The Saint Louisans (27 page)

We all laughed at that. Antje and Pierce whispered to each other, then she fed him a slice. I studied their intimacy, their happiness. Sadness twinged my heart for a moment. I had lost him. She's taken my place. And why the hell am I upset about this?

Saul atoned for his lecture by quizzing Antje. “So what do you do? In Berlin?”

“I work for the
Deutsche Dienststelle
. We trace the surviving families of dead soldiers. Killed in the war. I help bring them home. When I can.”

A quiet curiosity came over Saul and I. “Bring them home?” I asked.

“Yes. We seek old grave sites. And if we can, we do the …
forensisch
.”

Pierce spoke. “Forensics.” Antje nodded. “Antje's been to Russia several times.”

“Yes,” she said. “The highways there are not good. Yours are much better.
Almost as good as ours. And the Russians also make pizza of their cities.”

Saul's nod was a mix of the curious and careful. The war. “Yeah. So what's this? Another angel of death in the family? Like a Valkyrie, huh?”

Antje's frown was subtle. “Valkyries choose heroes to die in Valhalla, then escorted them there. I only bring the dead home. No heroes, only dead. All dead, even SS.”

Saul nodded, and Antje continued.

“I believe all dead deserve the right to rest in their homeland. No more drama. Only peace.”

Saul nodded. “No argument there.”

We ate in silence. The obvious drama would have been the German-Jewish thing, but mine was Pierce leaving in three days, putting an ocean between us. Jama was talking to Solange at the studio. We smiled as Yul leaped up, snatched a piece of sausage and sped off to the corner to devour it. Antje sunk against Pierce.

“Pierce tells me St. Louis is … dramatic. It is a city of … mystical?”

“Psychic,” said Pierce, “psychic power.”

I blinked, happy to snap out of my introspection. “Oh, let's not get into that. You raved about that in middle school.”

“It's the Arch,” Pierce explained to Saul, almost ignoring me, “it's like a wishbone. You know. Timeless.”

“Okay,” Saul said, “rap on. I like the wishbone bit, even though the Arch sucks.”

“Sucks?” smiled Antje.

“I have issues with it. Pierce?”

“Okay,” Pierce said, “the final two sections of the Arch at the top keep it together. If they fell off, the whole thing would collapse. It's kind of sacred. A priest and rabbi blessed it. It's like the Great Pyramid. Its apex is missing, because the prophet Zechariah said the headstone of the pyramid represents the second coming of Christ. When he returns, the apex will be placed in position.”

Wild laughter came from Saul. “What is this shit?
Da Vinci Code
on the Mississippi?”

I leaned back. “The kid and I rapped Nostradamus and pyramids. He did esoterica while other kids did pot.”

“Well,” Pierce shrugged, “St. Louis lies on the ninetieth parallel on the Mississippi. A great source of psychic power. We probably get that from Cahokia. You know, the mounds were said to be sources of magic.”

Saul grinned. “What are we, talk radio?”

“Some guy mentioned the Arch being predicted. In Zerubbabel.”

“Bible stuff?” Saul laughed. “Psychic power? Talk radio? Okay, now I'm curious.” He pointed to me. “You. Angel. Priestess of the house. A Bible,
sil vous plais. Mach schnell
.”

I rummaged through the book cases for Aunt Mary's old Bible, rustling the pages to Zechariah, offering it to Saul. Jama cursed about the goddamned pitch to Lionsgate.

“What?” Saul frowned. “You want me to read it?”

“You've got the voice.”

“Oh, the voice. You want drama. Shall I do Heston or Eli Wallach? My Eli Wallach is a gas.”

Antje frowned. “A ‘gas'?”

“I restore old buildings,” Saul explained as he leafed through the Bible, “even my slang is rehabbed. Which voice?”

“Eli Wallach!” Pierce and I chorused.

“Disney?” exclaimed Jama on the phone, “don't even get me started on fucking Disney. They'd rape
Lallah Rookh
! Someone from Disney's there? Well, damn it, call him over.”

With much ceremony, Saul held up the Bible and pretended to sweep back a mane of Prophet's hair. His performance would have earned him a Kretschmar Ham. “Who art thou, o great monument? Before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth a headstone thereof with shouting, crying, Grace, grace unto it.”

