Lasher

by Anne Rice

  They crossed Chestnut Street, pushing through the small informal gathering of guards and cousins--Eulalee, and Tony, and Betsy Mayfair. Garvey Mayfair on the porch with Danny and Jim. Several voices rose at once to tell the guards that Mona and Pierce could come in.

  Guards in the hallway. Guard in the double parlor. A guard in the door to the dining room, a dark hulking figure, with broad hips.

  And only that faint old lingering smell. Nothing fresh, nothing new. Just faint, the way it had clung to the clothing from Houston. The way it had clung to Rowan when they brought her in.

  Guards at the top of the stairs. Guard at the bedroom door. Guard inside at the long window to the gallery. Nurse in slick cheap nylon white with her arms raised, adjusting the IV. Rowan under the lace coverlet, small insignificant expressionless face against the big ruffled pillow. Michael sitting there, smoking a cigarette.

  "There isn't any oxygen in here, is there?"

  "No, dear, they got on my case already about that." He took another drag defiantly, and then crushed it out in the glass ashtray on the bedside table. His voice was beautifully low and soft, rubbed smooth by the tragedy.

  In the corner opposite sat young Magdalene Mayfair, and old Aunt Lily, both very still in straight-backed chairs. Magdalene was saying her rosary, and the amber beads glinted just a little as she slipped one bead more through her hand. Lily's eyes were closed.

  Others in the shadows. The beam of the bedside lamp fell directly on the face of Rowan Mayfair. As if it were a keylight for a camera. The unconscious woman seemed smaller than a small child. Urchin or angelic. Her hair was all swept back.

  Mona tried to find the old expression in her, the stamp of her personality. All gone.

  "I was playing music," Michael said, speaking in the same low thoughtful voice as before. He looked up at Mona. "I was playing the Victrola. Julien's Victrola. And then the nurse said, perhaps she didn't like that sound. It's scratchy, it's...special. You would have to like it, wouldn't you?"

  "The nurse probably didn't like it," said Mona. "You want me to put on a record? If you want, I can get your radio from the library downstairs. I saw it, yesterday, in there, by your chair."

  "No, that's all right. Can you come here and sit for a little while? I'm glad to see you. You know I saw Julien."

  Pierce stiffened. In the corner, another Mayfair, was his name Hamilton, glanced suddenly at Michael and then away. Lily's eyes opened and veered to the left to fix upon Michael. Magdalene went on with her rosary, eyes taking in all of them slowly, and then returning to Michael as he went on.

  It was as if Michael had forgotten they were there. Or he didn't give a damn anymore.

  "I saw him," he said in a raw ragged whisper, "and ah...he told me so many things. But he didn't tell me this would happen. He didn't tell me she was coming home."

  Mona took the small velvet chair beside him, facing the bed.

  She said in a low voice, resenting the others, "Julien probably didn't know."

  "Do you mean, Oncle Julien?" asked Pierce in a small timid whisper from across the room. Hamilton Mayfair turned and looked directly at Michael as though this was the most fascinating thing in the world.

  "Hamilton, what are you doing here?" asked Mona.

  "We're all taking turns," said Magdalene in a little whisper. Then Hamilton said, "We just want to be here."

  There was something decorous about all of them, yet despairing. Hamilton must have been about twenty-five now. He was good-looking, not beautiful and sparkling like Pierce, but very handsome in his own too narrow way. She couldn't remember the last time she had spoken to him. He looked directly at her as he rested his back against the mantel.

  "All the cousins are here," he said.

  Michael looked at her as if he hadn't heard these others speaking. "What do you mean," asked Michael, "that Julien didn't know? He must have known."

  "It's not like that, Michael," she said, trying to keep it a whisper. "There's an old Irish saying, 'a ghost knows his own business.' Besides, it wasn't really him, you know. When the dead come, they aren't there."

  "Oh no," said Michael in a small, weary but very sincere voice. "It was Julien. He was there. We talked together for hours."

  "No, Michael. It's like the record. You put the needle in the groove and she sings. But she's not in the room."

