©1993 D. A. Houdek

No reproduction or distribution without consent of the author

5271 words

The Eternal City is my favorite of the stories I've written. It began as a story exercise at a writing workshop at the Writers of the Future contest seminar and progressed into this story. It was accepted for publication in Pulp Eternity but now, unfortunately joins the "lament file" of stories accepted but never published. Because it's a millennium story it became obviously dated this year. The character of Stifel is a true historical figure. 

 The Eternal City

by

D. A. Houdek

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            “Deliver me!”

Stifel’s voice rose into the night over the village of Himmelstadt.  With the rich, powerful tones that mesmerized his followers Stifel sent his plea heavenward.  He blinked, the slowly falling snow clinging to his eyelashes, as he peered upward hopefully.  No answering trumpets or booming thunder responded to his prayers for intervention.  Instead, the thick flakes muffled his cries to a whisper.

In the valley below him every house in the hamlet shone with candlelight.  None slept in Himmelstadt this night.  Stifel swallowed hard.  Indistinct voices drifted up to him.  Near the Cathedral torches appeared.  They were hunting for him.  The snow kept his lone voice from their ears, but wouldn’t hide his tracks from them.  They were coming.  Like wolves to a wounded deer, they were coming for Johann Stifel, and they would surely rend his poor flesh.  He could hear the anger rising in their distant voices like the very trumps of doom.

“Oh, please, deliver me,” he whimpered.  A tremor passed through his upraised arms.  Stifel knew the blind rage of mobs too well.  Thirty years ago he enraged the Catholics with his mathematics by proving that Pope Leo X’s name was that of the dread Beast — 666.  Stifel had renounced his vows and left the monastery to join Luther in his new religion.  Left?  Fled from the rage of the people and the Church to the sanctuary of the heretical German.

Leave off your calculations, Luther had told Stifel even as he welcomed him.  Stubbornly Stifel continued his work, studying the Bible and applying his mathematics and calculations to the mysteries he sought to solve.  And he had done it.  To the glory of God Almighty, he had done it!

Now the Lutherans were howling for his blood too.

Stifel stumbled backwards through the snow.  At his chest he clutched his proofs.  He’d made a mistake, it was true.  His followers had given up all, homes, work and money when he told them that the end of the world would come on October the 18th, 1553.  When October the 19th dawned, they'd been… vexed.

He’d miscalculated.  A simple error, truly.  If only the blind fools would listen.  The day of doom was at hand.  Tonight, Christmas Eve, would come the glorious revelation.

He was right this time, he knew it.  Stifel lowered his arms.  His fingers clutched convulsively at the documents hidden beneath his coarse woolen cloak.  It was all here, the proofs, the formulas, the calculations.  He’d worked the numbers and symbols every possible way.  This time there was no mistake, Stifel thought, shoving aside doubt at the other equations, the ones that didn’t quite balance, that gave disturbing results, or appeared to have elements missing.  No!  Get thee behind me evil doubt!  He was right.  Tonight all would be revealed in a blaze of holy glory.

If only they gave him enough time.

Stifel shuddered and fought off pure, unreasoned terror as the voices drew nearer.  Like hounds on the spoor, the voices rose in pitch as they spotted his tracks.  Pray God, no!  The appointed time was not yet.  He couldn’t let them take him now, not before the wondrous truth of Stifel’s theories was shown.

Stifel dropped to his knees and prayed incoherently for a miracle.

“There he is!” came the cry. 

Stifel fainted.

The rush of wings and roar of thunder woke Stifel from his stupor.  He opened his eyes to a vision of glorious, glowing radiance painting the sky.

“Mein Gott!  Praise be.  I’ve reached the Eternal City,” Stifel murmured.

From the belly of a great beast an angel proclaimed a greeting, “Hey, asshole, get outta the street.”

Stifel automatically raised his fingers in benediction to the holy one.  The angel returned the gesture with a minor variation.  Stifel noted that this must be the correct form of blessing in the Holy City and quickly copied it. 

