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De Tocqueville's Journal, August 7, 2004

I awoke early today, at about four o'clock in the morning, because the unsettling feeling had tormented me again in my sleep. My dreams were a mass of swirling darkness, penetrated only by that intuition that someone was there to harm me.

I studied my languages for almost two hours, writing over and over again the cuneiform shapes until I could write almost all of them by memory. My mind was not really with my work, though.

After this I showered and walked from the Pontalba Building, across Jackson Square, to the Café du Monde, and I found my usual table empty. I sat, and my long, black hair I had to push off of my face. The Vietnamese waitress walked up and told – not asked – me that I was going to have a café au lait and an order of beignets. This was February, and so the tourists were not here in full force, but only in straggling strands here and there, like thin pieces of hair falling from a balding man's head. I sipped and ate, but my hunger was not with me, for my stomach has been turning and twisting for a week now. I suspect I know why, but I am shutting my mind off against itself, for I grow weary of this life.

I finished, and took a walk, first along Decatur, past the two-hundred-year old row houses, across the cobblestones, and then I turned right towards the river. I crossed the promenade and descended the steps so that I was on the last step possible before the water, and I sat. I looked across the Mississippi, over a mile wide, towards the West Bank and New Orleans East. The warehouses were already bustling with laborers and ships docking. The bridge was already the scene of a traffic jam as West Bank commuters drove into the city proper to do their work. I often wish that I could be like them, leading a predictable life, working in an office, going home to a wife, sleeping well, not being tormented every night in my sleep with the horrors of a thousand years.

I watched the water and thought of Siddhartha as he watched the river run, how he lost himself as an individual droplet in the great river, how he lost his desire and longing and pain and want and simply melted into the river, becoming one with all and all with one, knowing no longer self, but only the numb and peaceful nirvana of mass solitude. I wished that I too could leap into the Mississippi and become one with all.

I stood up and wandered for a bit. I crossed back over Decatur and walked into the middle of of Jackson Square, where the homeless and the insane were already feeding the hordes of pigeons. On the outer square, the shopkeepers were just opening up their shops, opening wide those massive French doors that had seen two centuries already and had watched generations of shopkeepers come and go. They knew nothing of my secrets, though perhaps they guessed.

As always, I was in black. Black pants, black shirt, black trenchcoat, black hat, black boots. These were the garments, the uniform, of my trade, the vulgar acknowledgments that the green surface of the world is not the only surface, that beauty is the bedmate of wickedness, and good of evil. I did not think of where I was walking, and I had encircled St. Peter's twice, my heels clicking against Pirate's Alley and bouncing off of the ancient walls, before I found myself at the doors of the cathedral. My feet, maybe my unconscious, had led me there, and I knew then that I had to submit. I felt the old enemy in my bones, the stench of his presence again, and I knew that the time had come. There was a pigeon on the steps, a young pigeon that was wounded and could not walk. I pitied it, and I hated at once the world and the wickedness that had decreed that such a poor, wretched beast could be, and could suffer, on the very steps of God. I crushed the bird beneath my boot.

I walked into the cathedral and saw Father Rhodes kneeling at the first pew, looking up at the cross and the form of Jesus. I knew he could hear my boots clicking across the stone, echoing in the massive, empty stone house, but he did not turn. I sat behind him in the second pew, and for several minutes there was silence. Then, without looking back, he rose from his knees and sat in the pew, his back towards me.

“De Tocqueville. You are here.”

“I am here, Father.”

“Yes, I felt your presence. I was praying for the sins of the world.”

“Oh Father, that the sins of the world could be taken away.”

“The lamb of God has come to take away the sin of the world, De Tocqueville.”

“How I want to believe that, Father. Yet I have seen sins that most men would not comprehend. I have seen the very hand of the beast.”

“And I suppose that is why you are here, no?”

“It is.”

“I supposed that this was the case. Well, what do you need, my son?”

“Father, I have a very, very bad feeling this time. I can sense, maybe by the whispering voice of God, that the old enemy is about once again, that some fool has roused from the sleep of the ages his black hand. I feel I am needed once again. I thought that it was over, that the cleansing had sent the beast out forever.”

Father Rhodes laughed aloud, and his laughter echoed into the antechambers, causing it to sound as if each small room and hall were filled with laughing men.

“De Tocqueville, after all this time, do you not know that the beast is forever? Do you not even now understand that his forms are many, but that he too is a creation of God?”

“How can this be, Father?”

He turned and faced me, the deep wrinkles in his old, battle-scarred face smoothing out in kindness to smile at me. His was genuine kindness.

“Ah, my son. Come, let's go into my office so that we can speak more freely.” Three women had entered the cathedral and were walking towards the front.

Father Rhodes' office is enormous, and is lined with rich, cherry bookshelves, filled with set after leatherbound set of theological volumes. The red carpet is posh, and his oaken desk is intricately carved with gargoyles and horrible faces. It had been a gift of the Vatican.

I sat in a plush chair and he offered me a brandy. I did not refuse. He lit a cigar and handed me one, and for almost ten minutes we puffed in silence, each of us gathering our thoughts and trying to come to grips with the awful truth that we knew awaited. Father Rhodes broke the silence.

“You know, old friend, I have felt him too. I have had the nightmares for a week now. You too?”

“Yes.”

“Then it is so.”

“It is so.”

“You will need the usual precautions. This time you may need more.”

“Father, I think that I will need much more this time.”

“Tell me, my son, what form you believe he will take this time? And where is he?”

“I am not positive, Father, but the Lord will reveal it to me in due time. One thing I do know, is that he is strong, much stronger than the last time.”

“Yes, I sense that too. Will you need help, De Tocqueville? Do you need me along?”

“I would never refuse your help, Father, but I need first to see what the circumstances are. I would not put you in danger. Plus, this great city of sin needs you to minister to it, does it not?”

He chuckled. “Yes, I suppose it does. But know this, my son,” and at this, he leaned in towards me, and his voice took a very grave tone, “that I have sworn to fight the good fight with my life, and that where you are in need, there I am also. You must, you positively must, call me to join you if you need me, do you understand?”

“Of course, Father. I would not imagine it any other way.”

“You leave soon?”

“As soon as God tells me where I must go.”

“I see. Then we must prepare now. First, confession.” He shut the door to his office and sat next to me, so that we were both looking at his books, and not at each other.

“Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It has been one year since my last confession. Father, I have not lied, or stolen, or done other such evils, but I believe that I have done the greatest evil of all.”

“And what is that, my son?”

“Father, I have hated God. I have hated him and questioned him for making such a world as this, where birds suffer misery, and where such evil as I know is granted license to walk as he may, and destroy whom he may, where there is no good, and I, like Cain, am accursed, made to wander the earth and seek out the greatest evils, and where there is nothing good.”

“But my son, surely there is good here too?”

“Perhaps, Father, perhaps. But I have hated God for the evil.”

“I see. And you are not alone. Do you not know that even David in the Psalms cries out against God? But, you have also sinned in doing this, and so in the name of Christ, I forgive you.”

“Thank you, Father.”

“Bless you, my son. Now, come to the basement and let us prepare.

“Father, this time I believe that I will need a papal indulgence.”

continued...