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Chapter 28
THEY WALKED TO THE STRANGE DOOR IN the mountain.
Valhalla turned to the other Valkyries. āFor love. For victory. And for the glory of God.ā
The same phrase J. had used. The words of those who know angels.
The Valkyries started their engines, blowing up a cloud of dust. The women did the same maneuvers they had at the gas stationāpassing closely by each otherāand, minutes later, they had disappeared around the mountain.
Valhalla turned to Chris and Paulo.
āLetās go in,ā she said.
There was no door, just a grate. On it hung a sign:
DANGER
THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
PROHIBITS ENTRY
VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED
āDonāt believe it,ā said the Valkyrie. āTheyāre not going to spend any time guarding this.ā
It was an old, abandoned gold mine. Valhalla, carrying a lantern, began to move forward carefully, so as not to bump her head on the passage beams. Paulo noticed that here and there the floor had collapsed. It might have been dangerous, but now wasnāt the time to think about it.
As they went deeper, the temperature fell, and it even became pleasant. He was worried about a lack of air, but Valhalla was moving along as if she knew the place wellāshe must have been there many times, and she was still alive. Now wasnāt the time to think about that, either.
After walking for ten minutes or so, the Valkyrie halted. They sat on the floor of the passage, and she placed the lantern in the middle of their circle.
āAngels,ā she said. āAngels are visible to those who accept the light. And break the pact with the darkness.ā
āI have no pact with the darkness,ā Paulo responded. āI had one. But no longer.ā
āIām not talking about a pact with Lucifer, or with Satan, or withā¦ā She began to speak the names of various demons, and her face looked strange.
āDonāt say those names,ā Paulo interrupted. āGod is in the words, and the devil as well.ā
Valhalla laughed. āIt looks as if youāve learned the lesson. Now, break the pact.ā
āI have no pact with evil,ā Paulo repeated.
āIām talking about your pact with defeat.ā
Paulo thought of what J. had saidāabout destroying what we love most. But J. had said nothing about pacts; he knew Paulo well enough to know that his pact with evil had been broken a long time ago. The silence within the mine was worse than in the desert. Not a sound was heard, except Valhallaās voiceāwhich sounded different.
āWe have a contract, you and I: not to win when victory is possible,ā she insisted.
āI have never made any such pact,ā Paulo said for the third time.
āEveryone has. At some point in our lives, we all enter into such an agreement. Thatās why there is an angel with a burning sword at the gates to paradise. To allow entry only to those who have broken that pact.ā
Yes, sheās right, thought Chris. Everyone has made this pact.
āDo you find me attractive?ā Valhalla asked, once again changing the tone of her voice.
āYou are a beautiful woman,ā Paulo answered.
āOne day, when I was still an adolescent, I saw my best friend crying. We were inseparable, and we loved each other completely, and I asked what had happened. When I insisted on knowing, she told me that her boyfriend was in love with me. I didnāt know that, and that day I made the pact. Without really knowing why, I began to gain weight, to take poor care of myself, to become unattractive. BecauseāunconsciouslyāI felt that my beauty was a curse, and had caused suffering for my best friend.
āBefore long, I had destroyed all meaning in my life because I just didnāt care about myself anymore. I reached the point that everything about my life became unbearable: I thought about dying.ā
Valhalla laughed.
āAs you can see, I broke the pact.ā
āTrue,ā Paulo said.
āYes, it is true,ā Chris said. āYou are lovely.ā
āWe are in the heart of the mountain,ā the Valkyrie continued. āOutside, the sun is shining, and here there is only darkness. But the temperature is pleasant, we can sleep, we have nothing to worry about. This is the darkness of the pact.ā
She raised her hand to the zipper of her leather jacket.
āBreak the pact,ā she said. āFor the glory of God. For love. And for victory.ā
She began to lower the zipper slowly. She wore nothing beneath the jacket.
The light from the lantern caused a medallion between her breasts to gleam.
āTake it,ā she said.
Paulo touched the medallion. The archangel Michael.
āTake it from around my neck.ā
He removed the medallion and held it in his hands.
āBoth of you, hold the medallion.ā
Suddenly, Chris blurted out, āI donāt need to see my angel! I donāt need to. Just speaking will do.ā
Paulo held the medallion in his hand.
āIāve already begun talking with my angel,ā Chris went on, more quietly. āI know that I can, and thatās good enough.ā
Paulo didnāt believe her. But Valhalla knew that it was the truth. She had read it in her eyes when they were outside. She also knew that her angel wanted her to be there with her husband.
Nevertheless, she had to test her courage. It was the rule of the Tradition.
