by Rice, Anne
“No, not to hurt her. But to lay the decision in her hands.”
“Monsieur? May I help you?”
I looked up at the old man standing in front of me, the doctor, with the stained whiskers and the tiny spectacles. No, not this doctor! Where had he come from? I stared at the name tag. This is French Guiana. That’s why he’s speaking French. And there is no child at the end of the ward, sitting in any chair.
“To see Gretchen,” I whispered. “Sister Marguerite.” I had thought she was in this building, that I’d glimpsed her through the windows. I knew she was here.
Dull noises at the far end of the ward. He can’t hear them but I can hear them. She’s coming. I caught her scent suddenly, mingled with the scent of the children, of the old man.
But even with these eyes, I couldn’t see in the intolerable gloom. Where was the light in this place coming from? She had just extinguished the tiny electric lamp at the far door, and she came now down the length of the ward past bed after bed, her steps quick though dogged, her head bowed. The doctor made a little weary gesture, and shuffled past me.
Don’t stare at the stained whiskers; don’t stare at the spectacles, or the rounded hump of his bent back. Why, you saw the plastic name tag on his pocket. He is no ghost!
The screen door thumped softly behind him, as he shambled away.
In the thin darkness, she stood. How beautiful her wavy hair, pulled back from her smooth forehead and her large steady eyes. She saw my shoes before she saw me. Sudden awareness of the stranger, the pale soundless figure—not so much as a breath comes from me—in the absolute stillness of the night, where he does not belong.
The doctor had vanished. It seemed the shadows had swallowed him, but surely he was out there somewhere in the dark.
I stood against the light from the office. Her scent was overpowering me—blood and the clean perfume of a living being. God, to see her with this vision—to see the glistening beauty of her cheeks. But I was blocking the light, wasn’t I, for the door was very small. Could she see the features of my face clearly enough? Could she see the eerie unnatural color of my eyes?
“Who are you?” It was a low, wary whisper. She stood far away from me, stranded in the aisle, looking up at me from beneath her dark knitted brows.
“Gretchen,” I answered. “It’s Lestat. I’ve come as I promised I would come.”
Nothing stirred in the long narrow ward. The beds appeared frozen behind their veils of netting. Yet the light moved in the sparkling sacks of fluid, like so many silvery little lamps glimmering in the dull close dark. I could hear the faint, steady respiration of the small sleeping bodies. And a dull rhythmic sound like a child playfully thumping the leg of chair over and over with the back of her tiny heel.
Slowly, Gretchen raised her right hand and laid her fingers instinctively and protectively against her chest, at the base of her throat. Her pulse quickened. I saw her fingers close as if over a locket, and then I saw the light glinting on the thin little thread of gold chain.
“What is that around your neck?”
“Who are you?” she asked again, her whisper scraping bottom, her lips trembling as she spoke. The dim light from the office behind me caught in her eyes. She stared at my face, my hands.
“It’s me, Gretchen. I won’t hurt you. It’s the farthest thing from my mind to hurt you. I’ve come because I promised I would come.”
“I … I don’t believe you.” She backed away on the wooden floor, her rubber heels making the softest sound.
“Gretchen, don’t be frightened of me. I wanted you to know that what I told you was true.” I spoke so softly. Could she hear me?
I could see her struggling to clear her vision as only seconds ago I had struggled to clear my own. Her heart beat fiercely inside her, breasts moving beautifully beneath the stiff white cotton, the rich blood rising suddenly in her face.
“I’m here, Gretchen. I’ve come to thank you. Here, let me give you this for your mission.”
Stupidly, I reached into my pockets; I withdrew the lucre of the Body Thief in thick handfuls and held it out, my fingers trembling as her fingers trembled, the money looking soiled and foolish, like so much rubbish.
“Take it, Gretchen. Here. It will help the children.” I turned and saw the candle again—that same candle! Why the candle? I laid the money down beside it, hearing the boards creak under my weight as I stepped to the little table.
