The Valkyries

you will always be a part of me.”
    Valhalla removed a glove and threw it to Chris. Then she revved her engine and the cycles sped away, leaving behind a gigantic cloud of dust.

Chapter 47
     
    A MAN AND A WOMAN WERE TRAVELING across the desert. On some days, they stopped at cities with thousands of inhabitants, and on others, in towns with just one motel, a restaurant, and a gas station. They kept to themselves—and each afternoon they walked out through the rocks and the sand, feeling as if they had returned to the place where the first star was about to be born. And there, they talked with their angels.
    They heard voices, gave advice to one another, and remembered things that seemed to have been completely forgotten sometime in the past.
    She had completed her communication with the protection and wisdom of her angel, and was now gazing at the desert sunset.
    He sat there, waiting. He wanted his angel to descend and appear in blazing glory. He had done everything right, and now he had simply to wait.
    He waited one, two, three hours. He rose only when night had completely fallen; he found his wife, and they returned to the city.
    They had dinner, and returned to the hotel. She went to bed and pretended to sleep, while he stared into space.
    She got out of bed in the middle of the night, and went to where he sat, asking him to come tobed. She said that she was afraid of sleeping alone because of a bad dream. He lay down beside her, quietly.
    “You are already communicating with your angel,” he had grown used to saying at such times. “I’ve heard you speaking when you are channeling. You say things you would never say in ordinary life. Wise things. Your angel is here.”
    He caressed her but continued to lie there in silence. She asked herself if his sadness was really because of the angel, or perhaps had to do with some lost love.
    This question remained locked inside.
    Paulo was thinking about the woman who had left, but that wasn’t what made him disconsolate. Time was passing, and soon he would have to return to his own country. He would meet again with the man who had taught him that angels exist.
    That man,
Paulo imagined,
will tell me that I did enough. That I broke a pact that needed to be broken, that I accepted forgiveness that I should have accepted long ago. Yes, that man will continue to teach me about the path to wisdom and love, and I will get closer and closer to my angel. I’ll speak with my angel every day, giving thanks for protection and asking for help. And that man will tell me that it is sufficient.
    Yes, because J. had taught him from the beginning that there are frontiers. That it was necessary to go as far as possible—but that there were certain times when one had to accept the mystery, and understand that each person had his own gift. Some knew how to cure, others possessed words of wisdom, while others conversed with spirits. It was through the sum of such gifts that God could demonstrate his glory, using humankind as his instrument. The gates to paradise would be open to those who had resolved that they would pass through them. The world was in the hands of those who had the courage to dream—and to realize their dreams.
    Each to their own talent. Each to their own gift.
    But none of that consoled Paulo. He knew that Gene had seen his angel. That Valhalla had seen her angel. That many others had written books and stories and reports telling of their meetings with their angels.
    And he had not been able to see his own.

Chapter 48
     
    I N SIX MORE DAYS, THEY WOULD HAVE TO leave the desert. They stopped in a small city called Ajo, where most of the inhabitants were elderly. It was a place that had known its moments of glory—when the mine there had brought jobs, prosperity, and hope to the inhabitants. But, for some reason—unknown to any of them—the company had sold its houses to the employees and closed the mine.
    Paulo and Chris sat in a restaurant, drinking coffee and waiting for the cool evening to arrive. An old woman asked if she could sit with them.
    “All of our children have gone away,” she told them. “No one is left except the old-timers. Some day, the entire city will disappear, and all our work, everything we built, will no longer mean a thing.”
    It had been a long time since anyone had even passed through the place. The old woman was happy to have someone to talk to.
    “People come here, build, and hope that what they are doing is important,” she