Dr. Raphael Valko went through a similar costume change. As I dressed, he withdrew the black jacket and trousers of an Allgemeine SS Nazi uniform from his case, pulling a pair of stiff, glossy black riding boots from under the seat. The uniform was in perfect condition, without the wear or smell of black-market hand-me-downs. I supposed it to be another useful acquisition from one of our double agents in the SS, one with Nazi connections. The uniform sent chills through me-it transformed Dr. Raphael completely. When he had finished dressing, he brushed a clear liquid onto his upper lip and pressed a thin mustache upon it. Then he slicked back his hair with pomade and attached an SS pin to his lapel, a small but precise addition that filled me with repulsion.
Dr. Raphael narrowed his eyes and examined me, checking my appearance with care. I crossed my arms over my chest, as if I might hide myself from him. Clearly I had not metamorphosed to his satisfaction. To my great embarrassment, he straightened the dress and fussed over my hair in the way my mother used to do before bringing me to church as a child.
The car sped through the streets, stopping at the Seine. A soldier at the bridge tapped the glass with the butt of a Luger. The driver unrolled the window and spoke to the soldier in German, showing a packet of papers. The soldier glanced into the back of the car, resting his gaze upon Dr. Raphael.
“Guten Abend,” Dr. Raphael said with what sounded to me to be a perfect German accent.
“Guten Abend,” the soldier muttered, examining the papers before he waved us across the bridge.
As we climbed the wide stone steps of a municipal banquet hall featuring a series of columns rising before a classical façade, we passed men in evening attire and beautiful women on their arms. German soldiers stood guard at the door. Compared to the elegant women, I knew I must appear sickly and exhausted, too thin and pale. I had pulled my hair back in a chignon and applied a bit of rouge from Dr. Raphael’s case, but how unlike them-with their styled hair and fresh complexions-I was. Warm baths, powders, perfumes, and fresh clothing did not exist for me, or for any of us in occupied France. Gabriella had left behind a cut crystal bottle of Shailmar, a precious reminder of happier times that I had kept with me since her disappearance, but I dared not use a drop of the scent for fear that I might waste it. I remembered comfort as something of my childhood, something I had experienced once and never again, like loose teeth. There was little chance I would be mistaken for one of these women. Still, I clung to Dr. Raphael’s arm, trying to remain calm. He walked swiftly, with confidence, and, to my surprise, the soldiers let us pass without incident. All at once we stood in the warm, noisy, lush interior of the banquet hall.
Dr. Raphael led me to the far side of the hall and up a set of stairs to a private table on the balcony. It took a moment to adjust to the noise and odd lighting, but as I did, I saw that the dining room was long and deep, with a high ceiling and mirrored walls that reflected the crowd, capturing the nape of a woman’s neck here, the glistening of a watch fob there. Red banners stamped with black swastikas hung at intervals throughout the room. The tables were covered in white linen, matching china, bouquets of flowers blooming at the center-roses in the dead of a wartime winter, a minor miracle. Crystal chandeliers threw wavering light upon the dark tiled floor, catching upon satin shoes. Champagne, jewels, and beautiful people gathered in the candlelight. The room was aflutter with hands raising wineglasses-Zum Wohl! Zum Wohl! The abundance of wine being served from one end of the room to the other took me by surprise. While food was difficult to acquire in general, good wine was nearly impossible for those unconnected with the occupation forces. I had heard that the Germans requisitioned bottles of champagne by the thousands, and my family’s cellar had been drunk dry. To me even one bottle was an extreme luxury. Yet here it was, flowing like water. At once I understood how very different the lives of the victorious were from the lives of the conquered.
From the height of the balcony, I examined the revelers up close. At first glance the crowd appeared to be like any other attending an elegant gathering. But with further inspection, I found a number of guests to have an odd appearance. They were thin and angular, with high cheekbones and wide, feline eyes, as if they had been cut from a pattern. Their blond hair, translucent skin, and unusual height marked them as Nephilistic guests.
Voices lifted to the balcony as waiters moved through the crowd, distributing glasses of champagne.
“This,” Dr. Raphael said, gesturing to the hundreds of revelers below, “is what I wanted you to see.”
I looked over the crowd once again, feeling as if I might be sick. “Such merriment while France starves.”
“While Europe starves,” Dr. Raphael corrected.
“How do they have so much food?” I asked. “So much wine, such fine clothing, so many pairs of shoes?”
“Now you see,” Dr. Raphael said, smiling slightly. “I wanted you to understand what we are working for, what is at stake. You are young. Perhaps it is difficult for you to fully realize what we are up against.”
I leaned against the reflective brass railing, my bare arms burning against the cold metal.
“Angelology is not just some theoretical chess game,” Dr. Raphael said. “I know that in the early years of study, when one is mired in Bonaventure and Augustine, it seems that way. But your work is not solely winning debates about hylomorphism and drawing up the taxonomies of guardian angels.” He gestured to the crowd below. “Your work is happening here, in the real world.”
I noticed the passion with which Dr. Raphael spoke and how closely his words echoed Seraphina’s warning to me as I came to in the Devil’s Throat. Our duties lie with the world we live in and must return to.
“You realize,” he said, “that this is not just a battle between a handful of resistance fighters and an occupying army. This has been a war of attrition. It has been one continuous struggle from the very beginning. St. Thomas Aquinas believed that the dark angels fell within twenty seconds of creation-their evil nature cracked the perfection of the universe almost instantly, leaving a terrible fissure between good and evil. For twenty seconds the universe was pure, perfect, unbroken. Imagine what it was like to exist in those twenty seconds-to live without fear of death, without pain, without the doubt that we live with. Imagine.”
I closed my eyes and tried to picture such a universe. I could not.
“There were twenty seconds of perfection,” Dr. Raphael said, accepting a glass of champagne from a waiter and another for me. “We get the rest.”
I took a sip of the cold, dry champagne. The taste was so wonderful that my tongue recoiled as if in pain.
Dr. Raphael continued, “In our time evil has overcome. Yet we continue the fight. There are thousands of us in every part of the world. And thousands-hundreds of thousands, perhaps-of them.”
“They have grown so powerful,” I said, examining the wealth on display in the ballroom below. “I have to believe that it wasn’t always this way.”
“The founding fathers of angelology took special delight in planning the extermination of their enemy. However, it was a much-studied fact that the fathers overestimated their abilities: They believed that the battle would be swift. They did not understand how petulant the Watchers and their children could be, how they reveled in subterfuge, violence, and destruction. Whereas the Watchers were angelic creatures, retaining the celestial beauty of their origins, their children were tainted with violence. They, in turn, tainted all they touched.”