I step out of the air-conditioned quiet of the Basilica and into the cacophony of Colfax's incessant traffic and its attendant smell of auto exhaust. I do what I can to shut out this assault and cross myself. "Lord, grant me the strength to bring Your comfort to those who most need it."
Only then do I allow myself to look south across Colfax. To do otherwise is to invite a nearly paralyzing despair over the quiet desperation of the far, far too many lost souls who wander up and down the street looking for sex, drugs, and often times, oblivion.
But she is there, as though she has been waiting for me, knowing exactly when I would emerge from the nave and out into the hot, muggy August twilight. As she seems to every night, she comes to tell me of her latest vision.
For a moment, her eyes focus on mine, and I see her. Not what her brain's natural chemical imbalances have made of her. Not what the drugs, prescribed and not, have made of her. Not what her guilt has made of her. Not what her parents have made of her by throwing her out of their home like a Jezebel on her eighteenth birthday.
I see her--I see Isabelle.
Such sadness. Such compassion. Such thwarted strength.
As always, it is her cornflower blue eyes that first draw my gaze. But then I notice her dish-water blonde hair is even dirtier than normal--when was the last time she showered? Would it be a brighter, more lustrous blonde if she had the opportunity to wash it regularly? The slight Adam's apple. And good Lord, is that stubble or just dirt from living on the street, or wherever it is she sleeps at night?
But then the confusion takes grip, and Izzy starts lashing the air before her face, as though swatting at a cloud of gnats. She turns east and starts walking, almost stumbling, toward Pennsylvania Street.
When she reaches it, she will turn around and pace down to Logan Street and back to Pennsylvania.
Over and over.
Until I approach her and she tells me of whatever vision it is that has brought her all but to the steps of the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. Steps I know she will never climb because she is convinced God can no longer love her--would no longer welcome her in His house. But God is infinitely forgiving, and He would welcome her in His house as readily as He once welcomed. . . Isaac.
I grit my teeth to push thoughts of that poor, tormented boy from my mind--they still have the power to push me to a despair worse than the contemplation of all those who choose, for whatever reason, to desecrate their bodies and souls on Colfax.
That her parents, "good Catholics," could not accept their son's inability to see himself as a boy.
That they would throw her out of their home on her eighteenth birthday for. . .
With the determination of a man who knows he's lost his way in the desert and yet must soldier on, I walk down the steps to let Isabelle tell me of her latest vision. But, of course, I'm forced to stop before I reach the sidewalk.
"Hey paaadre."
Benny manages to slur even just those two words. He's an elderly. . .gentleman. Every night he scoots up and down five blocks of Colfax on a wheeled walker with fluorescent orange tennis balls on the rear legs. He's not fat, but is portly. His legs are bowed, and the same quarter inch of grey stubble covers his liver-spotted head as his throat and jowly cheeks.
He wears a Marine baseball cap--claims to have served in Saigon during the war--claims to have saved more than twenty people during the evacuation. A cigarette dangles from his lips even as a portable oxygen tank pumps what he claims is "pure oxie" directly into his nose. If it were, indeed, pure oxygen, I suspect he would have blown his head off long ago while trying to light one of his ever-present cigarettes--I've seen him thumb his zippo a dozen times before managing to light a cigarette to his satisfaction.
Even from five feet away, I can't tell which odor is stronger, the stink of his nicotine saturated clothes or the whiskey on his breath.
Ignoring the man would be rude.
He comes to a stop just a foot from me.
I breathe through my mouth to avoid some of the stench. "Good evening, Benny. How are you tonight?"
"Same'ld, same'ld. Ya know-oww it is, paadre."
The words are a little less slurred--practice makes perfect, I guess. "Well. . ."
"Say, padre"--he's making a real effort to speak distinctly--"Ya wouldn't happen to have some spare change, wouldja?"
I fight down a sigh. "Benny, I do have some change, but. . ."
"Honest, padre. I'm headed down to Mickey D's for some coffee and a burger."
Isabelle's on her third round. Though I know she'll keep going for as long it takes for me to get to her, I hate to make her wait.
Experience has taught me that if I give Benny money, it will go for either more smokes or more whiskey. Luckily, I have an out, and I should be able play it quickly. "Benny, I remember giving you two dollars last Thursday night when you told me the same thing. And you told me you'd bring me the receipt to prove you bought food and not cigarettes or whiskey. But you didn't. So, tonight, you're on your own."
"Tat's fair, paaadre."
The slur is back in full force even as he pulls a piece of cardboard off the side of his walker. He hangs the sign from wire clothes hangers on the walker's front cross-bar. It reads, Viet Nam War Vet -- Every quarter helps -- GOD BLESS.
