by Rice, Anne
Oh, how frustrating it was that I could not communicate it to her, I could not make her believe it in literal terms. “Don’t you see, I survived all that has happened to me because I am who I am. My strength, my will, my refusal to give up—those are the only components of my heart and soul which I can truly identify. This ego, if you wish to call it that, is my strength. I am the Vampire Lestat, and nothing … not even this mortal body … is going to defeat me.”
I was amazed to see her nod, to see her totally accepting expression.
“And if you came with me,” she said gently, “the Vampire Lestat would perish—wouldn’t he?—in his own redemption.”
“Yes, he would. He would die slowly and horribly among the small and thankless tasks, caring for the never-ending hordes of the nameless, the faceless, the eternally needy.”
I felt so sad suddenly that I couldn’t continue. I was tired in an awful mortal way, the mind having worked its chemistry upon this body. I thought of my dream and of my speech to Claudia, and now I had told it again to Gretchen, and I knew myself as never before.
I drew up my knees and rested my arms on them, and I put my forehead on my arms. “I can’t do it,” I said under my breath. “I can’t bury myself alive in such a life as you have. And I don’t want to, that’s the awful part. I don’t want to do it! I don’t believe it would save my soul. I don’t believe it would matter.”
I felt her hands on my arms. She was stroking my hair again, drawing it back from my forehead.
“I understand you,” she said, “even though you’re wrong.”
I gave a little laugh as I looked up at her. I took a napkin from our little picnic and I wiped my nose and my eyes.
“But I haven’t shaken your faith, have I?”
“No,” she said. And this time her smile was different, more warm and more truly radiant. “You’ve confirmed it,” she said in a whisper. “How very strange you are, and how miraculous that you came to me. I can almost believe your way is right for you. Who else could be you? No one.”
I sat back, and drank a little sip of wine. It was now warm from the fire, but still it tasted good, sending a ripple of pleasure through my sluggish limbs. I drank some more of it. I set down the glass and looked at her.
“I want to ask you a question,” I said. “Answer me from your heart. If I win my battle—if I regain my body—do you want me to come to you? Do you want me to show you that I’ve been telling the truth? Think carefully before you answer.
“I want to do it. I really do. But I’m not sure that it’s the best thing for you. Yours is almost a perfect life. Our little carnal episode couldn’t possibly turn you away from it. I was right—wasn’t I?—in what I said before. You know now that erotic pleasure really isn’t important to you, and you’re going to return to your work in the jungle very soon, if not immediately.”
“That’s true,” she said. “But there’s something else you should know, also. There was a moment this morning when I thought I could throw away everything—just to be with you.”
“No, not you, Gretchen.”
“Yes, me. I could feel it sweeping me away, the way the music once did. And if you were to say ‘Come with me,’ even now, I might go. If this world of yours really existed …” She broke off with another little shrug, tossing her hair a little and then smoothing it back behind her shoulder. “The meaning of chastity is not to fall in love,” she said, her focus sharpening as she looked at me. “I could fall in love with you. I know I could.”
She broke off, and then said in a low, troubled voice, “You could become my god. I know that’s true.”
This frightened me, yet I felt at once a shameless pleasure and satisfaction, a sad pride. I tried not to yield to the feeling of slow physical excitement. After all, she didn’t know what she was saying. She couldn’t know. But there was something powerfully convincing in her voice and in her manner.
“I’m going back,” she said in the same voice, full of certitude and humility. “I’ll probably leave within a matter of days. But yes, if you win this battle, if you recover your old form—for the love of God, come to me. I want to … I want to know!”
I didn’t reply. I was too confused. Then I spoke the confusion.
“You know, in a horrible way, when I do come to you and reveal my true self, you may be disappointed.”
“How could that be?”
“You think me a sublime human being for the spiritual content of all I’ve said to you. You see me as some sort of blessed lunatic spilling truth with error the way a mystic might. But I’m not human. And when you know it, maybe you’ll hate it.”
