Chapter 27: Angels and Visitations

"Oh, you mean you have to jump around every night pretending you're the devil? Silly me. I guess they went and changed mass again."

They were singing as the van drove through Hamburg and to the towns beyond. They had spent most of the afternoon perfecting the song. The music was James' and the lyrics were Wolfgang's. Wolfgang was driving as usual, but James had turned the front captain's chair around so he could face the passenger compartment as he strummed on Wolfgang's battered acoustic guitar.

"They say that dreams enter through the feet

So they recommend bare feet to sleep,

If you want Morpheus with you.

They say that trees wear their clothes backwards,

In the summer they wear leaf coats

And in the winter they take them off."

It was typical Wolfgang nonsense but James had written a very catchy melody for it and soon they had everyone singing along. Kurt jumped up and grabbed Amanda by the hands and started dancing with her while James and Wolfgang attempted to improvise a bridge and a chorus. Brin cut in as they went into the second verse.

"They say that comets are like animals,

With long and bright tails

And they gallop through the night.

They say the rug is the floor

With overgrown hair

The broom is the comb and the vacuum is the blow dryer."

He spun Brin around and putting his hand at the small of her back, dropped her in to a dip. There were some benefits to being the only male in the rear of the van. The song ended and they started it again. They were still singing it when they pulled up in front of the rectory behind St. Stephen's Church.

After putting on the winter coats and hats they hadn't needed in Barcelona, they piled out of the van. The door swung open, but instead of Father Dietrich, Stephani was standing there. Kurt stopped in his tracks.

"No way! They said you couldn't be here this year." He said.

Stephani leaned against the frame and shrugged. "So, I lied." He said, "Or actually they lied. I just wanted to see your face when someone surprised you for a change."

Kurt grinned. "I am surprised! This is amazing." He turned back to Wolfgang and Amanda. "You knew all this time?" He asked.

Wolfgang shrugged. Amanda did the same.

Kurt shook his head. "I can't believe you guys. I'm going to get you back for this." He said.

"For what, having your brother surprise you on Christmas?" Wolfgang asked.

"That's right." Kurt said. "I'm going to commit some random act of kindness and you'll never know what hit you."

Stephani laughed and came out, hugging each of his siblings in turn. Kurt looked up and saw that Father Dietrich was now standing in the doorway.

"Were you in on this too?" Kurt asked.

Father Dietrich raised his hand. "Guilty." He said.

Once they were in the house and introductions had been made, Maria reached into her bag and pulled out two bottles of wine.

"These are for you. My cousins have a small vineyard." She said. Father Dietrich thanked her and took them, trying to read the handwritten labels. "They're in Italian obviously." Maria said. "This is a Shiraz. And this is a Chianti."

"We can try them one night at dinner." He said. "What do they go with?"

"Well, if you let me take over the kitchen for a night, I'll make spaghetti the right way and we can have it with that." Maria said.

Father Dietrich laughed. "Who am I to stand in the way of such an offer? Just give me a shopping list." He said. He threw all their coats over his arm and invited them into the parlor while hung the coats inside the wardrobe in the next room.

"I've never been in a priest's house." Brin said, looking around the room. It was comfortable, with a well-used couch and chairs facing each other in the center. Bookshelves lined one wall and in the corner was a large pine tree with nothing on it.

"Very austere." James said looking at the tree. After their initial greeting at the door, the conversation was entirely in English so James and Brin could follow it.

"We'll probably decorate it tonight or tomorrow." Amanda said. "It's sort of a tradition."

"Oh this is so adorable! Is this you Kurt?" Brin said, picking up a picture from Father Dietrich's side table.

Kurt glanced at it and said nonchalantly, "Nah, that's the other little blue demon kid who hangs out here sometimes."

Brin looked confused and Kurt started laughing.

"Of course that's me. Who else would it be?" He said. He took the picture and looked at it. He looked about ten years old. He was dressed in what had been his nicest clothes and crouched on one of the pews wearing a mischievous grin. "I remember this. This was taken after I was confirmed. Father Dietrich surprises me and took it when I turned to look."

"I thought it captured your spirit." Father Dietrich said walking back into the room.

"Do you to have pictures of other parishioners?" Kurt asked.

"No, but I have that one of you. And Stephani sent me this last year." Father Dietrich handed Kurt a framed photo. It was his whole family, sitting up on the branch of a large tree. Margali was against the trunk with Amanda leaning against her, one arm was casually draped around Amanda's shoulder. Stephani had stood on a lower branch and leaned into the picture and Kurt was perched on a slightly higher branch, his hands folded over his knees and his chin resting on top.

"I remember this being taken." Wolfgang said. "That was the first week I arrived."

"Why is do you have pictures of just us?" Kurt asked.

Father Dietrich shrugged. "You are the ones who come for Christmas every year. I figure it makes you more like family than just part of my congregation."

"Do people ever ask about them?" Kurt asked. "I mean, about me?"

"Sometimes." Father Dietrich said.

"So, do you tell them that it's Nightcrawler or Kurt Wagner?"

"Neither. I just tell anyone who asks that it's a friend."

