The Tale of the Body Thief tvc-4

by Anne Rice

  I don't think so, but he had described well the flowers-the shrimp plant with its tiny blossoms, and the orchid tree and the ginger lilies, yes, those fierce red lilies with their delicate shivering petals, and the ferns nestled in the deep glades, and the waxen bird-of- paradise and the tall stiff pussy willows, and the tiny yellow-throated blossoms of the trumpet vine.

  We should walk there together, he had said.

  Well, that we would do. Soft the crunch of the gravel. And oh, never had the high swaying coconut palms looked so beautiful as on these bluffs.

  I waited until it was past midnight before I made my descent upon the sprawling seaside hotel. The courtyard was as he had said, full of pink azaleas and large waxen elephant ears and dark glossy shrubs.

  I passed through the empty darkened dining room and its long open porches and went down on the beach. I went far out in the shallows, so that I might look back from a distance upon the bungalow rooms with their roofed verandas. I found him at once.

  The doors to the little patio were completely pulled back, and the yellow light spilled out on the small paved enclosure with its painted table and chairs. Inside, as if on a lighted stage, he sat at a small desk, facing the night and the water, typing away on a small portable computer, the tight small clicking of the keys carrying in the silence, even over the whisper of the lazy softly foaming surf.

  He was naked except for a pair of white beach shorts. His skin was very darkly golden as though he spent his days sleeping in the sun. Streaks of yellow shone in his dark brown hair. There was a glow to his naked shoulders and smooth, hairless chest. Very firm muscles at his waist. A slight golden sheen came from the down on his thighs and legs and the very scant bits of hair on the backs of his hands.

  I hadn't even noticed that hair when I was alive. Or maybe I hadn't liked it. Didn't really know. I liked it now well enough. And that he seemed a little more slender than I had been hi that frame. Yes, all the bones of the body were more visible, conforming I suppose to some modern style of health which says we must be fashionably underfed. It suited him; it suited the body; I suppose it suited them both.

  The room was very neat behind him and rustic in the style of the islands with its beamed ceiling and rose-tiled floor. The bed was covered in a gay pastel fabric printed with a jagged geometric Indian design. The armoire and chests were white and decorated with brightly painted flowers. The many simple lamps ' gave off a generous light.

  I had to smile though that he sat amid all this luxury, typing away-David the scholar, dark eyes dancing with the ideas inside his head.

  Drawing nearer, I noted that he was very clean-shaven. His nails had been trimmed and buffed, perhaps by a manicurist. His hair was still the same full wavy mop I'd worn so carelessly when I'd been in this body, but it, too, had been trimmed and had an altogether more pleasing shape. There lay his copy of Goethe's Faust beside him, open, a pen lying across it, and many of the pages folded, or marked with small silver paper clips.

  I was still taking my time with this inspection-noting the bottle of Scotch beside him, and the thick-bottomed crystal glass, and the pack of small thin cigars-when he looked up and saw me there.

  I stood on the sand, well outside the little porch with its low cement railing, but quite visible in the light.

  "Lestat," he whispered. His face brightened beautifully. He rose at once and came towards me with the familiar graceful stride. "Thank God you've come."

  "You think so?" I said. I thought of that moment in New Orleans when I'd watched the Body Thief scurrying out of the Cafe du Monde and thought that body could move like a panther with someone else inside.

  He wanted to take me in his arms, but when I stiffened and moved just a little away, he stood still, and folded his arms across his chest-a gesture that seemed to belong entirely to this body, as I couldn't remember ever seeing him do it before we'd met in Miami. These arms were heavier than his old arms. The chest was broader too.

  How naked it looked. How darkly pink the nipples. How fierce and clear his eyes.

  "I've missed you," he said.

  "Really? Surely you haven't been living as a recluse here?"

