are you, Leslie?”

“Fine, fine. Better when we're away from here.” The elegant man was clearly ill at ease with his surroundings. He led them down the outer sidewalk, skirting around the worst of the bus station's evening crowd. “We may be only blocks away from the White House, as the tourist brochures say, but we are also only blocks from some of the nation's most dangerous neighborhoods.”

“Which is why I am here,” Clarice replied primly, not the least disturbed by the cacophony they passed.

“Indeed, yes. Let me take your case. This way, please.” Then he noticed Ariel walking close to Clarice. He started to stop for introductions, but his sense of self-preservation overcame his natural politeness, and he made do with asking over his shoulder, “Who do we have here?”

“This is Ariel,” Clarice replied. “She is staying with me for a few days from . . .” She turned a questioning gaze toward her companion.

“Far away,” Ariel replied vaguely, her attention captured by the spectacle. She stared at a scene almost identical to the one she had left in Philadelphia, the same noise and tumult and anger and danger. Two stations, anchors of darkness at either end of such a pleasant journey. Like so much of what she had seen since her arrival. So much beauty and so much sadness, all mixed and tangled so tightly she could not look for one without finding the other. “Very far away,” she murmured.

“This is Reverend Leslie Townsend,” Clarice said. To Townsend she explained, “Ariel stopped by our center yesterday. Her first day on the job at the hospital, and wouldn't you know it, she was robbed. Lost everything she owned, cash, identity papers, everything except the uniform she was wearing. Isn't that right, dear?”

“Everything,” Ariel agreed.

“How terrible,” the pastor said, and pointed ahead. “There's our car. I had to bring Hale, my assistant, with me to watch the car. Otherwise we would have found ourselves walking back. Not something you want to do around here, I assure you.”

“Leslie's church is one of the oldest in Washington,” Clarice told Ariel. “A very beautiful place, although the neighborhood around it has deteriorated considerably. Instead of ignoring the difficulties around them, they have decided to set up a soup kitchen and homeless center.”

“And a day-care center for the children,” the pastor added, stopping by the car and popping the trunk. “Not to mention a group that plans to minister in this very bus station starting tomorrow. But only after years and years of turning the blind eye, I am ashamed to say.”

“Well, at least you are helping now,” Clarice corrected him, smiling at a young black man who had emerged from the front seat. “That is more than most. And from what I hear, you had to go through quite a struggle to get this far.”

“Yes, there was a lot of resistance,” Townsend agreed, and for a moment his handsome face showed the strain and the fatigue. “But thanks to people like Hale and some in the congregation who felt called to help, we are finally underway. Which is why we are so grateful that you would come down and advise us.”

“Anything I can do to help,” Clarice replied. She shook Hale's hand, introduced Ariel, and allowed herself to be seated in the backseat.

“If you don't mind,” Leslie said, sliding in behind the wheel, “I'll take you directly to the church. We have a regular church gathering this evening. It started as a small Bible study and prayer meeting, but my goodness, you would not believe how it has grown.”

“Almost fills the nave,” Hale agreed. He had a voice as mild as his eyes, in direct contrast to the strength radiating from his face. “All in the space of three months.”

“Hale and I take turns leading the service,” Leslie went on. “Oh, by the way, I don't suppose you play a musical instrument.”

Clarice laughed. “Oh, not me. I couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. When it comes to music, my job on earth is to be a good listener.” She looked at Ariel. “What about you, dear?”

Ariel shrugged, her face turned to the window. So much to see, so much to take in, all of it new. “Just the harp.”

“The harp!” Leslie and Hale exclaimed together. Leslie went on, “That is amazing.”

“A miracle,” Hale agreed.

“We like to have guest musicians at these evening get-togethers,” Leslie explained. “We had a harpist who was supposed to play tonight, but he's come down with the flu. We just got the call as we were walking out the door to come pick you up.”

“So now we've got this huge harp sitting in the middle of our nave, with nobody to play it.” Hale turned in his seat. “I don't suppose you would be willing to help us out tonight, would you?”

****

Manny stumbled up the stairs, not from fatigue, but rather from a sense that he should be doing something else. First this had made him mad, then it made him stubborn. Manny hated having someone tell him what to do. He hated it. He had spent a lifetime going his own way. He had always been a man of his own will, and proud of it. But now there was this strange sensation of being guided, being pulled along by feelings and forces he neither understood nor wanted. So he had headed home, resisting the urge to look within and see what else might be done.

He entered his apartment building and caught a faint smell in the musty air. Something more than the usual scent of dirty halls and unwashed diapers and greasy cooking. Something weird.

Manny froze when his foot touched the landing. He thought he had heard a growl. Not like one of the mangy watchdogs his neighbors kept in their apartments until management caught them. More like a hungry wild beast on the prowl. And big. Very big.

Cautiously he moved along the corridor, intently searching the stairs, the hall, the other doors on his floor. Nothing. But the building was strangely quiet. Normally this time of evening there would be a dozen televisions blaring, kids yelling, adults screaming back, with a dozen stereos and boom boxes blaring in the background. But tonight was different. Not just quiet like sleeping-quiet. Quiet like empty. Quiet like the whole building was holding its breath.

When he reached his own doorway, he stopped again, this time feeling as though a steel fist had just punched him in the chest.

His door was not just broken open. It was mauled into matchwood. Manny's mind instantly felt split in two. One side of his brain started a constant shrilling shout for him to run, get out, go anywhere, but not stay here. The other, the same old independently stubborn Manny, said to himself, yeah, sure, this is why it's so quiet. Nobody, but nobody wants to admit they saw something. Whoever did this was strong enough to know nobody would talk. Wouldn't want the same thing to happen to them. Or worse.

