Read Angel in the Parlor for Free Online

answering letters and drinking great quantities of tea, a special blend of hyssop, skullcap, lemon grass, and the flower that is called life everlasting. All day long he keeps a pot of water boiling on the stove of the parish house kitchen, as one might maintain an eternal flame on the grave of a hero. During his first two weeks in residence, he has already burned the bottoms out of two teakettles and quietly replaced them.
    At any time of the day you can hear him singing. Even the choir mistress says his singing could charm the devil and convert a dog. Hear him this morning, the first Sunday in Advent, standing behind the holy table, hands lifted like white birds:
    The Lord be with you.
    And the people answer him:
    And also with you.
    A small, dark-haired man wearing a windbreaker and a fur cap and carrying a duffel bag steps into the vestibule of the church. He removes his cap, stands swaying from side to side, and glances about him as if uncertain how he arrived here. He allows the usher to show him to the back pew, but he lets the mimeographed service sheet slide to the floor, and he sits, open-mouthed, kneading his cap, and watches row after row of men and women move forward and kneel at the communion rail.
    When the last woman has returned to her seat and the deacon is wiping out the chalice, the little man walks carefully down the center aisle as if he were stepping around an arrangement of traps that he alone can see. Now he stands at the rail and he waits.
    Father Hayden glances up from the prayer book, which lies open to the postcommunion blessing. Their eyes meet. The little man whispers without ceasing.
    â€œJesus, Jesus, Jesus.”
    The deacon nods at the head usher, who takes the stranger gently by the arm and draws him into Father Hayden’s office.
    And after the service, it is there Father Hayden finds him, warming himself by the empty fireplace, still kneading the cap in his hand. Catching sight of the rector in the doorway, Peter Beasley, still vested, springs forward.
    â€œI offered him the bread and wine you had reserved for the sick—it was all we had left—but he didn’t want any.”
    The man nods and crooks his thumb and index finger to shape a wafer. Seen at close range, everything about him seems exaggerated, his pointed chin, the comic black tufts of his eyebrows, his sharp nose, and the size of the duffel bag which rises over his shoulder as he gestures toward the pictures of Jesus on the Christmas cards ranged along the bookshelf behind the rector’s desk.
    â€œJesus, Jesus,” he repeats tonelessly.
    Father Hayden reaches for the nearest card and hands it to him, but the man shakes his head no, and motions to show that he wants a smaller picture.
    â€œSome people don’t know when they’re well off,” snorts the deacon.
    â€œPerhaps he’s Roman Catholic,” muses Father Hayden. “All that business about not wanting the bread and the wine. If I could find him one of those little prayer cards—you know, the kind they give to the children at Saint Mary’s—” And seeing how easy it is to make this man happy, Father Hayden takes his arm. “Is it a prayer card you want? Come back later. I’ll try to find you one.”
    Now see him that evening, when a full moon silvers the cloister that joins the back of the rectory to the parish house and the church. Frost sparkles on the ground, and the grass around the broken sundial lies long and sparse like an old woman’s hair. He goes into his bedroom and has just started to remove his collar when he hears a knock at the front door. Assuming it’s the sexton stopping to remind him of the vestry meeting—though later it strikes him that the sexton, coming from the church, would have knocked at the back door—he shouts.
    â€œI’m coming!”
    He pauses in the kitchen to snap on the vestibule light. Though he feels sure he locked all the doors a few minutes