“I’ll be careful.”
I hung by the door, waiting for something but not sure what. Then it occurred to me it might not be a “what,” but a “who.”
“Who is Sofia?” I asked. He looked startled, as if I had shouted an obscenity. “You said her name in ICU and I heard you say it again when you were talking to Nueve. Who is Sofia, Samuel?”
He didn’t say anything at first. Then he said, “A ghost from the past, Alfred. That’s all. A ghost from the past.”
“Another riddle,” I said. “I should have figured.”
He nodded. “Yes. You should have.”
“Goodbye, Samuel,” I said.
“For now,” he said.
No, I thought. Forever.
05:04:49:10
In the hallway, Nueve said, “Your mascara’s running.”
He handed me his handkerchief. I dabbed my eyes.
“How do I look?” I asked.
“Like an eighty-year-old raccoon.”
I settled into the wheelchair as he pushed me to the elevators. Nueve instructed me to tuck my chin toward my chest. “It will help hide your face,” he said.
“Who is Sofia?” I asked as we waited for the elevator.
“Ah. Finally, a question to which you truly do not know the answer, yes? Or did Samuel tell you?”
“He said she was a ghost from his past.”
“She is many things. A ghost from the past, a promise for the future.”
“Huh?”
“Sofia is the Judeo-Christian goddess of wisdom, Senor Kropp.” His voice had a playful tone. “Have you ever been to the Sistine Chapel?”
“I’ve been meaning to get there.”
“She is there, under the left arm of God as he reaches with his right to touch Adam. A beautiful woman who represents truth and knowledge and all that is beneficent and worthwhile. She is the source, the font of all righteousness. I am surprised you’ve never heard of her.”
“Why?”
“Because according to some accounts, Sofia is the Lady of the Lake who brings Michael’s Sword to Arthur.”
So that was it. Samuel must have brought up the same point to Nueve that he argued with me: I was Michael’s beloved and by running away I was turning my back on heaven. I wondered why he and Nueve had picked that moment to have an argument about religion. Sam used to be a priest, but I doubted Nueve even believed in heaven. He didn’t strike me as the religious type. He struck me as someone who really didn’t believe in anything at all, except power. Samuel had called being an Operative Nine a burden, but I didn’t think Nueve looked at it that way. I had the impression he liked being the Operative Nine. He liked it a lot.
The elevator doors slid open. Nueve swiveled the chair around and pulled me backward into the elevator.
A voice called from the hallway outside, “Hey, hold the door!” Nueve stopped the doors from closing with the end of his cane. Two orderlies stepped inside, both a bit out of breath.
“Thanks, man,” one of them said.
They stood on either side of us. Nueve was standing directly behind my chair. The elevator began to descend. The four of us stared straight ahead, like everybody does in elevators.