Saul closed the Bible undramatically. Silence as we looked at each other. Even Yul perched on the couch and, staring, swished his tail.

“This predicts the Arch, huh?”

Pierce's eyes sparkled. “Or the pyramids. It's the usual portentous, generic prophesy.”

Saul laid the Bible down. “Speaking as a Jew, since the Old Testament is our gig, I'd say you're stretching it.”

Antje stroked Yul as I rose for a jug of wine. “So, the Arch is sacred and
mystical. I shall see it, then. Then read the sacred book of Tom and his Glass Menagerie. I have eaten the sacred pizza of St. Louis to prepare me, made with the holy Provel of the Midwest. Have we the holy drink?”

Glasses filled as I poured. “What holy drink?”

Antje was triumphant. “As Pierce told me. The sacred Budweiser.” She pronounced it German-style. Bood-vy-zer.

Saul clucked and waved his hand. “Aw, cut it out. Let's go back to movies.”

That had been a good night. All of us together, and I could at least rest easy that one of my kids was stable. Antje was good for Pierce, and now he was going to be a father. Meanwhile, Jama …

I imagine a camera running at fast speed. It views the baby bump of land on the Mississippi ages before it becomes St. Louis. Then looking across and upriver, mounds quickly rise, and just as quickly are abandoned. Cahokia a burp in history. More nothing. Then, St. Louis grows from cabins to houses. The settlement pollinates across woods and fields, expanding the city in our continual fast forward. Neighborhoods spread like a cancer. Think of bleeding sap from acres of felled trees; full, rich earth, and its musty smell paved over.

Our rushing camera shows riverboats flocking to the levee like ducks feeding at a pond, but the boats fade quicker than Cahokia as railroads and factories elbow their way in, clouding the city in a browning of industry. Suburbs replicate the cancer, but faster as they web the countryside. The Arch scales to the sky in jittery camera speed. Freeways slice and carve. St. Louis is indeed a pizza. Then industry rusts out and leaves. Just past two hundred years. Not even a blink. And lest we forget, John G. Priest, who helped form the Mysterious Organization of Veiled Prophets in 1878, claimed the very first Veiled Prophet was crowned in 10,842 B.C., 294 years before the world was even created, according to some. New York, eat your heart out.

Now, what remains? What is remembered?

Memories of Antje and Pierce, mingled with my wanting him closer to home. Hearing them that night in the bedroom sighing, whispering in German. Heavy breathing as they couple, knowing he is one with her, imagining that is the night he makes her belly swell with my grandchild. Jama almost ignoring us as she wheels and deals, and two months later she will rob
me. Memories of time that makes children grow and leave. This is my history. The only one my heart feels.

I remember a television program I watched, one of what will happen to cities when man goes poof! After a century or two, streets cave in. Unchecked, water seeps into high-rises and sinks them, floor by floor. Water, ever destructive. Lacking support, walls crash onto empty streets below choked with vegetation and wild, block-sized webs of creeping undergrowth.

The stainless steel of the Gateway Arch will slowly corrode from within of structural arthritis on its rib. Rust that already eats at its interior carbon steel, unchecked if no men are there to nurse it so it gleams, free of scabrous decay.

First drop the two top pieces Pierce spoke of, the ones blessed by holy men, recalled in prophesy and night talk of the airwaves. The Arch, now two gaunt ribs on the bank of the Mississippi. On some silent day they loosen and crash below.

Deer will eventually wander up and sniff the broken chunks as they munch stalks of wild grass where a city once began. Crows will perch on the rusted sides before they wing to the straight, crumbling man-mountains to the West, their cries harsh and chattering, like the crows Pierre told me guard the temples of Gesshoji, his holy place in Japan. Up the river, the mounds of Cahokia won't be so lonely anymore, nor so mysterious. Another civilization collapsed. There's room for everyone.

Amidst all of this rumination, there is my life, my children, my brush with cancer that will surely return. Life is watching death go past, the stains of the pizza carton outlasting the squares. Only outlines remain.

On the telephone, Rasheed was polite as any outsourcing drone calling from New Delhi. I frowned as I approached St. Louis Cathedral. For a Muslim, it seemed an odd choice for a rendezvous.