  "No, I've seen too much of others, I think. Too many little supper parties in Bridgetown. And my friend Aaron has come and gone several times. Other members have been here." He paused. "I can't bear to be around them, Lestat. I can't bear to be at Talbot Manor among the servants, pretending to be a cousin of my old self. There's something really appalling about • what's happened. Sometimes I can't bear to look in the mirror. But I don't want to talk about that side of it."

  "Why not?"

  "This is a temporary period, one of adjustment. These shocks will eventually pass. I have so much to do. Oh, I'm so glad you've come. I had a feeling you would. I almost left for Rio this morning, but I had the distinct feeling I'd see you tonight."

  "Is that so."

  "What's the matter? Why the dark face? Why are you angry?"

  "I don't know. I don't really require a reason to be angry these days. And I ought to be happy. I will be soon. Always happens, and after all-it's an important night."

  He stared at me, trying to figure what I meant by these words, or more properly what was the right thing for him to reply.

  "Come inside," he said finally.

  "Why not sit here on the porch in the shadows? I like the breeze."

  "Certainly, as you say."

  He went into the little room to take up the bottle of Scotch, pour himself a drink, and then he joined me at the wooden table. I had just seated myself in one of the chairs and was looking directly out over the sea.

  "So what have you been doing?" I asked.

  "Ah, where do I begin?" he asked. "I've been writing about it continuously-trying to describe all the little sensations, the new discoveries."

  "Is there any doubt that you're securely anchored in the body?"

  "None." He took a deep drink of his Scotch. "And there seems to be no deterioration of any kind. You know, I feared that. I feared it even when you were in this body, but I didn't want to say it. We had enough to worry about, didn't we?" He turned and looked at me, and quite suddenly he smiled. In a low stunned voice he said, "You're looking at a man you know from the inside out."

  "No, not really," I said. "Tell me, how do you deal with the perception of strangers ... those who don't guess. Do women invite you into their bedrooms? What about young men?"

  He looked out to the sea, and there was a little bitterness in his face suddenly. "You know the answer. I can't make a vocation of those encounters. They mean nothing to me. I don't say I haven't enjoyed a few safaris into the bedroom. I have more important things to do, Lestat, far more important things to do. "There are places I want to go-lands and cities I always dreamt I would visit. Rio is only the beginning. There are mysteries I must solve; things I must find out."

  "Yes, I can imagine."

  "You said something very important to me when we were together last. You said, surely you won't give the Talamasca this life too. Well, I won't give it to them. What's paramount in my mind is that I must not waste it. That I must do something of absolute importance with it. Of course the direction won't come to me all at once. There has to be a period of traveling, of learning, of evaluation, before I make a decision as to direction. And as I engage in my studies, I write. I write everything down. Sometimes the record itself seems the goal."

  "I know."

  "There are many things I want to ask you. I've been plagued with questions."

  "Why? What sort of questions?"

  "About what you experienced those few days, and whether you have the slightest regret that we ended the venture so soon."

  "What venture? You mean my life as a mortal man?"

  "Yes."

  "No regret."

  He started to speak again, and then broke off. Then again he spoke. "What did you take back with you?" he asked in a low fervent voice.

  I turned and looked at him again. Yes, the fa
ce was definitely more angular. Was it personality which had sharpened it and given it more definition. Perfect, I thought.

  "I'm sorry, David, my mind wandered. Ask me this question again."

  "What did you take back with you?" he said, with his old familiar patience. "What lesson?"

  "I don't know that it was a lesson," I said. "And it may take time for me to understand whatever I learnt."

  "Yes, I see, of course."

  "I can tell you that I'm aware of a new lust for adventure, for wandering, the very things you describe. I want to go back to the rain forests. I saw them so briefly when I went to visit Gretchen. There was a temple there. I want to see it again."

  "You never told me what happened."

  "Ah, yes, I told you but you were Raglan at the time. The Body Thief witnessed that little confession. Why on earth would he want to steal such a thing? But I'm drifting off the point. There are so many places that I, too, want to go."

  "Yes."