As for the angel’s words, Stifel was puzzled.  Spoke the angel in tongues?  It took Stifel’s bewildered mind a moment to recognize the oddly-accented language.  English?  Could it be?  Could the language of the Eternal City truly be that of that murderous isle with its bloody queen? 

As He willed, Stifel accepted with only a trace of sullenness.  He readjusted his mindset to that tongue, congratulating himself for being so well-learned a scholar.  Praise be, Stifel belatedly added thanks to his Maker for granting Stifel his superb wisdom.  As he did, his eyes focused on the blazing arch that stretched above him.

The Eternal City was, did he read this correctly?: “The Biggest Little City in the World.”

Stifel struggled to his feet.  Taking some slight, mortal comfort in the gently falling snow, Stifel turned in a circle, his mouth gaping open.  Such wonders to behold.  Light and sound beyond imagining assailed his eyes and ears.  Myriad colors of light flashed and shone chasing back the outer darkness so that even without a sun in this heavenly sky all was as day.

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            Writing upon the walls, lit by heavenly fire, told of things he knew naught of; casinos, payouts, and table stakes.  Within the dazzle of these luminous places he could see angels and a great communion of saints clothed in all manner of strange and gaudy garb.  Those within seemed untouched by the cold, wintry air that surrounded him.  Stifel peered in, searching for faces of those he knew, Catholic or Protestant, but recognized none.  Perhaps he was the only of his brethren deemed worthy to be caught up in the rapture, he considered smugly.

More of the great beasts wove around him, sometimes sounding a trump as they passed, their voices that which Saint John surely must have heard in his revelation.  Some of the beasts opened, as had the first, to reveal an angel within.  Stifel returned each and every hail with the new benediction he had learned. 

“Praise be,” he repeated over and over in German, Latin and English.  Such wonders to behold, he thought, and struggled to be truly thankful for all that was being revealed unto him.  The thanks and praises soon rang hollow even to him.  Where, he wondered, was Saint Peter to guide him to the Throne?  Perhaps he was supposed to know the way without guidance.  He was one of the heavenly saints now, after all… then why did he still feel so very mortal?  The cold creeping through his shoes felt more earthly than heavenly. 

“And blessings on you,” he said in answer to a particularly vehement benediction by of one of the heavenly host.

Gathering his righteousness around him like armor, Stifel raised his chin and approached the opening in one of the resplendent structures.  As he stepped upon the silver lattice in the opening the rush of wings overwhelmed him.  The air of their beating warmed him through in an instant, stirring his robes with their holy wind.  Standing in the blessedness Stifel raised his arms high and loudly proclaimed, “Blessed be to all this holy night.”

Part of the multitude of the heavenly host within turned toward him with expressions Stifel was certain weren’t sneers of disgust. 

“Yeah, and a Merry fuckin’ Christmas to you too, pal,” one wished him. 

Another bestowed, “Get a job, bum!”  This holy one then turned back to the strange beast he’d been feeding.  The clang of bells resounded and the beast spewed forth silver coins from its mouth. 

With surprising speed two beings in what were clearly uniforms of the soldiers of the Lord appeared at Stifel’s side.  One took each of his elbows in strong grasps.  Ah, he thought, the Guardians of Heaven, his escort to the mighty Throne at last. 

“Listen, man,” The taller Guardian hissed in his ear, “You gotta go.  Don’t make a scene.”  With that they steered him back into the ever-growing cold. 

The tall Guardian released him and turned away.  The other Guardian hesitated and Stifel looked at him clearly for the first time.  From a face of rich ebony, eyes filled with compassion studied him.  Stifel couldn’t help but examine the foreign face closely.  He’d never seen a Blackamoor before, not even in Rome, and here one was one of the chosen of heaven.  “Uh, sorry, you know?”  The dark Guardian whispered.  He pressed something quickly into Stifel’s hand.  “Hey, it’s Christmas… take care,” he said with a smile that lit his face into beauty. 

