“The universe is like a book of which one has read only the first page when one has only seen one’s own country. I have flipped a rather large number, which I have found equally bad. But this review wasn’t useless. I used to hate my Motherland. All the impertinences of other peoples, among which I have lived, had reconciled me with Her. Even if that is all I got from such travelling, I would regret neither the cost nor the exhaustion,” replied David.
“Bravo, Docteur! Bravo! Your French is quite good! I thought you didn’t really care about literature!” admitted the Countess.
“No, I love the arts and such. In fact, my wife and I have been perfecting our French to come visit Paris. She dreams about that trip. And I have been promising Debbie to take her to the City of Lights and spend a couple of weeks here, a sort of second honeymoon,” he admitted, chuckling. “So far, though, outside the castle, my French has served me to deliver pizza in the XVII arrondissement.”
“Ah, oui! I have a lovely four-bedroom apartment in Plaine-Monceau, not too far from where you delivered your pizza. Sometimes, it stays empty for a month or two. So, if you and your wife plan to visit…”
“I somehow think renting that place would be a bit beyond our means…” David replied, mildly embarrassed.
“I don’t expect a pizza delivery boy to rent that,” said the Countess, chuckling and toasting, as the truck swerved wildly from the A6 into the A7. “Mais voyons, Docteur! Vous venez de sauver le monde! I’m not going to charge you one cent! And besides, with all those precious stones, you would be able to buy that apartment if you so wish!”
“Ah, that!” David replied, a bit embarrassed, “Give my share to some foundation, some people fighting to stop the global weather debacle. I prefer my simple life.”
“I won’t tell your wife,” the Countess replied, “but only if you accept to come visit every so often, and take advantage of that apartment rent-free when you bring her to Paris. I very much look forward to see you both soon!”
“Well, in that case, I will gladly take you up on that, Countess!” David agreed. “But presently, Tony and I have some urgent business to attend to—in Venezuela.”
32—Next day at the castle
The next day at the castle was a perfectly slow, stupendously Provençale getting-to-the-end-of-summer day, awash in sunlight, perfumed by fields of lavender as far as human eyes could see, life suspended in the hauntingly droning hum of cicadas, nature lightly caressed by a soft relaxing breeze—a day to revel in the manifold delights of open spaces.
Since his arrival at the break of dawn, David had already showered six times; and nobody had, even jokingly, asked whether he had a skin disease like Marat—one of the leaders of the French Revolution, killed by his girlfriend in the bathtub. Ignoring Pierre’s advice about suntan lotion, David had also kept constantly jumping in the swimming pool, and horseplaying with anyone who could take his muscled effusiveness. Those shenanigans, at the end of the day, turned him into a giant lobster with deep blue eyes and curly blond hair—one that was constantly hoovering margaritas the size of a baobab tree.
But he had earned it all, clearly needed it, and enjoyed watching everyone at the castle looking at his antics with a mixture of recognition, amusement, and benevolent fascination.
Like everyone else, Tony woke up late, and joined him, the Countess, Haim, Sól and Siegfried, if not for swimming pool cavorting, at least for a truly splendid brunch. Before brunch, David and Haim had called their families and spoken to their wives and children at length, talking in code, to convey an irrepressible joy ‘the storm was over’ and their yearning to see them back in person soon. On both sides of the line there was laughter and tears of joy, catching-up and remonstrations, promises and innuendo—even pictures of a toothless smile that, apparently, the tooth fairy had brought about by leaving so much money for ice-cream mommy had to intervene.
David had kissed the monitor so many times Céleste finally left the bottle of glass cleaner handy by its side, along with a big roll of paper towels. Members of Haim’s synagogue were by now getting so jittery he recorded a green screen video, promising them to go back as soon as possible.
David’s wife almost had a heart attack when he promised her two full months in Paris and not in any little hotel in the middle of nowhere. As they were speaking, she even looked up the address in Plaine-Monceau in her computer and when she found it, her excited screams carried through the entire room as if she were on loudspeaker.
