Holding back his laughter, Potato Peels addressed Henri with deadpan seriousness…

— Before we show you your final dwelling, we have a burning question to ask you: why that person, Marilyn Monroe?

— She is the most marvelous of all creatures. After you, of course! sang Henri, as though praising his idol’s charms and virtues in a delightful Italian tone. She was the breath I never felt, yet always longed for, he sighed, expressing exceptional emotions for a damned man standing two steps from Eden—and only one from hell.

— We are not unaware of her existence, Mister Toutrec, said the angel, rubbing his wings against the lectern as though scratching himself. Then he added: You realize there are myriads of souls. So, she influenced the course of your life?

Then Potato Peels paused briefly, staring Henri Toutrec straight in all three eyes.

— We pity you. Very well, we shall grant you a favor. We will check whether she strolls through paradise… or burns in the enemy’s fire.

Potato Peels selected a volume from a peculiar encyclopedia: The Encyclopedia of Crescent Moons. With majestic gestures and incomprehensible words, he caused a colossal tree to appear, its ten million leaves inscribed with crystalline writing.

Calmly, he began to examine each inscription—indecipherable except to angels.

— Each symbol corresponds, in essence, to the profile of those unfulfilled souls known as incomplete crescent moons. Or fulfilled ones, in the case of twin souls.

The guardian angel was doing quite well, despite being a novice at the gates of paradise, whose door, by the way, was nowhere in sight.

Potato Peels tried to read the veins of the leaves quickly, like a palm reader skimming lifelines. What bothered him slightly was the disorder stirred up by the floating fans.

— …Let’s see to which petiole this file is attached. Marilyn Tremblay, Marilyn Hilnefopa, Marilyn Smith…, Marilyn Wong… Ah, here it is! Norma Jean, better known as Marilyn Monroe. Born in Los Angeles, June 1st, 1926. Entered paradise in 1962. I’ll spare you her identification number—it would take weeks to read it.

The guardian angel widened his eyes as though trying to see more clearly.

— Mister Toutrec!… Mister Toutrec, wake up!

Henri had not fallen asleep. Like a child playing hide-and-seek with his nanny, he was hiding his thoughts beneath his eyelids.

All three of them.

— Hey, wake up, lucky man!

— Why do you pretend I’m lucky?

— She truly is a crescent-moon soul wandering through paradise. You still have a chance of entering here. She is not whole.

— Could you be clearer? Is she missing a limb? asked Henri, visibly emotional.

— The situation may seem elusive to you. But according to the annexes… it is pure torture trying to resolve her case. She gives every guardian halo a rash. So that you may understand better, we shall—purely for our own sake—grant you instinctive comprehension.

Henri removed the abacus from around his neck, thinking he was saved.

The angel then checked his pulse, as though confirming divine consent. His head and eyes moved as though an invisible bee were buzzing around him. Soft sounds and eloquent silences marked the end of his enlightenment. Then he stopped moving; the consultation with pure unconsciousness was over. Without letting Henri comment or question the intention, he made a trivial gesture toward him—as though conferring powers while merely emptying a glass of water.

— It is a temporary remedy. But it will be more effective and, above all, fairer. In any case, before you depart for the world of flames, we shall erase this little miracle from you. Please wait here, Mister Toutrec. We’ll only be gone a moment!

— I am in no hurry. In any case, where could I possibly hide now? For the time being, I have no desire for a trip to the hot country… whether in first class or on a chartered flight, sighed Henri, realizing that his fate might not be what he had hoped.

With great theatrical flair, the angel rose gracefully toward the highest shelf of the library. With reverence, he seized an imposing book from which burst a white light. A pause, as in prayer. Then, surprisingly, he hurled it forcefully upward toward what, down below, would be called… the sky. A majestic transformation summoning all the splendors of the world followed. The book became two immense glowing doors descending slowly beside them.

Above them hung a sign written in golden letters. A warning inscribed in the angelic language: “Minat Gudgit Areoul,” meaning “None may enter here at will!” Henri saw, just two steps away… the gates of paradise.

The angel bowed piously. The gates opened slowly. He traced a circle with his hand in a solemn sign; a dense mist concealed the secrets that had to remain hidden. Then he passed through the gates and returned almost immediately. To Henri, it was all a blur…

Henri whistled toward the books, hoping they would take flight. A brief wait.

At last, like someone discovering something with each step, Marilyn entered and pushed the gates further open with great delicacy. A soft, slow melody accompanied her movement—music akin to Erik Satie’s Gymnopédies. Yet, unhurried to leave, she gently pulled the doors closed, then opened them again. In truth, she was playing music with them, like a DJ spinning records.

Awestruck, speechless, overjoyed, and wearing a foolish expression, Henri finally saw Marilyn approaching.

Barefoot and dressed in a white toga—because that was what she wanted. She could have been entirely undressed if she had wished. She might even have worn a kilt, had that suited her mood. The outfit shaped itself to the desires of the chosen. And then—flash!—he saw her in a red plaid shirt, slightly unbuttoned, jeans rolled up to mid-calf, short red polka-dot socks, and spotless white sneakers.