Manny poked his head inside the door, the other voice too loud now to let him go further. His rooms had not just been searched and tossed. They had been mauled like the door. Chewed up and spit out and left in a heap of sodden carnage.

Manny looked around and started seeing things from a different perspective, the perspective of this
new
voice. They had not been searching for something. Not really. They wanted
him
. They had done this to his apartment because they had not been able to do it to him.

Then there was another new sensation, the feeling that something had been suddenly given to him. An insight so bizarre that he knew he could never have come up with it himself.

The sudden insight told him that what he saw there in front of him was not just his things. It was his
life
. He had walked this independent path of anger and conceit with a self-absorbed swagger, so sure of his own power and abilities that he had never had time for anybody. Never needed anything but himself. And look where it had led him. To this. To danger and darkness and ruin.

And with the realization came a choice. He could ignore what he faced and move on, replace his belongings and continue as he had up to now. But next time it would be him who was mauled and trashed and left heaped like garbage. Manny did not know how he could be so sure of this, but he was sure. This was what would happen unless he took the second choice, and followed a new path to the end. Come what may. No matter how the path drew him away from what was normal and comfortable. No matter how much control and independence he had to give up. Either he chose to bend and learn and grow, or he chose to die.

The growl sounded then. Hungry. Hunting. So close it seemed to come from inside his own head. Manny turned and fled, his feet not hitting more than one step in five. He barreled through the door, searched the night, shouted at a passing taxi.

Maybe, just maybe, he could still catch the last flight to Washington.

****

“This is beautiful!”

“Now, dear,” Clarice chided. “Don't let your head be turned by these trappings. Remember, the greatest beauty resides in the hearts of believers.”

But before Ariel could respond, Hale was up alongside her and saying, “Almost time, Ariel. Would you come up front with me, please?”

“Yes,” she said, allowing herself to be led through the packed foyer and into the soaring sanctuary. She had wanted to tell Clarice that she had not been exclaiming over the building. What had touched her so deeply was the feeling inside the church, inside the people. Beneath the smiles and the eager chatter and the handshakes and the hugs she could feel a familiar Presence. “This is wonderful.”

“Sure is,” Hale agreed. “Never thought I would wind up working in a church this grand. But Leslie has a way about him. You'll see. He looks like a movie actor and talks like a diplomat. But his heart is straight for God.”

The church was indeed grand, a great stone edifice built in the last century, with a ceiling of huge interlocking beams. Along both side walls rose a proud array of stained-glass windows. Yet Ariel found the place wondrous not for what it was, but rather for what it contained. Eyes turned their way, smiles greeting Hale and then showing Ariel a calm welcome. People were gathered for worship—old and young, of different races and colors, men and women and teens and children, some in suits and others in jeans, all joined by that which none could see yet all acknowledged. She said simply, “I love it here.”

Hale gave a surprised laugh. “Why, thank you. I've only been here three months, but already I feel like this church and these people are my own.”

He led her up and around to the side stairs leading past the pulpit and chairs. The empty choir rows faced down upon a curved dais, where a single spotlight shone on a gleaming golden harp. “Leslie and the deacons brought me in because they wanted to reach out to the local black community. Turn this place from an affluent, mostly white bastion into a church that ministers to the needs of all the surrounding neighborhoods. I was sort of nervous at first, but these folks have gone out of their way to greet me with the Lord's gift of love.”

Ariel seated herself behind the harp and looked up at him. “It shows.”

“Yeah, I guess the Lord knew what He was doing when He planted me here.” He beamed at her. “You need anything?”

“I'm fine,” she said, and was.

“Great.” He glanced at his watch. “Then if you'll excuse me, I'll go back to my place.”

The crowd settled and quieted. Reverend Townsend greeted everyone and led them in an opening prayer. Throughout, Ariel remained enclosed within the bubble of comfort, a sense that she was loved and guided and cared for and home. As she quietly tuned the strings, she wondered at the difference between the outside world and here.

“We have a guest with us tonight,” Reverend Townsend said. “An unexpected special visitor. Our originally planned musician was unable to join us, but a wonderful replacement has literally just stepped off the bus from Philadelphia. Ariel here is accompanying Sister Clarice, of whom many of you have heard me speak. They are here to help us get our new projects up and running.” Leslie Townsend had a genuinely nice smile. “We had to hurry back from the station so fast that I did not even think to ask what Ariel wanted to play for us. Ariel?”

What indeed? She found her question lofted upward, and the response granted to her upon a wave of the same peace that filled the hall. “A song of praise.”

“How wonderful.” Another smile, then, “I am sure we will all want to stop by afterward and thank her for helping out at the last moment like this.”

As the pastor seated himself Ariel adjusted the harp to her shoulder and ran through the strings. Then she closed her eyes. There waiting for her was that same peaceful Presence that had answered her question, a gentle guiding Spirit. Ariel fitted her fingers to the strings and let the still, small voice lead her into song.

She played of her longing for what she had left behind, the constancy of all that her home possessed. Of love beyond measure, peace without end. A light so total that no sun was required. A city of crystal and gold. A place for all. For
all
.

The song became a river, a flowing melody of praise and worship and prayerful longing, a tide of sound which in truth had neither beginning nor end. She simply joined with what always was, always will be, her strings chiming to the sound of unheard voices singing eternal praise to the King.

The Spirit within the great hall began to move, flowing with the music, filling the chapel with voices that people heard not with their ears, but rather with their hearts. Singing in time to Ariel's playing, a heavenly chorus that rose and soared on gossamer wings.

The entire chamber moved beyond the borders of time and space, of earthly woe and worry. For all who came with open honest hearts there was a moment of joining, an instant of glimpsing beyond the veil, of hearing the voice of promise and fulfillment, and knowing it was there with them, filling them with a love that was theirs for all eternity.