Commentary on 'Bright with his Splendour', part four
And the Hosts of Heaven and Hell came out arrayed for war.
The third War in the story, although this one is averted.
Storm clouds massed on the very edges of the sky, framing the field of battle. The firmament of Heaven was silent and shining with the glint of light on weapons.
On Earth, War and Pollution and Famine rode, and Death rode with them.
Crowley really didn't want to be there. He was frightened and angry, but he had discovered something he believed in firmly, and it was very simple. He'd had enough. No one, not even him, deserved to be treated the way Hell acted towards everything. For a shining, brief moment he'd thought everything was going to be all right, when the pint-sized Antichrist refused to play. Then he realised no one got two infinite armies ready to fight and put them back in their boxes unused.
This is Crowley's third realisation that he's angry and unhappy with how Hell acts toward Creation. His realisation that the armies will fight no matter what is an echo of Lucifer's statement to that effect in the War in Heaven.
"They're going to do it," he said dully, cutting off the angel's excited opinion that everything would be all right, they wouldn't have to fight, they could all go home. It hadn't worked like that before, why should it be any different this time? Pity he'd never get to hear the story behind Aziraphale's cross-dressing, he thought.
This whole scene needs a familiarity with the corresponding scene and the Adam scenes in the book, it just doesn't stand by itself. The "cross-dressing" referred to is Aziraphale's possession of Madam Tracey.
The beautiful and more than slightly grubby centre of the world turned and looked hard at Crowley. He shook with fear, feeling stripped bare. He desperately wanted to find a rock to slither under, but didn't think there'd be any this kid couldn't turn over. He looked miserably back at the boy and knew he deserved whatever was coming to him. Sorry, he thought, I'm sorry I messed this up like everything else. I'm sorry you don't get to be a kid anymore. The boy's hard expression turned to deep pity and the setting sun flared behind his head giving the illusion of a deep gold halo. Squinting against the brightness in rather the manner that rabbits tended to squint when he had them lined up in the Bentley's headlights, Crowley froze in shock and recognition. He'd seen this person before. He heard wind rushing up past his head, he felt a desperate yearning and homesickness. For the first time in six thousand years he thought, without any conscious irony, Oh, dear God. The child grinned.
Crowley suddenly realises that Adam isn't the Anti-Christ at all. I think there are definite clues in the book that Adam is in fact not the Anti-Christ: to give two of them from this part of the book and then one from the start, when Azrael boasts that he's not like War, Pollution and Famine and therefore can't be killed, Adam says he thinks he can find a way - in the New Testament and in Christian theology, the person who can kill death is Christ. Second, after Adam saved the world, his father comes to take him home, just as Christ returns to the Father (being Adam, of course, he runs off). This is the third time he's seen Christ. Adam's name is another clue - while Sister Mary Loquacious is trying to have it as a reference to the old Adam who, along with eve, lets sin loose, Adam is in fact "Adam Young" - he is a new Adam, and the New Adam in Paul's letters is, again, Christ.
Crowley here expresses repentance for everything he's done, and is capable of showing pity for someone else he thinks has been badly done by. The reference to the rabbits in the headlights is actually a clue that Crowley is about to be spared rather than squashed - although he continually tries to run over small animals in GO he doesn't hit a single one.
This is the third time he has seen Christ: once in pre-existent glory in Heaven, one as a dying human at the Crucifixion and now at what he suddenly realises is the - or perhaps a - Second Coming. Adam, being a kid, finds Crowley's shock pretty funny. While in the previous non-meetings Crowley has been moving away, or trying to move toward Christ, here he is confronted with him, and his response is repent and show by his subsequent actions that he has changed.
The wind started to rise and the clouds rushed in, lightning running along their undersides like a huge and futuristic weapon charging up. Heaven wasn't going to be caught out again, he thought with a small and dazed part of his mind. With the larger and more frightened part of his mind he thought, It's the wrong kid. Bloody Aziraphale, that sneaky, cheating bastard -- He turned in indignation to the unlikely body the angel was using.