Dreaming, he did not notice the worried glance she cast at him as she gracefully brushed away the dissolving mist around her.

— Fantastic! he gushed, practically floating with joy.

His lesson in levitation was short-lived. Henri quickly came back down to earth when she addressed the angel.

She spoke in the angelic language—by now she had learned it—and tried to make the conversation as cryptic as possible. Convinced Henri would understand nothing, she expressed no embarrassment or restraint in voicing to the angel her deep disappointment at what she saw as an unnecessary disturbance.

— Nurrium birdiall ariseff! Vumi pohiur… she explained to Potato Peels at length.

Frowns, pouts, nervous blinking, and a saddened expression—Henri reacted poorly to this normally incomprehensible language with its ridiculous sounds.

Potato Peels interrupted Marilyn without delay and addressed her.

— We have optimized communication by instilling in this man… an instinctive understanding of things, including the science of languages. He hears, analyzes, and understands everything that can be said. The miracle is, however, temporary. Once this conversation ends, we shall take the gift away. No saint, no soul, not even any of us is allowed such a faculty—not even I. The pure unconscious permits it because you are problematic half-moons.

She fell silent. Brief thoughts, but long sighs. Marilyn resumed more fervently, indifferent to her admirer’s desperate reactions.

“Who is this bird of doom, this harbinger of misfortune? A mismatched half-moon. Bah!” scoffed Marilyn, almost brazenly.

“Don’t react like that. Note that he is the first half-moon to float when he sees you, which proves his originality. This candidate is number seven million thirteen. He is at the very bottom of the courting ranks,” said the angel, carefully taking notes in a notepad made of recycled aura.

“What? Another one! And you think he could… You know I haven’t even finished being praised by the thirty-third! Whom I just dropped, by the way!” said Marilyn, dizzy and shocked by the strange enormity of the number.

“Finished?… Seven million thirteen?… Enough with the collusion! What does that number even mean? A lottery jackpot? An invoice number?” Henri promptly burst out, his anxiety—bordering on paranoia—beginning to grow dangerously intense.

“Is Mister Toutrec in a hurry to get to his appointment?” Potato Peels asked with studied indifference.

“What appointment?… Ah!… No, no—heaven can wait.”

The angel Potato Peels gave a faint smile, then invited the two protagonists to sit on a few cherub wings lying about.

“All the same, those little rascals molt just anywhere!” Marilyn remarked casually.

“Miss Monroe, since you need not focus on your emotional state, I authorize you to browse,” added Potato Peels with an approving glance.

The angel raised his index finger, pointing upward like a lecturer issuing a warning.

“A reminder! Consult only the first shelf. The others are forbidden to you. They contain humorous comics for us to read during our breaks.”

Without a word, and without looking at Henri Toutrec, she immediately complied. But with one indiscreet ear, she caught every word exchanged.

“Let us get back to our lambs. You probably do not know what a... or ‘an’ incomplete moon is?” said Potato Peels, frowning.

“The middle of a cycle?… A pastry?… The gender uncertainty of the word half-moon?… Half of a whole?” joked the little bearded man, as though he had already lost his instinctive understanding of things.

“Calm down! Calm down! You are not taking part in a quiz show. Learn that here, most souls enjoy eternity as part of a pair. Each pair is linked by a ‘Lulum,’ a tiny imperceptible sphere that constantly floats and bounces from one to the other. Thus, even when separated across infinities, they remain connected. We call them harmonious half-moons.”

“Amazing that you use the word Lulum. It is simply made from the first syllables of the French words lune and lumière,” added Henri, more intuitive thanks to his new gift.

Potato Peels was already regretting this divine privilege, this gift from the unconscious granted to Toutrec. But to backtrack would have shown weakness before a potential damned soul. So he immediately continued his explanation.

“As you may guess, there are incomplete and lonely souls in paradise—isolated half-moons. Some have their destined counterparts in hell. Aborted loves may also give rise to such states. Those who die without having loved, or who live through an impossible love, join this group.”

“In which of these conditions did Marilyn die?” asked Henri, curious.

The angel, looking toward the beautiful blonde, replied:

“Let us say, for your information… that her last companion is currently on a honeymoon with another half-moon.”

“This new moon… is now wandering through paradise? Who was it?...” Henri declared, like a clown with a silent role trapped in an oral exam.

“We would rather not disclose that person’s name. We do know how to remain discreet.”

“I can be discreet too! Lips sealed and soul stitched shut!” blurted Henri, daring to continue without fear of a wink. “So I am also a half-moon. Aren’t we all? Is Marilyn the one with the wandering sphere? Then am I a candidate to become Marilyn’s half-moon?”

The businessman in him, forgetting that his own dealings with the angel had not yet been settled, revealed a kind of arrogant foolishness.

“Hey! I rather like this idea of a matchmaking agency. Do you plan to open a branch in hell?”

“Poor you!” said Marilyn, softly, with a delicate break in her voice, as she gently closed a book from which mocking children’s laughter escaped.