That done, he starts wheeling down toward the McDonalds. "Ya hafa gude evenin', paaadre."
"You as well, Benny."
Who knows? Perhaps he was telling the truth. And perhaps I have committed the sin of unjustified condemnation.
But now I'm free to go to Isabelle.
As I step into the inner eastbound lane, she stops her pacing and swatting at the air. She doesn't look at me, keeping her attention on the ground a foot or two in front of her. By coincidence or not, she has stopped just where the traffic leads me to walk up onto the south sidewalk.
It would be arrogant to think that the Lord had arranged the traffic so I could cross all four lanes of Colfax at little more than a brisk walk. Nonetheless, I give Him my thanks.
I know that using her full name will cause the swatting to start anew, and several minutes will pass before it stops again. So, "Good evening, Izzy."
Only then does Izzy look up to meet my gaze. "Father Grigori." It is not Isabelle who says this, it is Izzy's scattered, diffident gaze.
Everyone else to whom I minister addresses me, as is Catholic tradition, by my ordained name, "William." But not Isabelle. In fact, I don't know how she could know my given name. Just another one of the mysteries that is Isabelle.
From the basilica's portico, I had not noticed the light, open-hand shaped bruise on her left cheek nor the bruise around her right wrist. "Izzy, what happened to your face and wrist?"
"Michael is coming."
Still Izzy--is this her prophecy? But I don't care--what I do care about are the bruises.
"Izzy, what happened to your face and wrist?"
"Isabelle needed money, so she tried to turn a trick. But the Jane was a lesbian who didn't appreciate Isabelle's little Isaac."
This isn't the first time Isabelle has tried to prostitute herself to a woman who subsequently abused her when the Jane discovered that biologically, Isabelle is a man.
"I see." I want to take her right hand in mine to examine the bruise, to wipe the dirt from her face so I can better see the bruise there. But in the six months I've known her, we've touched only once. In the church's hospice. And she had fled immediately afterward. But come to think of it, it was after this that she started calling me by my given name.
Though it costs me terribly, I respect her self-denial of human compassion. "Who is Michael?"
"Michael is coming for Benny."
For no longer than it takes her to answer, Isabelle, not Izzy, looks up at me. Direct and self-assured, not afraid and confused.
By both her tone and the way her eyes hold--almost grip--mine, Isabelle implies that I know this Michael.
It is always Isabelle who tells me what will come to pass.
And as always, the intensity of her gaze starts to fade.
She is Izzy once again.
And even though I know to expect it, I flinch at her first swat at the things she sees before her eyes but aren't really there. And as she turns and stumbles away, so she won't hear, I quietly pray, "May the Lord watch over you, Isabelle."
***
For the next hour, I stand in front of the Cathedral, inviting all who pass to the midnight Mass.
But my heart's not in it--another sin for which I will have to atone.
Michael. Archangel Michael? The Lord's warrior, His bringer of death? If it is the Archangel coming for Benny. . .
There are so many ways to die on Colfax, and so many do.
Worried for his physical safety, I keep an eye out for Benny. But I do not see him before it is time to go in to celebrate the Mass.
***
Attendance is sparse, and giving the sacrament to the handful in attendance does not take long. Another sin to account for: my prayers are only half-heartedly for those to whom I offer the sacrament--mostly I pray that the Lord will show Benny mercy this night.
***
As I remove my vestments in the sacristy, I can't help but think about when I first met Isabelle.
It was just days after I had arrived at the basilica; I had not even led my first Mass, when the Monsignor approached me about a girl in the hospice. She had been badly beaten.
As he led me to her bedside, he told me Izzy and Isabelle's story.
Told me how Julia, one of the cleaning staff, had found Isabelle lying, nearly unconscious and bleeding, by the rectory door. He hoped that I would be able convince her to go to the police to report the beating--she had told him only that Jane had done it.
When I first saw her, I could not believe that anyone would do anything so brutal to such an obviously already tortured soul. But my own experience with the Bratva back home in Moscow forced me to acknowledge that such things happen. Far more often than a loving God would allow. So often to the least able to. . .
The Monsignor introduced us: "Father William, this is Izzy. Izzy, this is Father William. I've asked him to look after you."
Isabelle did not reply.
At first, I tried to console her, but she did not need consolation.
In a very matter of fact manner, Izzy--it would take me some time to recognize the difference between Izzy and Isabelle--told me that what had happened happens.
This was the beginning of my trek into the moral and spiritual desert that is East Colfax.
I spent hours by her bedside.
It took me that long to convince her to tell me the story.
