The Angel in the Flesh

To Angela Robinson

The ancient gods are not dead. They simply withdrew to their private lives, disappointed for having been deserted by mankind seventeen centuries ago. On top of the Mount Olympus, they spend their immortal lives in a voluntary, golden exile. Discreet as they are, they are waiting for humanity to realize how huge a mistake it was to let them down. Only then will they finally come back. But they are still close to those who rely on them. I myself am the living proof of that. This year I spent my summer vacation with my parents in Cyprus an island which, together with Citer, can take the credit of having seen Aphrodite come to the world. My father is an archeologist and he raised me cherishing classic ancient times. He already promised me that next summer we will climb on Mount Olympus and for sure we will get to see the gods’ golden houses! Anyway last July I was on the beach of Petra tou Romiou, between Limassol and Paphos, on the South-West Coast of Cyprus, right in front of the spot where Aphrodite emerged from the sea. Notwithstanding the charming location and the clear and shiny day I was down, lost in dark thoughts, staring at the sea. The months that had just gone by had been pretty tough: I had fallen for a boy, or at least I thought so. I managed to steal him from his girlfriend but, once he was mine, I had realized that I couldn’t care less about him. I felt so bad in seeing him so madly in love, while I felt nothing. Actually I was even annoyed by his devotion and tried with any means and using every possible excuse to avoid intimacy with him. So one day I summoned all my strengths and I broke up with him. I kept asking myself what had gone wrong in this painful relationship and I started thinking I had some serious issues with love and sex: I was seventeen and while most of my female friends were a crowd of Juliets, torn by passion, I had never actually fallen in love. I was considering all this sitting on the sand, while not far from the shore I saw what looked like a foamy whirlpool that started spinning faster and faster and broadening more and more. After a few seconds a wide boiling and foamy circle appeared in front of my stunned eyes. I was about to wake my parents up who were asleep on the sand close to me, but I had no time to do that, motionless and amazed as I was when I saw Aphrodite in person emerging naked from the foamy whirl, coming out of the water and heading smiling towards me. “Honey, there is nothing wrong with you: you are a lesbian!” she told me, and before I was even able to react in any way to that sudden, blunt revelation our lips joined in a long kiss. A wonderful feeling of heat seemed to inflame and dilate every fiber of my body, my heart was booming, happiness and excitement took my breath away. Yes, I was a lesbian. I was a lesbian and that had been my first kiss.

My father was used to the supernatural bursting into his life. Once he told me about a miserable love of his, that caused him extensive suffering. He was in the Arcadia woods; he had taken one afternoon off during one of his exhausting digging projects. Suddenly he couldn’t believe his eyes: a nymph was wandering amongst the trees, bending every now and then to pick up flowers. With his heart about to leap out of his chest, he headed towards her. The nymph realized what was happening and ran away. My father started chasing her, the nymph was fast but he had almost caught up with her. At once a prodigy took place: the nymph suddenly stopped, her agile legs turned into a young trunk, her arms evolved into branches, her hair became leaves… just like Daphne fleeing from Apollo! My father cried desperately with his arms wrapped around the tree. He probably went through a long period of depression. He didn’t want to leave the tree, he had it eradicated and brought it back to Los Angeles with him. That same tree is now beautifully standing in our garden. For many years that wooden nymph has been my favorite confidant: she patiently listened to so many words, I wetted her with countless tears and I hit her with the sound of careless and jolly laughter!

Going back to my father’s love misery, it ended thanks to an equally extraordinary event: twenty years ago during an excavation in Cyprus, he bumped into a statue representing an incredibly beautiful woman. It was made of ivory, perfectly preserved. He had never seen a more enchanting face or a more enticing body. He felt he was going mad, life without that woman – he knew it – would have been impossible. He would have preferred having been turned himself into a statue rather than living without her. He had discovered the statue in the evening, the digging area was deserted: he was alone. He stayed awake looking at the statue all night, begging Aphrodite to give life to it. After all she had done that already a long time before with Pygmalion and his Galatea, right there, in Cyprus. Shortly before dawn he fell asleep, wiped out, with his head on the statue’s chest. What followed shortly after was the brightest awakening of his life: he found himself with his eyes wide open on a chest that was no longer hard and chilly but soft and warm, while the regular heartbeat gently rocked him. Aphrodite had made his wish come true, the statue had come to life and now my father was in front of a woman in flesh and bones, wonderful, funny smart and educated. How do I know this? Well that woman was my mother, of course!