  "No, he was there," Michael said softly, though not argumentatively. He reached over almost absently and picked up Rowan's hand. Rowan's arm resisted him slightly, the hand wanted to be close to the body. He gripped it gently and then he leaned over and kissed it.

  Mona wanted to kiss him, to touch him, to say something, to apologize, to confess, to say she was sorry, to say don't worry, but she couldn't think of the right words. She had a deep terrible fear that he hadn't seen Oncle Julien, that he was simply losing his mind. She thought about the Victrola, about the moment when she and Ancient Evelyn had sat on the library floor with the Victrola between them, and Mona had wanted to crank it, and Ancient Evelyn said, "We cannot play music while Gifford is waiting. We cannot play radios or pianos while Gifford is laid out."

  "What did Oncle Julien actually tell you?" asked Pierce, in his baffled innocent fashion. Not making fun. Truly wanting to know what Michael would say.

  "Don't worry," said Michael. "There'll be a time. Soon, I think. And I'll know what to do."

  "You sound so sure of yourself," said Hamilton Mayfair in a low voice. "I wish I had an inkling of what was going on."

  "Forget about it," said Mona.

  "Now we should all be quiet," said the nurse. "Remember Dr. Mayfair might be listening." She nodded vigorously to them, a silent signal that they must pay attention. "You don't want to say anything...disruptive, you know."

  The other nurse sat at a small mahogany table, writing, her white stockings stretched tight over her chubby legs.

  "You hungry, Michael?" asked Pierce.

  "No, son. Thank you."

  "I am," said Mona. "We'll be back. We're going downstairs to get something to eat."

  "You will come back, won't you?" asked Michael. "Lord, you must be so tired, Mona. Mona, I'm sorry about your mother. I didn't know until afterwards."

  "That's OK," said Mona. She wanted to kiss him. She wanted to say I stayed away all day because of what we did. I couldn't bring myself to come under her roof with her like this and me doing it with you, and I wouldn't have done it with you if I'd known she was coming home so soon and like this. I thought...I thought...

  "I know, baby doll," he said, smiling at her brightly. "She doesn't care about that now. It's OK."

  Mona nodded, threw him her own secret passing smile.

  Just before she went out the door, Michael lit another cigarette. Snap, flash, and both the nurses turned and glared at him.

  "Shut up," said Hamilton Mayfair.

  "Let him smoke!" said Magdalene.

  The nurses looked at each other, obdurate, cold. Why don't we get some other nurses? thought Mona.

  "Yes," said Magdalene softly, "we'll see to that right away."

  Right on, thought Mona. She went out with Pierce and down the steps.

  In the dining room sat a very elderly priest who must have been Timothy Mayfair from Washington. Clean and old-fashioned in his unmistakable suit, black shirtfront and gleaming white Roman collar. As Mona and Pierce passed, the elderly priest said in a loud echoing whisper to the woman next to him:

  "You realize when she dies...there won't be a storm! For the first time, there won't be a storm."

  Twenty-seven

  AARON WASN'T BUYING it either. They stood together, the three men, out on the lawn. Yuri wondered if later this would rank as one of the worst days of his life. Searching for Aaron, finding him at last in the evening, at this big pink house on this avenue, with the noisy streetcars passing, and with all those people weeping inside. And Stolov with him, every moment, an overbearing and confusing presence, uttering formal and soft words constantly as they had gone fro
m the hotel to the Mayfair house on First Street and finally uptown to "Amelia," as this sprawling mansion was apparently called.

  Inside dozens of people wept, the way gypsies weep and wail at a funeral. There was much drinking. Clusters of persons stood outside smoking and talking. It was convivial yet tense. Everyone was waiting for something.

  But no bodies were coming here. One was in the vault already, Yuri had learnt, and the others were in the freezer of the hospital very nearby. This was not a gathering to mourn; it was a defensive coming together, as if all the serfs had fled to the shelter of the castle, only these people had never been serfs.

  Aaron didn't seem tense. He looked good, all things considered, as robust as Yuri had ever seen him, of good color, and with a sharpening to his face which came from his cold suspicion of Stolov as Stolov talked on and on. It seemed as if Aaron had become younger here, less his aging bookish self and more the energetic gentleman of years before. His white curly hair was longish and fuller around his face, and his eyes had their characteristic brightness. Whatever had happened here had not weakened him, or aged him. There was that deep tone of discouragement in him but it was now turning to anger.