As I turned to look back at her, she came towards me, fearfully, eyes wide.
“Who are you?” she whispered for the third time. How large her eyes, how dark the pupils, as they danced over me, like fingers drawn to something that would burn them. “I’m asking you again to tell me the truth!”
“Lestat, whom you nursed in your own house, Gretchen. Gretchen, I’ve recovered my true form. I came because I promised you I would come.”
I could scarcely bear it, my old anger kindling as the fear intensified in her, as her shoulders stiffened and her arms came tightly together, and the hand clenching the chain at her neck began to shake.
“I don’t believe you,” she said, in the same strangled whisper, her entire body recoiling though she did not even take a step.
“No, Gretchen. Don’t look at me in fear or as if you despise me. What have I done to you that you should look at me that way? You know my voice. You know what you did for me. I came to thank you—”
“Liar!”
“No, that’s not true. I came because … because I wanted to see you again.”
Lord God, was I weeping? Were my emotions now as volatile as my power? And she would see the blood in streaks on my face and it would scare her even more. I could not bear the look in her eyes.
I turned, and stared at the little candle. I struck the wick with my invisible will and saw the flame leap up, a tiny yellow tongue. Mon Dieu, that same play of shadow on the wall. She gasped as she stared at it and back at me, as the illumination spread around us and she saw for the first time very clearly and unmistakably the eyes that were fixed upon her, the hair that framed the face which looked at her, the gleaming fingernails of my hands, the white teeth just visible perhaps behind my parted lips.
“Gretchen, don’t be afraid of me. In the name of truth, look at me. You made me promise I would come. Gretchen, I didn’t lie to you. You saved me. I am here, and there is no God, Gretchen, you told me so. From anyone else it wouldn’t have mattered, but you said it yourself.”
Her hands went to her lips as she drew back, the little chain falling loose so that I saw the gold cross in the candle’s light. Oh, thank God, a cross not a locket! She stepped back again. She could not stop the impulsive motion.
Her words came in a low faltering whisper:
“Get away from me, unclean spirit! Get out of this house of God!”
“I won’t hurt you!”
“Get away from these little ones!”
“Gretchen. I won’t hurt the children.”
“In the name of God, get away from me … go.” Her right hand groped again for the cross and she held it towards me, her face flushed and her lips wet and loose and trembling in her hysteria, her eyes devoid of reason as she spoke again. I saw it was a crucifix with the tiny twisted body of the dead Christ.
“Go out of this house. God himself protects it. He protects the children. Go.”
“In the name of truth, Gretchen,” I answered, my voice as low as hers, and as full of feeling. “I lay with you! I am here.”
“Liar,” she hissed. “Liar!” Her body was shaking so violently, it seemed she would lose her balance and fall.
“No, it’s the truth. If nothing else is true, it’s true. Gretchen, I won’t hurt the children. I won’t hurt you.”
In another instant, surely, she would lose her reason altogether, helpless screams would break from her, and the whole night would hear her, and every poor soul of the compound would come outdoors to heed her, to take up perhaps the very same cry.
But she remained
there, shaking all over, and only dry sobs came suddenly from her open mouth.
“Gretchen, I’ll go now, I’ll leave you if that’s what you really want. But I kept my promise to you! Is there nothing more I can do?”
A little cry came from one of the beds behind her, and then a moan from another, and she turned her head frantically this way and that.
Then she bolted towards me, and past me through the small office, papers flying off the desk as she brushed past it, the screen door banging behind her as she ran out into the night.
I heard her distant sobbing as, in a daze, I turned around.
I saw the rain falling in a thin soundless mist. I saw her far across the clearing already and racing towards the chapel doors.
I told you you would hurt her.
I turned back and looked down the shadowy length of the ward.
“You’re not there. I’m done with you!” I whispered.
