The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life

by Talbot, Michael

  “Seventy-two,” she said without hesitation.

  “Good, good, you see, with Ilga algebraic problems are second nature. Now let’s try another. A twenty-decimeter ladder is leaning against a wall. The foot begins to slide away from the wall at three decimeters per second. How fast is the top of the ladder moving down the wall when the foot is ten decimeters from the wall?”

  Once again he stared intimidatingly at me.

  “I don’t know, I—”

  “Ilga?”

  “Three decimeters per second,” she said glibly.

  “Oh, I see,” I interrupted. “It’s a trick question. The number is the same as the rate the ladder begins to slide away from the wall.”

  “Oh, no,” Ilga returned. “It’s just a coincidence that the two numbers are the same. The rates of change are related in the differential equation formed by—”

  “It’s all right, Ilga,” des Esseintes intervened.

  She lowered her head diffidently.

  “You see, Ilga had a complete understanding of calculus before there was even a word for it. There are no mathematical puzzles to Ilga. There are no parameters to her thoughts when it comes to numbers.” He gently placed a sheet of black paper beneath the cherrywood frame containing the spider web, and shoved it in front of me on the table. Then he withdrew a small porcelain bowl filled with soot and a fine white feather from the coffre à écrire, and handed them to me. “You will notice that the spider web is composed of hundreds of four-sided sections of decreasing size. With as much delicacy as you can summon I want you to dip the feather in the soot and mark about a dozen sides of any of those sections.”

  I glanced at him questioningly, and then at the silky web, and then I gingerly began to spot random strands with soot. The lacy cartwheel trembled.

  When I finished, des Esseintes placed the bowl and feather back in the cabinet, and then handed a piece of chalk to Ilga. She stood from her seat and made a few deft strokes with the chalk, arcs and wavy lines, enclosing an area about six inches long. Then she stepped back.

  Des Esseintes smiled. “Ilga can do more than solve brain teasers. Her mathematical genius allows her to see the world with an acuity few of us can comprehend. She’s like a calculating machine. Her mind instantly perceives a situation, and then the probabilities of all of its outcomes, the fall of the dominoes. She can glance at the position of the pieces and instantly tell you who will win a chess game. She can study a king and his people and tell you how and when he will reach his demise.”

  He took a tiny pair of scissors from his pocket and began to snip each strand of the spider web I had marked with soot. As they were cut, one by one the web began to droop. At last it came tumbling down, and to my amazement it exactly filled the chalk outline Ilga had made on the paper.

  ”La machine understands the web. La machine knows the future to the extent that it can be predicted.” Des Esseintes turned to the Slavic woman. “Ilga, what do you advise I do with our two intruders?”

  Her eyes flickered nervously. “You have no choice. For your own safety you must never let them leave this house.”

  I stiffened involuntarily and the falcon tensed.

  Monsieur des Esseintes raised a single finger. “There’s one other thing.” He turned again to the woman. “Ilga, you know this house better than anybody. You know that there are forty-four windows on the first floor; five turrets, and four balconies, which are close to nearby buildings. You know the thickness of the stone, and the strength of the grates, and you also know the abilities and vulnerabilities of the falcon. If Dr. Gladstone and Lady Dunaway were to try to escape, what chance would they have of succeeding?”

  Again her eyes flickered nervously. “Oh, no chance at all.”

  “And if they did try?”

  “They would surely be killed by the falcon,” she said as she shyly looked down at her feet.

  Des Esseintes looked at us one last time as he finished the vapors of his tea. “Dawn is approaching and I must retire. Grelot will show you to your quarters.” He turned to leave.

  “And may I ask you one last thing?”

  He looked at me.

  “How did you find us when we were hiding in the playroom?”

  He grinned jovially. “I smelled your cologne, your Lilac Vegetal.”

  XVI

  Des Esseintes nodded good night as he left the study, and Ilga accompanied him. Grelot gestured at the door Down the rosewood staircase he took us, and down other stairs, stone stairs. The air became cooler in these dark passages, and damp. The falcon followed behind, leaping from step to step like an awkward midget. It seemed to have a sentience, an awareness of us more humanlike than birdlike. We reached a sprawling fourteenth-century wine cellar, and Grelot lit torches. Some of the walls were of huge gray blocks, and seemed to form part of the foundation of the house. The floor was of slate. To my surprise, there were many towering racks of casks and bottles of wine. Beyond the gray foundation the walls were composed of an ocher-colored brick layed in rows with arches and larger bricks and keystones. They shimmered like wet clay, worn smooth by condensation. These walls seemed to be part of a more ancient subterranean structure. The ceilings were vaulted and everywhere dark corridors were sealed at the end with sturdy oak doors.