The cathedral's emerald green dome is the Central West End's crown, an imitation of the Hagia Sophia with two Gothic towers appended to its front. I heaved open thick wooden doors designed to keep out time, and became immersed in the cathedral's real glory, mosaics that coat its interior like cosmic fish scales. Above me floated a sea of gold squares, looking like the inside of God's skull.

The mosaics twinkled; discontinuous space where atoms reassemble to depict saints, our Savior, the Virgin, and vignettes from St. Louis's Catholic history. My nose tingled at the chill of cool air, and in the dim, ethereal light, I could see five kneeling parishioners seeded through waves of empty pews. Echoes from a tour at the right of the altar wafted throughout. Rasheed sat in a pew, wearing a dark coat as his brown eyes studied the Apocalypse.

I slid beside him. He kept looking up. A sky with fingers of sun lit up the amber windows, making the pendentives below glitter.

“Why here?”

Rasheed sighed at the baldachin, the dome under the sanctuary shimmering with bright blue mosaics. “When I was in London, drug dealers did their commerce in churches. Because they were so empty.”

“We could have had coffee somewhere.”

“This is not a friendly chat, Mrs. Bridger.”

“How true.” I studied the apostles, then took a deep breath. The tour group echoed to our right. “I know you're Al-Qaeda.” Rasheed said nothing. “My source saw you in Baghdad.”

“And?”

“You're a terrorist.”

“So?”

This was a day of my urgencies meeting indifference. “You're a wanted man and in no condition to threaten my daughter. By the way, she says it's eighty thousand.”

“Your daughter is a liar. As you well know.”

I certainly knew. “I could tell the FBI about you.”

Nothing. Rasheed kept looking up. “That one is an angel. Michael? Gabriel?”

I looked at both angels, their wings the color of blue-jays; brilliant glittering robes their raiment. “Neither. They represent the Old and New Testament. The one with the blindfold—”

“The Old Testament?”

I nodded.

“Yes, Mrs. Bridger, blindfolded because Jesus has not revealed himself. We have angels, too. Belief in them is one of the six pillars of wisdom. Our faith is not that far from yours. That will make it easier when America accepts Islam.”

“Let's stay on square one. “If you don't leave this country, I'll go to the authorities.”

Rasheed almost smiled as he finally looked at me. “I admire the research you have put into this little … confrontation, to threaten me and save the honor of your family. It is true I have been a soldier of God. In Baghdad, I sent four of your GIs to hell. I also set a bridge explosion that killed two and cost another his legs. There are other such examples of my heroism, but why go on? Go, tell your authorities I am here.” His smile was feline and full. “They already know.”

“I doubt that.”

“Oh, but they do. Your FBI knows I am here to collect a debt. Jama is a little fish unworthy of their concern.”

“Don't be so cocky, buster.” I turned and frowned. It's wrong to be snide in a cathedral. Rasheed admired the mosaics as he spoke.

“My sheik lends to your banks. He lets your air force fly over his airspace to do the bidding of Jews and capitalists.” His lips curved up, matching the dome. “And do not forget the oil. Your country needs his friendship in a region where your imperialism is despised. Your daughter means nothing to your government.”

“I'll go to my Congressman. I know him rather well.”

Rasheed nodded. “Yes, but have you enough money to bribe him into activity? No, Mrs. Bridger. Jama will pay her debt. My sheik will not be made a fool.”

Cameras clicked. We turned. The tour group admired the grotto of Mary.

“Pictures,” Rasheed whispered, “collecting small squares of memory. How minute compared to God.” His nose sniffed. “What is that smell? Some kind of cheese?”

I opened my purse. “It's pizza. Imo's. Care for some?”

Whole paragraphs could have described his wary expression. I held the first square up, the tissue paper it was wrapped in making dark spots.

“This one hasn't any sausage. Just veggies and cheese. Not exactly halal, but if my Jewish boyfriend can scarf it, why not you?”

Rasheed took the slice and studied it like Hamlet did Yorick's skull.

“Yes,” he nodded. “‘The square beyond compare.'” Said with too much gravity, as if the slogan wore a tux.

“You know about Imo's?”

“I have studied your people. Your city.”

We rose and approached the doors as the tour group looked up at the mural of the
Sisters of the Good Shepherd
. A ring of children play around the nun, one of the girls holding a Raggedy Andy doll.