Dear Illusion: Collected Stories

by Kingsley Amis

  ‘Thereafter the ingenious and industrious and unspeakable Macneil saw to it that those whose blood we drank were brought from far enough away for Castle Valvazor not to be an object of suspicion. So matters continued for decades; I grew inured to my uncle’s embraces, even – forgive me if you can – developed a taste for them. To my status as a creature altogether depraved, beyond the reach of divine mercy, I was perfectly indifferent. Then, one night, the night of 31 August, all was changed. God or His messenger spoke to me in a dream, commanding me to make an end to the evil and holding out hope, if I heeded the commandment, of my soul’s salvation. At once I was resolved; I made preparations and, as soon as opportunity presented itself, I struck.

  ‘Late the following evening, 1 September, I came upon my uncle and Macneil in the small parlour. Having contrived Macneil’s brief but sufficient absence from the room, I took a hammer and drove a large iron nail into the back of my uncle’s head, not remitting my blows until the point had emerged through the right eye. I had been less than certain whether this would prove enough to secure the demise of such a one, but very soon such extreme and dreadful changes had taken place in him that I could no longer be in doubt. So perished a creature of the utmost infamy, and so who knows how many innocent men and women were spared a terrible fate.

  ‘When Macneil returned to the room he expressed violent loathing at what he saw. He went on to utter various taunts and threats, which changed to entreaties and attempts to strike bargains when he saw what I intended. To no avail; my duty was clear and my determination absolute.

  ‘In all save immaterial particulars this account is true and complete, and that is the sufficient and necessary reason for offering it to you as guardian of good order. You must take it or leave it as it stands. I shall not be available for questioning.

  ‘Under my hand and seal, Lukretia Valvazor.’

  QUAESTOR: Thank you, prefect. Well, that is at any rate clear. We will defer other considerations till we have more evidence before us. Fetch Dr Eótvos, if he is composed enough to address the inquest.

  DOCTOR: Yes, sir, I think so, your rectitude. I must emphasize that the need for haste and secrecy has meant that my findings are necessarily tentative and rather general.

  QUAESTOR: That is understood. Please go on.

  DOCTOR: One body appears to be that of a man of extreme old age, perhaps as much as ninety years old. This I surmised from the state of the hair, the teeth and one or two other parts that had to some extent escaped the process of decomposition undergone by the remainder, which was so advanced that the corpse could not be moved as a whole and had to be examined on the spot. And yet among the remains of the alimentary canal there were fragments of partially digested food that could not have been swallowed more than an hour before, perhaps two at the most. Human physiology, human . . . what happens when a man dies . . . will not allow of such a thing.

  QUAESTOR: Do you wish to rest, doctor? Very well. Are you saying that this was not the body of a human being?

  DOCTOR: No, sir; well, not quite. There had been forces at work on it that I cannot guess at, producing effects I would have thought flesh and blood incapable of and have most assuredly never seen or heard the like of. Is that satisfactory? Thank you, sir – the other body was human in every respect. I identified it as that of Mr Robert Macneil, well known to most of us here. The . . . unusual factor in this case was the manner of death. The head was almost separated from the trunk, but not as the result of any blow from a weapon. The two had been pulled apart.

  QUAESTOR: In your opinion, could a human being have done that?

  DOCTOR: No, sir; well, again, it might be possible for a professional strong-man, but certainly not for a normally developed female, which I take to be where your question tends. I should add that the right humerus, the bone of the right upper arm, was at one point not merely broken but shattered into thirty or forty pieces, some of them barely visible to the naked eye. No weapon, nothing inorganic here either; the bruising showed it to be the work of a human hand, or something shaped like a human hand, in a squeezing motion. As before, impossible for a normal person, man or woman.

  QUAESTOR: Could we amend that and say, impossible for a normal person in any state known to medical science?

  DOCTOR: That would do very well, your rectitude.

  QUAESTOR: Excellent. Thank you, doctor; you may retire. Fetch the witness Magda Marghiloman.

  REGISTRAR: She will tell you nothing useful.

  QUAESTOR: How do you know? And what do you suppose I might find useful? Now, Magda, if you are sensible this will take no more than a minute. You heard the prefect read the document your mistress gave you. Tell us where you were when she gave it you.

  WITNESS: In her ladyship’s sitting-room, your rectitude.

  QUAESTOR: What happened after that?

  WITNESS: She kissed me, and she gave me the locket with her lady mother’s picture, and she said goodbye . . .

  QUAESTOR: All right, Magda, we can pause here and no harm. Go on when you can.

  WITNESS: . . . and I went out and left her there.

  QUAESTOR: What time was this?

  WITNESS: About midnight.

  QUAESTOR: And that was the last you saw of her. Where is she now, Magda? Where is your mistress now?

  WITNESS: She has gone away.

  QUAESTOR: Magda, we all know she has gone away. What we desire to be told is where she is. At least, that is the question we are asking.

  WITNESS: I do not know the answer, your rectitude.

  QUAESTOR: Quite so. And in your opinion, Magda, just your opinion, is there anyone who does know?

  WITNESS: No, sir.