“No, I could never hate you. And to know that all you’ve said is true? That would be … a miracle.”
“Perhaps, Gretchen. Perhaps. But remember what I said. We are a vision without revelation. We are a miracle without meaning. Do you really want that cross along with so many others?”
She didn’t answer. She was weighing my words. I could not imagine what they meant to her. I reached for her hand, and she let me take it, folding her fingers gently around mine, her eyes still constant as she looked at me.
“There is no God, is there, Gretchen?”
“No, there isn’t,” she whispered.
I wanted to laugh and to weep. I sat back, laughing softly to myself and looking at her, at the calm, statuesque manner in which she sat there, the light of the fire caught in her hazel eyes.
“You don’t know what you’ve done for me,” she said. “You don’t know how much it has meant. I am ready—ready to go back now.”
I nodded.
“Then it won’t matter, will it, my beautiful one, if we get into that bed together again. For surely we should do it.”
“Yes, we should do that, I think,” she answered.
It was almost dark when I left her quietly to take the phone by its long cord into the little bath and call my New York agent. Once again, the number rang and rang. I was just about to give up, and turn again to my man in Paris, when a voice came on the line, and slowly let me know in halting awkward terms that my New York representative was indeed no longer alive. He had died by violence several nights ago in his office high above Madison Avenue. Robbery had now been affirmed as the motive for the attack; his computer and all his files had been stolen.
I was so stunned that I could make no answer to the helpful voice on the phone. At last I managed to collect myself sufficiently to put a few questions.
On Wednesday night, about eight o’clock, the crime had occurred. No, no one knew the extent of damage done by the theft of the files. Yes, unfortunately the poor man had suffered.
“Awful, awful situation,” said the voice. “If you were in New York, you couldn’t avoid knowing about it. Every paper in town had the story. They were calling it a vampire killing. The man’s body was entirely drained of blood.”
I hung up the phone, and for a long moment sat there in rigid silence. Then I rang Paris. My man there answered after only a small delay.
Thank God I had called, said my man. But please, I must identify myself. No, the code words weren’t enough. What about conversations which had taken place between us in the past? Ah, yes, yes, that was it. Talk, talk, he said. I at once poured out a litany of secrets known only to me and this man, and I could hear his great relief as he at last unburdened himself.
The strangest things had been happening, he said. He’d been contacted twice by someone claiming to be me, who obviously wasn’t. This individual even knew two of our code words used in the past, and gave an elaborate story as to why he did not know the latest ones. Meantime, several electronic orders had come in for shifts of funds, but in every case, the codes were wrong. But not entirely wrong. Indeed, there was every indication that this person was in the process of cracking our system.
“But, Monsieur, let me tell you the simplest part. This man does not speak the same French that you do! I don’t mean to insult you, Monsieur, but your French is rather … how shall
I say, unusual? You speak old-fashioned words. And you put words in unusual order. I know when it is you.”
“I understand exactly,” I said. “Now believe me when I say this. You must not talk to this person anymore. He is capable of reading your mind. He is trying to get the code words from you telepathically. We are going to set up a system, you and I. You will make one transfer to me now … to my bank in New Orleans. But everything must be locked up tight after that. And when I contact you again, I shall use three old-fashioned words. We won’t agree on them … but they will be words you’ve heard me use before and you will know them.”
Of course this was risky. But the point was, this man knew me! I went on to tell him that the thief in question was most dangerous, that he had done violence to my man in New York, and every conceivable personal protection must be taken. I should pay for all this—guards of any number, round the clock. He must err on the side of excess. “You’ll hear from me again, very soon. Remember, old-fashioned words. You’ll know me when you speak to me.”
I put down the phone. I was trembling with rage, unsupportable rage! Ah, the little monster! It is not enough for him to have the body of the god, he must ransack the god’s storehouses. The little fiend, the little imp! And I had been so foolish not to realize that this would happen!