After all I’ve told you, you’ll understand how my parents were not at all surprised when on the same night of the appearance, in a restaurant along the coast of Paphos, I told them I had met Aphrodite. They were happy for sure, but definitely not amazed, as if I had told them I had bumped into a close relative! “And what did she say to you?” my father asked. “Oh, nothing… “, I replied, “she just told me I am a lesbian…”. My words were followed by an astonished silence. They were prepared to hear anything, they wouldn’t have objected if I had told them the most unbelievable things, If I had confessed that I had stolen the golden apples from the Hesperidia garden, If I had boasted about having beaten Nemea’s lion, if I had complained about how tiring it had been to clean up the stables of Augias… but they were not prepared for this. Anyway they recovered fast, my father ordered a bottle of champagne and when the glasses were full he raised his and joyfully said: “A toast to our little, lovable Sappho!”… I felt overwhelming happiness!

Back to Los Angeles, I found a surprise: there was a new girl at school who had just moved in from San Francisco. When I entered the room to take the American Literature class seeing an unknown girl, extraordinarily good-looking with an empty seat beside her, I was shivering in emotion and I felt intensely grateful: not only had Aphrodite helped me find out the truth about myself, but now she had sent this wonderful girl to me! She was here for me, I was sure. She was a gift for me on the part of Aphrodite. I sat beside her. We became friends straightaway. Her mother was an opera singer and Julie – this was her name – was fond of classic and lyric music: she had been learning to play the piano since she was eight and her dream was to become a well known piano player. She lived completely submerged and surrounded by music; nothing else could catch her attention. She had no interest whatsoever in history or news, politics and religion, she wouldn’t have even noticed if World War III had burst, nor did she care to discuss about the immortality of the soul or the results of the latest presidential elections. But her face would lighten up when she talked about her beloved composers. She was lively and funny when she told countless stories about their lives and their works! We used to spend all afternoons together at her or my place… I told her about the Persian wars, Marathon, The Thermopiles and Salamis, The Peloponnesus war between Athens and Sparta. She would respond to my hints at Themistocles, Leonidas and Pericles with Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. Every December 5th, the anniversary of Mozart’s death, she used to stay at home from school to devote her entire time to the commemoration of the deceased. Sometimes she would cherish the consciously silly but playful thought that he was still alive and she would send him a postcard from wherever her vacation place was, mailed to the address of one of the houses inhabited by Mozart in Vienna, the only one that is still standing, in Domgasse 5: today it hosts a museum and God knows what they will think of this crazy American girl posting endless cards to a man who died over two centuries ago!

One night Julie invited me to a concert at the Walt Disney Concert Hall: the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra would perform one of her favorite pieces, Symphony n. 5 in E minor op. 64 by Cajkovskij. So far I had always been very laid back with Julie: I had just found out I was a lesbian and I had no clue about how I should behave. I was terrorized, I knew Aphrodite had sent Julie for me but I didn’t want to spoil everything with some hasty, clumsy move. But that night when I stopped by to pick her up she was glowing, elegant and refined in such a way that made all my fears and doubts fade away. She had been to the hair stylist – just like me – and she must have spent ages locked up in the bathroom for her make-up. She was after me: that was clear. I was trembling out of joy and excitement. The concert was unforgettable: music was an excruciating scream of struggle and passion, a climax of emotions that shook us to our guts. We both melted in tears and held each other’s hand for the duration of the symphony. After the concert Julie wanted to take me home. We were walking down South Grand Avenue, overexcited, sharing the emotions we felt during the event. “Oh I love Cajkovskij!” she suddenly uttered in a dreamy way. Then she added in an allusive, naughty fashion: “… plus, you know, he was homosexual…” I blushed and faked indifference. After stepping into my house’s garden we stopped to chat under the laurel tree. For the first time I told her about my father’s heartbreak. Julie was amazed: “My God, you are actually a nymph!” she told the tree caressing its trunk. Suddenly she turned pale: “Sara, touch it too!” she grabbed my hand and pushed it onto the trunk, “Can’t you hear it? It’s a heartbeat! It’s her heart, her heart is still beating!” We stayed there listening to the heartbeat for long, overwhelmed by emotion: we laughed, cried and told the nymph caring and loving words. The tree’s branches and leaves started to move but there was no wind whatsoever that night: the nymph rejoiced about our cuddling, like a little cat that purred! “Gosh, what and adventure!” Julie exclaimed, “my heart is banging… check it out!”, and for the second time that night she took my hand and pressed it strongly against her, only this time I was touching her breast. We looked at each other. Excitement was breath-taking. A second later we were kissing.