  "It's a lust again for time and for the future, for the mysteries of the natural world. For being the watcher that I became that long-ago night in Paris, when I was forced into it. I lost my illusions. I lost my favorite lies. You might say I revisited that moment and was reborn to darkness of my own free will. And such a will!"

  "Ah, yes, I understand."

  "Do you? That's good if you do."

  "Why do you speak that way?" He lowered his voice and spoke slowly. "Do you need my understanding as much as I need yours?"

  "You've never understood me," I said. "Oh, it's not an accusation. You live with illusions about me, which make it possible for you to visit with me, to speak with me, even to shelter me and help me. You couldn't do that if you really knew what I was. I tried to tell you. When I spoke of my dreams . . ."

  "You're wrong. That's your vanity talking," he said. "You love to imagine you're worse than you are. What dreams? I don't remember your ever speaking to me of dreams."

  I smiled. "You don't? Think back, David. My dream of the tiger. I was afraid for you.

  And now the menace of the dream will be fulfilled."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I'm going to do it to you, David. I'm going to bring you to me."

  "What?" His voice dropped to a whisper. "What are you saying to me?" He leant forward, trying to see clearly the expression on my face. But the light was behind us, and his mortal vision wasn't sharp enough for that.

  "I just told you. I'm going to do it to you, David."

  "Why, why are you saying this?"

  "Because it's true," I said. I stood up and pushed the chair aside with my leg.

  He stared up at me. Only now did his body register the danger. I saw the fine muscles of his arms tense. His eyes were fixed on mine.

  "Why are you saying this? You couldn't do this to me," he said.

  "Of course I could. And I shall. Now. All along I've told you I was evil. I've told you I'm the very devil. The devil in your Faust, the devil of your visions, the tiger in my dream!"

  "No, that's not true." He climbed to his feet, knocking the chair over behind him, and almost losing his balance. He stepped back into the room. "You're not the devil, and you know that you're not. Don't do this to me! I forbid it!" He clenched his teeth on the last words. "You are in your own heart as human as I am. And you will not do it."

  "The hell I won't," I said. I laughed. I couldn't help it suddenly. "David the Superior General," I said. "David the Can-domble priest."

  He backed across the tiled floor, the light fully illuminating his face, and the tense powerful muscles of his arms.

  "Want to fight me? It's useless. There's no force on earth that can stop me from doing this."

  "I'll die first," he said, in a low strangled voice. His face was darkening, flushed with blood. Ah, David's blood.

  "I won't let you die. Why don't you call on your old Brazilian spirits? You don't remember how to do it, do you? Your heart's not in it. Well, it wouldn't do you the slightest good if you did."

  "You can't do this," he said. He was struggling for calm. "You can't repay me in this fashion."

  "Oh, but this is how the devil repays his helpers!"

  "Lestat, I helped you against Raglan! I helped you recover this body, and what was your pledge to me of loyalty! What were your words?"

  "I lied to you, David. I lie to myself and to others. That's what my little excursion in the flesh taught me. I lie. You surprise me, David. You're angry, so very angry, but you're not afraid. You're like me, David-you and Claudia-the only ones who really have my strength."

  "Claudia," he said, with a little nod. "Ah, yes, Claudia. I have something for you, my dear friend." He moved away, deliberately turning his back on me, letting me see the fearlessness of this gesture, and he went slowly, refusing to hurry, to the chest beside the bed. When he turned around again he had a small locket in his hands. "From the Motherhouse. The locket you described to me."

  "Oh, yes, the locket. Give it to me."

  Only now did I see how his hands shook as he struggled with the little oval gold case.

  And the fingers, he did not know them so very well, did he? At last he had it opened and he thrust it at me, and I looked down at the painted miniature-her face, her eyes, her golden curls. A child staring back at me out of the mask of innocence. Or was this a mask?

  And slowly, out of the vast dim vortex of memory, came the moment when I had first laid eyes upon that trinket and upon its golden chain . . . when in the dark muddy street, I had happened upon the plague-ridden hovel where her mother lay dead, and the mortal child herself had become food for the vampire, a tiny white body shivering helplessly in Louis's arms.