Heaven has been developing weapons of Really Mass Destruction (current Heavenly thinking favours guns, as Aziraphale says), although luckily for the Earth, they won't be used.
"It's the wrong bloody kid!" he hissed agitatedly.
"Pardon?" Aziraphale said.
"You shush," the boy said sternly.
Crowley shut his mouth quickly and the boy smiled, putting a dirty finger up to his lips.
"Why're you lookin' at me like that?" the boy said. "Thought you were lookin' for me, before. Thought you'd be pleased to catch up with me."
He looked over at Aziraphale's new appearance and shook his head. The angel was suddenly sitting on the ground beside the rather startled lady, looking down at himself in surprise. The boy began to turn towards his friends, then winked back at Crowley.
"All that baby switchin'," he said. "Must've got complicated. Don't you look so scared - I know all about you."
When exactly was Adam substituted for the Anti-Christ? Er. I'm not so sure, really. When Adam says he knows all about Crowley, he means it - from the mistake about getting caught up in the War onward. Crowley's gradual humanisation and disgust with how Hell has treated him and other people, and his acceptance of the Arrangement led to the perfect setting for the "Anti-Christ" to be left all alone by both sides while the agents of Heaven and Hell messed round in the life of the wrong boy. It's almost as if there were a deeper plan neither side was aware of . . .
Crowley didn't find that terribly comforting, but he was too busy over the next several minutes to think about it. He was even too busy to be more than terrified. Frightened out of his wits, yes, convinced he was going to die horribly, certainly. But not incapacitated with fear. The thing that went through his mind as he looked at Aziraphale ask awkward questions that sent the angelic and demonic generals scurrying off to look for answers; the thought that occurred as he watched Aziraphale pick up the sword, as his soft, perfectly manicured hand closed round its hilt like he was a - well, a member of the Heavenly Hosts - was that at least he had picked a better class of friend to hang round with this time. Not that he was going to say that to Aziraphale, of course. No point in letting the bastard die smug.
It was on the drive back to London in the stolen Jeep that the depression really began to set in. It had all been so anti-climactic, he thought. Get a fellow prepared to fight the good fight, get him ready to bloody well lay down his life for his friends and you should at least let him have a chance to throw one punch. The kid had gone off without even a backward glance, and Crowley was deeper in the shit than before. Now there'd be Hell to pay. He was in for an infinity of suffering, and his one chance of redemption had cycled off into the sunset.
Crowley is very depressed after the aborted War in the book, and has the feeling that his whole life has been for nothing.
"Why don't you come to my place?" he said to the gloomy angel. "At least I still have a flat."
"No, no," Aziraphale said heavily. "I wouldn't want to impose. I -- I think I'll just walk for a while."
Crowley pulled over to let him out.
"Come later, if you want," he said, casual and laid back.
He drove off. Blessed angel. What was the use of being an angel if you couldn't at least hang round to try and cheer a fellow up? He heard shouts behind him and screeched to a halt.
"Crowley! Crowley!" Aziraphale yelled, running up, breathing hard.
"What?" Crowley said, looking at the unlikely sight of the angel hanging on to the Jeep's door and struggling to catch his breath. "Are you trying to give yourself a heart attack?"
"Crowley -- Are, are you going to be all right?" Aziraphale said, putting a hand on his wrist. "I'll come with you after all, shall I? I don't want you to -- that is, I --oh, please tell me you'll be all right, Crowley."
Aziraphale says Crowley's name three times (don't try that with Hastur's name, kiddies . . .) - he is afraid Crowley is going to hurt or kill himself.
Crowley looked at him, taking in the shaken expression and how pale he was as his breathing returned to normal. Ah. He tried for a sardonic chuckle, but Aziraphale didn't seem too convinced.
"I'll be fine. Stop being melodramatic. I'll see you tomorrow, all right?"
"Promise. Promise me, Crowley."
Crowley looked at the scared face and didn't roll his eyes.
"I promise," he said quietly.