“Oh, you are human all right,” I said to myself. “You are a human idiot!” And oh, to think of the denunciations Louis would heap upon my head before he consented to help me!
And what if Marius knew! Oh, that was too awful to contemplate. Just reach Louis as fast as you can.
I had to obtain a valise, and get to the airport. Mojo would undoubtedly have to travel by crate, and this, too, must be obtained. My farewell to Gretchen would not be the graceful, slow leave-taking I had envisioned. But surely she would understand.
Much was happening within the complex delusionary world of her mysterious lover. It was time to part.
SEVENTEEN
The trip south was a small nightmare. The airport, only just reopened after the repeated storms, had been jammed to overflowing with anxious mortals waiting for their long-delayed flights or come to find their arriving loved ones.
Gretchen gave way to tears, and so did I. A terrible fear had seized her that she would never see me again, and I could not reassure her sufficiently that I would come to her at the Mission of St. Margaret Mary in the jungles of French Guiana, up the Maroni River from St. Laurent. The written address was carefully placed in my pocket along with all numbers relevant to the motherhouse in Caracas, from which the sisters could direct me should I be unable to find the place on my own. She had already booked a midnight flight for the first leg of her return.
“One way or another, I must see you again!” she said to me in a voice that was breaking my heart.
“You will, ma chère,” I said, “that I promise you. I’ll find the mission. I’ll find you.”
The flight itself was hellish. I did little more than lie there in a stupor, waiting for the plane to explode and for my mortal body to be blown to pieces. Drinking large amounts of gin and tonic did not alleviate the fear; and when I did free my mind from it for a few moments at a time, it was only to become obsessed with difficulties facing me. My rooftop apartment, for example, was full of clothes which did not fit me. And I was used to going in through a door on the roof. I had no key now to the street stairway. Indeed, the key was in my nocturnal resting place beneath the Lafayette Cemetery, a secret chamber I could not possibly reach with only a mortal’s strength, for it was blocked with doors at several points which not even a gang of mortal men might have opened.
And what if the Body Thief had been to New Orleans before me? What if he had sacked my rooftop rooms, and stolen all the money hidden there? Not likely. No, but if he had stolen all the files of my poor unfortunate mortal agent in New York … Ah, better to think about the plane exploding. And then there was Louis. What if Louis were not there? What if … And so on it went for the better part of two hours.
At last, we made our rattling, roaring, cumbersome, and terrifying descent, amid a rainstorm of biblical proportions. I collected Mojo, discarding his crate, and leading him boldly into the back of the taxi. And off we drove into the unabated storm, with the mortal driver taking every conceivable risk available to him, as Mojo and I were flung into each other’s arms, more or less, over and over again.
It was near midnight when we finally reached the narrow tree-lined streets of uptown, the rain falling so heavily and steadily that the houses behind their iron fences were scarcely visible. When I saw the dismal, abandoned house of Louis’s property, crowded by the dark trees, I paid the driver, snatched up the valise, and led Mojo out of the cab into the downpour.
It was cold, yes, very cold, but not as bad as the deep, freezing air of Georgetown. Indeed, even in this icy rain, the dark rich foliage of the giant magnolias and the evergreen oaks seemed to make the world more cheerful and bearable. On the other hand, I had never beheld with mortal eyes a dwelling as forlorn as the great massive abandoned house which stood before Louis’s hidden shack.
For one moment as I shaded my eyes from the rain and looked up at those black and empty windows, I felt a terrible irrational fear that no being dwelt in this place, that I was mad, and destined to remain in this weak human body forever.
Mojo leapt the small iron fence just as I leapt it. And together we plowed through the high grass, around the ruins of the old porch, and back into the wet and overgrown garden. The night was full of the noise of the rain, thundering against my mortal ears, and I almost wept when I saw the small house, a great gleaming hulk of wet vines, standing there before me.
