In the Arms of the Black Madonna

Icon Paranoia

Yeah,
all

right so I was drinking a half empty beer someone had left
unfinished on the table. I

was running a little low on cash. But it
didn’t really matter. Not in Prague, not in

the salon of the Marquis
de Sade.

I
sank

back into the red velvet couch and nursed my adopted beer
waiting for the next

abandoned beverage to make itself known. And
that’s when the guy across the table

leaned forward and told me his
problem.

FACE="Courier New">“She’s
gone. I’ve come so far, but she’s

gone.”

SIZE=2>I
nodded and glanced at his glass. Quarter full. Not worth my
attention. I

took another swallow of my second hand beer.

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“Gone,”
he

repeated.

“It
happens.”

“You
don’t understand.”

SIZE=2>He
was right. I didn’t understand. And frankly I didn’t want to.

Had
problems of my own. Couldn’t quite put my finger on what exactly
these

problems were, but I had some, of that I was sure. Beyond not
having any money, that

is, but like I said, that wasn’t a problem.
Not in Prague. Not on the cusp of the new

Millennium. Not if you
didn’t mind drinking other people’s

beer.

SIZE=2>“The
cage was there, but she wasn’t in it.”

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">Cage?
Damnit, now he

had me interested. I probably shouldn’t have been
surprised at the direction the

conversation had taken, after all we
were in the Marquis de Sade. Even so I gave the

guy a good long look.
Late twenties, skinny, horn-rimmed glasses with coke-bottle

lenses.
Didn’t appear the type to be putting women in cages, but perhaps

that
depends more on the tastes of the lady involved.

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“I
don’t know if

I’ll ever find her now.”

FACE="Courier New">“When
did you last see her?” I

asked.

SIZE=2>He
shook his head.

FACE="Courier New">“I’ve
never seen her, except in sketches. And my

dreams.”

Never
seen her? What was this guy going on

about?

SIZE=2>“Never
seen who?”

FACE="Courier New">“The
Black Madonna.” He spoke her title in a

reverential tone.

The
Black Madonna? It seemed absurd but no more than a Latvian

Elvis.
Unbidden, my mind threw up images of a black woman in a blonde wig
singing

‘Like a Virgin’ from within a go-go girl cage. I had never
heard of such an act, but

then that wasn’t exactly my scene.

So
this guy was a desperate fan in search

of his idol.

“Maybe
I can help you find her. My name is Thomas Twinnings. I’m a

private
detective.”

FACE="Courier New">We
shook hands, his grip firmer than I had expected

given his bookish
appearance. He introduced himself as Kyle Lewiston, a scholar

of
religious relics. He begged me to begin at once, agreeing immediately
to my

terms.

“Before
I start I’ll need the retainer fee up front in dollars,” I

told
him, signaling to Magda, the nineteen year-old barmaid, for

two
beers.

“I
haven’t the cash on me. I’d need to visit a bank

first.”

SIZE=2>Magda
arrived with the beers. One for me and for my new client. I

was
feeling like a big shot.

FACE="Courier New">“Please.
I want you to begin your investigation at

once.” He reached into
his front pants’ pocket and pulled out a couple of folded

Czech bank
notes. “Here, I have three thousand. Start immediately and it’s
yours.

The rest I’ll get for you later today.”

I
pocketed his money just as Magda brought

the beers. Then I took my
time, savoring the texture of my virgin beer. Even so I

finished well
ahead of Lewiston the scholar. He claimed that he hadn’t wanted

a
beer to begin with as he rose hurriedly to his feet.

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“It’s
bad luck to

leave an unfinished beer,” I insisted as I downed
the remainder of his beer.

SIZE=2>I
slipped Magda a thousand crown note and left before receiving the
change.

Not that there would be much left after settling up my long
running tab, but it was

the impression that counted.

Lewiston
led the way. He headed left,

walking past a tiny park and into a
short alley. A passageway led from the alleyway

through to Celetna
Street. As we stepped out into the street the beers I had

recently
downed and the sudden open space left me feeling strangely
disassociated

from my limbs. Were those my feet at the end of these
long rickety legs? Eyes down I

charted my advance with knees ready to
buckle. Were it not for my preoccupation with

proper appearances, I’d
have almost certainly staggered. Instead I flung my right arm

around
Mr. Lewiston’s scrawny shoulder. He was stronger than he looked,
taking my

added weight without faltering.