We spent two magnificent months together, we were over the moon: Aphrodite had granted us the highest bliss that men and gods can experience! Julie used to teach me to play the piano; I used to give her ancient Greek lessons. But whether we were focusing on arpeggios and scales, or I bothered Julie with paradigms and conjugations, our lessons were suddenly interrupted by cascades of kisses!

Our romance peacefully went on till one day when, during one of our frequent long walks with no destination around the city, we found ourselves in an area of Los Angeles that we had never seen before. It was afternoon, the sky had progressively turned dark and huge black clouds had gathered, threatening to pour down any minute. We walked fast asking ourselves where we could find a shelter from the upcoming rain. From a distance, we saw a church. We looked at each other in agreement then headed in that direction. “To the holy Angels and Archangels”, the inscription at the entrance read. The building had a grotesque, unique aspect. It could be defined gothic but disfigured, and it looked like the background of a German expressionist movie from the twenties. “It’s so weird… ”, Julie whispered lost in her thoughts. It started to rain and few seconds later we were already in the church. “It must have been ten years since I last stepped into a church”, Julie said amused. “And for me it’s the first time!” I answered. We burst into a hushed laughter. We looked around. We were alone. We started to explore the building. Julie approached a lectern and read some verses from a Bible laying open on it. And so from the angel’s hand the smoke of the incense went up in the presence of God and with it the prayers of the saints. Then the angel took the censer and filled it from the fire of the altar, which he then hurled down onto the earth; immediately there came peals of thunder and flashes of lightning, and the earth shook. Right then the sound of the storm turned stronger and became deafening, the sky roared and banged so loudly that it looked as if the elements had interpreted the words read by Julie as a movie plot and now they were featuring those thunders, lightening voices and earthquakes. Julie suddenly turned pale: that strange correspondence between the sacred verses and the fury of the storm had for sure scared her. Then she screamed in terror: “Oh God… look at all those carved angels… it feels as if they were looking our way… they are staring at us!” I laughed, disbelieving and amused. “What do you mean?” But Julie insisted. “Look at that angel up there, above the altar… he is winking at me, he is inviting me to join them… ”. I started to worry. “Oh my God Julie, what is wrong with you? They are not looking or winking at you, they are not inviting you, look, they are still, motionless, set in stone!”. “They want me, they want me with them… they say I can still be saved… ” “Saved?! What from? Come on let’s get out of here, you could use some cold shower!” I grabbed her by the arm but she twisted herself free: “Let go of me, leave me alone… ”, she burst in tears, “please, leave me here… ”, she covered her face with her hands, still sobbing. Then she fell down and passed out.

