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"I know, I know," he said, consoling me.
"All right." I drew myself up again, ashamed. I searched in mypockets, found a linen handkerchief, pulled it out and wiped my face.
The linen smelled like my house in New Orleans, where jacket andhandkerchief both had been kept until sunset this night, when I'dtaken them out of the closet and gone to kidnap Dora from thestreets.
Or was it the same night?
I had no idea.
I pressed the handkerchief to my mouth. I could smell the scent ofNew Orleans dust and mold and warmth.
I wiped my mouth.
"All right!" I declared breathlessly. "If you haven't becomecompletely disgusted with me?
"Hardly!" he said, as politely as David might have said.
"Then tell me the Story of Creation. Tell me everything. Just goon! Tell me! I....""Yes ... ?""I/we to know!"He rose to his feet, shook the grass from his loose robe, and said:
"That's what I've been waiting for. Now, we can truly begin."11LET'S move through the forest as we talk," he said. "If youdon't mind the walking.""No, not at all," I said.
He brushed a little more of the grass from his garment, a fine spunrobe that seemed neutral and simple, a garment that might have beenworn either yesterday or a million years ago. His entire form wasslightly bigger all over than mine, and bigger perhaps than that ofmost humans; he fulfilled every mythic promise of an angel, exceptthat the white wings remained diaphanous, retaining their shapeunder some sort of cloak of invisibility, more it seemed forconvenience than anything else.
"We're not in Time," he said. "Don't worry about the men andthe women in the forest. They can't see us. No one here can see us,and for that reason I can keep my present form. I don't have to resortto the dark devilish body which He thinks is appropriate for earthlymaneuvers, or to the Ordinary Man, which is my own unobtrusivechoice.""You mean you couldn't have appeared to me on Earth in yourangelic form?""Not without a lot of argument and pleading, and frankly I didn'twant to do it," he said. "It's too overwhelming. It would haveweighted everything too much in my favor. In this form, I look tooinherently good. I can't enter Heaven without this form; He doesn'twant to see the other form, and I don't blame Him. And frankly, onEarth, it's easiest to go about as the Ordinary Man."I stood up shakily, accepting his hand, which was firm and warm.
In fact, his body seemed as solid as Roger's body had seemed near thevery end of Roger's visitation. My body felt complete and entire andmy own.
It didn't surprise me to discover my hair was badly tangled. I ran acomb through it hastily for comfort, and brushed off my ownclothes梩he dark suit I had put on in New Orleans, which was full oftiny specks of dust, and some grass from the garden, but otherwiseunharmed. My shirt was torn at the collar, as if I myself had ripped itopen hastily in an effort to breathe. Otherwise, I was the usual dandy,standing amid a thick and verdant forest garden, which was not likeanything I'd ever seen.
Even a casual inspection indicated that this was no rain forest, butsomething considerably less dense, yet as primitive.
"Not in Time," I said.
"Well, moving through it as we please," he said, "we are only afew thousand years before your time, if you must know it. But again,the men and women roaming here won't see us. So don't worry. Andthe animals can't harm us. We are watchers here but we affect noth-ing. Come, I know this terrain by heart, and if you follow me, you'llsee we have an easy path through this wilderness. I have much to tellyou. Things around us will begin to change.""And this body of yours? It's not an illusion? It's complete.""Angels are invisible, by nature," he said. "That is, we areimmaterial in terms of earth material, or the material of the physicaluniverse, or however you would like to describe matter for yourself. Butyou were right in your early speculation that we have an essentialbody; and we can gather to ourselves sufficient matter from a wholevariety of sources to create for ourselves a complete and functioningbody, which we can later shatter and disperse as we see fit."We walked slowly and easily through the grass. My boots, heavyenough for the New York winter, found the uneven ground noproblem at all.
"What I'm saying," Memnoch continued, looking down at me?
he was perhaps three inches taller梬ith his huge almond-shapedeyes?is that this isn't a borrowed body, nor is it strictly speaking acontrived body. It's my body when surrounded and permeated withmatter. In other words, it's the logical result of my essence drawingto it all the various materials it needs.""You mean you look this way because you look this way.""Precisely. The Devilish body is a penance. The Ordinary Man isa subterfuge. But this is what I look like. There were angels like methroughout Heaven. Your focus was mainly on human souls inHeaven. But the angels were there."I tried to remembjr. Had there been taller beings, winged beings?
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