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Praying to Archangels was less common than it had been. Raphael still got a good deal of Celestial mail, because people will always become ill, and stray pleas occasionally dropped into Michael’s or Remiel’s inbox, seeking protection or guidance in uncertain times. Gabriel could barely remember the last time a prayer had been specifically addressed to him.
But all angels can detect a human calling their names, and this one had been calling on Gabriel loudly and repeatedly – night after Earthly night, in a voice that all but rang against the firmament. He’d be calling Downstairs to negotiate a parley over some particularly valuable soul, or trying to reconcile the Celestial account ledgers, only to have the joyous supplication upend his attention – praising, invoking, as if there were a mortal crying out to him in ecstasy. Perhaps a prophet? A new saint in the making?
Investigation was warranted.
He would have to go down there.
The last time Gabriel had manifested in this city, it was called New Amsterdam. Apparently it was New York now. He’d followed the arc of the prayers, using the radiant globe on Heaven’s mezzanine, and now he found himself in a teeming district lit by huge marquees, advertising, it seemed, performances of some sort. He walked up and down, reading the blazing signs (the Pentecost dodge still worked a treat).
Where would that fervid prayer come from? Rain From Heaven? Four Saints in Three Acts? Mortals in gorgeous dress, shimmering gowns, white ties, were exiting vehicles and swarming into the entrances. He listened with his ethereal ears, picked up the thread that lingered after an invocation so intense.
There. Alvin Theatre.
The call had come from inside this building. He made to enter, only to be rebuffed by a uniformed dogsbody demanding coolly: “Ticket?”
Perplexed, he retreated. A small, ratty mortal sidled up to him. “Tickets to the show?”
“Excuse me?”
“Sold out, but I got tickets. Twenty minutes to curtain, give you a bargain.”
The mortal wanted currency of some sort. A flutter of miracles later, the dingy man pressed a piece of pasteboard into Gabriel’s hand: Victor Moore – William Gaxton – Ethel Merman – in ANYTHING GOES
“Enjoy the show,” said the ratty man, and disappeared into the crowd.
He’d seen mystery plays, often ones that depicted him appearing to Miriam, or summoning mortals to the Last Judgment. Was this something of the sort? He remembered Uriel telling him they’d gone out of fashion, but mortals were fickle.
The curtain rose.
The performance seemed to concern a sea voyage. The Flood? Flood plays had been popular, with crude Arks teetering in the middle of the transept or guildhall and children wearing animal masks. But there were no animals, and then it became clear there was an evildoer who was pretending to be a greater sinner than he was, and mortals who admired him for that – surely there would be a reversal of fortune, and a moral. There was much changing of clothes. There was a young, innocent woman, and a smokey-voiced not-so-innocent woman, and a bewildering number of gentlemen, some of whom seemed to be servants of the Lord, but no one called on Gabriel's name. He began to wonder if he had made a mistake.
And then. And then, right after the interval, the smokey-voiced woman – billowing with energy, in a spangled gown whose skirt was a mere glittering fringe, as grand as the glory of cherubim in its own way – stood up next to a trumpeter whose instrument uttered sounds like nothing Gabriel had ever produced: high, squealing, cutting through the orchestra and the shouts of the cast, in a jaunty rhythm that made his…
Toe. Tap.
This was undignified.
Do you hear that playin’?
He stepped on his foot with his other foot.
Do you know who’s playin’?
No, who’s that playin’? returned the ragged chorus.
And then she called his name – over and over, seeming to look him straight in the eye across the footlights, and he tilted his head back and basked in the wave of praise.
Why it's Gabriel, Gabriel playin',
Gabriel, Gabriel sayin’ –
Will you be ready to go when I blow my horn?
Bliss.
Oh blow, Gabriel, blow,
Go on an' blow, Gabriel, blow –
I've been a sinner, I've been a scamp,
And now I'm willin' to trim my lamp –
So blow, Gabriel, blow!
The players were clapping in rhythm, and so were some members of the audience, and he was clapping, this was beneath the gravity of an Archangel.
Once I was headed for hell –
Once I was headed for hell!
But when I got to Satan's door,
I heard you blowin' on your horn once more,
So I said "Satan, farewell!"
