|
Had the Tunnel opened for Armand? Had his soul gone up? Orwas he wandering through the Gates of Hell?
"Armand," I whispered. And as I closed my eyes, I saw Mem-noch's stricken face: Lestat, help me!
With my last bit of feeling, I reached to make sure the Veil wasthere. But no, the Veil was gone. I'd given Dora the Veil. Dora hadthe Veil and Dora had taken it into the church.
You would never be my adversary!
24We SAT together on the low wall, Fifth Avenue, edge of Central Park.
Three nights had passed like this. We had watched.
For as far as we could see uptown the line formed, five and sixdeep, men and women and children, singing, stamping their feet tokeep warm, nuns and priests hurrying back and forth offering hotchocolate and tea to those who were freezing. Fires burned in largedrums at intervals of so many feet. As far as the eye could see.
And downtown, on and on it went, past the glittering displays ofBergdorf Goodman and Henri Bendel, the furriers, the jewelers, thebookstores of midtown, until it wound its way into the cathedral.
David stood with folded arms, barely leaning on the wall, his anklescrossed. I was the one who sat like a kid, with my knee up, myravaged one-eyed face upturned, my chin on my knuckled fist,resting my elbow on my knee, just listening to them.
Far ahead one could hear screams and shouts. Someone else hadno doubt touched a clean napkin to the Veil, and once again theimage had been transferred! And so it would be again sometimetomorrow night, and maybe once the night after and how many timesnobody knew, except that the icon made the vera-icon out of thecloth touched to it, and the face blazed from cloth to cloth, like flametouched from wick to wick.
"Come on," David said. "We're getting cold here. Come, let'swalk."We walked.
"Why?" I asked. "Up there, to see the same thing we saw lastnight, and the night before? So that I can struggle to get to her again,knowing that any show of force, any preternatural gift only confirmsthe entire miracle! She won't listen to me ever again. You know shewon't. And who is gathered on the steps now, who will immolatehimself at dawn to confirm the miracle?""Mael is there.""Ah, yes, the Druid priest, once a priest, always a priest. And sothis will be his morning to fall like Lucifer in a blaze."Last night it had been some ragged vagabond blood drinker, comefrom God knows where, unknown to us, but becoming a preternaturaltorch at dawn for the banks of video cameras and newspaperphotographers. The papers were filled with the pictures of the blaze.
Filled with the pictures of the Veil itself.
"Here, wait," I said. We had come to Central Park South. Thecrowd here was all singing in concert that old solemn, militant hymn:
Holy God, we praise thy NameLord of All, we bow before thee!
I stood staring at them, dazed. The pain in my left eye socketseemed worse but what could be changing there, except that witheach passing hour I felt the depth.
"You're fools, all of you!" I shouted. "Christianity is the bloodiestreligion that ever existed in the world. I can bear witness!""Hush now, and do as I tell you," David said, pulling me along, sothat we vanished amongst the ever-shifting people on the icy side-walks before anyone could have turned to look. Over and over he hadrestrained me this way. He was weary of it. I didn't blame him.
Once, policemen had laid hands on me.
They had caught me and tried to pull me out of the cathedral as Iwas trying to talk to her, and then when they had me outside, slowlythey had all backed away. They had sensed I wasn't alive, the waymortals do. They had sensed, and they had muttered about the Veiland the miraculous, and there it had been, my impotence.
Policemen were all over. Policemen everywhere stood on guard tohelp, to give out the warm tea, to put their pale shivering hands outover the flames in the drums.
Nobody noticed us. Why should they? We were just two men,drab, part of the crowd, our gleaming skin was nothing much in thisblinding whiteness of snow amid these ecstatic pilgrims, wanderingfrom valley to valley of song.
The bookstore windows were piled with Bibles, books onChristology. There was a huge pyramid of a lavender-covered book calledVeronica and Her Cloth by Ewa Kuryluk, and another stack of HolyFaces, Secret Places by lan Wilson.
People sold pamphlets on the street, or even gave them away. Icould hear accents from all parts of the country梖rom Texas, andFlorida and Georgia and California.
|
