Angelology(56)

“Whereas angels were once the epitome of beauty and goodness, now, in our time, they are

irrelevant. Materialism and science have banished them to nonexistence, a sphere as indeterminate as

purgatory. It used to be that humanity believed in angels implicitly, intuitively, not with our minds but

with our very souls. Now we need proof. We need material, scientific data that will verify without a

doubt their reality. Yet what a crisis would occur if the proof existed! What would happen, do you

suppose, if the material existence of angels could be verified?”

Celestine lapsed into silence. Perhaps she was tiring herself, or perhaps she had simply become

lost in thought. Conversely, Evangeline was beginning to be alarmed. The turn Celestine’s tale was

taking was frightfully concurrent with the mythology Evangeline had schooled herself in earlier that

afternoon. She had hoped to find reason to dismiss the existence of these monstrous creatures, not

confirm them. Celestine appeared to be slipping into the kind of agitation she had displayed earlier

that afternoon.

“Sister,” Evangeline said, hoping Celestine would confess that all she’d said was an illusion, a

metaphor for something practical and innocuous, “tell me that you are not serious.”

“It is time for my pills,” Celestine said, gesturing to her night table. “Can you bring them?”

Turning to the night table, Evangeline stopped short. Where earlier in the afternoon there had been

a stack of books, now there stood bottles and bottles of medication, enough to suggest that Celestine

suffered from a serious and protracted illness. Evangeline picked up one of the orange plastic bottles

to examine it. The label gave Celestine’s name, the dosage, and the drug name—strings of

unpronounceable syllables that Evangeline had never heard before. She herself had always been

healthy, her recent problem with chest colds being the only experience she’d had with illness. Her

father had been hale until the minute he died, and her mother had disappeared in her prime. Certainly

Evangeline had never witnessed someone so ruined by illness. It struck her that she had not thought

about the complex combinations of remedies needed to maintain and soothe a damaged body. Her

lack of sensitivity filled her with shame.

Evangeline opened the drawer below the night table. There she found a pamphlet explaining the

possible side effects of cancer medications and, clipped to it, a neat column of medicine names and

dosage schedules. She caught her breath. Why hadn’t she been informed that Celestine had cancer?

Had she been so selfishly absorbed with her own curiosity that the condition had escaped her? She

sat at Celestine’s side and counted out the correct dosage.

“Thank you,” Celestine said, taking the pills and swallowing them with water.

Evangeline was consumed by regret at her blindness. She had resisted asking too many questions of

Celestine, and yet she had been desperate to be enlightened about all the old nun had said earlier in

the day. Even now, watching Celestine struggle to swallow the tablets, she felt a terrible yearning for

the gaps to be filled in. She wanted to know the connection between the convent, their rich patron, and

the study of angels. Even more, she needed to know how she was a part of this strange web of

associations.

“Forgive me for pressing you,” Evangeline said, feeling guilty for her persistence even as she

pressed onward. “But how did Mrs. Rockefeller come to help us?”

“Of course,” Celestine said, smiling slightly. “You still want to know about Mrs. Rockefeller. Very

well. But you may be surprised to learn that you have had the answer all along.”

“How can that be?” Evangeline replied. “I learned only today of her interest in St. Rose.”

Celestine sighed deeply. “Permit me to start from the beginning,” she said. “In the 1920s one of the

leading scholars in our group—Dr. Raphael Valko, the husband of my teacher, Dr. Seraphina Valko

—”

“My grandmother married a man named Raphael Valko,” Evangeline said, interrupting.

Celestine regarded Evangeline coolly. “Yes, I know, although their marriage happened after I left

Paris. Long before this, Dr. Raphael uncovered historical records proving that an ancient lyre had

been discovered in a cavern by one of our founding fathers, a man named Father Clematis. The lyre

had until that time been a source of great study and speculation among our scholars. We knew the

legend of the lyre, but we did not know if the lyre itself indeed existed. Until Dr. Raphael’s

discovery, the cave had simply been associated with the myth of Orpheus. I’m not sure if you are