FACE="Courier New">“We
are heading to her cage,

right?”

SIZE=2>“Yes,
see? There it is.”

I
tried to follow his gesture, though that

meant taking my gaze from
the ground. ‘Don’t look up’ my stomach warned but there

was a job to
do. My vision took in a circular kiosk from which

cigarettes,
newspapers and magazines were sold. Just then a school of

Italian
students swam into view. The wake of their passage buffeted my sense
of

balance and space and were it not for my grip upon Kyle’s
shoulders the turbulence

might very well have knocked me off my feet.
Then the Italians paused in place,

surrounding us. Even while
hovering in place their gills moved ceaselessly. So too

their
fore-fins, with which they held themselves in place by means of wide
sweeping

motions. Indeed were it not for my familiarity of the
phenomena I might have been

tempted to interpret the extensive fin
movement as being a form of communicative

gesturing and that of the
gills as being equivalent to speech. Such an interpretation

would
naturally be quite absurd. The school was itself a single organism.
Were an

individual unit to somehow find itself separated from its
fellows it would still

maintain contact with the mass mind, its
apparent individuality being only

illusionary.

Lewiston
shook me back to my self. Saliva was dripping from my chin

as my
digestive system ran through the procedure leading to regurgitation.
Pulling

a package of paper tissues from my pants’ pocket I used one
to wipe away the saliva

while simultaneously swallowing back the
gurgle of stomach acid climbing up my throat,

aborting the ejection
procedure at the last possible moment.

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">He
pointed again.

Evidentially he was indicating the building beyond the
newspaper kiosk. I managed to

hold my head level, though my vision
threatened to tilt away either to the left or the

right on neck
muscles turned to rubber. I saw that he was indicating the

cubist
building at the corner of Celetna and Ovocny trh. The Italians
clearly

recognized this as well. Their group mind apparently took
Kyle’s finger pointing

towards the building as an indication that the
cubist building was an object of

interest. In a sudden burst of
orchestrated flow the entire school darted towards the

building and
into the bookstore which took up most of the ground floor. And

then
they were gone and the open street lay deserted and silent. A nearby
grilled

klobasa salesman stood mute and motionless beneath the
umbrella shading his wagon.

SIZE=2>I
felt an unbearable bubble of recognition build just beneath the
epidermis

of my conscious mind as I took in the significance of the
sign above the bookstore’s

door. It read: U ?ern? Matky Bo??.

Though
I had lived in the Czech Republic

nearly a decade, I had yet to gain
more than a rudimentary understanding of the

language. Yet the sign
begged to be deciphered. I knew that the U indicated At or

Near. The
word ?ern? meant black. Matky was clearly mother, while Bo??
was a

form of the word God. The endings of the words had something to
do with esoteric

issues of grammar which were well beyond my ability
to decode. Then I saw the cage

attached to the corner of the building
about ten feet above the street. The cage was

empty.

SIZE=2>Something
was just not right.

The
cage, the sign, Mr. Lewiston’s

profession as a scholar of religious
relics, his quest for the Black Madonna, all were

pieces of the
enigma of which I was somehow a part. I felt the unmistakable

shudder
of recognition presaging an imminent epiphany. The Black Mother of
God, the

empty cage, the missing stripper. And then the door to the
bookstore door flew open ,

disgorging a profusion of Italian
students. It was just the break I needed. This

missing person case
was turning weird and I was in a hurry to get it over with. Better

to
solve it now and to get paid for a full three days than to let it
stretch out

into an actual ongoing investigation. Not that I minded
the idea of conducting a real

investigation, that wasn’t what was
bothering me. No, it was my lack of a secretary,

an office, or even a
telephone that had me feeling a bit insecure. How would it look

if my
client were to discover just how low my overhead was?

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">Not
to worry, I had

just had a brainstorm. I took my arm from around Mr.
Lewiston’s shoulders, my legs

were once more fully my own. I pointed
to the cage.

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“That’s
where you

expected to find her, right?”