It was the same story as Izzy had told me earlier today, only with more dire outcomes.
Then I tried to show her sympathy, but she did not want it.
Sympathy implies a connection, but the desert is a desolate place.
Eventually, she announced her need to relieve herself.
I offered to bring her a bed-pan and give her privacy, but in an act of will, the likes I had not seen before and have not seen since, she forced herself up out of the cot in which Julia had laid her.
With her first step, she stumbled and when I took her by the arm to steady her, she froze like a statue.
I said her name, apologized, worried that I had wrenched her arm.
But she did not respond. Did not move.
Eventually, not knowing what else to do, I let go.
Only then did Izzy look at me and say, "Isabelle needs to do this for herself, Father Grigori."
I was startled by her use of my given name, convinced that the Monsignor had given my name as "Father William."
Odd how only tonight it should come back to me that this was the first time Izzy had called me Grigori.
But her poise forbade questions.
I escorted her to the restroom and then found the Sister Nurse to ask if Izzy had suffered physical harm not visible to the eye.
When I returned scant minutes later to the restroom, Izzy was gone.
The desert is also a lonely place, as I truly began to learn that night.
***
I am on my knees, praying for guidance regarding both Isabelle and Benny, when there is a shockingly loud knock at my door.
"Father William! Are you awake? There's been a. . ."
Julia's voice trails off as I open the door. Her eyes are wide with fear, her mouth gaping with dismay, her aged, dark Colombian skin pale. Her right hand is still raised in a fist, as though she doesn't know what to do with it now. The other trembles at her breast.
"Julia, what is it? What's wrong?"
She starts to answer in Spanish, too rapid for me to follow, but stops herself after just a few words. She swallows hard, and her eyes plead for comfort.
When I reach out to touch her still raised fist, she starts and snatches it to her breast as well. I gently take both her hands and hold them between mine. "Julia, está bien." My Spanish is not yet as good as I want it to be, so I continue in English. "Whatever it is, it is the Lord's will." Doggerel theology, but Julia's faith is a simple one.
This seems to steady her, but I can see the effort it costs her to suppress her normally charming accent. "Father, there is man in the courtyard." She swallows again, before adding, "I think he is dead."
It takes me a moment to process this, but then, letting go of Julia's hands, I spin and stride to the small window that looks out over Logan and the rectory courtyard. I thrust aside the heavy drapes and. . .
Red-and-blue lights flash balefully.
Uniformed officers stand around a body.
Paramedics rock back on their heels, remove an oxygen mask from. . .
The body lies in a smudge of something black against the courtyard's limestone and marble tiles.
Blood.
In this light I can't make out his face, but there, a few feet from the body, is Benny's unmistakable walker with its bright orange tennis balls.
I bow my head, close my eyes, and quietly utter, "I commend you, my dear brother, to almighty God and entrust you to your Creator." I suspect Benny is already dead, so the Prayer of Commendation may not be appropriate, but when I look back at the sad scene, the Monsignor stands in the background, and I trust that he has given Benny his Last Rites.
Then my eye is drawn across Logan to a person standing in a shadow. She seems to be standing witness, with her head bowed.
And as I realize who it is, Isabelle looks up at me.
***
I run down two flights of stairs like Satan himself is at my heels. Bursting through the rectory's front doors, I startle the two police officers still standing near Benny's body.
But even before I get to the sidewalk, Isabelle is gone.
***
As the Monsignor and I walk together back into the rectory, he volunteers that Benny died of a single small-caliber gunshot.
Suspects? None.
Motive? No money on the body. But for a homeless person like Benny, that means nothing.
His walker was his most valuable possession.
On the other hand, maybe he had just bought a pack of cigarettes or a bottle of whiskey.
***
Though I lay on my bed until the sun rises, I never really make it to sleep. For no reason I can express, even to myself, I know Isabelle was there when Benny was killed.
On Colfax, people have been killed for less.
Lord, it is I who needs comfort.
***
I don't know what to do. If Isabelle witnessed Benny's murder, then she could be a target now.
But it's entirely possible that the person who killed Benny was so drunk or high or both that they don't even really know what they did or that they were seen doing it.
***
During the day, when my duties allow, I go out onto Colfax and ask after Izzy. Many of the people I speak to know of her, but no one seems to know where she spends her days.
***
The Monsignor, a very intuitive man, doesn't ask why I'd like him to take the evening Mass. Today is August 15th, the Night of The Assumption, so the evening Mass is starting later than normal--at sundown, at 7:56 p.m.
By the time the Monsignor has begun his entrance procession, I am on Colfax asking its nighttime denizens if they've seen Izzy or know where she might be found. I walk a few blocks to the east and then back a few blocks to west of the Cathedral several times.
