Angelology(72)

the Watchers, and surely they would have assisted in their release if they had the power to do so. But

the Watchers’ prison remains unknown. It is in this mystery that our work takes root.”

Dr. Seraphina was a gifted speaker, with a dramatic ability to animate her point for first-year

students, a talent that not many of our professors possessed. As a result of her efforts, she often

appeared exhausted by the end of an hour’s lecture, and that day was no exception. Looking up from

her notes, she announced a short break. Gabriella gestured for me to follow her, and, leaving the

chapel by a side exit, we walked through a series of narrow hallways until we reached an empty

courtyard. Dusk had fallen, and a warm autumn evening settled over us, scattering shadows on the

flagstones. A great beech tree towered above the courtyard, its skin strangely mottled, as if it suffered

from leprosy. The Valkos’ lectures could last for hours, often bleeding into the night, and I was keen

to take in the outdoor air. I wanted to ask Gabriella’s opinion about the lecture—indeed, I had grown

to be her friend through such analysis—but saw that she was in no mood.

Taking a cigarette case from the pocket of her jacket, Gabriella offered one to me. When I refused,

as I always did, she merely shrugged. It was a shrug I had come to recognize, a slight but insouciant

gesture that made it clear how much she disapproved of my inability to enjoy myself. Celestine the

naïf, the shrug seemed to say; Celestine, child of the provinces. Gabriella had taught me much by her

small rejections and silences, and I had always watched her with particular care, noticing the way she

dressed, what she read, the way she wore her hair. In the past weeks, her clothes had become prettier,

more revealing. Her makeup, which had always been distinct, had become darker and more

pronounced. The spectacle I had witnessed the previous morning suggested the reason for this change,

but still her manner captured my interest. Despite everything, I looked up to her as one does to an

older sister.

Gabriella lit her cigarette with a lovely gold lighter and inhaled deeply, as if to demonstrate all that

I was missing.

“How beautiful,” I said, taking the lighter from her and turning it in my hand, the gold burnishing to

a roseate hue in the evening light. I was tempted to ask Gabriella to tell me how such an expensive

lighter had come into her possession, but I stopped myself. Gabriella discouraged even the most

superficial questions. Even after a year of seeing each other every day, we spoke very little about our

personal lives. I settled, therefore, upon a simple statement of fact. “I haven’t seen it before.”

“It belongs to a friend,” she said without meeting my eye. Gabriella had no friends but me—she ate

with me, studied with me, and if I happened to be occupied, she preferred solitude to forming new

friendships—and so I knew at once it belonged to her lover. Surely she must have discerned that her

secrecy would make me curious. I could not restrain myself from asking her a direct question.

“What sort of friend?” I said. “I ask because you have seemed so distracted from our work lately.”

“Angelology is more than studying old texts,” Gabriella said. Her look of reproach suggested that

my vision of our endeavor at the school was deeply flawed. “I have given everything to my work.”

Unable to mask my feelings, I said, “Your attention has been overwhelmed by something else,

Gabriella.”

“You don’t know the first thing about the powers that control me,” Gabriella said. Although she

had meant to respond with her typical haughtiness, I detected a crack of desperation in her manner.

My questions had surprised and hurt her.

“I know more than you think,” I said, hoping that a direct confrontation would lead her to confess

everything. I’d never before taken such a strident tone with her. The error of my approach was

evident before I had finished speaking.

Snatching the lighter from me and tucking it into the pocket of her jacket, Gabriella tossed her

cigarette onto the slate flagstones and walked away.

When I returned to the chapel, I found my seat next to Gabriella. She had placed her jacket upon my

chair, saving it for me, but she refused even to glance my way as I sat. I could see that she had been

crying—a faint ring of black smudged the edges of her eyes where tears had mixed with the kohl. I

wanted to speak with her. I was desperate for her to open her heart to me, and I longed to help her

overcome whatever error in judgment had befallen her. But there was no time to talk. Dr. Raphael

Valko took his wife’s place behind the podium, arranging a sheaf of papers as he prepared to give a