The Guardian hurried away after his tall companion.  Stifel lost sight of him in the chaotic crowd within.  Lifting his hand, Stifel studied what had been given to him.  “Twenty dollars, United States of America,” he read from the small rectangular paper.  Baffled, he turned it over.  “In God We Trust,” he read and smiled.  With his face lifted into the gently falling snow, he offered a silent prayer of thanks for this blessing even as the mathematician’s portion of his mind tried to factor the number twenty into his calculations of the revelation.

His purpose remained yet unfulfilled.  The great revelation still awaited.  Some mighty flood of knowledge must be yet to come.  This must be a test of his faith, Stifel decided as he continued down the dazzling street of the Eternal City.  More of the great beasts wove around him.  He tried very hard to return each hail and to offer thanks for them, but the thanks and praise diminished to a resentful murmur as the cold crept into his robe and the lights and joyful noise fell further behind him. 

Stifel paused as he crossed over a river.  Might this be that which poured from the Throne?  Glumly, he thought it more resembled the River Styx. 

The street before him now was nearly dark.  Oh, not so dark as the unlit streets of Himmelstadt when all the candles were doused for the night, but certainly darker and — dare he say it? — shabbier.  In his heart Stifel had to admit he was somewhat relieved to pass from that light and noise to this more subdued area. 

But where was he to go?  What was he to do?  The street that stretched on before him seemed without end.  Stifel fell against the door of one of the structures, on the verge of weeping in anguished confusion, when the door gave way and he found himself inside.

It was a tavern, familiar both in its form and the smell of stale beer.  Seven pairs of eyes turned in unison to stare at him.  And, in unison, they all turned away.

“Gute Nacht,” Stifel tried hesitantly.

The eyes glanced at him again, more quickly this time, before he was again facing only the men’s backs.

“What’s that?” a golden-haired young man asked another.

“Bum.”

“Or Kraut cyberpunk,” another answered with an uncharitable laugh.  This one, Stifel realized with shock, had green hair.  Stifel’s mouth fell open.  He peered through the gloom toward the one who had first asked the question.  He could see their faces dimly in a mirror.  This man had a ring in his nose and some sort of sacrilegious icon inscribed on his arm.

Then the most horrifying thing of all met Stifel’s stunned gaze; one of these men was touching another in a most vile and improper manner!  Stifel dared not ever phrase the thought to himself for fear the taint would touch him.  Understanding as clear and bright as the midsummer sun swept over him.  When he passed from the light of the Eternal City he’d come to the outer darkness, not Hell itself, for there were no gnashing of teeth or lake of fire, but the realm between.  He’d reached the poor souls of Purgatory.

“Hey you!”  A burly man behind the bar called out.  “You want a drink or something?  If not, get out of here.”

Stifel straightened himself, gathering his dignity about him, cleared his throat so that his voice might boom with the power that made his congregations tremble and in stilted English declared, “I have been guided here by divine hand to save you all from the limbo wherein you reside.”

The green-haired man whirled around, his eyes ablaze with anger.  Beside him, the man with the ring in his nose only sighed.

The barman studied Stifel.  “Mary,” he muttered — which Stifel took as a hopeful sign — then raised his voice so all could hear, “Save us, huh?  Just go away.  Okay?”

A young man with exceedingly handsome features (Stifel dare not say “angelic”) got down from his stool.  Unsteadily he stood, then crossed the room to stand in front of Stifel.   The man’s eyes were defocused and glazed.  Stifel recognized the inebriation, another curse on these wretched souls. 

Seizing on the barman’s last words, Stifel told the young man, “Ja, Mary will help guide and save you.”  It was not, strictly speaking, the path to salvation as Luther taught, but Stifel felt justified in using this bit of divine inspiration.  “I was brought to you this night for God’s holy purpose.”

Someone snickered.

The man in front of Stifel wavered back and forth.  He put a hand on Stifel’s shoulder and breathed beer into his face.  With sorrowful eyes, he stared at Stifel and said, “Save me?  I’ve been there.  My parents tried to save me with shrinks who told me I was crazy and confused.  A girlfriend… a friend who is a girl,” he amended, speaking carefully so as not to slur his words, “who wasn’t a friend at all, just wanted to ‘convert’ me.  Ha!”  he said bitterly, “Macho jerks on the street who try and ‘save’ me with their fists.  No, thanks.  I’ve had enough of saving.”

