by Anne Rice
“It was accomplished. What she thought, I don’t know. But she gave me one of the ground-floor storage rooms where wine was aged, and I am sure she saw Lestat and me bringing the coffins. I not only locked the door but barricaded it.
“Lestat was up the next evening when I awoke.”
“Then she kept her word.”
“Yes. Only she had gone a step farther. She had not only respected our locked door; she had locked it again from without.”
“And the stories of the slaves … she’d heard them.”
“Yes, she had. Lestat was the first to discover we were locked in, however. He became furious. He had planned to get to New Orleans as fast as possible. He was now completely suspicious of me. ‘I only needed you as long as my father lived,’ he said, desperately trying to find some opening somewhere. The place was a dungeon.
“ ‘Now I won’t put up with anything from you, I warn you.’ He didn’t even wish to turn his back on me. I sat there straining to hear voices in the rooms above, wishing that he would shut up, not wishing to confide for a moment my feeling for Babette or my hopes.
“I was also thinking something else. You ask me about feeling and detachment. One of its aspects—detachment with feeling, I should say—is that you can think of two things at the same time. You can think that you are not safe and may die, and you can think of something very abstract and remote. And this was definitely so with me. I was thinking at that moment, wordlessly and rather deeply, how sublime friendship between Lestat and me might have been; how few impediments to it there would have been, and how much to be shared. Perhaps it was the closeness of Babette which caused me to feel it, for how could I truly ever come to know Babette, except, of course, through the one final way; to take her life, to become one with her in an embrace of death when my soul would become one with her heart and nourished with it. But my soul wanted to know Babette without my need to kill, without robbing her of every breath of life, every drop of blood. But Lestat, how we might have known each other, had he been a man of character, a man of even a little thought. The old man’s words came back to me; Lestat a brilliant pupil, a lover of books that had been burned. I knew only the Lestat who sneered at my library, called it a pile of dust, ridiculed relentlessly my reading, my meditations.
“I became aware now that the house over our heads was quieting. Now and then feet moved and the boards creaked and the light in the cracks of the boards gave a faint, uneven illumination. I could see Lestat feeling along the brick walls, his hard enduring vampire face a twisted mask of human frustration. I was confident we must part ways at once, that I must if necessary put an ocean between us. And I realized that I’d tolerated him this long because of self-doubt. I’d fooled myself into believing I stayed for the old man, and for my sister and her husband. But I stayed with Lestat because I was afraid he did know essential secrets as a vampire which I could not discover alone and, more important, because he was the only one of my kind whom I knew. He had never told me how he had become a vampire or where I might find a single other member of our kind. This troubled me greatly then, as much as it had for four years. I hated him and wanted to leave him; yet could I leave him?
“Meantime, as all this passed through my thoughts, Lestat continued his diatribe: he didn’t need me; he wasn’t going to put up with anything, especially not any threat from the Frenieres. We had to be ready when that door opened. ‘Remember!’ he said to me finally. ‘Speed and strength; they cannot match us in that. And fear. Remember always, to strike fear. Don’t be sentimental now! You’ll cost us everything.’
“ ‘You wish to be on your own after this?’ I asked him. I wanted him to say it. I did not have the courage. Or, rather, I did not know my own feelings.
“ ‘I want to get to New Orleans!’ he said. ‘I was simply warning you I don’t need you. But to get out of here we need each other. You don’t begin to know how to use your powers! You have no innate sense of what you are! Use your persuasive powers with this woman if she comes. But if she comes with others, then be prepared to act like what you are.’
“ ‘Which is what?’ I asked him, because it had never seemed such a mystery to me as it did at that time. ‘What am I?’ He was openly disgusted. He threw up his hands.
“ ‘Be prepared …’ he said, now baring his magnificent teeth, ‘to kill!’ He looked suddenly at the boards overhead. ‘They’re going to bed up there, do you hear them?’ After a long silent time during which Lestat paced and I sat there musing, plumbing my mind for what I might do or say to Babette or, deeper still, for the answer to a harder question—what did I feel for Babette?—after a long time, a light flared beneath the door. Lestat was poised to jump whoever should open it. It was Babette alone and she entered with a lamp, not seeing Lestat, who stood behind her, but looking directly at me.
“I had never seen her as she looked then; her hair was down for bed, a mass of dark waves behind her white dressing gown; and her face was tight with worry and fear. This gave it a feverish radiance and made her large brown eyes all the more huge. As I have told you, I loved her strength and honesty, the greatness of her soul. And I did not feel passion for her as you would feel it. But I found her more alluring than any woman I’d known in mortal life. Even in the severe dressing gown, her arms and breasts were round and soft; and she seemed to me an intriguing soul clothed in rich, mysterious flesh. I who am hard and spare and dedicated to a purpose, felt drawn to her irresistibly; and, knowing it could only culminate in death, I turned away from her at once, wondering if when she gazed into my eyes she found them dead and soulless.