FACE="Courier New">“Well,
yes. According to the French author Marie

Durand-Lef?bvre this
site ?”

“Save
the history lesson for another time.

Right now let’s just go into
this bookstore and see what they can tell

us.”

SIZE=2>“I’ve
already tried that.”

“So
what did they tell

you?”

SIZE=2>“Nothing.
They said that they didn’t know anything about

it.”

SIZE=2> “So
we will ask them again. At least I will. It’ll probably go better

if
they don’t see you with me.” I pointed back to the passage
through which we had

come. “My friend Gabriel runs an African
shop right over there. Tell him I sent you.

He’ll make you feel at
home.”

I
thought that that would be the end of it,

but Lewiston turned and
gestured for me to follow him into the passage. The street had

come
back to life, subtly and pervasively. A troupe of Hare Krishna’s wove
and

spun while chanting their chant and playing bells and
tambourines. I got out of their

way, ducking into the passage after
Lewiston.

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“I
need to warn you.

Yes to warn you. There is something that I must
tell you. It was wrong for me to

involve you in this. When we first
met I had thought that you might be the one I’ve

been told to find,
but now I fear that I was mistaken. But it is not yet too late

for
you to escape the dark fate that awaits.”

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">Great,
this was just

what I didn’t need, a client flirting on the edge of
acute

paranoia.

“Don’t
worry yourself over nothing. No mystery here. These statues

get taken
to be cleaned and restored all the time. I’m just going to go and

see
what they have to say in the bookstore. You go on into the African
shop,” I

pointed to the door of Gabriel’s shop from whose open
doors rolled the rhythms of Bob

Marley. “Go on.”

Lewiston
went. I turned and made my way across the street. The

inside of the
bookstore was much I had imagined in. Guidebooks and art books,

with
a section of bestsellers in English and German. I took out a hundred
crown

note and passed it to the counter girl, asking her what she
could tell me about the

Black Madonna.

“I’ve
been working here a year and I’ve never seen this madonna

thing.”

SIZE=2>An
older woman sitting behind the counter snorted. She was eating a
pastry

of some sort. Saying something that sounded horribly rude she
made a twisted face and

then spat on the floor in my general
direction. Then said something to the counter

girl. Rather shyly the
young woman began to translate what had been

said.

SIZE=2>“It
used to be outside in the cage, she says that it was an awful thing.
She

used the words ‘cerna potvora’ which means,” at this this
counter girl paused and a

bit of red touched her cheeks, “black
woman who is not very nice. And then one day

about two years ago it
just disappeared. And she says that she is glad that it is

gone.”

SIZE=2>I
peeled another hundred from my roll for the old woman but she refused
it.

I shrugged and turned to leave when the older woman yelled more.

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“Enjoy
your stay in

Prague,” was the counter girl’s hurried
mistranslation. I heard the woman scolding

her over the ringing on
the chime as I opened the door and

left.

SIZE=2>I
had understood the older woman well enough

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“Nech
ji na

pokoji.”

Leave
her alone.

There
was an entrance to the cubist gallery

next to the bookstore. The
times on the door said 9:00 – 18:00 and my watch showed the

time as
quarter to six, but the grating was chained shut.

Typical.

Back
outside the African shop a woman wrapped deep in a shawl sat

under an
arch way. Head bowed, all features hidden, she cradled a bundled
infant

with one arm, her other hand extended, palm up. I stepped over
her and continued into

Gabriel’s shop.

FACE="Courier New">African
drums, jewelry and fetishes lined the shelves.

Gabriel sat behind the
counter drinking a cup of coffee. He looked like he always

looks,
dreadlocks, black sunglasses, smiling like a Cheshire

cat.

SIZE=2>“Tom??,
my friend. Good it is to see you.”

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">A
quick glance around

the small shop showed that Lewiston wasn’t in the
showroom.

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“I
sent a client of

mine here. You haven’t seen him, have you?”

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">Gabriel
began his

characteristic chuckle and I knew that sending Lewiston
here had been a big

mistake.

“Yes
Mon, your friend was here. He explained his problem to me, and

that
was good, cause I under ? stand what it is that this man

need.”

SIZE=2>“Now
wait a minute! Mr. Lewiston is my client and

?”

