by Damian Serbu
His fist went through more wood, this time a shelf along the wall, spilling its contents.
“And you—” he pointed at Anthony. “You don’t help at all. You taught that vampires were no different from everyone else except that their blood gave them eternal life. You promised that none of the ancient teachings against us were true, that only evil vampires fit the myths, that the undead were no more uncommon than evil people, and that the elders executed them if they stepped beyond acceptable boundaries. Well, let me tell you something about our commonness: I despise it. I wish we came from Satan. I could wander the earth as a pernicious demon forever, wreaking havoc, frightening people, ripping off their heads simply because I could. I could do it all alone, with no thought of friendship or companions. If only the church had it right,” he said bitterly. “I could be a perfect devil. Instead, I’m damned to feel like a human, to want the same things in this life that I longed to find in the previous. Yet in the midst of it all, as I finally discover my truest love, vampire ethics, irritating invented rules, condemn me. So spare me your comments on acceptance. I’ve heard enough.”
Thomas clutched the back of his couch, unknowingly ripping the fabric with his nails. And there sat Anthony, like a Greek philosopher. Or, rather, more like a Greek statue.
As always, Thomas fell further into dismay. He spoke his true feelings of deep rage, yet he dishonestly used the words to injure those he loved. Words flowed too easily out of his passion, causing more pain as he hoped that the objects of his wrath could forgive him yet again.
“Finished?” Anthony asked, still calm.
Thomas did not know whether to say yes or punch him in the face.
“If you are, perhaps you’ll listen as you promised and not lash out.”
Thomas seethed.
“This is exactly why I commanded you to listen,” Anthony began. He got up and stood inches from Thomas.
“Leave me alone,” Thomas said.
“No. I listened to you, now you do the same. You’re correct. This isn’t about society or the ethic. This is about you. All about you. Your temper and impatience. I know, you’ll insist that I dwell on them too much, you’ll assert that you’re working on it, every day. And I know you are. But you haven’t conquered them, and this little display is the ultimate proof—”
“Then banish me from your presence, because I do the best I can.”
“Let. Me. Speak.” Anthony enunciated each word with deadly seriousness. “Will you please sit down and hear me? For God’s sake, Thomas, if you don’t realize by now that I love you and am on your side, then you’re hopeless.”
Thomas forced himself to sit. Anthony immediately sat next to him and grabbed his hand.
“Your temper is the only thing that can derail this. What if Xavier sees this? What will happen if you can’t control yourself around him? He’d shrink away from you forever. He trusts you completely, but this would poison your love.” Anthony turned Thomas’s head toward him after he looked away. “Do you know this?”
“Yes,” Thomas answered. Dear God, what if Xavier had witnessed his display?
“Do you see that it’s worse when you’re in love? It’s ironic, stranger than anything else about you, you become more volatile when you love someone.”
“I know, Anthony, I know. But what can I do?”
“Slow down. Allow others to help you, especially me. And let this develop over time. I know that it sounds too easy. But that’s all you need. Control yourself, Thomas, and let me help.” Anthony paused. He got up and walked back to his chair. He started to sit but instead crossed his arms. “Xavier loves you. And you’re patient with him. These two things, along with your love for him, are all you need to make him a companion. I’m willing to help because I know that.
“However, before your tirade, I tried to warn you about the one threat to everything. You must accept the possibility that Xavier may never change. He’s deeply committed to his religion, for better or worse, and you want him to not only accept his sexuality but also understand vampires. Those are both gigantic leaps for someone like him. There’s a good possibility that you may fail. And you can’t proceed in a reasonable manner without knowing this in your heart.”
All along, though unspoken, Thomas had known this is in his heart but was too frightened to say it. Speaking it might make it real. So he kept it to himself, even while knowing that it led to his bad behavior. He sought promises of victory in a climate that assured nothing but love.
“That terrifies me,” Thomas said. “You’re right, I get angry because I can’t be certain I’ll win. Is there even a possibility?”
“Not if you go alone, but together we can try.”
“But how can I control it?”
“By thinking before you act. Try to see things from Xavier’s perspective. Think what he thinks, not what you want him to think. And, when those conclusions go someplace you don’t want them to, don’t force him to change. When it becomes too much and overwhelms you, come to me. Don’t try to do it alone. Allow yourself to be vulnerable.”
Anthony ended the night by hugging him, a simple but wonderful gesture that gave Thomas the strength to face another night, which is all he hoped to do—to face this one hour at a time, one feeling per moment, with all the strength and forbearance he could muster.
Xavier: Devotion
13 July 1789 Evening
RIOTS.
BREAD RIOTS. Political riots. Military riots. All riots, all threats of violence.
What had become of this revolution, Xavier wondered, to elicit such savagery?
He tried to cope by focusing on daily activities but could not escape the fact that a peaceful solution had failed.