  Yuri knew because he knew Aaron so well. If Stolov knew he didn't show it. Stolov was too busy talking, trying to persuade them to his point of view.

  They stood far away on the close-clipped grass, beneath what Aaron called a magnolia. It had no blossoms, this tree. Too early. But it had the largest shiniest green leaves.

  On and on Stolov talked, in his quiet persuasive entirely sympathetic manner. And Aaron's eyes were two pieces of cold gray stone. Reflecting nothing. Revealing nothing except the anger. Aaron looked at Yuri. What did he see? Yuri shot a meaningful glance towards Stolov, but this was as narrow and quick as a splinter of light, a spark.

  Aaron's eyes moved back to Stolov. Stolov had not glanced at Yuri. Stolov's attentions were entirely fixed upon Aaron, as if this was a victory he must have.

  "If you won't leave tonight, then surely tomorrow," said Stolov.

  Aaron said nothing.

  Stolov had poured out everything now, at least two complete times. A beautiful elderly woman with dark smooth gray hair stood at the end of the wooden porch and called to Aaron. He waved and gestured that he would be coming. He looked at Stolov.

  "Good God, man, say something," said Stolov. "We know how hard this has been for you. Go on home to London. Take a well-deserved rest."

  Just wrong. Everything the man was saying, his manner, his words.

  "Right you are," said Aaron softly.

  "What?" said Stolov.

  "I'm not leaving, Erich. It's been a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, and I know better than to try to deter you from obeying your orders. You're here to do something. You will try to do it. But I'm not leaving. Yuri, will you stay with me?"

  "Now, Aaron," said Stolov, "that is very simply out of the question for Yuri. He is already..."

  "Of course I will stay," said Yuri. "It was for you that I came."

  "Where are your lodgings, Erich? Are you at the Pontchartrain with the rest of us?" Aaron asked.

  "Downtown," said Stolov. He was getting impatient again, flustered. "Aaron, you are no help to the Talamasca now."

  "I'm sorry," said Aaron. "But I must confess, Erich, that the Talamasca--at this moment--is no help to me. These are my people now, Erich. Glad to have met you."

  This was dismissal. Aaron extended his hand. The tall blond one looked for one moment as if he would lose his temper, then he cooled, and drew himself up. "I'll contact you in the morning. Where will you be?"

  "I don't know," said Aaron. "Probably here...with all these people," he said. "My people. I think it's the safest place for us now, don't you?"

  "I don't know how you could take this attitude, Aaron. We need your cooperation. As soon as possible, I want to make contact, speak with Michael Curry..."

  "No. That is not going to happen, Erich. You do what the Elders told you to do, as I'm sure you will. But you will not bother this family, at least not with my permission or with my introduction."

  "Aaron, we want to help! That's why I am here."

  "Good-night, Erich."

  In sheer consternation, the blond one stood there silently, and then he turned on his heel and walked away. The big black car was waiting for him as it had been for two hours, during which this act had been played and replayed.

  "He's lying," said Aaron.

  "He's not Talamasca," said Yuri, though it was more a suggestion than a statement.

  "Oh, yes, he is. He's one of us, and he's lying. Don't turn your back on him for an instant."

  "No, I wouldn't. But Aaron, how can this be? How can such a thing..."

  "I don't know. I've heard of him. He's been with us for three years. I've heard of his work in Italy and in Russia. He's very much respected. David Talbot thought highly of him. If only we hadn't lost David. But Stolov's not so very clever. He can't read minds that well. He could perhaps if he himself weren't putting on such an act. But the facade requires all his cunning. And so he's not very good."

  The black car had silently slithered away from the curb.

  "God, Yuri," Aaron suddenly whispered. "I'm glad you're here."

  "I am too, Aaron. I don't understand it. I want to contact the Elders. I want to speak directly to someone, to hear a voice."

  "That will never happen, my boy," said Aaron.

  "Aaron, in the years before the computer, what did you do?"