“ ‘You are the one who came to me before,’ she said now, as if she hadn’t been sure. ‘And you are the owner of Pointe du Lac. You are!’ I knew as she spoke that she must have heard the wildest stories of last night, and there would be no convincing her of any lie. I had used my unnatural appearance twice to reach her, to speak to her; I could not hide it or minimize it now.
“ ‘I mean you no harm,’ I said to her. ‘I need only a carriage and horses … the horses I left last night in the pasture.’ She didn’t seem to hear my words; she drew closer, determined to catch me in the circle of her light.
“And then I saw Lestat behind her, his shadow merging with her shadow on the brick wall; he was anxious and dangerous. ‘You will give me the carriage?’ I insisted. She was looking at me now, the lamp raised; and just when I meant to look away, I saw her face change. It went still, blank, as if her soul were losing its consciousness. She closed her eyes and shook her head. It occurred to me that I had somehow caused her to go into a trance without any effort on my part. ‘What are you!’ she whispered. ‘You’re from the devil. You were from the devil when you came to me!’
“ ‘The devil!’ I answered her. This distressed me more than I thought I could be distressed. If she believed this, then she would think my counsel bad; she would question herself. Her life was rich and good, and I knew she mustn’t do this. Like all strong people, she suffered always a measure of loneliness; she was a marginal outsider, a secret infidel of a certain sort. And the balance by which she lived might be upset if she were to question her own goodness. She stared at me with undisguised horror. It was as if in horror she forgot her own vulnerable position. And now Lestat, who was drawn to weakness like a parched man to water, grabbed her wrist, and she screamed and dropped the lamp. The flames leaped in the splattered oil, and Lestat pulled her backwards towards the open door. ‘You get the carriage!’ he said to her. ‘Get it now, and the horses. You are in mortal danger; don’t talk of devils!’
“I stomped on the flames and went for Lestat, shouting at him to leave her. He held her by both wrists, and she was furious. ‘You’ll rouse the house if you don’t shut up!’ he said to me. ‘And I’ll kill her! Get the carriage … lead us. Talk to the stable boy!’ he said to her, pushing her into the open air.
“We moved slowly across the dark court, my distress almost unbearable, Lestat ahead of me; and before us both Babet
te, who moved backwards, her eyes peering at us in the dark. Suddenly she stopped. One dim light burned in the house above. ‘I’ll get you nothing!’ she said. I reached for Lestat’s arm and told him I must handle this. ‘She’ll reveal us to everyone unless you let me talk to her,’ I whispered to him.
“ ‘Then get yourself in check,’ he said disgustedly. ‘Be strong. Don’t quibble with her.’
“ ‘You go as I talk … go to the stables and get the carriage and the horses. But don’t kill!’ Whether he’d obey me or not I didn’t know, but he darted away just as I stepped up to Babette. Her face was a mixture of fury and resolution. She said, ‘Get thee behind me, Satan.’ And I stood there before her then, speechless, just holding her in my glance as surely as she held me. If she could hear Lestat in the night she gave no indication. Her hatred for me burned me like fire.
“ ‘Why do you say this to me?’ I asked. ‘Was the counsel I gave you bad? Did I do you harm? I came to help you, to give you strength. I thought only of you, when I had no need to think of you at all.’
“She shook her head. ‘But why, why do you talk to me like this?’ she asked. ‘I know what you’ve done at Pointe du Lac; you’ve lived there like a devil! The slaves are wild with stories! All day men have been on the river road on the way to Pointe du Lac; my husband was there! He saw the house in ruins, the bodies of slaves throughout the orchards, the fields. What are you! Why do you speak to me gently! What do you want of me?’ She clung now to the pillars of the porch and was backing slowly to the staircase. Something moved above in the lighted window.
“ ‘I cannot give you such answers now,’ I said to her. ‘Believe me when I tell you I came to you only to do you good. And would not have brought worry and care to you last night for anything, had I the choice!’ ”
The vampire stopped.
The boy sat forward, his eyes wide. The vampire was frozen, staring off, lost in his thoughts, his memory. And the boy looked down suddenly, as if this were the respectful thing to do. He glanced again at the vampire and then away, his own face as distressed as the vampire’s; and then he started to say something, but he stopped.
The vampire turned towards him and studied him, so that the boy flushed and looked away again anxiously. But then he raised his eyes and looked into the vampire’s eyes. He swallowed, but he held the vampire’s gaze.
“Is this what you want?” the vampire whispered. “Is this what you wanted to hear?”
He moved the chair back soundlessly and walked to the window. The boy sat as if stunned looking at his broad shoulders and the long mass of the cape. The vampire turned his head slightly. “You don’t answer me. I’m not giving you what you want, am I? You wanted an interview. Something to broadcast on the radio.”