The light of the candle showed her clearly now even though she remained at the far end of the room. She was swinging her white-stockinged leg still, heel of her black slipper striking the leg of the chair.
“Go away,” I said as gently as I could. “It’s over.” The tears were running down my face, blood tears. Had Gretchen seen them?
“Go away,” I said again. “It’s finished and I’m going too.”
It seemed she smiled, but she did not smile. Her face became the picture of all innocence, the face of the dream locket. And in the stillness, as I stood transfixed, looking at her, the entire image remained but ceased altogether to move. Then it dissolved.
I saw only an empty chair.
Slowly I turned back to the door. I wiped at my tears again, hating them, and put the handkerchief away.
Flies buzzed against the screen of the door. How clear the rain was, pelting the earth now. There came that soft swelling sound as the rain came down harder, as if the sky had slowly opened its mouth and sighed. Something forgotten. What was it? The candle, ah, blow out the candle, lest a fire start and hurt these tender little ones!
And look at the far end—the little blond child in the oxygen tent, the sheet of crinkled plastic flashing as if made up of bits and pieces of light. How could you have been so foolish as to make a flame in this room?
I put out the light with a pinch of my fingers. I emptied all my pockets. I laid down all the soiled and curling bills, hundreds upon hundreds of dollars, and the few coins I found as well.
And then I went out, and I walked slowly past the chapel with its open doors. Through the gentle downpour, I heard her praying, her low rapid whispers, and then through the open entrance, I saw her kneeling before the altar, the reddened fire of a candle flickering beyond her, as she held her arms outstretched in the form of a cross.
I wanted to go. It seemed in the depths of my bruised soul I wanted nothing more. But something again held me. I had smelled the sharp unmistakable scent of fresh blood.
It came from the chapel, and it was not the blood pumping within her, it was blood that was flowing free from a new wound.
I drew closer, careful not to make the slightest noise, until I stood in the chapel door. The smell grew stronger. And then I saw the blood dripping from her outstretched hands. I saw it on the floor, flowing in rivulets from her feet.
“Deliver me from Evil, O Lord, take me to you, Sacred Heart of Jesus, gather me into your arms …”
She did not see or hear me as I drew closer. A soft glow suffused her face, made of the light of the flickering candle, and of the radiance from inside her, the great consuming rapture which held her now, and removed her from all around her, including the dark figure at her side.
I looked at the altar. I saw the giant crucifix high above it, and below, the tiny gleaming tabernacle, and the burning candle deep in its red glass which meant the Blessed Sacrament was there. A gust of breeze moved through the open chapel doors. It caught the bell above and a faint tinny peal broke from it, barely audible above the sound of the breeze itself.
I looked down at her again, at her upturned face with its blind eyes at half mast, and her mouth so slack though the words still came from it.
“Christ, my beloved Christ, gather me into your arms.”
And through the haze of my tears, I watched the red blood welling and flowing red and thick and copious from her open palms.
There were hushed voices in the compound. Doors opened and closed. I heard the sound of people running on the packed earth. When I turned I saw that dark shapes had gathered at the entrance—a cluster of anxious female figures. I heard a whispered word in French which meant “stranger.” And then the muffled cry:
“Devil!”
Down the aisle I went, right towards them, forcing them perhaps to scatter, though I never touched them or looked at them, and hurried past them and out into the rain.
Then I turned and looked back. I saw her kneeling still, as they gathered around her, and I heard their soft reverent cries of “Miracle!” and “Stigmata!” They were making the Sign of the Cross and dropping to their knees around her, as the prayers continued to fall in that dull trancelike voice from her lips.
“And the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word was made flesh.”
“Good-bye, Gretchen,” I whispered.
And then I was gone, free and alone, into the warm embrace of savage night.
TWENTY-FIVE
I should have gone on to Miami that night. I knew that David might need me. And of course I had no idea where James might be.
But I had no heart for it—I was far too badly shaken—and I found myself before morning quite far east of the little country of French Guiana, yet still in the hungry sprawling jungles, and thirsting, but with no hope of satisfaction on that account.