Even so, later on she had felt the need to call Haim, to ask if David was high on something. Haim then told her David had been a bit stressed out, hence been prescribed a mild antidepressant that didn’t mix well with margaritas—suddenly worrying Debbie even more. “David doesn’t drink much,” she had protested. “He has done something very brave, but also very traumatic. Once we’re back things will sort themselves out and he’ll be fine. Fear not, Deb: he’s the same David, only braver and nearing exhaustion. But he’ll recover. That’s all,” Haim had finished, winking at her. Still a bit worried, Debbie eventually chose to trust Haim and hung up. Later on, during the gargantuan brunch at the castle, the entire awkward situation made up for an interesting piece of conversation.
Once brunch was over, as everyone scattered to relax and do their own thing, the Countess asked Tony to join her in her apartments to talk, seul à seule.
“You know, Tony,” she began, “the problem you had, I mean, how to find a place to dig and explore those tunnels below Chartres without it being on the news?”
“Yes,” Tony replied, “it was hard to find a spot with bushes, not built in. All those nice, old, narrow streets, many illuminated to death. The entire old city is stone, cement, shops, office, streets, houses, walls, and manicured lawns. It was hard, indeed, to find a place to dig without the Church, or the police, or the DGSI, the Gendarmerie, asking a million questions. But we did—and we have to thank you for your help, Countess. The Order and I are in your debt, profoundly in your debt. In fact, we’re perfectly aware the entire world should thank you for your help,” Tony corrected himself.
“Non, non, non! Nobody has to thank anyone for any help!” she playfully scoffed, “Given the choice, I too would rather not live in Hell. However, this Catatumbo region…it’s not going to be anything like Chartres. You will have the exact opposite problem.”
“Indeed. It’s a no-man’s land. From the Venezuelan side, arrival used to be challenging. Now, with the added political instability, that approach is well nigh impossible. To do what David wants, we would have to enter via Colombia and get to the southwest shore of Lake Maracaibo. And that will be, so to speak, tropical Hell.”
“Ah, yes. Drug cartels, revolutionary armies, oil security detachments that are sometimes more violent than either of them or both together; indigenous tribes caught in the middle, sometimes siding with one, sometimes with the other; the Government of Colombia that sometimes remembers that this region is part of its territory; corruption to make ‘le big clown’ look like a breastfeeding baby; arms dealers, Russian troops, Venezuelan troops; the jungle, the swamp for real and the swamp figuratively; shootouts, freelance bandits, lightning sometimes now setting the methane on fire, kidnappers—a true ‘gringo tourist’ paradise,” said the Countess, sipping rosé and shaking her head. “It’s a giant mess. Imagine that giant curly blond-haired lobster caught in the middle of that. They will make lobster thermidor without Mornay sauce out of him!”
“Voilà, Votre Grâce!” Tony agreed.
“Allez vous faire foutre, Tony. Je ne vous appelle pas ‘Monsieur le Père Docteur ès Théologie Monseigneur Antonio Bello’! Vous m’appellerez donc désormais Chloé!” she commanded.
“Voilà, Chloé, then,” Tony corrected himself, happy with this new familiarity. “That is why I was thinking about recruiting some operatives I usually reserve for special missions to come along. Good freelancers are expensive, but if David is to save the world…again…”
“Ah, mon cher Tony! You know
we are not poor—but the Vatican is sitting on a pile of gold and cash larger than the Himalayas. Still waiting for these ‘Paradise Papers’ to give hell to the Throne of St. Peter…And you have emerged with a tarp so loaded with rubies, sapphires, emeralds, diamonds, aquamarines, gold coins, and who knows what, it sure is fuller than the one stuffed with olives that saved my life when I was a child,” she retorted.
“Of course,” he backpedalled, “I wouldn’t presume, Countess. After what David has done for the world, I will stick my neck with my bosses and demand they foot the bill.”
“Hopefully Geoffroy won’t bite you. In any case, we also have the jewels from the amphora, the gold ingots, and a few other very valuable things we trucked all the way to this place. Now, on the subject of necks and such, Severian and Geoffroy are not going to fly all the way to Catatumbo with you and David, are they?”