The headlong anthem was infectious, and it didn’t matter what was going on up on the stage, he couldn’t follow the story anyway, it wasn’t anywhere in the Bible even though the bad man who had apparently become a good man was carrying the biggest Bible he could hold –
I've purged my soul
And my heart too,
So climb up the mountain top and start to
Blow, Gabriel, blow –
Go on an' blow, Gabriel, blow!
I want to join your happy band
And play all day in the promised land,
So blow, Gabriel, blow…
– still, all that mattered was that larger-than-life woman, that force of nature thanking him for her deliverance. This extraordinary mortal, this prophetess who had been snared by the Father of Lies, only to repent at the very gates of Hell when she heard him play.
Come on, you scamps, get up, you sinners!
You're all too full of expensive dinners!
Stand up on your lazy feet and sing!
She even deplored the mortal zeal for consuming gross matter.
He had to speak to her.
“I need an introduction to that magnificent singer,” he explained to an usher as the theatre emptied out.
“Miss Merman ain’t interested in talkin’ to no stage-door Johnnies. Vamoose.”
The Pentecost miracle wasn’t always reliable. A large antlered mammal seemed irrelevant.
“I am not John. Nor am I Matthew, Mark, or Luke. My name is Gabriel. You might have heard of me.” He squared his shoulders and projected his best thousand-watt smile.
“Pleased to meet you. Now make tracks.”
This was becoming increasingly difficult to follow. “I simply required directions – take your hands off me – oh, fuck it.”
“Miss Merman?”
The voice from inside the door blazoned with a star was brassy, big, just as it’d been on stage. “Yeah?”
“Gentleman to see you.” The usher had proved remarkably tractable after a small miracle. Gabriel remembered to hand him one of the printed papers that seemed to be currency in this era, to thank him for the suggestion that he come with flowers. A large heap of the roses and gladioli he’d seen tossed onto the stage wasn’t hard to snap up.
“Better not be my agent. It’s late.”
The woman, wrapped now in a flowered satin kimono, was seated at a dressing table, sponging her face, the coil of smoke from a lit cigarette spindling upward from an empty tin labeled Stein’s Face Powder. Gabriel wrinkled his nose, but mustered another toothy grin.
“You called on me, madam.”
“Did I?” She didn’t look away from the mirror, dabbing at one mascaraed eye.
“Indeed. I am the Archangel Gabriel, come to grant your prayer.”
“Izzat so.”
Even so passionately devout a human might find her faith faltering. A little convincing was in order. He began to manifest his Celestial aura, a golden light spreading out behind his suit-coated shoulders, a suggestion of wings.
“Good trick. Stand over there, the light helps.”
“You invoked me in supplication – “
“You one of these radio preachers or somethin’?” This time she turned and looked him up and down. “Nice suit.”
“And importuned me to blow – “
“Hm. Hold it right there. Turn around.”
She wanted to see his wings up closer, probably. Doubting Thomases, all. He turned, raising his hands, but a little afraid to manifest entirely in the small room. He was proud of his glorious, radiant but inconveniently large (for a dressing room) wings.
“Okay, round again. Gotta say, it’s an original shtick. And it’s been a week. I could use someone like you. Big, handsome, dumb.”
He gestured with the bouquet in exasperation. “What do you require of me?”
She stubbed out the cigarette. “Come over here.”
“Archangel? Are you listening?”
“Ah – yes, Uriel.” He didn’t specify to what he’d been listening. The prayer channel seemed to still be open. “I – thought it was someone else speaking.”
“There’s no one else here.”
“What is it?”
“It’s about the Celestial Library reorganization.” Uriel thumped a fat folder on his blotter. “And the miracle allocations” – another one, with small red clips flagging this page and that – “Aziraphale’s over budget again, and the state of the world – some of the Celestial charioteers are owed back pay, right when reports suggest the End Times might be just around the corner – “
“Not so long as a handful of devout remain to be raised up. Perhaps in a few decades. Hand me those ledgers.”
Gabriel opened the silver three-ring binders, tapping his fingers on the desktop as he whistled reminiscently.
I've been low, Gabriel, low,
Mighty low, Gabriel, low –
But now since I have seen the light,
I'm good by day and I'm good by night –
So blow, Gabriel –
“Ta-ta-ra-ta-ra-ta-ra,” he hummed, and picked up his pen.