He tried to forget other things, too, though even less successfully. Just the other day, he had seen Marcel drugging Catherine again. He had become a curse on the family, and according to Anne, a literal one. “Those markings you discovered etched under Catherine’s desk aren’t good. Get rid of them,” she had instructed Xavier the other night. When he pressed her for an explanation, she just said “black magic” and refused to say anymore.
He desperately wanted to forget about his longings for Thomas. The night before, when Thomas kissed him, Xavier nearly fell into Thomas’s arms forever. He almost pleaded for Thomas to sweep him away to America or some exotic locale, but the church scolded him for these wrong emotions. The people needed him, and he could only fulfill his mission if he refused to act on these sinful emotions, so he futilely tried to forget this pining.
Reality haunted Xavier. Revolutionary violence and Thomas plagued him, but losing himself in chores with Maria eased the pain.
This evening, he and Maria completed a mundane task. While they preferred interacting with people, tonight they spent hours cleaning the sanctuary. Hired women usually did this, but they missed so much and Xavier liked everything immaculate. Plus, the church forbade touching certain elements. While Xavier did not care, the women who cleaned had superstitions that prohibited it. So he and Maria occasionally tidied up.
However, Maria increasingly talked about sex with him and still prodded him to forget Thomas.
“Abbé, tell me, do you think my girls and I are doomed to hell?”
“Of course not,” Xavier said.
“Even if we lay naked together, our fingers in unseemly places?”
“I really don’t want that image in my head.”
“At least you admit that it happens.”
“I never denied it,” he responded, rubbing furiously at a spot on a pew.
“You avoided it. You wanted to think that the convent housed pure, innocent, virtuous women who sat around all day worshipping God. We do, but there’s plenty of worshipping each other, too.” She giggled.
“Maria, for heaven’s sake, stop it. I know that you and the other nuns love each other in a variety of ways. Isn’t that enough?”
Maria laughed and Xavier knew his cheeks were flaming red. “Speaking of forbidden love, I’
d best get going before your nightly visitor arrives,” she said coyly.
“I don’t want to hear this.”
Maria threw her hands in the air. “Only speaking the truth. I won’t say a word. Just remember that I know a couple of handsome young priests that might be interesting. And a little safer, too.”
“He’s not a danger,” Xavier said, huffy.
Maria shrugged. “Just be careful. Anyway, before I go, help me load these things. They’re the hocus pocus we need for tomorrow.”
“The sacraments?” He cocked an eyebrow at her.
“Oh, enough. God hasn’t struck me down yet.”
Maria headed out, box in tow. The minute she stepped around the corner, Xavier whirled around and raced to the other end of the sanctuary. He had seen Thomas enter as he said goodbye, and his arrival sent a thrill through him. He even repressed yesterday’s events enough to alleviate the horrid ache in his stomach.
“Thomas,” he said, tone colored with urgency, “I worried—”
“You don’t have to talk about it. Just forget it.” Thomas reached over and ruffled Xavier’s hair and smiled warmly, having apparently read his mind before Xavier even got his words out.
And so they slighted their love at Xavier’s request. Yet his best efforts did little to force his mind to forget it. They said nothing about it but the turmoil hung in the air, and it would come up later. Thomas always yielded at the beginning of the evening, but as the time to separate came closer, Thomas became bolder and bolder. Xavier anticipated such a scene tonight, Thomas hinting, Xavier wanting him to do so, and then, at the breaking point, Xavier would run to the shelter of his religion. Why did he always do that? And was his faith a prison?
Xavier brushed past Thomas and led him into the garden, where they had to be discreet. Xavier launched into a comment about the revolution to further move them away from personal matters. He outlined the riots, then explained what he and Maria had done and intended to do the next day. “It’s harder and harder to do our secret services,” he finished, and he knew Thomas sensed his anxiety.
“Then maybe you need to stop,” Thomas said.
Xavier nodded slowly. Strangely, if Michel exhorted him in this manner, or even Catherine, he would bristle. With Thomas, the suggestion comforted him. “But they need me,” he muttered, though he didn’t feel as convinced as he should have.
“If they need you, then make them come to the church.”
“You don’t understand. Many of them can’t, and no one else will come to them. I appreciate your concern, but I’ve told you a million times that I’m protected. Besides, I won’t stop helping them, no matter what you say. I can’t.”
Thomas’s protectiveness in wanting him to stop made Xavier feel loved. Yet he could never follow through with this request, no matter how much comfort Thomas gave to him. It was a calling, a duty of a profound magnitude.
“Haven’t you heard what’s happening to other priests? I’m not talking about curés in distant regions of France. I’m talking about your colleagues right in this city, some of them mere blocks from your church. They’re attacked by their own parishioners. People hate the church. Louis and his armies no longer protect you. It’s a practical matter, Xavier.”
“But I am cautious.”
Thomas dropped his voice, becoming even more serious. “Today, another priest went into his neighborhood and the people attacked him. They stripped him, raided the church, and left him for dead. Does that sound like rational behavior? Things are changing for the worse.”