He put his hands defiantly on his hips and glared at Stifel.  “You know the funniest part,” the young man continued softly, “I’m still a virgin.  I haven’t done anything yet and I’m still tried and convicted.”

Sinners deserve their punishment, Stifel had always believed, but something in this young man caused the words of condemnation to halt in Stifel’s throat.  In those eyes, so like a young deer, not willing to surrender even as it faced the hounds that bayed for its blood, was a hopeful innocence. 

Instead he asked, “What is your name?”

“Mike,” he answered.  “Michael.”

A chill ran up and down Stifel’s spine.  Michael… the name of the great archangel.  Mysterious are the ways of the Lord, Stifel reminded himself. He chased the thought firmly from his mind.  This was a den of most vile iniquity, he ought to leave, continue on with his quest for the holy revelation, not be turned aside by evil distractions.  He shivered in his damp clothes at the thought of going back out into the snow and the cold.  Reluctantly he turned toward the door. 

From the murmur of voices from the bar one separated itself out and addressed him.  “Hey!  Come on over and have a drink.  Get warmed up a bit before you go.”  It was the burly bartender.

“Jeez, John,” another said, not quite taking the Lord’s name in vain, “I don’t want him preaching at us all night, telling us we’re going to Hell.”

“Knock it off, Andy.  He’s soaked, it’s freezing out, and it’s Christmas.  Be nice,” John told him.   “Come on, man.  I’ll get you something warm.  How about hot chocolate, maybe with a little shot of Bailey’s in it?”

There was a man sent from God whose name was John… the words flicked through Stifel’s mind as he slowly approached the bar.  The big man, John, set a steaming cup in front of him.  Stifel took a cautious sip, then another.  A smile broke his craggy features. 

“Wunderbar!  This is wonderful.  Thank you,” he said.  John returned the smile then moved away down the bar.  The other men were playing a dice game, laughing and joking amongst themselves.  Stifel found himself envying their camaraderie.  He’d been lonely in his life, isolated because of the beliefs he promoted (which the fools were too stupid to understand, he added bitterly).  And then, in the Eternal City, where all was promised to be bliss, he’d felt more alone than ever.  God was testing him, that was clear.  But in what way?

He sipped slowly at the marvelous liquid, surely rivaling the very nectar of the gods, willing it to last longer.   

The rolling dice and the pattern of the game drew Stifel’s attention.  He became more alert as he watched.  “Ah!” he said out loud, causing the game to pause as they looked toward him.  “That’s a game of mathematical probabilities, is it not?  I’m a mathematician, you see.”

“Yeah, I can tell by your clothes, Professor,” Andy said dryly.  Several chuckled. 

“Want to join in?  Got any money?  If not I’ll spot you a few dollars,”  the man with the ring in his nose, Pete, said.

“Dollars,” Stifel repeated the word.  He pulled out the small paper the Guardian had given him.  “I have this.”  He held out the twenty dollar bill. 

An hour later Stifel had a considerably larger pile of dollars in front of him and was explaining the mathematical principles that enabled him to win.  He’d also traded many of the dollars for several rounds of something they’d insisted was a German drink, though it was nothing like the good German beer and wine Stifel knew.  It was called “schnapps” and was served in tiny glasses. 

Downing another glass of the icy yet burning liquid in one gulp, Stifel looked at the young men surrounding him.  Though he knew they had been cast-out, abominations before the Throne, he felt warmed by their ready comradeship.  He’d known that feeling little enough in his life.  Letting his gaze drift over the dim, shabby interior of the tavern, Stifel considered the lessons of the Savior in a new light.  He’d entered this place with judgment of them on his lips and yet they had managed to forgive him, then welcomed him into their midst.  