Aziraphale nodded, gave a little squeeze of his hand and stepped back. Crowley drove home and drank almost enough whisky to kill himself. Not quite enough, though. He was a demon of his word after all.
He woke face down on the settee with a terrible ringing in his ears. After a long moment he identified it as the phone and staggered up to answer it.
"Crowley! This is the third time I've rung you! You weren't answering!"
Oh look, another "three".
"Sorry," Crowley muttered and decided to stagger round the sitting room, seeing as standing still didn't seem to be working for him. He ended up by the window, and rested his head on the cool glass. The angel sounded awfully excited and happy, but it was hard to work out what he was saying.
"Crowley? Are you listening, Crowley? Oh, Crowley, you won't believe what's happened!"
And another.
Crowley's gaze began to focus on what was parked outside the building. As he took in the gleaming black paint-work, the shining metal and the spotless leather he felt his breathing shorten, and all the alcohol leave his body in a rush.
"Try me," he said.
This is the only time the Bentley actually physically shows up in the story, and no reference is made to it having been previously destroyed.
* * *
On the third day, Crowley woke early. He remembered very little of the previous day, although he was fairly sure he'd ended up in the Ritz with the angel. He must have been sensible and sobered up before bed, he thought. He hadn't the slightest trace of a hangover.
This third day is Crowley's real resurrection, when he is given a new and better life. I'm cheating here a bit, if you actually add up the days in the book. The Almost-War takes place on Friday, the 'first day of the rest of their lives' is the Saturday - here, however, this is the next day, Sunday. This is exactly the "Three days" of Easter - Good Friday for the Crucifixion, Saturday for the despair and thinking that it's the end of everything, and the New Life starting on Easter Sunday.
Edited to add: As one fo the comments points out, I've made a mistake here - the book really does finish on a Sunday. However, Armageddon attempts to happen on the day before, Saturday, giving only a two day period. What happens in 'BWHS' is that the War is moved back to Friday, the Saturday becomes the day Crowley and Aziraphale forget, and then the Sunday remains as the day of his new life.
Light was filtering in through the curtains, and the birds were singing. Normally this was a cue for him to pull a pillow over his head and sink back into dreams, but today he was feeling wide awake and cheerful. He bounced out of bed and across the floor, pulling the curtains open. Sunlight washed over him and he opened the window, feeling a sudden desire for fresh air. Everything was quiet, much quieter than he expected. Must be really early, he thought, leaning out of the window so that he could peer down at the trees in the park. It was shaping up to be a very pleasant day with the slightest of cool breezes.
This is the third (and vaguest) reference to a tree- and animal-filled garden/park. Crowley was very happy in Eden, and the memory of it sustained him in the trenches. Here he is, to some extent, put back in that situation. The world has been made anew, Creation is quiet except for natural sounds, and there is just one man (-shaped being) in this setting. Crowley is alone, but not lonely.
Coming up from the park he could see a solitary figure strolling along, and heard snatches of opera sung quietly. He grinned cheerfully. It looked like Aziraphale had been getting some duck feeding in before the rush started. If you were going to stay up all night you'd have plenty of time for things like that. He resolved to tease Aziraphale about actually walking somewhere for once, instead of begging for lifts.
And then Crowley's not alone anymore - there is someone else in this new day who is rather like him. And as befits the only other inhabitant of the Garden, Aziraphale has been off chatting to animals - although he's been talking to ducks rather than to a serpent. Just as the humans in the Garden were unaware of the presence of angels, so Crowley and Aziraphale here are unaware of an entire city-full of humans. They've both moved from being innocent in the first "Garden" scene to having rather definitively lost their innocence by the time of the second (with Crowley in the trenches and Aziraphale's gift of the apple) to being new and whole once more in the remade world.
"Oi, Pavarotti!" he called, laughing.
Aziraphale stopped under his window, beaming up at him with an absurdly sunny smile. Grinning down at the angel, Crowley let a wave of good humoured fellow feeling wash over him. It felt great.
And with that, Crowley is home . . .
It felt like the first day of the rest of his life.
. . . forever.
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daegaer) wrote,