  "It was always typewritten. All communications went to the Motherhouse in Amsterdam, and the replies came by mail. Communication took greater time; less was said, I suspect. But there was never a voice attached to it, Yuri, or a face. In the days before the typewriter, a scribe wrote the letters for the Elders. No one knew who this was."

  "Aaron, let me tell you something."

  "I know what you're going to say," said Aaron calmly, thoughtfully. "You knew the Amsterdam Motherhouse well before you ever left it--every nook and cranny. You cannot imagine where the Elders came together, where they received their communications. Nobody knows."

  "Aaron, you have been in the Order for decades. You can appeal to the Elders. Surely there is some way under such circumstances..."

  Aaron smiled in a cold, knowing way. "Your expectations are higher than mine, Yuri," he said.

  The pretty gray-haired woman had left the porch and was coming towards them. Small-boned, with delicate wrists, she wore her simple flaring silk dress with grace. Her ankles were as slender and well-shaped as those of a girl.

  "Aaron," she said in a soft scolding whisper. Her hands flew out, youthful, dainty, covered with rings, and clasped Aaron by the shoulders, and then she gently kissed his cheek. Aaron nodded to her in quiet understanding.

  "Come inside with us," said Aaron to Yuri. "They need us now. We'll talk later on." His face had changed dramatically. Now that Stolov was gone, he appeared more serene, more like himself.

  The house was filled with good rich cooking smells, and a high tempestuous mingle of voices. The laughter was loud, bursting, the merry ecstatic kind of laughter of people at a wake. One could hear others crying. Women and men crying. An old man sat with his arms folded before him on a table, crying. A young girl with soft brown hair patted his shoulder over and over, her own face evincing only fear.

  Upstairs, Yuri was shown to a rear bedroom, small, faded, but quite appealing to him, with a narrow single four-poster bed, and a dark golden satin bedspread that had seen better days. There were dusty curtains on the windows. But he liked the warmth, the coziness, even the faded flowers on the wall. He glimpsed himself in the mirrored door of the chifforobe--dark hair, dark skin, too thin.

  "I am grateful," he said to the gray-haired woman, Beatrice, "but don't you think I should go to the hotel, that I should look out for myself?"

  "No," said Aaron. "Don't go anywhere. I want you here with me."

  Yuri was prepared to protest further. The hou
se was needed for the family. But he could see simply that Aaron meant for him to stay here.

  "Oh, now, don't start being sad again," said the woman. "I won't have it. Come on, now, we're going to have something to eat and some wine. Aaron, I want you to sit down and drink a nice cool glass of wine. You too, Yuri. Now, both of you come."

  They went down the rear stairs, into the warmer air, and the misty white layers of cigarette smoke. Around a breakfast table, near a bright fire, sat several people crying and laughing simultaneously. And one solemn man who merely stared morosely into the flames. Yuri could not actually see the fire. He stood behind the chimney, but he saw the flicker and he heard the crackle and he felt the warmth.

  He was distracted suddenly by a wraith of a female creature in a small back room, looking out the rear window into the night. She was very old, fragile; she wore gabardine and withered lace, and a heavy golden pin that was a hand with diamonds for nails. Her fine-spun white hair was soft around her face, nested in the old-fashioned way, with pins against the back of her head. Another woman, younger yet still impossibly old, held the hand of this very old one as if she would protect her from something, though how, one could not tell.

  "Come on, Ancient Evelyn, come with us," said Beatrice. "Come on, darling Viv. Let's go near the fire."

  The very old woman, Ancient Evelyn, whispered something softly under her breath. She pointed to the window, her finger dropping as if she hadn't strength to keep it aloft. Again she pointed; again the finger dropped.

  "Come on, now, dear, you're doing it again," said the woman addressed as Darling Viv. She was kind. "I can't hear you. Now, Ancient Evelyn, you can talk." She sounded as if she were coaxing a baby. "You know you can. You were talking words all day yesterday. Talk, dear, talk so I can hear."

  The ancient one murmured again indistinctly. She continued to point. All Yuri saw was the dark street, the neighboring houses, the lights, the dark heavy soaring trees.

  Aaron took his arm.