A cold draft blew through the room as the door opened and two more men entered.  They hailed the group with calls of “Merry Christmas”, and were greeted likewise.  It struck Stifel, albeit unwillingly, as a hearty fellowship.  He was introduced to each new arrival, the immediate suspicion replaced with a genuine sense of welcome Stifel had little known before.

His mathematician’s soul had taken automatic, almost unnoticed, note of the number when he came in; seven.  Those who had arrived during the gaming brought the number to twelve.  In the gaming he’d won one hundred and forty-four dollars.  A sudden shiver swept over his body. 

Holding the tiny glass griped tightly in his fingers, Stifel stared over its rim at the men gathered before him.  First there had been seven, now there were twelve.  Both were holy numbers without doubt.  The seven seals, seven angels… the Holy City with its twelve gates, and the twelve foundations named for the twelve apostles.

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            Names.  Stifel’s breath came rapidly and he stared at the John’s face, the dark mustache and straight, white teeth gleaming beneath it.  Near him was Michael, the young innocent with the — yes, he dare say it — angelic face.  Michael had called himself “Mike” at first, some sort of diminutive of his proper name, no doubt.  It occurred to Stifel that some of these other names might likewise be corruptions of their proper Christian names. 

“What are your names?”  Stifel asked abruptly, interrupting the conversations.

They stared at him for a moment in the silence.  Gently, John said, “I’m John.  Remember?”  He reached for Stifel’s glass.  “Maybe you’ve had enough, friend.” 

Stifel shook his head, but relinquished the glass readily enough.  His head was swirling with the strong drink.  John set a steaming cup before him.  Stifel sipped eagerly, expecting more of the nectar-like ‘hot chocolate’ but instead found his mouth filled with a hot bitter liquid. 

He swallowed the scalding bitterness, making a face as he did that made John grin.  “What is this?”

“Coffee.  Help sober you up.”

A drink shunned by the heathens.  Strange lessons the Almighty was teaching him here this night.  The Moslems did not let coffee, forbidden by their religion, pass on the trade routes through their lands.  The little coffee that reached Europe was reserved for the rich.

Stifel murmured thanks for this odd blessing.  The rich communion of the Saints and Host of Heaven back in the radiance of the Eternal City had shunned him, casting him out into the cold.  Pharisees, he thought bitterly.  Yet this group of… of… sinners was the word Stifel wanted to use, would have used before, save that these past few hours of blessed welcomeness and acceptance made it difficult for him to see these men as such.  “It is a great gift you bestow on me,” he said quietly, staring deep into John’s eyes.

John stared back at him for a moment.  “Uh huh.”  Several others stared at him curiously. 

“Michael,” Stifel said to the young man with the golden hair, “You called yourself ‘Mike’ when first we met.”  He glanced around at the others.  “Have others of you given me diminutive forms of your names as well?”

“Why?”  Tom asked suspiciously.  Stifel had noticed he was the one to question everything. 

“I am a mathematician, I had said.  I have with me calculations, and your names may fit into the equations.”

“A numerologist,” Bart commented. 

Stifel nodded rapidly.  “Since coming to this place I have noted many things that indicate God’s holy work expressed in numbers.  For example the Revelation of John speaks of the river over which I crossed.  It says that on either side of that river will grow trees with twelve different kinds of fruits…”

Andy hooted with laughter.  “You sure got that here, Johann.”  The others chuckled, but Stifel noticed the laughter seemed forced from a couple of the men. 

“Show us your stuff,” Bart encouraged.  “I got into crystals and numerology for a while.”

Eagerly, feeling that he was now very near to the great revelation he sought, Stifel dug out the rolled papers with his equations and work.  He spread them on the dark, wooden bartop as the men gathered in a semi-circle around them and peered over his shoulder.  He guided them through his equations, showing them how he’d calculated names, dates, events, and signs from the Scriptures into his work.

“And so I came up with the date of the great and glorious event!” he ended triumphantly.

“A millennialist,” Tom snorted.

“Wow,” Bart said, tracing his finger over the papers.  Stifel was pleased at the awe he heard in Bart’s voice, “And you did all that without using a calculator?”