Xavier had heard about that incident. Denys Girard and others had run to find him immediately after. Of course, he already had two men protecting him when the rest arrived. He understood what was going on, probably better than Thomas and his American sensibilities. People lashed out at priests as a symbol of oppression, but none of the people around Xavier’s church felt like that. None of those curés had organized patrols of parishioners that followed them.
“I’m careful, Thomas.”
“Can’t you stop this until things settle down?”
“No.”
“Your devotion to these people baffles me. With your family and wealth, you could do anything that you want. I know that you feel an obligation, but what drives this?”
Thomas had asked him a question with implications that Xavier hardly wanted to contemplate. Was he ready to tell more about himself? It was a risk that he decided he wanted to take with the man that he had come to love.
Thomas: Xavier's Theology
13 July 1789
THOMAS RELAXED AS Xavier sat back in the bench outside the church. He had not known what to expect after last night’s agony and crying but should have guessed that Xavier would typically ignore it, which he did after Thomas gave him an opening when they first met tonight. Thomas played this game, not because it solved anything, but because Anthony told him to allow Xavier to move their relationship at his pace. Even his concern about Xavier’s safety led to a dead end. Thankfully, Xavier hit upon something that acutely interested Thomas: Xavier’s theology. He knew that Xavier only believed half of the church’s teachings and interpreted them situationally, and that Xavier expected more of himself than others. But why?
“You won’t believe me. Everyone thinks there’s some hidden meaning to what I feel, but this is the truth.” Xavier leaned forward excitedly. “First, Rome has nothing to do with it. I’m Catholic because I was raised Catholic. I entered the priesthood because it offered the best opportunity to serve people, more than the government or military. I admit a faith in God. I believe that He exists and sent His son to die for us. It’s such a profound notion of love and sacrifice. I think that a Supreme Being must have done this for us or we’d have destroyed ourselves even more. The priesthood is merely the vehicle that allows me to act upon the way I think that people should treat each other. I love seeing people smile when they feel safe in their mortality because of religion.”
“You’re unlike any priest, pastor, or religious leader I’ve ever met. Most do it for power,” Thomas said.
“I think people are better than that. But that’s all there is to know about my beliefs. It’s very simple.” Xavier smiled innocently. “I comfort those in need. When hurt by others or saddened by the reality that surrounds them, their faith offers solace and guides them. They want the church’s authority, as if only that authority proclaimed God’s will, but if I weren’t here, someone else would do this and probably not care as much. My father always told us that our vocation, regardless of wealth or position, was to make this world better.”
If anyone else had made these grand proclamations, Thomas would have laughed out loud. But from Xavier’s expression and fervent words, it was clear he really believed this sentiment.
“Do you understand?” Xavier asked.
“I see what you believe, but you didn’t expect me to convert?”
Xavier laughed. “No.”
“Do you mind, then, if I ask a question?” Thomas quirked an eyebrow, prepared to withdraw if necessary.
“Of course not.”
“Doesn’t this revolution make you question all of your beliefs?”
“Yes,” Xavier answered without hesitation.
“When people attack priests, when they fight each other, when the rich ignore the poor and the poor merely hate everyone above them, and it all leads to violence, doesn’t it make it difficult to continue?”
“What do you mean?” Xavier asked.
“I mean that you can’t save the world. No one can. Things have become too dangerous and I don’t understand why you don’t protect yourself and give up on people.”
Xavier grinned, so sweetly, and still with utter naiveté.
“I’m not trying to save the entire world. I just want to help as many people as possible while I’m here. If I can help one person, then maybe they’ll help someone else, and in the midst of this misery and sorrow make their small part of the world better.”
“I never beli
eved that such things worked. I’m glad you do, though.”
“But I know it works.”
“How?”
“I have a thousand examples,” Xavier answered. “Here’s a recent one. I still weep whenever I think about it. A servant girl, a wonderful person, came to confession. You can’t ever repeat this. I shouldn’t be telling you. Her name is Melisent; she’s pretty and comes from a family in Paris. Her mother works in a textile shop and her father is a blacksmith. They have a lot of children. Melisent always smiles when she sees me and walks around whistling, even while at work. She’s a domestic servant for one of Paris’s wealthy families and my father knew them well.
“But she came to confession this time in tears. She cried and cried without saying a word. Then, almost inaudibly, she asked if it were a sin to kill yourself. She wanted to know if it was possible to go to heaven if that happened because other people said that it meant going to hell. I assumed that she knew someone who had committed suicide and tried to comfort her by saying that I didn’t believe God would forsake them. Then I realized that she wasn’t talking about someone else.” Xavier’s eyes teared. “Against all rules, I got out of the booth, pulled her out of hers, and took her into the back. She collapsed into my arms, a sobbing mess, trembling with fear. ‘Who is it? Who’s killing himself?’ I asked.