“That doesn’t matter. I’ll throw the tapes away if you want!” The boy rose. “I can’t say I understand all you’re telling me. You’d know I was lying if I said I did. So how can I ask you to go on, except to say what I do understand … what I do understand is like nothing I’ve ever understood before.” He took a step towards the vampire. The vampire appeared to be looking down into Divisadero Street. Then he turned his head slowly and looked at the boy and smiled. His face was serene and almost affectionate. And the boy suddenly felt uncomfortable. He shoved his hands into his pockets and turned towards the table. Then he looked at the vampire tentatively and said, “Will you … please go on?”
The vampire turned with folded arms and leaned against the window. “Why?” he asked.
The boy was at a loss. “Because I want to hear it.” He shrugged. “Because I want to know what happened.”
“All right,” said the vampire, with the same smile playing on his lips. And he went back to the chair and sat opposite the boy and turned the recorder just a little and said, “Marvellous contraption, really … so let me go on.
“You must understand that what I felt for Babette now was a desire for communication, stronger than any other desire I then felt … except for the physical desire for … blood. It was so strong in me, this desire, that it made me feel the depth of my capacity for loneliness. When I’d spoken to her before, there had been a brief but direct communication which was as simple and as satisfying as taking a person’s hand. Clasping it. Letting it go gently. All this in a moment of great need and distress. But now we were at odds. To Babette, I was a monster; and I found it horrible to myself and would have done anything to overcome her feeling. I told her the counsel I’d given her was right, that no instrument of the devil could do right even if he chose.
“ ‘I know!’ she answered me. But by this she meant that she could no more trust me than the devil himself. I approached her and she moved back. I raised my hand and she shrank, clutching for the railing. ‘All right, then,’ I said, feeling a terrible exasperation. ‘Why did you protect me last night! Why have you come to me alone!’ What I saw in her face was cunning. She had a reason, but she would by no means reveal it to me. It was impossible for her to speak to me freely, openly, to give me the communication I desired. I felt weary looking at her. The night was already late, and I could see and hear that Lestat had stolen into the wine cellar and taken our caskets, and I had a need to get away; and other needs besides … the need to kill and drink. But it wasn’t that which made me weary. It was something else, something far worse. It was as if this night were only one of thousands of nights, world without end, night curving into night to make a great arching line of which I couldn’t see the end, a night in which I roamed alone under cold, mindless stars. I think I turned away from her and put my hand to my eyes. I felt oppressed and weak suddenly. I think I was making some sound without my will. And then on this vast and desolate landscape of night, where I was standing alone and where Babette was only an illusion, I saw suddenly a possibility that I’d never considered before, a possibility from which I’d fled, rapt as I was with the world, fallen into the senses of the vampire, in love with color and shape and sound and singing and softness and infinite variation. Babette was moving, but I took no note of it. She was taking something from her pocket; her great ring of household keys jingled there. She was moving up the steps. Let her go away, I was thinking. ‘Creature of the devil!’ I whispered. ‘Get thee behind me, Satan,’ I repeated. I turned to look at her now. She was frozen on the steps, with wide suspicious eyes. She’d reached the lantern which hung on the wall, and she held it in her hands just staring at me, holding it tight, like a valuable purse. ‘You think I come from the devil?’ I asked her.
“She quickly moved her left fingers around the hook of the lantern and with her right hand made the Sign of the Cross, the Latin words barely audible to me; and her face blanched and her eyebrows rose when there was absolutely no change because of it. ‘Did you expect me to go up in a puff of smoke?’ I asked her. I drew closer now, for I had gained detachment from her by virtue of my thoughts. ‘And where would I go?’ I asked her. ‘And where would I go, to hell, from whence I came? To the devil, from whom I came?’ I stood at the foot of the steps. ‘Suppose I told you I know nothing of the devil. Suppose I told you that I do not even know if he exists!’ It was the devil I’d seen upon the landscape of my thoughts; it was the devil about whom I thought now. I turned away from her. She wasn’t hearing me as you are now. She wasn’t listening. I looked up at the stars. Lestat was ready, I knew it. It was as if he’d been ready there with the carriage for years; and she had stood upon the step for years. I had the sudden sensation my brother was there and had been there for ages also, and that he was talking to me low in an excited voice, and what he was saying was desperately important but it was going away from me as fast as he said it, like the rustle of rats in the rafters of an immense house. There was a scraping sound and a burst of light. ‘I don’t know whether I come from the devil or not! I don’t know what I am!’ I shouted at Babette, my voice deafening in my own sensitive ears. ‘I am to live to the end of the world, and I do not even know what I am!’ But the light flared before me; it was the lant
ern which she had lit with a match and held now so I couldn’t see her face. For a moment I could see nothing but the light, and then the great weight of the lantern struck me full force in the chest and the glass shattered on the bricks and the flames roared on my legs, in my face. Lestat was shouting from the darkness, ‘Put it out, put it out, idiot. It will consume you!’ And I felt something thrashing me wildly in my blindness. It was Lestat’s jacket. I’d fallen helpless back against the pillar, helpless as much from the fire and the blow as from the knowledge that Babette meant to destroy me, as from the knowledge that I did not know what I was.