  QUAESTOR: Very well. Now, you heard the prefect mention a certain Mr Stephen Hillier, an Englishman, who was reported to be in Nuvakastra four days ago. We have been absolutely unable to discover where he went after that. Have you heard or seen anything of this man?

  WITNESS: No, sir.

  QUAESTOR: In fact, you have no news or other information about him whatever.

  WITNESS: Nothing whatever, sir.

  QUAESTOR: And, again in your opinion, Magda, everybody would say the same, everybody at Castle Valvazor, that is.

  WITNESS: Everybody, your rectitude.

  QUAESTOR: Thank you, Magda, that will be all. Registrar, clear the chamber. None to remain except Prefect Sturdza, Dr Eótvos and yourself.

  Now, gentlemen, we are all Dacians, indeed we are all from round about, and my feeling is that we can settle this in no time. The only matter of the smallest complication touches Mr Hillier. We have to admit the possibility that he was somehow involved in the events at Valvazor. If so, we are bound to think it more than possible that he is dead. Should that be the case, we could expect to be told nothing to that effect by any of the castle people. The first we should hear would be an inquiry from his family in England – if he has one, if they know he came to Nuvakastra. Unless that happens, which God forfend, I say we do nothing. As things are, what reason would you give, my dear prefect, for detaining Mr Hillier, searching for him, mentioning him?

  However, these are all remote contingencies, of the sort we jurists love to pursue, but of little practical import. I will wager our man is well out of it, and we are no less well rid of him. If, by a chance more distant than any we have considered, he has departed from this place having learned of these recent oddities, we need feel no concern. Left to himself he will keep his mouth shut, you may be sure.

  As for our corpses, or rather our corpse, for Baron Aleku has been dead for thirty-four years, has he not? – as for Mr Macneil, he met with an accident from which he died. He fell down the stairs, drowned in his bath, what you will. Would you consent to certify that, doctor?

  DOCTOR: Gladly, your rectitude.

  QUESTOR: As for Countess Valvazor, she has disappeared. And that at least is a fact. We shall see no more of her in this life.

  REGISTRAR: Or the next.

  QUAESTOR: Amen; I wish I were so sanguine.
I suggest to you, prefect, that a couple of trustworthy fellows saw the countess making for Arelanópli yesterday morning, would you agree? There will be the question of the inheritance to be settled. I look forward to that, not least to the arrival of some innocent cousin from Philadelphia, as it might be, to take possession of his property, like a young man in a ghostly tale.

  Well, unless I have missed something, our business is concluded. Prefect, you will see to it that all documents are burnt. All documents.

  DOCTOR: May I ask a question, your rectitude? Do you believe the countess’s story?

  QUAESTOR: Must I believe anything? If I must believe something, then what else is there? And now, gentlemen, I invite you to take wine with me. There is that in what I have heard this evening that drives me almost irresistibly to a fortifying glass.

  VIII – Stephen Hillier to A. C. Winterbourne

  Hotel Astoria,

  Budapest,

  Hungary

  6 September 1925

  My dear Charles,

  It’s no good, I shall have to tell someone, no, not someone, you, before I go mad, or die of I don’t know what, grief, or horror, or something like bewilderment, which I never thought could become an emotion as intense and as painful as the others. Sorry, I’m probably not making much sense. Let me concentrate on matters about which there can be no dispute.

  On the 3rd, Friday morning, I left that castle and made the rotten journey to Arelanópli, where I took the first available train out of Dacia. It was a stopping train and I had made no arrangements to visit Hungary and it cost me a fiver to be let in, but I would cheerfully have paid ten times as much just to get out of that beastly country. I must say the Astoria is a very decent place and the servants are most considerate, appearing not to notice what I’m afraid must have been my obvious distress of mind, meeting without question my desire to take all meals in my room (not that I’ve wanted very much to eat) and leaving me alone as far as possible. As a result I’m better, well, better than I was, though not exactly chirpy at this stage. I reckon I shall be able to face a long journey in a couple of days and then will probably make for Paris, anyhow somewhere as unlike where I’ve been as possible. I can’t face Connie yet awhile; it’s not that I don’t – no, I won’t go into it now, I think you’ll understand when you’ve read what I have to say.

  I remember at the end of my last (God knows how I managed to get it posted) I told you I was in the parlour trying to read and waiting for Lukretia. Charles, I want to skip over what happened that evening (there was nothing that can’t wait till I see you) and come to the next morning, I suppose about seven o’clock. That night I hadn’t dreamed at all, so that waking suddenly, as I did, was like being in a single instant thrust from a dark dungeon into the sunlight; the whole of that charming bedroom was ablaze with the sun. It made me blink. I felt at the same time sluggish and on edge, strung up, for a moment unable to remember where I was. It took me longer than that to piece together what had happened or must have happened before I fell asleep and later. I decided at last – Lukretia had given me champagne; there had been some drug in the champagne; I had succumbed to it; she had left the room; she had not returned. Possessed by a sudden urgency I jumped out of bed and dressed as quickly as I’ve ever done in my life. On the dressing-table there was an envelope with my name on it, also the lock of my hair had gone (explanation later). I put the envelope in my pocket and hurried out.

