Dark Angel

Dark Angel, Benigno

Rochita Loenen-Ruiz

When Mercedes Akin saw him for the first time, she thought that he was the angel of death coming to fetch her. She could not see his face because it was that time of night when the moon goes into hiding and there are no stars. She shivered under the bedcovers and peered at him through her eyelashes.

He stood beside her bed for such a long time that she grew weary of waiting. Deciding that death had come for her and there was nothing she could do to stop him, she resigned her soul to God and fell asleep. In the morning she was still alive and several nights passed before she saw him again.

She was hurrying through the dark streets, shivering as she drew her coat close to her body. Night had fallen, and Mercedes was tired and hungry and longing for her bed.

She looked up in the darkness and saw his shadow in the pale lamplight. One moment he was there and the next, he was gone.

He came and went like that, a secret shade whose face she never saw.

One night, she awoke to the sound of his weeping. She sensed his presence in the quiet of her room, and she heard his voice, harsh and rasping, his sobs breaking through the silence. Then he sang and she shivered at the sound of his song because it was haunting and terrifying, conjuring up the nightmares that chased her in her dreams, awakening the ache that she had tried so long to suppress.

She fell asleep, and in her dreams she saw visions of angels with twisted wings, forlorn spirits whose limbs had lost their strength, and she wept.

His song haunted her. While she cleaned out the stinking latrines and polished the tiles in the bathrooms of rich matrons, she heard his voice, harsh and broken, resonating through the empty rooms. She imagined that she saw his shadow everywhere, but when she turned, she saw nothing.

It was the week before Christmas when she saw him again. The lights from the giant Christmas tree in the square illuminated her window, and she spoke to him for the first time.

"Benigno," she said. "I shall call you Benigno. In my tongue that name means a benign spirit."

He laughed at her words, but she was not afraid when he turned to show her his face that was lined and twisted by the transgressions of a century.

"If you think that I am benign, then you are deluded," he said.

She smiled. "Perhaps I am deluded. Maybe I am mad. Who would believe me if I told about a spirit who shadows my footsteps and gifts me with the sound of his weeping and his songs of remorse?"

"Why do you still believe?" he asked her. He moved closer to her and she could feel his breath cold upon her cheek.

"I believe that God is still good," she said. "Even when it seems that He has turned His back on us, He still remains unchanged. He is like the sun, even when we cannot see Him, He is there."

"How can you say that? How can you credit Him with being good when He has taken your husband and your child? Is it a good God who reduces you to poverty? Can you call Him good when you are cleaning out the latrines of rich women, when you see them wearing the jewels that you could have worn, going to the balls that you could have gone to, and traveling all over the face of the planet, just as you have dreamed?"

"It is not easy," Mercedes replied. "But my father always told me that in life we cannot expect that everything will go as we wish it to go. Our part is to accept what God gives and to thank Him even in the midst of our despair."

Text Box: How can you say that? How can you credit Him with being good when He has taken your husband and your child? Is it a good God who reduces you to poverty? He shook his head. "In time, you will come to see, that all your beliefs are illusions. God forgets His promises, Mercedes, and all mortals are doomed."

She looked out her window to where the moon shone on the tall spires of the church. "Maybe you are right," she said, "but I still believe."

The Pope was dead. His body lay upon a bier for the world to see. Lights flashed as photographers crowded in like avaricious vultures, longing for that one shot that would make its way to the marketplace of tabloids, journals, newspapers, the presses big and small, all who would be covering the news saying: "the reigning regent of the roman catholic church has died. Long live the next pope, when they get around to casting enough votes for the right one."

Benigno watched from the shadows. Vatican was crowded with pilgrims who had come from all over the world, dignitaries, heads of state, military men, the ever-present media, a conglomeration of believers and agnostics, the faithful and the curious, all joined together in one giant sea of humanity all clapping and clamoring, "Santo, Santo", as the pallbearers bore the pope's coffin into the cathedral and the doors were shut.

He waited because he knew that when the funeral was over, and when the feasting was done, once the square was empty again, he would see Mercedes Akin.

"One last time," he thought to himself. He almost felt regret. While he shadowed her footsteps and watched the documentary of her life unfold, the wells of his remembrance sprang open, and he recalled the sunshine and the blazing light, the joy of the rivers that flowed from the heart of Eden and the songs—the songs that rose high and bright and filled the air with color.

They caused such brilliant vibration in the stratosphere, and inspired artists and composers with melodies and pictures that they plucked out of the ether.