“I don’t know, but I presume they won’t. Why?” Tony asked.
“I have read enough vampire novels to know that vampires sometimes make people forget. Perhaps tonight, when the party is over, we at the castle will forget we have a business administrator that, aside from making some of the best croissants in Paris, is a vampire. But also…” she hesitated.
“…But also?” he asked.
“But also, you as my confessor, know things I have told nobody else—and, one of those things just might help David. Those ‘charlatans’ who disappeared in thin air, who said my genome, our genome, our ancestral genome, Theodosius’ genome, will give me a grandson destined for greatness…a grandson that must be protected… If they are vampires…of a class that can move around during the day…could you not use their help to keep David safe down there…in Venezuela?” she suggested rather sheepishly.
“Well, if they, indeed, are ‘undead’ who can move under the sun, that would be fantastic. But first, do we know they are, for a fact? Are they not some very credible charlatans, impressing the wealthy to scam them of large chunks of cash? And even if they were real, why would they agree to help us? And, even if they would, how do we get in contact with them?”
“No; we don’t know it for a fact. However, it’s hard to explain what we’re afraid of understanding, for, once understood, we might have to accept it. Instead, we often prefer conceding to a ‘more palatable’ incomprehension. In short, more often than not, we rather be idiots than admit we’re cowards,” she began. “I’d say: if they are such credible charlatans, they should create a circus, and live comfortably off their incomparable magic tricks. Voilà!
Now, here’s why I think they would helps us: They also seem concerned with preventing the end of the world, and, unless my grandson is born and reaches adulthood—or so they say—the world will end, in a few decades. On that subject, no matter how many psychos think they can dictate the weather to scientists, our friend David, too, agrees humankind is at high risk of being wiped off the face of Earth in a few decades.
So far I have been polite, but very reluctant towards our daytime vampires. And they keep coming back, keeping tabs on us but asking for nothing but to let them protect the grandson I don’t yet have. If they’re not a fraud, next time I see them, I’d suggest to them their act would be far more credible were they to help David—who has just saved the world—get to Catatumbo safely, and giving him a hand in preventing atmospheric collapse.
How to get in contact with them is a question I have no answer for—except they said they would, from time to time, visit, and do what they can to prevent any harm coming to us. They seem quite obsessed with ensuring my grandson will be born and grow to adulthood. An end of the world in a few years would make that impossible, ergo...I think they’ll help us.
Maybe I am insane, maybe I am too gullible; but now, after seeing all these vampires, and curses, and demons, and what not in action, I not only have more respect for your exorcisms, the ones I sneered at before: I also think our visitors may be the real deal.”
“Well, in that case,” suggested Tony, “if they are ‘undead’, perhaps Severian or Geoffroy could ‘sense’ them, or communicate with them, somehow, before all your minds get ‘reformatted’ to forget vampires and such.”
“Why us and not you?” asked the Countess.
“I have lived straddling their world for a few decades now,” Tony replied. “Severian has helped the Order save quite a few people. If for no other reason, we know they live in the shadows, literally and figuratively, and we respect the privacy they cherish. So their ties to the Order…”
But, before he could finish his sentence, she abruptly interrupted him, as if the words had been contained for far too long, ready to burst out into the open: “Talking about my friend David, he has told me, in confidence, that your ‘Oracle’ was not just an impostor,” the Countess began, “He said, in fact that Geoffroy, Conrad’s blood-son, was never free, but his slave instead. Also, he told me Geoffroy had given you all fake swords of Saint Michael…”
“You mean the legendary seven monasteries, from Ireland to Israel, the line representing the blow with which Saint Michael sent Satan to Hell, right?” he corrected her.
“Non! Don’t get ‘le smart’ with me, Tony!” scoffed the Countess, “The twelve swords of electrum with the inscription: ‘Quis ut Deus’, who (is) like God, the one you keep under your pillow, the one Father Lajos Nagy too had, and was never found; the one Father Lajos was killed because he had…”
“What? What? What? How on Earth, how on St. Michael’s name could you possibly know that?” Tony was positively dumbfounded.