“And
what? The way Kyle tells it, you already squeeze him for

three
tisic.”

Kyle?
Trust Gabriel to get on first name basis with my lunch

ticket.

SIZE=2>“Look,
Mr. Lewiston and I have an agreement.”

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“Who
you fool here,

Mon? No contract, no agreement. You do no even have
office. Look Tom??, about

business, this isn’t. You ?
please, my friend, sit

down.”

SIZE=2>He
point to a hand crafted turtle chair, whose raised head on a
serpentine

neck served as a back rest. I took the seat to find it
more comfortable than it

appeared, but not by much.

FACE="Courier New">“Tom??i
listen to me. You damn good at what you

do. But this is no to help
some rich mother and father to find their babies who hide

in Prague.
This matter of one man’s spiritual pain and theological confusion.

It
just no in your region of comprehension.”

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">I
wanted to argue

with him, but I just wasn’t sure what exactly he was
talking

about.

SIZE=2>“But
when I find the statue ?”

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“You
never find Her!

That what I waste my time to try to tell you, Mon.
You never find Her cause you no

know how to look.”

“Bullshit.”

FACE="Courier New">Gabriel
only broadened his smile. He pointed outside,

towards the bookstore.

FACE="Courier New">“So
look and tell me what you

see.”

SIZE=2>What
did I see? Not much, what with all the wind chimes and clothes
hanging

in the way. The beggar was still huddled beneath the archway
coddling her young

accomplice. Beyond them groups of tourists passed
back and forth between the cubist

building and my line of sight.

“I
don’t see anything worth commenting

on.”

SIZE=2>And
I didn’t. I’d grown more than tired of Gabriel and his game. I got
off

of the damn turtle and was about to part the curtain of beads
that served as the

curtain between front room and back when Gabriel
put up a restraining

arm.

SIZE=2>“No
Mon, you no want to do that. That be the veil between worlds. You
reach

through there and things never be the same. Never.”

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">I
gave him my cold

eyed stare but he may as well have been blind behind
his black sunglasses for all the

reaction he gave the look.

FACE="Courier New">“Kyle,”
he called to the backroom. “Come out and talk

to your private
detective before he start to damage up my

merchandise.”

Lewiston
stepped through the curtain of beads into the showroom. He

looked at
me guiltily.

FACE="Courier New">“I’m
sorry, I was wrong to involve you. Your friend

Gabriel has
demonstrated that you are clearly not the man I had mistaken you

for.
That being the case I am no longer in need of your

services.”

“That’s
your decision to make, but there is the matter of my

retainer. Three
hundred dollars cash minus the three thousand crowns you’ve

already
paid. I normally wouldn’t have even stepped out of the Marquis’
without

it. Don’t forget that you wouldn’t have met my ‘friend’
Gabriel had I not led you

to him.” Like an idiot, I reminded
myself.

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">I
was half expecting

the little bookworm to swell his chest and give me
an, “And if I don’t?” But he

didn’t. Instead he simply
shrugged again.

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“Ok,
I’ll pay. I’ll

just go to the bank and bring back -’

“No,”
I corrected him, “we’ll go to the

bank together, you and me.”

FACE="Courier New">I
rushed him out of the African shop leaving Gabriel

smiling and
apparently unperturbed at his place behind the counter. The day
outside

was noticeably warmer. The gypsy with her baby had moved on.
The path we took to the

bank ran along the front of the cubist
museum.

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">Lewiston
had the gall

to ask if I had ever seen the Black Madonna.

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“I
suppose I

must’ve. But I’m not much for looking up with my neck all
stretched out of shape.

That’s for tourists. So maybe I’ve seen it,
but if so it hasn’t exactly stuck in my

mind.”

SIZE=2>Lewiston
nodded as though what I said was a confirmation of one of his

pet
theories.

“That
is exactly I had thought. Consider how strange it is that you

can’t
recall this most unique statue. Extravagantly baroque with a gold
crown upon

her head and the infant Jesus within her lap, she should
have been unforgettable in

her gilded cage. But instead she was all
but invisible. Why?”

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">I
started to explain

that about the only landmarks I consciously
recognized were a pair of golden arches

when I noticed a certain
glassy look to eyes. Humor him, I reminded

myself.