Julie woke up at home, in her bed. Her parents were beside her. But the relief we felt when she opened her eyes immediately turned into a horrified grimace. I can swear to you, that thing lying on the bed was not Julie! Her eyes were ecstatically staring at some remote far away spot, a seraphic smile (but Julie’s father preferred to call it idiotic) seemed invariably impressed on a transfigured face whose skin had become radiant and shimmering. A scent of incense was filling the room. We were speechless. Julie, or whoever that was, wouldn’t stop preaching. She sang with a white voice, like that of a child: Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis. A terrible scene! At some point I found the courage to approach. I leaned towards her and while caressing her hair I gently asked her: “My love, sweetheart, tell me, what’s wrong with you?” But as soon as Julie turned towards me, her eyes filled with terror and she pushed me away from her with unprecedented strength. “Shame on you!” she started screaming with that new voice of hers resembling that of an altar boy, “I am not Julie, we locked up that little slut! Whoever had intercourse with a woman as you would with a man did a hateful thing! She will be put to death! Her blood will fall on her own head!”. Julie’s mother burst in tears “Oh God, what happened to my daughter? What’s wrong with her?” she kept repeating while sobbing. Meanwhile Julie would alternate her invectives with hymns and spiritual canticles: “Quoniam tu solus sanctus, tu solus Dominus, tu solus Altissimus, Iesu Christe, cum Sancto Spiritu in gloria Dei Patris. Amen… Do not get your hopes up: neither the sexually immoral, nor the sodomites or the self-indulgent will inherit the kingdom of God! Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini… “. “Julie, please, it’s me Sara, don’t you recognize me? It’s me, your Sara, who loves you so much… ” But Julie looked at me with contempt and started to point at me and mock me: “Look at her, look at her the big Babylon, the mother of all prostitutes and all the filthy practices on the earth, refuge of demons, shelter of all impure and horrible beasts!”. I started to feel very bad, I covered my ears up, I screamed, I begged, I implored her down on my knees to stop. But she went on, satisfied and triumphant in seeing me suffer: “God abandoned you to degrading passions … by having exchanged natural intercourse with men for aberrant practices with women you are getting the due reward for your perversion! Shame! Shame! In one short hour your doom has come upon you! Et iterum venturus est cum gloria, iudicare vivos et mortuos, cuius regni non erit finis…“. Meanwhile Julie’s father had called the doctor who had rushed there. He was upset; he kept saying he had never seen anything like that before. He injected Julie a sedative and when she finally fell asleep he could carry on with the visit. He lifted her and put her to sit realizing at once that there was something wrong with her back, close to the scapulas. He raised Julie’s night gown and his face suddenly frowned. “Dearest God!” he startled… Julie’s back revealed two little feathery candid wings… Julie was possessed by an angel!

Science could of course be of no help in this situation, and the doctor urged us to try alternative solutions. Julie’s parents were hopeless: “And who should we go to?” her father complained, ” To an exorcist maybe? Our daughter is possessed by an angel, not by a demon! Who the hell do you call in these cases?” As for me, I could clearly see that Julie’s healing could have come uniquely thanks to an intervention from the Olympus’ gods: only Zeus’s brilliant descendants could erase that ugly, fanatic, apocalyptic and nauseating angelic nightmare that my love had been trapped into. I had set up a little altar in my room, I had sacred it in Aphrodite’s name and every morning I offered her branches of mirth and crowns of roses and I would beg her with the words of the VI hymn from Homer, dedicated to her: I will sing of stately Aphrodite, gold-crowned and beautiful, whose dominion is the walled cities of all sea-set Cyprus. There the moist breath of the western wind wafted her over the waves of the loud-moaning sea in soft foam… These appeared to me as the most appropriate words given what had happened between us!

I talked about Julie’s case with my father and he assured me that he knew the person who could be able to help: Eric Foster, teacher of History of religions at Yale and one of his dearest friends. Eric had experienced something incredible: years before he had fallen for a woman who had divorced from her husband and they had moved in together. An angel had started haunting their house, tormenting them in every possible way and screaming at all times: “You cannot keep this woman with you! She is married already! It’s concubinage!” Eric would have loved to chop that bothering creature’s head off, as Herod Antipas had done with John the Baptist! One day though he managed to catch him and lock him up in his study’s locker, where he can still be found now, notwithstanding his vivid protests. Now the angel in the closet is the big attraction of the house and each time Eric has guests, the visit to his study to listen to eager, celestial curses, is a must!

After few days, Eric stepped into Julie’s house. My father had had a hard time tracking him down: he had spent the last twenty days between Sicily and Greece, always exploring the earth’s guts, between caverns and caves and his cell phone was almost always out of reach. He was looking for the entrance to Hade’s kingdom, the god of Underworld. He had rushed to Los Angeles right after having received my father’s message, interrupting his current researches. “I am beyond thankful for your availability”, Julie’s father said letting him in, “I know you had to give up some projects that mean a lot to you… “, Eric Foster stopped him with a gesture of the hand and replied, smiling: “No problem. The Underworld can wait!” “So, what do you think we should do?” Julie’s mother asked anxiously “What is your plan?”, “It’s very simple” Eric answered; his attitude was extremely calm and laid back, but in his eyes you could see how eager he was to confront the angelic entity that, in a room on the first floor, was so indecently occupying the blooming body of a seventeen year-old girl. “He is tormenting us, right? Good, we will do the same! I intend to put him through a host of quotations, I will pick on him with the most sensual and erotic classic verses of all. I will scandalize him; I will make the atmosphere unbearable for him. It will be so earthly and carnal that he will long for running away!” Eric laughed, then he entered Julie’s room and we followed right after.