“My friend David knows, Haim knows, they didn’t know if they should tell me they know—but they did. So now I too know…” she replied, “…enough to realize we’d better understand what happened there and don’t need another mind wipe from Geoffroy. Geoffroy himself told David that so many mind wiping can leave us all as smart as potatoes…and I don’t intend to be an ingredient for any Waldorf…ça va?”
“Well, this is extremely irregular. How do you even know I have that sword under my pillow? True, I knew that, if Geoffroy was indeed the ‘Oracle’, this was a problem—and it would become, in a sense, an even worse one, were he to die. I knew Father Lajos suspected him—and either he killed Lajos on Conrad’s command or Conrad himself did it. But you know something only members of the Order are supposed to know—and, seemingly, something we did not. Care to explain?” Tony almost pleaded.
“Apparently, seeing his impending end at the hands of Lilith, Geoffroy ‘confessed his sins’ to David, a sort of massive mind-to-mind download. So the poor giant lobster now has nightmares to spare, and then some. Today he has been livin’ la vida loca, trying to cope with all the stress and guilt of what he learned then. To prevent him from going insane, Geoffroy might soon have to sop him up Conrad’s sins—take him like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the ‘fiery furnace’ in the Book of Daniel, so to speak” she said.
“You could be quite the heretic, my dear Countess,” he sermonized.
“Lying is a sin, dear Father Bello. So, don’t patronize me. Apparently, in this ‘idolatrous’ session—in which the twelve of you had to fall on your knees, and show contrition to the ‘Oracle’ by resting your swords at the pedestal of Saint Michael’s image, and remain in prayer for hours—Geoffroy, this ‘new Oracle’, who appeared after the old one was killed by ‘the enemies of the Faith’, replaced your electrum swords by these new ones, made of an alloy of gold and platinum.
Father Lajos noticed the difference and had the sword analyzed. And when he got the results, he confided in you that such metal ‘transmutation’ seemed all too miraculous for his taste. The new swords, David told me, made your thoughts clearer to Geoffroy, no matter how far you might have been from him—like mind antennae for vampires.
Conrad had Geoffroy convinced the Church that had betrayed him, and the Templars, shouldn’t be allowed to betray anyone ever again and forced him to use your Order, the Church’s own sword, to bring about the Day of Reckoning. So now you know.
What this very moment concerns me the most, however, is David’s mental health: a human who is now having to live with horrors inflicted from the days of Clement V on until today. He has seen the Holocaust happening, people gassed, corpses piled, eyeglasses piled, skeletons thrown in bone-crushing machines, living skeletons with bulging eyes that still had milk teeth, escaped prisoners torn by dogs. David didn’t use to drink much, and has gobbled at least a dozen margaritas today. The man is a wreck—and now is going to a lake where there is more coke than water and petroleum put together.
He wants to go Yad Vashem again. He has used up all my antidepressants before speaking to his wife—and I had a pharmacy in my medicine cabinet. Debbie phoned Haim afterwards asking what was going on. And Haim had to downplay what might be David’s doom. That’s unfair. That’s not highly irregular. That’s inhumane.
My doctor is going to think I’m a drug junkie now. That’s unfair too, but I don’t care.
Tonight, I think Geoffroy or Severian will have to mop up his brain or this poor man is going to go insane, even before he’s back into the American insanity maelstrom,” she finished.
“As vampires go, it behooves us to respect their wishes for privacy, the same way we respect David’s wish that his part of the jewelry be used to help some climate change mitigation efforts; and Haim’s that his be used to keep alive the memory of the Holocaust—unless…our vampire friends are agreeable to not wipe our memory of their existence, or perhaps just bury it in our subconscious, just in case. So, how much of their existence you all should remember after tonight, will be up to them.
But now that you’ve told me this, I most definitely need to discuss David and the Order with Geoffroy and Severian as a separate issue,” replied Tony.
“And perhaps Haim and me as well, I guess. I don’t know if we want to know about all this either. I don’t think I could be a member of the Order…” the Countess mumbled, her face pensive, stirring the ice in her pastis.
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