  How I'd laughed at him, how I'd pointed my finger, and then snatched up from the stinking bed the body of the dead woman-Claudia's mother-and danced with it round and round the room. And there gleaming on her throat had been the golden chain and the locket, for not even the boldest thief would have entered that hovel to steal the bauble from the very maw of the plague.

  With my left hand I'd caught it, just as I let the poor body drop. The clasp had broken, and I'd swung the chain over my head as if waving a little trophy of the moment and then dropped it in my pocket as I stepped over the body of the dying Claudia and ran after Louis through the street.

  It had been months after that I'd found it in that same pocket, and I'd held it to the light. The living child she'd been when that portrait was painted, but the Dark Blood had given her the very saccharine perfection of the artist. It was my Claudia, and in a trunk I'd left it, and how it came to be with the Talamasca, or anywhere, I did not know.

  I held it in my hands. I looked up. It was as though I'd just been there, back in that ruined place, and now I was here, and staring at him. He'd been speaking to me but I hadn't heard him, and now his voice came clear:

  "You would do it to me?" he demanded, the timbre betraying him now as his trembling hands betrayed him. "Look at her. You would do it to me?"

  I looked at her tiny face, and back to him.

  "Yes, David," I said. "I told her I would do it again. And I will do it to you."

  I pitched the locket out of the room, over the porch, past the sand, and into the sea. The tiny chain was like a scratch of gold on the fabric of the sky for an instant then it disappeared as if into the luminous light.

  He drew back with a speed that astonished me, cleaving to the wall.

  "Don't do this, Lestat."

  "Don't fight me, old friend. You waste your effort. You have a long night of discovery ahead."

  "You won't do it!" he cried, voice so low it was a guttural roar. He lunged at me, as if he thought he could knock me off balance, and both his fists struck my chest, and I did not move. Back he fell, bruised from his efforts and staring at me with pure outrage in his watering eyes. Once again the blood had flooded into his cheeks, darkening his entire visage. And only now, as he saw for himself the sheer hopelessness of defense, did he try to flee.

  I grabbed
him by the neck before he reached the porch. I let my fingers massage the flesh as he struggled wildly, like an animal, to tear my grip away and pull himself loose. Slowly I lifted him, and cradling the back of his head effortlessly with my left hand, I drove my teeth through the fine, fragrant young skin of his neck, and caught the first bubbling jet of blood.

  Ah, David, my beloved David. Never had I descended into a soul I knew so well. How thick and wondrous the images that enveloped me: the soft beautiful sunlight slicing through the mangrove forest, the crunch of the high grass on the veldt, the boom of the great gun, and the shiver of the earth beneath the elephant's pounding feet. It was all there: all the summer rains washing endlessly through the jungles, and the water swimming up the pilings and over the boards of the porch, and the sky flashing with lightning-and his heart pounding beneath it with rebellion, with recrimination, you betray me, you betray me, you take me against my will-and the deep rich salty heat of the blood itself.

  I flung him backwards. That was enough for the first drink. I watched him struggle to his knees. What had he seen in those seconds? Did he know now how dark and willful was my soul?

  "You love me?" I said. "I am your only friend in this world?"

  I watched him crawl across the tiles. He grabbed for the footboard of the bed and raised himself, then fell back, dizzy, to the floor. Again, he struggled.

  "Ah, let me help you!" I said. I spun him around and lifted him and sank my teeth in those very same tiny wounds.

  "For love of God, stop, don't do it. Lestat, I'm begging you, don't do it."

  Beg in vain, David. Oh, how scrumptious this young body, these hands shoving at me, even in the trance, what a will you have, my beautiful friend. And now we are in old Brazil, are we not, we are in the tiny room, and he is calling the names of the Candomble spirits, he is calling, and will the spirits come?

  I let him go. Again he sank on his knees, then keeled over on his side, eyes staring forward. That's enough for the second assault.