āAll right,ā the Valkyrie said. With a rapid movement, she blew out the lantern. The darkness was total.
āPut the cord around your neck,ā she said to Paulo. āAnd hold the medallion with both hands joined, in prayer.ā
Paulo did as he was told. He was fearful of a darkness so complete, and he was remembering things he would rather not think about.
He felt Valhalla approaching him from behind. Her hands touched his head.
The darkness seemed almost solid. Nothing, not a scintilla of light, entered there.
Valhalla began to pray in a strange language. At first, he tried to identify the words she was saying. Then, as her fingers moved across his head, Paulo felt the medallion growing hot. He concentrated on the heat in his hands.
The darkness was changing. Various scenes from his life began to pass before him. Light and shadow, light and shadow, andāsuddenly, he was once again in darkness.
āI donāt want to remember thatā¦ā he pleaded with the Valkyrie.
āRemember! Whatever it is, try to remember every minute of it.ā
The darkness brought terror to him, the terror he had experienced fourteen years earlier.
When he woke up, he found a note on the coffee table: āI love you. Iāll be right back.ā At the bottom, she had written the date: ā25 May 1974.ā
Funny. To put the date on a love note.
He had awakened a bit dizzy, still startled by the dream. In it, the director of the recording studio was offering him a job. He didnāt need a job: The director actually functioned more like his employeeāhis and his partnerās. Their records were at the top of the charts, selling thousands of copies, and letters were arriving from all corners of Brazil, from people wanting to know what the Alternative Society was.
All you have to do is listen to the words of the song, he thought to himself. It wasnāt really a songāit was a mantra from a magic ritual, with the words of the Beast of the Apocalypse being read in the background in a low voice. Whoever sang the song would be invoking the forces of darkness. And everyone was singing it.
He and his partner had done the whole thing. The royalties they earned were being used to buy a lot near Rio de Janeiro. There they would recreate what, almost one hundred years earlier, the Beast had tried to establish in Cefalu, Sicily. But the Beast was expelled by the Italian authorities. The Beast had erred on many pointsāhe had not gathered a sufficient number of disciples, and he did not know how to earn money. The Beast told everyone that his number was 666, and that he had come to create a world where the strong would be served by the weak, and the only law was that everyone do as they desired. But the Beast didnāt know how to spread the ideasāfew people had taken the Beastās words seriously.
He and his partner, Raul Seixas, well, they were completely different! Raul sang, and the entire country listened. They were young, and they were earning money. Yes, it was true that Brazil was in the hands of a military dictatorship, but the government was concerned about guerrillas. They couldnāt waste their time with a rock singer. Just the opposite: The authorities felt that rock music kept the countryās youth away from communism.
He drank his coffee standing at the window. He was going to take a walk, and meet later with his partner. It didnāt bother him at all that nobody knew who he was, while his friend was famous. What mattered was that they were earning money, and this would allow them to put their ideas into practice. People from the world of music, and the world of magicāah, they knew! His anonymity with regard to the general public was even rather funnyāmore than once, he had had the pleasure of hearing someone comment on his workāwithout knowing that the author was listening nearby.
He donned his sneakers. As he was tying the laces, he felt dizzy.
He raised his head. The apartment seemed darker than it should have been. The sun was shining outside, and he had just left the window. Something was burningāan electrical appliance, maybe, because the stove was disconnected. He looked throughout the apartment. Nothing.
The air was heavy. He decided to go out right awayāwithout tying his sneakers, he started to leave, but realized that he really wasnāt feeling well.
Could be something I ate, he said to himself. But when he ate something that was off, his entire body usually gave him a signal, and he knew that. He wasnāt nauseated, didnāt feel like vomiting. Just a kind of dizziness that didnāt seem to want to pass.
Dark. The darkness grew; it seemed like a gray cloud around him. He felt the dizziness again. Yes, it had to be something he had eatenāOr maybe an acid flashback, he thought. But he hadnāt tried LSD in five years. The delayed effects had disappeared after the first six months, and never returned.
He was frightened, he had to get out.
He opened the doorāthe dizziness was coming and going, and he might get worse out in the street. Better to stay home and wait. The note was there on the tableāshe would be home shortlyāhe could wait. They could go together to the pharmacy or to a doctor, although he hated doctors. It couldnāt be anything serious. No one has a heart attack at age twenty-six.
No one.
He sat down on the couch. He needed some distraction. He shouldnāt think about her, or the time would pass even more slowly. He tried to read the paper, but the dizziness, the lightheadedness, came and went, stronger each time. Something was pulli...