    Julie was suspended high above, close to the ceiling and she was singing. The smell of incense was so strong that Eric had to open the window. Invisible organs and cembalos were filling the room with their celestial harmonies. “Good morning, Julie!” Eric said. “I am not Julie!” the angel corrected him. “Of course, I could see that. Good, let’s get started!” “What do you think you are doing?” the angel asked suspiciously. “Poetry! You like poetry, don’t you? Of course! Is Archilocum ok? Fine, listen: If I could have her in my hands, Neobule… and throw myself on to her – thirsty leather bag – belly over belly, thighs over things…” The angel showed a grieving expression, full of contempt: “Shut up! Shut up you shameless man!” But Eric went on: “I gently took her breast in my hand, her skin was glowing in youthful charm. I touched her body all over and poured the white force, skimming her blond hair”. The angel covered his ears, he yelled and screamed begging and insulting at the same time: “Stop it! I implore you, wicked being, leave me alone!” “Straightaway if you agree to leave and free the innocent girl that you are holding hostage”. “Oh the girl is not at all innocent and I will not leave! Her guilt shall be revenged before God!” “Oh enough! I have been even too kind to you! I have restricted myself to pretty straight verses. But if you want war, the war be it! Solon!” “No! No, I am begging you, not Solon!” “When you court young blossoming boys and you long for sweet lips and thighs…” “Hold your tongue, pervert!” “Alceum! Let charming Menonis come here, if I too am supposed to get some joy tonight.” “Degenerate!” “Theognis! My dear boy, as long as your cheek is so smooth I will never stop caressing you even If I had to die from it. Giving yourself to me is a pleasure to you; to me, it’s not a shame to ask for it, since I love you. Please boy I am begging you: show me some mercy make me happy!” “Pig! Cursed soul!” “Anacreontes! Little boy whose gaze is that of a little girl, I look for you and you don’t listen to me and you don’t know that you hold the reins to my soul”… but it was all useless: after a couple of hours Eric had gone through all of his classic culture and the angel was still there, staring at him with a triumphant, mocking gaze. Eric was about to break down, he couldn’t tolerate the fact that the evil creature had taken possession of Julie’s wonderful youth! No, he couldn’t allow it! Animated by a sudden determination he hurled himself on to the angel, put his hands around his neck and started pressing: “Take me instead!” he screamed, “Take me!” The angel did not hesitate: Eric’s eyes turned immediately dreamy and sly, his skin became fair and ethereal; a moronic smile opened up on his face that up to a moment before was inflamed with wrath. Two gigantic wings suddenly popped up with such violence that they tear Eric’s shirt apart, as if he were some sort of angelic Hulk, caught in the middle of his transformation. He climbed on to the window, spread his wings and flew away. We followed him through, astonished, till he disappeared far away amongst the clouds.

Julie did not recall anything of what had happened. Her last memory was the two of us, in a church, sheltering from a storm. After that, nothing else. When on the night she healed I told her everything, she listened to me marveled and amused and she laughed vividly and adorably, every now and then. She was very sorry for having involuntarily caused so much grievance and concern but she couldn’t help it, she found the whole thing hard to believe and hilarious! Finally I could laugh with her about that nightmare which had just ended but in the ecstatic state of my renewed happiness appeared remote and far away already. For sure we were worried about what would happen to Eric Foster but we were also determined to return the favor: with the help of the gods we would find him and free him from his horrible possession. We would catch that psychotic angel and we would slam him into Eric’s closet where another angel was already being held captive.

We talked for a long time, excited and euphoric: the emotion and the astonishment for the adventure we had just lived made us feel the urge to talk about it again and again. Then we remained silent for a while, lost in our thoughts. Julie began to speak again: “I can’t believe this…. Did he really want you not to touch me?!”, “No, absolutely not”, I replied. Julie smiled and throwing her arms around my neck she put her lips over mine. “He may also be an angel”, she whispered covering me with kisses, “but he has no clue what paradise is!”