About an hour before dawn I came upon an ancient temple—a great rectangle of pitted stone—so overgrown with vines, and other rankled foliage that it was perhaps altogether invisible even to mortals who might pass a few feet away. But as there was no road or even a footpath through this part of the jungle, I sensed that no one had passed here in centuries. It was my secret, this place.
Except for the monkeys, that is, who had waked with the coming light. A veritable tribe of them had laid siege to the crude building, whooping and screeching and swarming all over the long flat roof, and the sloping sides. In a dull listless fashion I watched them, even smiling, as they went about their antics. Indeed, the whole jungle had gone into a rebirth. The chorus of the birds was much louder than it had been in the hours of total darkness, and as the sky paled, I saw myriad shades of green all around me. And with a shock I realized I wasn’t going to see the sun.
My stupidity on this count surprised me somewhat. But what creatures of habit we are. Ah, but wasn’t this early light enough? It was pure joy to be in my old body …
… unless I remembered the look of pure revulsion on Gretchen’s face.
A thick mist rose from the floor of the jungle, catching this precious illumination and diffusing it even to the tiniest nooks and crannies beneath shuddering flowers and leaves.
My sadness deepened as I looked around me; or more truly I felt raw and as if I’d been skinned alive. “Sadness” is too mild and sweet a word. I thought again and again of Gretchen, but only in wordless images. And when I thought of Claudia I felt a numbness, a silent obdurate remembrance of the words I’d spoken to her in my fever dreams.
Like a nightmare the old doctor with the stained whiskers. The doll-child in the chair. No, not there. Not there. Not there.
And what did it matter if they had been? It didn’t matter at all.
Beneath these deep enervating emotions, I was not unhappy; and to be aware of this, to know it truly, was perhaps a wondrous thing. Ah, yes, just my old self again.
Had to tell David all about this jungle! David must go to Rio before he returned to England. I would go with him, perhaps.
Perhaps.
I found two doors in the temple. The first was blocked wi
th heavy irregular stones. But the other lay open, for the stones had long ago fallen away into a shapeless heap. Climbing over them, I made my way down a deep staircase, and then through several passages, until I came upon chambers to which no light penetrated at all. It was in one of these, very cool and utterly removed from the noises of the jungle, that I lay down to sleep.
Tiny slithering things dwelt there. As I laid my face against the damp cool floor, I felt these little creatures moving around the tips of my fingers. I heard their rustling. And then the heavy silken weight of a snake moved across my ankle. All this made me smile.
How my old mortal body would have cringed and shaken. But then my mortal eyes could have never seen into this deep place.
I began to tremble suddenly, to cry again softly, thinking of Gretchen. I knew there would never again be a dream of Claudia.
“What did you want of me?” I whispered. “Did you really think I could save my soul?” I saw her as I had in my delirium, in that old New Orleans hospital when I’d taken her by the shoulders. Or had we been in the old hotel? “I told you I would do it again. I told you.”
Something had been saved at that moment. The dark damnation of Lestat had been saved, and was now forever intact.
“Good-bye, darlings,” I whispered again.
And then I slept.
TWENTY-SIX
Miami—ah, my beautiful southern metropolis, lying under the polished sky of the Caribbean, no matter what say the various maps! The air seemed sweeter even than in the islands—sweeping gently over the inevitable crowds of Ocean Drive.
Hurrying through the fancy art deco lobby of the Park Central, and to the rooms I kept there, I stripped off my jungle-worn clothes, and went into my own closets for a white turtleneck shirt, belted khaki jacket and pants, and a pair of smooth brown leather boots. It felt good to be free of clothing purchased by the Body Thief, well fitted or not.
Then I immediately rang the desk and discovered that David Talbot had been in the hotel since yesterday and was now waiting for me on the porch of Bailey’s Restaurant down the street.