Instead, the major thought about how the little ship could possibly get to the shore with the waves being so wild this morning. The waves rose thirty to forty feet on either side of them. It was like a giant was making a bed and the sea was a great comforter, and the boat a tiny toy that was being tossed about on it. The machine-gun fire from behind him started its awful crackling, and the sounds of mortars exploding erupted. The world was going to pieces, wasn’t it? It was like someone had taken the whole world and stuck it in the blender at the five and dime back in Montreal and pressed the purée button. He wondered if his hair would go grey early because of this. His father always used to say that if you went to war, your hair went grey early. He had always been so vain about his jet black hair. He felt as if he would never be able to eat again because of the seasickness.
They all felt the bottom of the landing craft scrape against the gravel at the bottom of the shore and the ramp lowered. The men began to charge out and Major Olivier was right behind them when for a moment, at the edge of the ship, he was frozen in his tracks in a state of awe. What was he seeing on the cliffs? At first he thought that he was only seeing the smoke and debris from missiles that they’d launched at the shore, but as the smoke cleared, he saw it was something else. He slowly realized that the entire beach was covered with angels. They were standing on the sand, sitting on tree branches, perched on the rocks. You couldn’t even begin to count them. There were some that were still coming down from the sky.
Some were holding up their gowns and walking with their feet in the water and kicking it about. One of the angels had made a beautiful pattern on the sand with clamshells. There was an angel with his arms stretched up in the sky, doing a back bend. One was juggling some stones.
One was looking at a little bird hatching out of an egg. Some angels liked the simple things. Some of these angels hadn’t been down to earth in a while. One had caught a fish by the tail and was holding it in his hands so that the other angels could see how large it was.
There were others that looked like they had been waiting patiently for hours, sitting on the cliff with their eyes closed, enjoying the salty breeze on their faces. Their curly golden locks were being whipped into a frenzy and tangled into dreadlocks.
The angels didn’t see that there was anything particularly alarming about going to heaven — or that there was anything for people to get worked up about. Anyway, that was their job, to remain level-headed about things, so that they could calm you down and tell you that this was actually, very soon, going to be the best day of your life.
The major saw more of them coming down from a parting in the clouds. He was amazed. Why was he the only one who could see them? He was absolutely certain that they were there. He had never hallucinated about anything in his whole life. He looked and looked and they were still there.
What did God know that they didn’t know? Why would God be sending that many angels unless that many soldiers were going to be slaughtered? It could only mean one thing, and that was that they were all going up to heaven that very afternoon. He thought he had known that, but it was something that was impossible to grasp until the moment was upon you. Until death rings your doorbell, or tosses a stone up at your window from down below on the street, you never quite believe it exists, do you?
Major Olivier was filled with so much dread that he puked all over himself. He began to beg everyone to come back. He screamed, but nobody could hear him. The noise of the waves overwhelmed his voice. The wind blew out his words like they were matches.
He turned quickly, pointing wildly and waving his arm toward the shore. It was like he was in a dream, because nobody was paying him any attention. There was one soldier crouched against the wall to avoid the bullets. He crossed himself and Major Olivier could tell from the movement of his lips that he was supplicating to God and the heavens to come and protect him.
Major Olivier wanted to say no, no, no, no. You don’t want to call on the heavens now. You want to tell the angels to go away. You should throw a stone at them, so that they will all fly up into the air like a group of pigeons. They’re here for souls — our souls! There were angels that were hovering over the water, like kites on the end of strings. They were ready to take up souls that hadn’t even got to the land yet. There were angels landing on the hulls of the landing crafts.
The bullets were coming quicker and quicker. He could hear explosions. What could he do? There was nothing that anybody could do now but storm the beach.
The praying boy headed out, and Major Olivier followed behind him. They were neck-deep in water and they were forcing themselves toward the shore. He ducked down because there was a volley of bullets whizzing over his head. He closed his eyes. He wanted to see his daughter again. He had no idea why on earth he had such a beautiful daughter. She would be sitting at the breakfast table with her curls all over the place, with one of her brothers on her lap, in a terrific mood. She would fling herself into his arms when she ran into him on the street, wrapping her legs around his hips and kissing him on the forehead. He felt blessed all the time.
When he opened his eyes again he was underwater. There, right in front of him, was an angel with his hair swirling around his head like a Catherine wheel and his enormous wings spread out like great penknives. Major Olivier felt so terribly warm. He put his hands on his chest to see where the heat was coming from and he realized that there was blood all over his uniform. It was going to be all right now, as he was already dead. He had been dead this whole time.
Yvette was lying on her bed with her eyes closed and the blanket tossed aside when her mother came in the room to check on her. Her mother crouched down in the kitchen by the stove and wailed and wailed. The other children gathered around the mother, terrified and simpering. The neighbours could hear Yvette’s mother through the floorboards. The sound made them cringe and weep and cross themselves over and over.
The doctor came sadly to the door. Like everyone else in the neighbourhood, he had a soft spot for Yvette Olivier. He looked at the body of the pretty young girl lying under the covers. What a shame that this girl, who still had so many days of partying ahead of her, had to be taken from this world. He looked at the symptomatic red rash on her chest.
“Meningitis,” he said. “What an awful night she must have had.”
It was peculiar though: the doctor couldn’t help but notice that she had such a happy look on her face. She looked as if she was still alive and was having the most fantastic dream of her life. She looked as if she was about to burst out laughing. Whatever else, the doctor seemed suddenly certain that that girl had gone to meet her maker in peace.
THE ISLES OF DR. MOREAU
Grandfather often enjoyed telling my brother about how, when he was younger, he was a ladies’ man.
“I never had any trouble getting girls,” he’d exclaim. “None whatsoever.”
It was hard for my brother and me to picture it. The grandfather we knew sat on the couch all day, sucking on chocolates with his dentures out and cursing the TV. Who could picture him on a date?
Our mother didn’t like him telling old girlfriend stories, saying that most of them only served to objectify women and feed his own ego, but whenever she’d leave the room, we would beg for one of his tales.
“Tell us about Dr. Moreau!” we yelled one evening when the washing machine had broken down and Mother had gone off to the laundromat. “Tell us about the Island of Dr. Moreau!”
Grandfather often claimed he’d had a job working for Dr. Moreau and said that the women on the island were unlike any he’d ever seen.