Kurt closed his eyes and smiled. He loved visiting Father Dietrich at Christmas. Even though Kurt knew he belonged with the circus, he was always happiest here.

"This is a cool church." James said. He was walking around the perimeter, following the stations of the cross, tiny plaques on the wall representing Christ's final hours. Morning sunlight streamed through the stained glass. "I like the windows." He said,d

"I like it too. It's the first church I'd ever been in." Kurt said. He was sitting in one of the pews, watching James.

"And Father Dietrich is a lot cooler than the priests I knew back in New York." James said.

"I guess I was lucky." Kurt said. "I realize now that his reaction to me was to be fairly unique. It could have just as easily gone the other way."

"So, do you take communion with everyone else?" James asked, sitting down in the pew behind Kurt. Kurt turned around to face him.

He shook his head. "No. I could, but I don't. I get to attend mass so infrequently; I don't want to spoil it with a bunch of histrionics." He said sadly. He pointed to the church's second level. "I sit up there."

James looked up at the balcony. "That sucks." He said.

"That's the strangest expression. I guess it does suck." Kurt shrugged. "But what can I do? I'm used to it by now."

"Still, it's a crummy thing to get used to."

"Yeah. It is." Kurt sighed and rested his chin on the back of the pew. "But, like I said, what can I do?"

The door opened and they both turned to look.

"Ah, so there you two are." Father Dietrich shut the door behind him. "It's nice in here in the morning isn't it?"

"It's always nice in here." Kurt said.

Father Dietrich looked around. "True." He said. He sat down next to James. "Maria and Wolfgang are borrowing my car to go into Hamburg. If either of you need anything, you should tell them."

James got up. "I don't need anything, but I might want to tag along and be a tourist," he said. "What about you Kurt?"

Kurt shook his head. "I think I'll stay."

"See you in a little while then." James said and left.

"You and I hardly got to say two words to each other yesterday." Father Dietrich said.

Kurt laughed. "That's what I get for inviting so many people I guess." He said, switching from English to German. His English had gotten a lot better now that he was getting so much practice, but he wanted to have a conversation where he wasn't worried about getting the tense right or throwing in too many extra verbs.

"I don't mind all the visitors," said Father Dietrich with a shrug. "It's a nice change. I rather like being priest to a circus."

"I wish I could come visit more often." Kurt said.

"That's funny, because I've hoped that someday I could take a week or so off in the summer and travel around with you."

Kurt sat up straighter. "That would be fantastic." He said. "You could do that anytime."

"I will definitely try to. So, how are you?"

"Good I guess. The new show we're doing is a lot of work. I have a huge part so there's a lot to remember." Kurt said.

"But you still like performing?"

"I do, but sometimes I wish I could do something else. Or at least that I had the option to."

"Such as?"

Kurt knitted his brow in thought. "Sometimes I wish I could do what you do."

"Don't you already?" Father Dietrich asked.

Kurt laughed. "No. Of course not."

"Hmm. In many ways, I would disagree."

"Oh, you mean you have to jump around every night pretending you're the devil? Silly me. I guess they went and changed mass again." Kurt said.

"You're taking it too literally." Father Dietrich said with a laugh. "You provide a service, correct? You put aside your troubles for a few hours every evening to help others take their minds of theirs. Am I right?"

"Well, when you put it that way…Yes." Kurt said. "But you help people fix their problems."

"Do I? I can give people ideas, but only God can truly fix things."

"I'd hate to imagine the kind of ideas I'm giving people then." Kurt said, leaning forward to rest his chin on the pew in front of him.

"You show people that the fantastic is possible. It's the same thing I show them. That if you believe, anything can happen." Father Dietrich sat back. "We're in the same line of work you and I, whether you believe it or not."

Father Dietrich carried in the last of the dishes and set them beside the sink so Kurt could wash them. Through the kitchen door in the room beyond, the lights of their newly decorated tree twinkled.

"You're right Maria," he said. "I had no idea what spaghetti was supposed to taste like until tonight. Or wine for that matter."

Maria laughed and picked up a dishtowel, but Kurt quickly plucked out of her hand with his tail. "Let someone else do that." He said. James took it and started drying the dishes Kurt was stacking on the opposite side of the sink.

"That was almost what spaghetti supposed to taste like." Maria said. "I still can't get it to taste like my mom's. But then she's the quintessential Italian mother; always offering you food she's made from scratch."

"And by 'from scratch' she means that they grew the vegetables themselves." Wolfgang added.

"We're the poster family for Italy I think." Maria said. "We grow our own vegetables, make our own wine, and I think somewhere I have some distant cousins that make their own cheese."

"It sounds good to me." Father Dietrich said. "I think I come from the poster family for German efficiency."

"Actually, they don't do posters any more." Wolfgang said, "Too inefficient. You get a choice of billboards or small cards to hand out on the street."

"You know, I never even imagined you having a family." Kurt said.

"No one ever does." Said Father Dietrich. "It's like people just expect priests to pop up out of thin air."

"So, being the poster child for scrawny American red-heads myself, I have to ask. Where do priests come from?" James said.

Father Dietrich laughed. "Hamburg, in my case."