SIZE=2>“I
don’t know, because she was black?”

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“No,
her blackness

should have made her all that more obvious. It is

the
building.”

The
building? We stopped walking and I gave the squat five storied

cubist
structure a careful study. The building gave the impression of having
been

formed from a single block of beige sandstone. Large square
slabs had been removed to

make way for the windows. Each of the
windows had side panels, folded inward at a

forty-five degree angle
as though to artificially exaggerate the illusion of

perspective. The
fourth story was decorated with stunted columns between windows.

The
addition of this classical element lent the building an air of the
absurd as it

stared outward with bulging windows faceted like quartz
crystals.

SIZE=2>“What
is it with this building?” For indeed there was something
decided

unsettling about the whole structure. The angles were all
wrong, not quite cubic at

all.

SIZE=2>“You
have to realize that the original topology has been altered. The
Black

Madonna was originally attached to a seventeenth century
building once located over

there.” Lewiston pointed to the
location of Gabriel’s shop. “The house was a

grotesque example
of the baroque, complete with twin copper cupolas of emerald

green.
At that time both the stature and the house were known as Our Lady
Behind

the Grille for, in a very real sense, she and the house were
one. An aura emanated

from her statue, an aura, which the shape and
structure of the house amplified and

strengthened.”

“How
do you know so much about the house?”

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“How?
One of my

ancestors designed it. He belonged to an underground order
of Templers. It was no

coincidence that the house occupied the same
piece of land as had a vast Templers

estate centuries earlier. Nor is
it a coincidence that it was the Templers who

imported the cult of
the Black Madonna from Jerusalem to Europe. The patron saint

of
midwives, she was said to revive stillborn infants long enough for
baptism so as

to save them from damnation. Such activities were
viewed as threatening by members of

the orthodoxy, many of whom,
though they would never have admitted it publicly,

considered the
Black Madonna to be demonic.”

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">Lewiston
turned his

feverish gaze upon me fixing me where I stood before the
cubist house. Again the

street seemed deserted except for the two of
us.

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“And
how does one go

about binding a demon?”

FACE="Courier New">He
was asking me? Like I was supposed to know or

something. Three
hundred US dollars wasn’t worth this kind of madness ? Well

that
wasn’t exactly true. Three hundred dollars with the exchange rates
what they

were ?

“I
don’t know, draw a pantagram around it I

guess.”

SIZE=2>“Yes
well, that at least was the method we’ve been led to believe

medieval
demonologists used. But chalk marks on the floor bind only the

most
ephemeral of demons. A demon such as the black virgin would never
have been

confined by such a blatantly two-dimensional method of
manipulation. Rather one would

need to translate the magical
schematic into the material

plane.”

SIZE=2>He
pointed accusingly at the hulking cubist house.

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“That
is your

pentagram.”

“What?
This building?”

“The
Black Madonna is a creation of

curves and spheres. Imprisoned within
a cell attached to this box-like structure, her

powers were blocked.
Powerless she was bound to this incantation written in

stone.”

SIZE=2> Remember,
I told myself, humor him.

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“Well
yes, I guess I

see what you mean. And not imply that this hasn’t all
been very enlightening, but the

banks here are not the most service
oriented in the world. Maybe we could continue

this part of the tour
some other time?”

Lewiston
ignored me, sneering at the cubist

building before him.

FACE="Courier New">“But
now she’s free,” he said, turning away from the

house at last.

My
fears concerning banking hours were well justified, for by the

time
we arrived the bank was closed.

“Look,
I have traveler’s checks,” Lewiston

offered.

“They
pay traveler’s checks in crowns. Getting them changed to

dollars is
expensive and a pain in the ass. That’s why I insist on dollars.

If
dollars were cheap and easy to get that would be a different story.
But they

aren’t and so it isn’t. Get it?”

“Sure
I get it.” A sudden change came over

Lewiston. It was as though
everything up until this point had been an act and now he

was free to
show himself as he truly was. A prick. “Here’s the best I can do
for

you. Find the Black Madonna by tomorrow morning, call me at this
number and I’ll get

you the rest of your fee along with a decent
bonus. Otherwise, consider yourself

already paid in full.”