  The man led us through a low tunnel where we both had to duck, and finally kicked aside a sturdy oak door with his booted foot. As soon as we stepped inside I noticed that the air seemed drier, and even warmer. Grelot lit another torch and I could see we were in a moderately sized vaulted chamber of the same yellow brick with two heavily barred cells forming one side of the room and divided from each other by a wall. Each cell was a lushly furnished bedroom with much carved wood, red velvet, and gold. Both possessed many exquisite rococo clocks, paintings, and statues, and an impressive red velvet canopied bed. Indeed, the apartments were so lavishly equipped, only the wall of bars betrayed the fact that they were deep in the moldy cellar of the house. I took it as an ill omen that none of the clocks possessed any hands.

  In the middle of the vaulted chamber and facing both the cells was a post with an arm across it, like a wooden letter “T,” about four feet high. The falcon hopped up on the post.

  With a set of keys Grelot opened each cell and lit the fire in the fireplace. Then he motioned for us to enter.

  “May I ask why it is not damp or musty here?” I said as I reluctantly entered the cell.

  “Des Esseintes designed it. Heating tunnels beneath the floor;” he grunted.

  He locked me in and I pressed my face up against the bars. The space between them was too narrow to allow me to get my head through, but I could hear him locking Lady Dunaway in beside me.

  “Grelot,” I called, “will you tell me how long we will be kept in here?”

  “No,”

  “Why not?”

  He scuffed over in front of me. “It is none of your business,” he snapped. “The falcon will watch you and after I leave I advise you to keep your hands off the bars if you value your fingers.”

  His eye twitched as he left the room.

  I turned around and momentarily admired the room. For prison quarters one could not complain. There were many richly bound books and I even noticed a decanter of brandy and a thermidor of pipe tobacco.

  “Lady Dunaway?” I called. I drew close to the bars, but I noticed the falcon tilted forward and prepared to attack. I stepped safely back.

  “Oh, my goodness,” her voice echoed from the adjoining cell. “There’s wood in here for the fireplace.”

  “You don’t think we were expected, do you?”

  “Oh, no,” she answered quickly “From the look of the cobwebs the wood’s been here quite some time.”

  “Well, what do you think of him?”

  I heard her sit heavily upon her bed. “What do you think of him?”

  “I don’t know. I’m awed by him. In some ways I understand his position, but what can I think of someone who holds us against our will?”
<
br />   “Yes,” she said slowly. “It is the children who are important. We must persuade Monsieur des Esseintes to let us go.”

  “Do you think that will be possible?”

  “I don’t know. I think... I hope Monsieur des Esseintes is humane. But I just don’t know. He’s obviously very worried about our illegal entry into his domain, but he did go out of his way to assure us several times that we would not be hurt.”

  I looked at the falcon.

  “I want to trust him,” she continued, “but—” Her voice ended abruptly.

  “But what?” I asked.

  “But we must remember Niccolo’s warning.”

  “You think Monsieur des Esseintes has lied to us?”

  “I don’t want to think he has. He seemed honestly surprised by our mention of Lodovico, but we can never know.”

  I agreed with Lady Dunaway’s sobering words. In near exhaustion I slowly began to undress as I slipped beneath the heavy velvet bedcovers. I looked one last time at the falcon.

  I don’t know how many hours I lay in the canopied bed before I became aware of a lulling echo in the distance. It was an even, harmonious sound. A rushing. It took a number of seconds for my consciousness to sift out that it was the babble of water. I quietly got out of bed and padded around the room. Didn’t that infernal bird ever sleep? I thought to myself as the beryl eyes continued to scan my every move.

  I paused here and there to listen, and was finally able to determine that the water sound was coming from behind the far wall of the bedchamber. I wondered if it was the sound of the Seine, or the whispering of the murky Paris sewers. With my ear up against the paneled wall I suddenly became aware of the sound of walking, and even the barest fragment of what might have been a human voice.

  Then quite abruptly, the babbling was punctuated by the low, heavy splash of an object entering the water.

  “Lady Dunaway!” I called, wanting her opinion of the noise.

  There was no answer.

  I turned around and said her name even louder. There was still no answer.

  That was curious, I thought. Had she quickly fallen so deeply asleep that she could not hear me? Or was there a possibility that something had happened to her, someone had quietly stolen her away? I dismissed the thought as my imagination running rampant, but it took quite some time before I drifted into an uneasy sleep.

  I awoke in a cold sweat only to hear a familiar and comforting rattle. I sat up to see Geneviève coming past the oak door with a tea cart laden with a most exquisite breakfast. Her red hair was plaited and wound around her ears like horns, and she wore a simple black velvet dress with white lace trim. Once again an elegant black choker and cameo concealed her neck.

  “Good morning,” I greeted, and she glanced at me with surprise. I smiled but she quickly resumed her timid silence. I noticed her complexion was almost tallow, and a faint web of bluish veins spread out beneath her transparent skin.

  “Do you ever talk?”

  “When I have something to say, monsieur.”