Stifel wrinkled his face up, confused.  “I did my own calculations, of course.” 

“What date did you come up with as the big event?”

“Why, this one, of course.  Christmas Eve in the year of our Lord fifteen hundred and fifty-three.”  He glanced around proudly.  “The day of the great revelation and the day I reached the Holy City.”  He dug into his memory and quoted, “‘The biggest little city in the world!’”

The gathered men choked with laughter as Stifel stared at them, bewildered.  Then Pete put his arm over Stifel’s shoulders in a comforting gesture.  “Johann, my friend, you’re okay.  A little queer — but aren’t we all? — and a lot confused, but you’re a good guy.”  He leaned close to Stifel and said sincerely, “This is the year nineteen hundred and ninety-nine, and Reno is a bit closer to Sodom and Gomorrah than it is to heaven.”

The room whirled around Stifel and he swore his most solemn vow that he would never again touch strong drink.  Grabbing up the cooling coffee he gulped it down in one swallow.  My God, my God, he cried inwardly.  What is this?  “Reno”… that was the odd word that came up in his incomplete equations.  Stifel hadn’t understood, thought it was an error, so chose the town of Himmelstadt — Heaven City — as the likely place instead.

“Come on, man,” Bart encouraged him.  “Finish what you started.  Put us into your equations.  See if you come up with a different date, a more likely one.”

His voice shaking a little, Stifel said, “I fear I have neither pen nor ink.”

“Here,” John handed him a smooth, dark stick. 

“What is this?”

“A pen.”

“Ah!  Have you ink?”

Enunciating his words clearly, as one might to a fool, though not unkindly, John said, “It’s in the pen.  Just write.”

Stifel tried it.  “Wunderding!  A miraculous thing.”

Pete laughed.  “If Renaissance boy thinks pens are neat let him try your calculator, John.”

It was several minutes before Stifel got over the shock of the device that acted so much more rapidly than even the most brilliant mathematician’s mind (his own, for example) in working calculations.  Somewhat reluctant to touch the device, he pushed it toward Bart and called the figures to him, writing down the results.  Stifel realized that what would have taken him all night to figure would be done in scant minutes with the calculating machine. 

“Now, then… you twelve, tell me your names, your proper names.”

“John…” 

“Peter…” 

“Mark…” 

“Michael…” 

“James…” 

“Thomas, and I think this is nonsense.”

“Shut up, Tom.”

“Gabe… oh, all right, Gabriel, and don’t you laugh.”

“Phillip…”

“Matthew…”

“Andrew…”

“Thaddaeus…”

“Really, Tad?  I never knew that.”

“Bart.”

They all turned to Bart who stared at the calculator and blushed. 

“Come on, Bart,” they coaxed teasingly.

Blushing still deeper, he said, “Okay, it’s Bartholomew.  But don’t any of you dare call me that!”

“No problem, Bartholomew.”

Stifel scarcely noticed, so intent was he on his calculations.  He felt his cheeks grow hot and thought he might faint.  He loosened his robes at the neck, one hand straying in to clutch the gold cross on its chain. 

“Have you gentlemen thought about the meanings of your names?” he asked, hardly daring to look at what was forming on his papers.

They glanced around, shaking their heads.  “Well, I guess they’re all Bible names,” Michael said.  “Disciples… only no one names a kid ‘Judas’ anymore, and what are the others, angels or some such.”

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            “Angels, indeed,” Stifel said quietly, closing his hand briefly over Michael’s.  Michael smiled and Stifel felt suddenly shamed of his immediate judgment of this kind, gentle young man.  Who was he to pass judgment?  Who was he to usurp God’s place and pass sentence on anyone?  Silently he asked forgiveness of the Almighty for his arrogance and pride.  A feeling of peace came over Stifel and he, too, smiled as he looked about this strange gathering brought together this Christmas Eve, a gathering truly as strange, if not as blessed, as that very first Christmas in a rude stable.