"Did you always want to be a priest?" Brin asked.

Father Dietrich shook his head. "I had a choice, I could be an engineer or a doctor." He said. "I chose doctor.

"I went to university in the United States and planned on going to medical school there too."

"That's why your English is so good. I swear, doesn't anyone go to school in Europe anymore?" Stephani said.

"Don't ask me." Wolfgang said.

"So, what happened? Did you not get into medical school?" Kurt asked, trying to get the conversation back on track. He had always wondered how one became clergy.

"No, I was a good student actually. I had to take a lot of sciences of course, and I did very well in them. The only problem was the more classes I took, the more things couldn't be explained." Father Dietrich said.

"I thought that was the point of science." Kurt said, "to explain things."

"Yes and no. You see, scientists can explain most of the phenomena in the universe, but not all. There's always some key detail that can't be explained, but holds all of the known explainable concepts together. For instance, sub-atomic particles always come in pairs, a particle and an anti-particle. No one knows why, they just do. And it's because of that pairing that matter doesn't just fly apart into nothingness.

And with each passing year scientists understand more and more about DNA and evolution. Yet we may never understand exactly how it works; even what is known seems too complex to have happened by chance. And as always, just when we think we have a grip on it, something wholly inexplicable presents itself."

"You mean me." Kurt said.

Father Dietrich laughed and shook his head. "Actually I was thinking of the nature of evolution in general Kurt, but if you'd like to be inexplicable as well, that's fine with me.

So the more I learned, the more convinced I became that the world we live in would not be possible without a divine influence. It is said that science attempts to disprove the existence of God, but I would say the opposite is true. I think science shows us how miraculous God's creation really is." Father Dietrich said. "So, I turned down Harvard Medical School and entered seminary instead."

"Wow." Said James, his eyes wide. "I think I would have gone to Harvard if given that choice."

Father Dietrich shook his head. "I'm sure I would have made a fine physician, but there's a difference between a job and a calling. So, becoming a doctor was the last thing on my mind.

After I got my Doctor of Divinity, I joined the military."

"Really?" said Brin. "I can't even imagine that."

"I can." Said Wolfgang. "The German Army doesn't do any actual fighting anymore."

"That's true." Father Dietrich said. "I never saw any combat. At that time the German military was exclusively involved in relief missions. So it was a good place to be a chaplain. And I got to travel all over Europe and Asia."

"That actually sounds pretty cool." James said.

"It was for a time. But after awhile I missed home."

"What did your family think?" Asked Wolfgang. "Military chaplain doesn't exactly fit into the model of efficiency that Germany attempts to espouse."

Father Dietrich laughed. "No. It really doesn't. And it took a my parents quite a while that is wasn't too late to go back and study medicine. Eventually they got used to it, and at the same time set their sites on my two younger brothers as future doctors and engineers."

"Are they?" James asked.

Smiling, Father Dietrich shook his head. "They became priests too." He said.

Wolfgang blew on his hands to warm them. His finger-less gloves were better than nothing, but it was still cold out. He shifted his position slightly, careful not to let his palette of oil paints drop off his lap into the snow below. He took a round bristle brush and began to lay in the back painting; a tree with broad thick branches against a background of rolling hills covered in pale snow.

Wolfgang was starting to put in the detail when he heard James walk up behind him.

"Coffee?" James asked. Wolfgang glanced up and saw his friend had a mug in each hand.

"Please." Said Wolfgang. He held his face above it's steaming contents until he felt his nose start to thaw.

"What are you doing?" James asked.

"Remember when I was a painter?" Wolfgang asked.

James smiled and shrugged. "I think so. Didn't you have brushes and oil paints kind of like those?"

Wolfgang rolled his eyes.

"So what are you painting?" James asked.

Wolfgang used his brush to point to a tree standing a short ways from the rectory's rear patio. "Kurt says that every year he and Stephani sit in that tree and have a conversation."

James cocked his head. Until Wolfgang had pointed it out, he hadn't noticed them. Through the tangle of bare branches, he could see Stephani sitting up against the trunk and Kurt further out on the branch, his tail hanging down in a lazy arc. "What do they talk about?" He asked.

Wolfgang shrugged. "No idea, but they did it last year too and I didn't have my paints. So this year I came prepared."

James crouched down beside Wolfgang's easel. "You really like doing this don 't you?" he said, "Being part of a circus. You never really got this close to anyone at school, except Maria that is. And Nina, before she…"

Wolfgang shook his head before James could finish his sentence and started painting again. "I do like it." He said, watching his paintbrush trace a slow lazy line of pale blue amidst the shadows of the snow. "It's like that story Father Dietrich told last night. I always thought art was my calling. I was wrong."

"But can you honestly live your entire life moving around like this?"

Wolfgang nodded. "I can." He said but his eyes saddened. "But I don't know if Maria can."

James cast his eyes down to the stone patio. "What if you had to make a choice?" He asked.

Wolfgang shut his eyes and stayed silent a long time. "I would have to let my heart decide." He said at last. "I would follow Maria."

Author's note: The title is shamelessly borrowed from a wonderful book of Neil Gaiman short stories.