FACE="Courier New">Damn,
no way, I was losing three hundred green. I

could see it slipping
away.

“Wait.
Ok, look traveler’s checks sound

fine.”

SIZE=2>“No,”
he said backing away and raising his hands. “Find her or forget
the

cash.”

SIZE=2>“Find
who?”

FACE="Courier New">“The
Black Mother of God.”

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“What?
The statue?

It’s in some god-damn museum somewhere.”

“Then
it should be easy enough for you to

find.”

SIZE=2>And
then he turned and left me standing there outside the bank with

his
hotel’s phone number in my hand. Like I said, three hundred green
slipping

through my fingers. No way I was going to find anything in
the museum’s bureaucracy.

I didn’t have enough cash to throw around.
And besides, Gabriel was right. I just

didn’t know how to look, let
alone where.

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">Walking
back to the

Marquis de Sade I came across the same woman begging with
her child. The sky was a

long tan dusk. She and her child sat with
the shadow of the dying day, faces hidden,

the mother’s hand palm up.
I had to admire her persistence. Not that persistence had

ever done
me any good, but that didn’t mean it shouldn’t be rewarded. I

handed
the woman a hundred crown note which she took with stiff and

clumsy
fingers.

As
I walked away she called out to me.

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“?ern?
Matka

Bo?? ?ek? na V?s”.

FACE="Courier New">“What?”

I
turned back. As she struggled to rise,

using a nearby door handle to
pull herself to her feet, the bundled infant slipped

from her lap
landing heavily on the pavement without complaint.

SIZE=2>“Poj?
sem,” she called and then disappeared into the night, heading
down a

nearby back street.

FACE="Courier New">“WAIT,
your baby!” But she was gone from

sight.

SIZE=2>I
looked down at the little bundle as it lay on its side. Off in

the
distance I heard the woman calling for me to follow, that the patron
saint of

midwives was waiting. But what was this package lying silent
and motionless at my

feet? From a neighboring building I heard the
sounds of a woman grieving. What was

inside the cocoon the she-beggar
had been coddling within her lap? I reached down

towards the bedding
of cloth thinking to find an opening.

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">Then
I remembered

Gabriel’s grip upon my arm and the words he had spoken.

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“No
Mon, you no want

to do that. That be the veil between worlds. You
reach through there and things never

be the same. Never.”

FACE="Courier New">I
pulled my hand away. Maybe it was better not to know

what, if
anything, lay within the bundle. Listening for the beggar woman’s
voice I

followed in the direction she had gone. Not far from the
Marquis de Sade I spied a

feminine form slouching within a doorway.
Breathless from running I made my to the

doorway only to find it
occupied not by the beggar but by Magda, the barmaid from

the
Marquis. She was talking on her mobile phone when I stumbled in and
nearly

collapsed on her.

“Oh
hey. What’s up with you Thomas?”

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">I
shook my head,

trying to catch my breath, pushing everything away in
the you-don’t-even-want-to ask

motion.

SIZE=2>She
said something into the phone and laughed with whatever was said

in
reply.

“Look,
um Magda, have you seen ?”

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">Words
failed me.

SIZE=2>“Thomas,
who is it are you looking for?”

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">I
just stared at her

for a minute and then glanced back the way I had
come, back towards where the bundle

lay abandoned. Then I raised my
hands in submission.

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“I’m
looking for the

Black Madonna.”

Magda
looked at me with growing realization animating her gorgeous

little
nineteen year old face.

“Oh
wow, Thomas, I didn’t know that was

your scene.”

“Does
that surprise you?”

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“No,”
she answered

after a moments pause. “Really it explains a lot of
things about you that I just

couldn’t figure out before.”

FACE="Courier New">She
ended one call and began another. I heard her say

the words ?erna
madonna and then she finished the call.

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“Come
on, its all

arranged. I’m taking you to her.”

She
led me down a side street to a herna

with huge plate window. Behind
the window the eyes of the clientele roved the streets

on the lookout
for a figure of authority which apparently I wasn’t, because

they
gave my approach no more than the quickest of glances. Once inside
Magda,

sweet blonde little Magda, handed me over to a thickset
swarthy gentleman with busy

hands.

SIZE=2>“She
say you look for Black Madonna. This true?