“Well?”  Bart said insistently.  “What do you come up with?  Armageddon on New Year’s Eve two thousand?”

“Two thousand and one,” Tom inserted.

Stifel focused on his papers and tried to balance the jumble of complex calculations.  After a few minutes he shook his head.  “I know not.  Some element is missing, some piece of the equation is not here that keeps it from balancing.  I think it ought to be saying midnight on Christmas Eve, this very night, will come the Revelation, but…”  He fell silent, struggling to make sense of what he read in the names, numbers and signs.

From the stillness John said, “It’s turning midnight right now.  Maybe you’ll get your answer.  Merry Christmas to you, Johann.”

A chill draft swept over him and all turned to see the door open.  It was no man who entered this time, but a woman.  She wore a short coat of fur from no animal Stifel could identify, over a… a… he dare not call that thing a dress so little did it cover.  Stifel blushed but was unable to take his eyes off the expanse of legs that extended from beneath the tight little garment.  The woman moved unsteadily, balancing on high, tiny heels, toward the furthest end of the bar.  Tearing his eyes from the normally forbidden sight, Stifel looked up at her face.  The woman’s face was not that of a old woman save that it showed the wear and strain of years and anguish.  Her eyes were tired and unfocused, lifeless and dull as a beaten horse.  Stifel realized at once what she was.  This woman was…

“The oldest whore in Reno,” John whispered to Stifel.  “Came in here last Christmas Eve too.”  He moved away, down the bar to her.  He poured her a drink from an ornate bottle, then patted the bartop with his hand.  “It’s on me,” Stifel heard him say to the prostitute.  “Merry Christmas.”

Leaving the woman alone to her drink, John returned to the men.  “I always give her a free one at Christmas.  God knows it’s probably the only Christmas present she gets.” 

The conversation around Stifel drifted, he didn’t listen, staring instead at the lone woman.  Mary Magdeline had been such as this woman was and had been favored by Christ, becoming one of his most faithful of followers. 

“What is her name?”  Stifel asked abruptly.

John shrugged.  “Don’t know.  I guess I never asked.” 

Stifel stood.  Slowly he made his way to the end of the bar by the woman. 

“My lady,” he said hesitantly when he reached her.

She grimaced.  “No.  No more.  Not tonight.  That’s why I came here.  These boys are nice and none of them will hit on me.”

“Your pardon,” Stifel said, this time trying not to boom out in his preaching voice.  “I only wished to ask your name.”

The weary eyes stared at him a long time.  Then a slight smile softened the woman’s harsh face.  “It’s Mary.”

“Mary,” Stifel repeated, his voice soft and low in contrast to the loud pounding of his heart.  He needed no pen or paper or calculator to tell him what that name meant to his equations.  It filled the gaps, balanced the equations.  This was the appointed time.  This was the appointed place.  A warmth enveloped him, like the feeling of peace, but more. 

“God help me,” he prayed silently.  “What is the meaning of all this?  Where are the trumps, the rapture, the doom and destruction at the ending of the age?”  An image filled him, that of the first Christmas, a soft, quiet event filled with love and acceptance.  That was it, he realized.  There need be no destruction, no doom, only one man loving and giving of himself what he could.  

Johann Stifel looked into the face of the tired prostitute and saw a beauty greater than he ever imagined possible.  “I wish you a blessed Christmas, Mary, beloved daughter of God and,” he fumbled at his collar, pulling off the heavy gold chain with its jeweled cross, “I would like to give you a gift.”  He handed her the cross.

Mary’s eyes welled up with tears as she took the cross in her hands.  Stifel squeezed her hands closed around it, watching the holy light lustrous in her eyes.  “Go with God,” he whispered and turned away. 

The men gathered at the bar didn’t notice as Stifel moved through the gloom toward the door, engrossed in their conversation as they were.  Stifel smiled at them.  Michael’s sweet voice rose above the others, saying, “No, it goes:  ‘And with the angel there appeared a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will among men.’”

Stifel found his revelation, and received a greater Christmas gift than he ever dared imagine.

The End

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