“Poor me?... Why?” exclaimed Henri.

“You are going to blacken like a roast forgotten in a blast furnace.”

“A sad fate for the vegetarian I had become,” he replied, lowering eyes reddened by the anticipation of punishment. Her acidic tone had carved those words into his heart.

The angel slowly nodded. He resembled one of those little figurines into which coins are dropped, bowing even in the wind, or one of those famous bobbleheads seen on car dashboards. Neither blame nor approval. As though studying the behavior of two laboratory rats. Observation by sly discretion.

With a flattering question, Henri broke protocol by addressing Potato Peels, who suddenly appeared uncommonly impassive.

“I find this effort to form couples incredibly sensitive and altruistic,” he said.

“Thank you! In fact, if you were to begin your eternity here, I would introduce you to my partner, Guili-guili.”

“Does Guili-guili have a gender?” Henri asked, surprised that Potato Peels did not laugh while pronouncing his wife’s name.

“You doubt that we have one?”

“On Earth, everyone says so!...”

“We have managed to be cautious, with an almost pathological discretion. But let us conclude, shall we? The complexity of the Monroe half-moon lies in the number of her… admirers. The Order requires us to find her essential counterpart among them. And you, Mister Henri, are at the very bottom of the list.”

“I know… seven million thirteen! Good grief!... I’m starting off as a loser. Tell me, are you sure I am not already in hell?”

“Hell is what I’m going to give you!” snapped Marilyn, tactless. “Do you really believe you could be my eternal half? That we are yin and yang?... You have the strength of character of a bad cartoon. How could I possibly be matched with such a scrawny little fellow?” she argued, afraid that the runt might be bound to her by the Lulum.

“We sympathize with you, Miss Monroe,” affirmed the angel, amused by both their reactions, hand on pulse and head gently bobbing as he once again consulted the pure unconscious.

Then, with the cadence of an actuary delivering a report, he continued:

“This man is disconcerting. True! But we are faced with an undeniable fact, Marilyn Norma Jean. Among the many souls in line, we must reject the candidacies of disoriented heterosexuals who would generate confused Lulums. In any case, those… are ranked even lower. Married men and women are also excluded. We have likewise eliminated, thanks to your own doing, a few flirtatious singles who were immediately paired off together—including number thirty-three. So: no more calculations. Only one candidate remains. Mister Toutrec.”

“One little thing… And what if I do not like him?” Marilyn asked.

“We must also inform you of one further detail, madam… All glory eventually fades. In essence, millions of women, as beautiful as you, are beginning to dim your star. They are gradually replacing you and drawing you into the whirlpool of oblivion. You will have to wait patiently for another Toutrec to fall in love with you.”

“In fact—oddly enough—they are not exactly raining down from the skies,” Potato Peels dared conclude.

“No one will ever shine more brightly than she does!” Henri added deftly, with force and conviction.

Silence reigned for several minutes.

A question burned upon Henri’s hesitant lips:

“Excuse me… Something is bothering me… Once my feet are nice and warm down there… will I still have the option of cooling them off… by coming up to court her?”

“We find your intervention rather astute. If she ends up accepting you… you will not need to ask that question. You will have to love one another from a distance. She up here, and you down below.”

“And if she does not choose me?” Henri hurried to ask.

“Let us simply say that the words love, period, and… refreshment will all be removed from your vocabulary.”

“This is complete madness! Just the thought of leaning over the abyss to hear this ‘gentleman’ groan and moan while he roasts below—it infuriates me!”

Then she seemed to reconsider her own words, if only slightly:

“For eternity—no love, not even for him. Poor man! Poor soul!” Marilyn said, suddenly aware that eternity is an irremediable form of temporal obesity.

Potato Peels looked at Marilyn with esteem, seeing discernment in her. Then he smiled at her.

“Definitely, my soul has no luck,” Henri whispered weakly, absentmindedly tickling himself with a cherub feather. This eventually gave him an idea: to approach Potato Peels discreetly, while the angel was staring at the Hollywood star, and give him a sudden tickle in return.

Third laugh from the angel!

What happens when an angel laughs three times while on duty?… A surprising transformation ensues.

He becomes a lotus flower and meditates upon the seriousness of his little job for endless hours…

At first, Henri thought the angel had suffered a stroke and wanted to help him. For a split second, he even imagined giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation! But then his gaze shifted to Marilyn, who was admiring the lotus flower. A daringly mad idea crossed his mind. Delight overcame him; no angel was there to decipher his third eye.

She was bent over the lotus flower, trying to catch the scent of angel-flower perfume.

“To you it smells like perfume, but to me it smells like charred flesh!” whispered Toutrec, scanning every possible escape route like a weather vane desperate for freedom. An illegal pass to the exit!

Without excessive violence, but with determination, he pulled his idol into paradise through the doors she had left unclosed. Henri was dragging her by the wrist deeper and deeper into heaven.

“What are you doing?” she cried.

“I am trying to pull the devil by the tail… I’m kidnapping you! You will be my hostage!… Don’t try to outsmart me. Or else, beware!”