  Downstairs, I found the parlour door shut, locked fast. I called repeatedly, but no one came, nor was there at first the least sound; I had the sense that I was alone in the castle. Then, faint but insistent, there came to my ears an irregular banging or slamming sound, as of an unfastened shutter caught by the wind, indescribably desolate. I found the cause soon enough, in fact a long glass door giving on to a small terrace at the side of the building. In the grip of the acutest dread, yet not knowing what it was that so afflicted me, I advanced through the doorway. The air was already warm; I could hear insect noises and the song of birds. A statue of a naked nymph or girl holding a lamb in her arms, no doubt a copy of a Hellenistic original, stood off to one side. I moved out of the shadow cast by the house and into the full light of the sun; it was very strong. A fitful breeze was stirring the dust on the flagstones. My eye fell on what might have been a thin wisp of dark hair, no more than four or five strands, but it had disintegrated before I could reach it. A thought too terrible to think was beating at the inside of my head. I remembered the envelope I had picked up and tore it open; there was a single sheet of writing inside. This is what it said.

  My only dear love,

  ‘I have to go away and you will never see me again in this life. Anything that could drive me from you must be very powerful, very strong, and it is, so strong that I must not tell you what it is. But I am allowed to tell you what it is not. It is not your fault, neither in yourself nor in any deed or word of yours. It is no shortcoming in the love we feel for each other. That love has been the only true thing in my life and the means of deliverance from all my sorrows. It, and you, have made me happy in such a way that what other happiness I have known seems to me trivial and dull. And that means that the shortness of our time together matters much less to me; I hope, I know, that this will be a consolation to you.

  Now I must go. Don’t try to find me; I cannot be found. Don’t try to learn more about me; think of me as you knew me. We may meet after all in a million years from now; I think perhaps God intends that. Goodbye, heart of my heart.

  Your Lukretia

  Remember your promise. Duminu wobisku.

  And with the last two words the unbearable thought declared itself. I reached into my pocket again and brought out the tracing I had made of the first phrases of the document Macneil had shown me in the library. There was no question about it; the hands were the same. I knew now what had troubled me at the time: my unwitting perception that the writing was feminine had been up against my conscious assumption that what was in front of me was the work of a man. And I knew much more besides.

  I won’t try to describe my feelings. I went back indoors and knelt down and prayed for Lukretia’s soul, as I have done on retiring and rising ever since and will continue to do for the rest of my life. Then I found Magda, or she me. She asked me my pleasure. I told her I wanted to be packed up and out of the place in the shortest possible time, and she set about it as if she was no less interested in my early departure than I was. How much had she seen and heard over the years? In the last thirty-six hours? I didn’t want to find out. After our first question and answer neither of us had anything to say till we were standing outside the great front door and a grim-faced fellow in an overall was loading my bags into a sort of wagonette. Even then Magda and I exchanged only a word of thanks as I tipped her and a word of farewell, but right at the last she gave me a look saying as plainly as words that we were united by our loss, and I hope I returned it adequately. Before the driver had whipped up his horses the door of the castle shut with a crash. Macneil didn’t appear, which suited my book all right.

  I’m sorry to bother you with all this, old boy, but perhaps you see now why I had to tell you, or felt I had to tell you, and why I don’t feel like coming home just yet. I’ll probably see you about the 18th or the 20th. Thanks for listening!

  Yours,

  Stephen

  PS: I wonder if I could ask you to keep this and my last under lock and key. Matt’s is a jolly decent place, I know, but one can’t be too careful.

  IX – Stephen Hillier to Constance Hillier

  Hotel Astoria,

  Budapest,

  Hungary

  7 September 1925

  Dearest Connie,

  It must be a week since I wrote. As you can see, I’ve been on the move. I didn’t stay long at that Castle Valvazor place, which I soon found was a thorough wash-out. In my last letter I wasted your time (and a lot more of mine) with all those stories about Tristan the Wolf and Red Mathias and eye-witness accounts. Then whe
n I went through the archives the next morning there was nothing there at all, just the dullest and most conventional family documents you can imagine. I complained about it at luncheon, or rather said I thought I must have been looking in the wrong place, and the countess said no, I’d seen all there was, and more or less admitted she’d spun me a yarn to induce me to stay on for a bit and cheer up the company. Well, I saw her point about the company, but I ask you! I hung on another night out of politeness and invented an engagement in Budapest. I want you to promise never to mention Countess Valvazor. Seriously. If you do I won’t reply. I mean it was such a sell and such a bore.

  In a way, though, my visit wasn’t wasted. It set me thinking about this whole vampire business, made me take a second look at it, if you know what I mean. And, well, I’ve come to the very reluctant conclusion that you were right about it and I was wrong. It’s nothing but a string of peasant superstitions that don’t hang together and haven’t even got the merit of being charming. What on earth possessed me to imagine there was a book, a serious book, to be written on the subject? I’m afraid it’ll annoy old Charles Winterbourne, but I’m going to wind up my research. Something on, say, early Hungarian literature would be far more the sort of thing. I’ve been looking round the museums here and already have something to go on.