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">I
nodded, afraid that

saying too much would spoil whatever arrangements
Magda had

made.

SIZE=2>He
smiled and pulled a joint out of a pack of

cigarettes.

“Here,
smoke this, won’t need more than a

little.”

“No,
I’m fine.”

“You
say you look for Black Madonna but

won’t smoke. Maybe I think you are
policie. American are you? DEA,

yes?”

SIZE=2>“No.
Look, all right I’ll smoke. There isn’t any tobacco in it, is

there?
I can’t smoke tobacco.”

“No
tobacco. I make it special American

style.”

SIZE=2>I
took a deep toke. No tobacco, but there was something. Something

like
black tar with the taste of graveyard dirt.

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“Phooey!
Take this

shit. I’ve gotta ?”

FACE="Courier New">I
had to get out of there. Out through the door, away

from the plate
glass aquarium where bug-eyed fish tracked my progress unperturbed

at
my flight. I came to rest on a bench in a tiny park boxed in on three
sides by

the walls of neighboring buildings.

I
spewed my lunch of three borrowed beers.

After wiping my mouth with a
paper tissue I tried shoving the package of tissues back

into my
pocket when it suddenly seemed like way too much trouble. Instead I
let the

package fall gently unhurriedly to the ground. That was when
I noticed the beggar

woman standing in the shadows. And then I saw
the face beneath her shawl, an oval face

of sculpted oak, as she
stepped forward and gathered me within her wooden

arms.

SIZE=2>Her
embrace was sweeter than life. No pain, no turmoil. Pure eternal
peace.

I submitted to her gentle ministrations as she pressed me to
her breast, her teat

worming its way into my mouth. Soothing liquid
flowed into my mouth as she folded her

arms around me. This was
bliss, this suspension within the mass of my mother’s flesh,

this
encapsulation, this entombment. I drank at the flow of liquid that
first

slowed to a trickle before it thickened and turned to dust. I
tried to force the teat

from my mouth but what was the point? Was
this not but the fulfillment of the love of

a mother for its child?

FACE="Courier New">My
soul, now purged of sin, should have been free from

the fires of
damnation. Yet fires still raged, stoked high by sour winds

howling
down the spongy corridors of my fibrillating lungs. A wall of
pressure

drove gritty sand into the swollen tissue of my throat.

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“Breathe!
Mon, you no

start to breathe you damn us all!”

Intruding
fingers pulled funeral gauze from

my mouth. Then one empty chasm
docked with another. Warm fetid air flowed into my

shrunken lungs,
gagging me. I coughed out centuries of dust, my head pounding

in
agony with the thrashing of my heart. And then I found myself on the
ground with

Gabriel kneeling above me.

FACE="Courier New">“That
black bitch almost drag you down. Toma??, I

tell you to
stay out of this business. But no, you always must to touch

the
wound.”

I
looked around the park but the Madonna was

gone.

SIZE=2>“Where
is she?”

FACE="Courier New">“Underground,
where she

belong.”

“He’s
her child now. The Whore’s given birth. The sequence has

begun.”
The voice was familiar and I could just barely make out the shape

of
Lewiston sitting on the bench in the shadows. Still talking crazy. He
pulled an

envelope out of his jacket pocket.

“Here
detective. As per our

agreement.”

I
dragged myself up onto the bench beside him, took the envelope

and
pocketed it. Right then more than anything else, I needed a beer. My
own glass

of nice cold fresh from the tap Czech beer. Thankfully the
Marquis de Sade was less

than 50 meters away and open till two.

But
first I had to know.

SIZE=2>“You
never really were looking for her, were you?” I asked as I
reached for

the collar of his jacket.

FACE="Courier New">Kyle
effortlessly brushed my hand

away.

SIZE=2>“Don’t
be a fool, I was sent here to find you by the Prieur? de Sion.
You

can’t hide from who you are. Not anymore.”

STYLE="margin-bottom: 0in">“Look,
I got no

problem with taking your money, but at the same time,
irregardless of whatever crazy

thoughts you might be entertaining,
I’m a nobody. Just a third rate drunk living in

exile. That’s all I
am and all I’ll ever be.” And having said so I set out to

prove
myself right.

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