For the first time in centuries he tried to sing the songs that he had sang in the paradise that was closed to them. But his voice was withered and hoarse, and he wept because there was no going back.

"Santo Subito," the crowd roared.

"He was a good man," Benigno wanted to say. "But not all saints wear papal robes." He thought of Mercedes Akin, wiping the sweat from her forehead, her hands rough and red from the chemicals that she used when she cleaned the toilets and the bathrooms of those spoiled and scented madams.

He hardened his heart. It was time to go.

As he walked away, the sound of the crowds dwindled into a gentle roar. He grimaced, wondering if God in His heaven would hear the roar of that mighty mass and their demands for their pope to be crowned saint.

He kept on walking as night fell. In the distance, mourning gave way to revelry. He continued onwards because destiny was waiting for him, it was also waiting for Mercedes Akin whom he had not seen since that night in December.

In the square, Mercedes waited. She watched the stars come out, as Rome resumed its ponderous gait and shed off the last remnants of the feasting that followed the burial. A celebration of life: that was what Pope John Paul would have wanted. That's what made him the rock and roll pope of a generation that saw his demise as a symbol of their own footsteps hastening towards a grave that gaped wide open like a hungry maw.

She had lost her job that afternoon, and while she was walking home an impudent snatcher had taken her purse. It all happened so fast that she barely had time to scream and take up the chase. But she was tired and no longer used to running, and she lost him in the maze of streets that seemed to tumble into one another.

She looked up at the stars and wondered if God in His heaven still heard her prayers, or if He had forgotten her as totally as He seemed to have forgotten everything else in a universe that was drenched in chaos.

That afternoon, she had bumped into an old friend who told her that there was a man who was looking for willing women. Mercedes could not begin to comprehend what that word meant, but she waited in the square as Gina, her friend, had told her to do.

She was nervous and she did not see the man waiting in the shadows. She did not notice the grim look on his face, nor did she hear the memory of songs that ran through his head.

The clock struck nine and she jumped up from where she sat. It was late, she was hungry, and there was no sign of Gina's friend.

She turned to go when she heard the sound of footsteps.

"Mercedes?" a voice said.

She turned. Around his neck, gold chains glittered and his pudgy hands were decked with diamond rings. He smelled of strong perfume and she did not like the way his eyes glittered or the manner in which they roamed over her, as if he were taking off her clothes.

"Are you Gina's friend?" she asked.

"Ah, Gina," the man said. "She is a good girl. She will go far, you take my words. If you are good like her, you will go far, too. Of course, it will take months to restore your hands to beauty, but men do not mind that, not as long as you are clean and willing."

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean," he winked at her. He drew closer, and she almost retched at the obnoxious smell of hair pomade. "Of course, I'll have to test drive you first."

"I'm not that kind of girl," Mercedes said.

He uttered a growl and Mercedes shied away from him. Above her, the stars glittered like cold jewels in the night sky.

"Not yet," he said, "but you will be."

She backed away, fear coursing through her veins.

A light flashed in the square, distracting him.

That was all that Mercedes needed. She ran, never minding the shout of rage that echoed behind her. She ran, her footsteps echoing on the cobblestones, her breath coming in short gasps. She ran from the apparitions that seemed to jump at her from shadowed crevices, and the lonely cul-de-sacs.

In her footsteps, visions rose and fell, she shed the broken dreams of her solitary life, the illusions that she had treasured, the weariness that wrapped her soul in ennui, all the baggage that had brought her to the brink of selling her soul fell away from her. Her breath came in short gasps and the tears flowing down her cheeks impeded her sight.

"God," she wept, "God help me, please."

She ran until her legs gave way and she collapsed in a heap. She was back at the fountain, back at the same place where she had began and above her the stars shone like bright jewels.

He looked behind him at the fountain. She was sitting there, looking up at the great dome of sky, her lips moving as if in prayer, and a white light radiated from her face, blinding him.

"What is man?" Benigno wanted to shout it out to the heavens. "What is man that his soul is more precious than mine? Even I, in my twisted fate, I see how priceless man is in your eyes. Do you blame me for hating you?" he questioned.

But the light was gone, and the night was filled with millions of stars that bathed Mercedes Akin in their glow.

Rochita Loenen-Ruiz is a Filipina writer based in the Netherlands. She writes poetry and fiction and has had works published in small literary magazines in the Philippines. She is a member of Flips - the Filipino writers online community and of fantasy-writers.org