She looked out toward the bay, thinking hard and praying for guidance. God's answering smile was reflected by the sunlight that slanted across gray waters. The swelling seas rolled up in the distance and the wind broke their crests into fragments. Then the sunlight danced in the breaking waves until the bay fairly glittered with winking reflections of jewelled light, diamonds dancing in the sun.
When Sister Faye looked back at Mary, all she could see were the imitation diamonds glittering in the lobes of the woman's ears. Seemed then that the Spirit spoke and whispered in her heart.
"Sister Faye, it ain't right to bribe, but then again maybe it ain't wrong. 'Spose you was to find some way to give a nice present to this here Mary Magdalen. Plain to see this Mary she's got a love of pretties in her heart. Seems like maybe if you was to find her a nice shiny necklace or maybe a green jade bracelet smack dab full of rose-red rubies, or maybe a little diadem chock full of little head-of-a-match diamonds like in Ivan's second-handed store -- seems like she'd know then you got the moving spirit. 'Pears like this sinner might get religion."
Mary was starting to move away. Sister Faye's mind was made up. She didn't quite know how. But you don't ask the Spirit of its moving. It just starts to move sudden-like and it sets your heart a-hammering like a street laborer's jackhammer. It got your soul all ablazing with heaven's glory light. And it got music singing in your feet. It got you doing things and you not asking why.
The Spirit made Sister Faye's voice come out choked up and excited.
"Ain't no preaching literature I got for you, honey. Ain't no snoopy copy-cattin' of God's word. Ain't nothing like that at all. Gracious no. What I got for you, Mary Magdalen, is a -- is a -- a diamond diadem!"
The woman stopped, red lips parted, dark eyes unbelieving.
"A which? You said -- a which?"
"Diamond diadem, I said." Sister Faye was triumphant. "Little diamond diadem chock full of little head-of-a-match diamonds." She laughed excitedly. "Seems like it was just made of God's favor to ornate that pretty head of yours."
Then Sister Faye stopped and reconsidered. She had just eleven dollars and thirty cents at home, carefully wrapped in a newspaper under the mattress at the head of her bed. And Ivan wanted fifteen dollars for the diadem. Well, never mind. Maybe he'd talk down. But wasn't it sinful to adorn the body with trinkets to delight man's eye?
"Ain't no sin, Sister Faye," said the Spirit. "Ain't no sin 'cause today's the first day of spring and a mighty pretty day for soul-saving. You ain't asking God how comes he makes the water out yonder in the bay shine like jewels, is you? You ain't asking how comes he maked a seagull's wings all out of black and white velvet for heaven-climbing, is you? So don't you go asking how comes you should get that there diamond diadem for Mary Magdalen. You just get it."
Sister Faye sighed.
"Yes sirree, Mary Magdalen," she said, "prettiest diamond diadem you ever laid eyes on. Got a shine on it like the smile of God. Got thirty karat platinum, pure gold mounting too." She hoped the Spirit would forgive this slight fabrication.
The woman frowned. "What do you figure to do, Sister Faye? Don't seem natural that the likes of you should be giving diamond diadems to the likes of me." She looked out across the bay and made a queer sound in her throat that wasn't really a laugh.
"Nobody ever helps a woman like me, Sister -- leastwise not since I been here on the road. Three years I been walking this here street and nobody never been helping me. Walk the living hell off my feet for what I get, I do. Got callouses on my feet. Got callouses on my soul, too, I guess. No, nobody ever been helping me."
Sister Faye nodded her head gently. "Seems like a pretty girl like you got no business on a street of sedition like this here. Seems like God intended womenfolk like you to bear up fine children His way. How come you done made yourself lost to God's way?"
In the naked desolation of the street, the woman's eyes mirrored misty visions of the past. Her voice came out cold and harsh.
"My name ain't Mary," she said. "It's Ann." Her scarlet-nailed fingers convulsed in sudden agitation.
"You don't never know what you got till you lost it," she said. "Me, even me, I ain't real bad underneath. Maybe nobody ain't. It's just something that takes hold of you and grows and grows and there don't seem no way to stop it once it starts. I had me a husband once, and a home, a real home with roses in front like you read about in stories. I had no kick coming. Then things got tough and I figured I'd be smart and scram. I got a job till I learnt you got to play the suckers and trim 'em. I learnt that good. But there's one thing you don't never forget. It sorta sticks with you when everything else you got is in the gutter. Like these."
She tore off her glittering earrings and hurled them into the street. "What sticks with you is some kind of deep down love. It's pure. It's sweet. It's like a gift. It ain't the kind of love you can buy."
She laughed. "Ain't it funny? God above, I'm almost preaching."
Sister Faye held her little black bible firmly against her breast and waited for Ann to go on.
"My man's name was Jim," Ann continued. "Just a big, dumb sort of guy like you might see most anywheres. Like a innocent kid. But he liked me, I guess."
The hardness went out of her dark eyes and Sister Faye could see a strange sort of pride glowing
CONTINUED