In a loud whisper I called Louis’s name. I waited. No sound came from within. Indeed the place seemed on the verge of collapse in its decay. Slowly I approached the door. “Louis,” I said again. “Louis, it is I, Lestat!”
Cautiously I stepped inside amid the heaps and stacks of dusty objects. Quite impossible to see! Yet I made out the desk, the whiteness of the paper, and the candle standing there, and a small book of matches beside it.
With trembling wet fingers, I struggled to strike a match, and only after several efforts succeeded. At last I touched it to the wick, and a thin bright light filled all the room, shining upon the red velvet chair which was mine, and the other worn and neglected objects.
A powerful relief coursed through me. I was here! I was almost safe! And I was not mad. This was my world, this awful cluttered unbearable little place! Louis would come. Louis would have to come before long; Louis was almost here. I all but collapsed in the chair in sheer exhaustion. I laid my hands on Mojo, scratching his head, and stroking his ears.
“We’ve made it, boy,” I said. “And soon we’ll be after that devil. We’ll find a way to deal with him.” I realized I was shivering again, indeed, I was feeling the old telltale congestion in my chest. “Good Lord, not again,” I said. “Louis, come for the love of heaven, come! Wherever you are, come back here now. I need you.”
I was just about to reach into my pocket for one of the many paper handkerchiefs Gretchen had forced upon me, when I realized that a figure was standing exactly at my left, only an inch from the arm of the chair, and that a very smooth white hand was reaching for me. In the same instant, Mojo leapt to his feet, giving forth his worst, most menacing growls, and then appeared to charge the figure.
I tried to cry out, to identify myself, but before my lips were even open, I’d been hurled against the floor, deafened by Mojo’s barking, and I felt the sole of a leather boot pressed to my throat, indeed, to the very bones of my neck, crushing them with such force that surely they were about to be broken.
I couldn’t speak, nor could I free myself. A great piercing cry came from the dog, and then he, too, fell silent, and I heard the muffled sounds of his large body sinking to the floor. Indeed I felt the weight of him on my legs, and I struggled frantically and helplessly in pure terror. All reason left me as I clawed at the foot pinni
ng me down, as I pounded the powerful leg, as I gasped for breath, only hoarse inarticulate growls coming from me.
Louis, it’s Lestat. I’m in the body, the human body.
Harder and harder the foot pressed. I was strangling as the bones were about to be crushed, yet I couldn’t utter one syllable to save myself. And above me in the gloom, I saw his face—the subtle gleaming whiteness of the flesh that did not seem at all to be flesh, the exquisitely symmetrical bones, and the delicate half-closed hand, which hovered in the air, in a perfect attitude of indecision, as the deep-set eyes, fired with a subtle and incandescent green, looked down upon me without the slightest palpable emotion.
With all my soul I cried the words again, but when had he ever been able to divine the thoughts of his victims? I could have done that, but not he! Oh, God help me, Gretchen help me, I was screaming in my soul.
As the foot increased its pressure, perhaps for the final time, all indecision cast aside, I wrenched my head to the right, sucked in one desperate tiny breath, and forced from my constricted throat one hoarse word: “Lestat!” all the while desperately pointing to myself with my right hand and first finger.
It was the last gesture of which I was capable. I was suffocating, and the darkness came rolling over me. Indeed it was bringing a total strangling nausea with it, and just at the moment when I ceased to care in the most lovely light-headed fashion, the pressure ceased, and I found myself rolling over and rising up on my hands, one frantic cough tearing loose from me after another.
“For the love of God,” I cried, spitting the words in between my hoarse painful choking breaths, “I’m Lestat. I’m Lestat in this body! Couldn’t you have given me a chance to speak? Do you kill any hapless mortal who blunders into your little house? What of the ancient laws of hospitality, you bloody fool! Why the hell don’t you put iron bars on your doors!” I struggled to my knees, and suddenly the nausea won out. I vomited a filthy stream of spoiled food into the dirt and the dust, and then shrank back from it, chilled and miserable, staring up at him.