Having learned nothing of use, on my next eastbound trek, I walk an additional block before turning back to the west, and then walk an extra block in that direction.
It's a Friday night, and so the traffic is insane. More than once, I nearly become a statistic myself when crossing Colfax to speak with someone I've seen in Izzy's company.
Perhaps the Lord is looking out for me, but I take no comfort in this thought.
I am convinced it is Isabelle who needs His protection.
***
By nine o'clock, my search pattern has expanded to the east end of the 16th Street Mall. I've never seen Isabelle on the mall, and it's earlier than I've seen her anywhere, but many of the Colfax homeless panhandle on the mall until around eleven. I hope someone there might know how I can find her.
***
An hour and a half later, I'm back in my rectory cell. My feet and legs ache. I haven't walked so much in such a short period of time in. . . Most likely, ever. And the hot, humid August weather has left me a sweaty and smelly mess.
Not wanting to waste time, I spend more time on a hand-towel bath than a shower would have taken.
As I put on my shirt, I immodestly look out my window.
As I do, Isabelle looks up at me from the very spot where she'd stood last night.
Buttoning my shirt fully isn't possible as I run down the stairs, but modesty be damned.
This time, she's still there as I blow through the front doors. In seconds, I'm standing before her--it's Isabelle, not Izzy. Without thinking, I blurt out, "Isabelle, I've been looking for you all night."
Her eyes widen at the sound of her full name, and her hands start to twitch.
I fear even Izzy will retreat into swatting the air, and squash an urge to take her hands in mine in an attempt to keep her mind from fluttering away. Instead, I quickly correct myself, hoping to minimize the damage. "Izzy, I was worried about you."
Her jaw clenches ever so slightly, and her hands become still. It may not be Isabelle looking at me now, but at least Izzy is.
I want desperately to ask if she witnessed Benny's murder, but I fear this may not be a good tack to take either. Perhaps the tried and true. "How are you tonight?"
I'm probably kidding myself, but it looked like, for just a moment, Izzy, or possibly Isabelle, was thanking me with her eyes.
"Michael is coming."
My stomach plummets to my feet. I know she's just answered the question I wanted to ask. "Izzy. . ."
"Michael is coming for Isabelle."
The Earth seems to spin a day's turning around me in but a moment.
The next few seconds pass in a fraction of one, but take an eternity to play out.
A glint of light behind Isabelle catches my eye.
A shape emerges from behind a trash dumpster in the Archdiocese parking lot.
A flash of light.
A sound of a .38 snub-nose.
Isabelle gasping.
Stumbling a step toward me.
Her hands coming to rest, unbelievably lightly, on my chest.
The sound of the gun hitting the ground.
A guttural, angry voice saying, "You won't rat me out to the pigs, you bitch."
The sound of feet running away into the night.
Without being aware I'd taken a hold of her, I gently lower Isabelle to the ground.
"He's here," she says in an absurdly matter of fact way.
And suddenly, night becomes day.
Or rather morning, as the light illuminating Isabelle's face feels like the sun rising in the east behind me.
She is only nineteen years old, but her face has always looked many years older. Those extra, unwarranted years fade away in the golden light illuminating her face.
Isabelle is the beautiful young woman she was meant to be. Her dingy, stringy hair takes on brilliant flaxen sheen. The dirt on her face evaporates. The only thing about her that doesn't change is the cornflower blue of her eyes.
And then she smiles--Isabelle smiles. "Grigori, I brought Michael for you."
I am stunned--Isabelle has never in my experience referred to herself in the first person.
Perhaps what she's said should scare me, but the look in her eyes tells me there is nothing to fear.
Following her gaze, I look over my shoulder.
"Child, forgive yourself and know the forgiveness the Lord God granted you the day you were born. Come with Me, and never know pain again."
In my ears, the Archangel's words are English. In my mind, I hear him in my native Russian. In my heart, the Latin of the Holy Church. And in my soul, every language ever spoken by any of God's creations.
He is beautiful. Divinely beautiful.
But not so beautiful as Isabelle, when I turn back to her.
Her eyes close, and as they do, she says, "I brought him to lead you out of the desert."
And as they do, the light of the Archangel fades away.
***
I am still standing there looking down at Isabelle when the police arrive. They try to question me, but the look of peace on her face arrests their natural suspicion. Their natural cynicism.
It is a look I am certain that Isabelle never knew.
But that is of no concern now.
All that matters is that Isabelle tells no lies.
And in this, and the light of the Archangel, I find a comfort that will last me all of my days.