  She began shoving silver platters beneath the bars, and I slipped on an elaborate brocade robe I found hanging beside the bed. I placed the platters on a small reading table in the center of the room and began to stoke the fire.

  “Do you know when des Esseintes intends to come for us today?”

  “Come for you, monsieur?” She seemed puzzled.

  “Surely he doesn’t intend to keep us locked up here all day?”

  “I don’t know, monsieur.”

  She moved the cart out of sight and began to serve Lady Dunaway. To my relief I heard a stirring next to my apartment.

  It hadn’t crossed my mind that des Esseintes would leave us in our cells, but Geneviève’s bewilderment struck a note of worry into my heart. The worry was momentarily eclipsed by awe when I lifted the silver lids. Before me was a breakfast of splendid dimensions: figs garnished with prosciutto and tiny boiled eggs; cruets of fino sherry, and crème sherry with salted almonds; galette potatoes with carefully arranged sprigs of parsley; croissants and French breads; cheeses, marmalades, and preserves.

  “Do you know what kind of eggs these are?” I called to my companion.

  There was a moment of silence. “Why, no, I don’t. I don’t believe I have any eggs,” Lady Dunaway replied. “Oh, my goodness!” she exclaimed. “Now how was des Esseintes to know that I love toasted muffins?”

  “He couldn’t,” I replied, doubting if even des Esseintes’s perceptive abilities were that acute. “It must have been a lucky guess.”

  “Do you have codfish?” she asked.

  “No. Do you have figs garnished with prosciutto?”

  “No,” she returned. “We must have been served different breakfasts.”

  I nodded, about to say something, but then I realized that the knowledge we had been served different breakfasts was far from being a significant fact. I looked at Geneviève and noticed she was waiting quietly for us to finish so she could remove our dishes.

  “How often does des Esseintes have need of these cells?” I asked between sips of crème sherry.

  At first she looked at me as if she were not going to answer, but then she obviously realized the harmlessness of the information. “This is the first time since I’ve lived here that he’s used them,” she said.

  “Do you know when they were last used?”

  Again she grew nervous. Her eyes darted back and forth between the two cells. “A long time ago, during the Revolution, two young men broke into the house. They were Royalists. One of them was my great-great uncle.”

  “How long have you lived with des Esseintes?” I continued.

  “I have always lived with Monsieur des Esseintes.”

  “And your parents?”

  “They were born here as well.”

  I became aware of a tremor of pride in her face.

  “We can trace our ancestors back many generations. I serve Monsieur des Esseintes as my grandmother and great-grandmother served him.”

  “Don’t you ever have any desire to escape?”

  She became confused. “Monsieur des Esseintes does not keep us prisoner. We are free to go about as we wish. I spend a lot of my time going for long walks. I like the Marché aux Oiseaux on the Île de la Cité. Do you know what that is? I go there every Sunday.”

  “The ‘Market of the Birds’?” I translated loosely, but the young woman’s English was minimal.

  “Oiseaux,” she repeated and pointed at the falcon.

  I nodded to show her I understood the word.

  “Every Sunday from morning to afternoon they hold a street fair and the vendors sell birds, all manner of birds, cage after cage of doves and finches, canaries and mynahs. They also sell funny dogs, and monkeys.”

  “Does it amuse you to see things in cages?” I asked, peering at the bars of my cell.

  “Oh, no,” she returned. “It makes me very sad. In fact, des Esseintes gives me spending money just so I can buy a few birds every weekend and let them go. I go up to the top of Notre-Dame and let them go.”

  I felt a pang of sympathy for the insipid young girl. “How nice,” I heard Lady Dunaway murmur between bites of her melba toast.

  I carefully opened one of the tiny eggs—quail eggs, from what I could tell—and began to eat it. “You worship Monsieur des Esseintes, don’t you?”

  “Oh, no,” she said quickly, recoiling almost as if in fear. “Monsieur des Esseintes tells us not to worship him because...” She knitted her brow, trying to remember the words. “Demon est... Deus... inversus. Yes, that’s it. Demon est Deus inversus. God is the devil backward.” She was most pleased with herself for remembering so properly.

  The words struck me as sinister. “What do you think that means?” I asked Lady Dunaway.

  She did not immediately answer, but I heard her stand up from her breakfast table as if she had been particularly struck by the remark. “Demon est Deus inversus,” I heard her repeat.

  “Does that me
an anything to you?”

  “I’m not sure, but I would guess it’s something to the effect that in great adoration there is all the potential for great hatred.”

  Geneviève began to nod. “Oui, madame, that is it. Monsieur des Esseintes tells us only to accept, never to adore. He says that one man’s evil is another man’s good.” She seemed a little swept away by this and began blinking rapidly. She anxiously eyed my dishes to see if I was done.

  “I have another question.”

  Geneviève folded her hands and shyly regarded her feet. “Does it hurt when they bite you?”

  “Oh, no,” she offered suddenly and then calmed herself. “No, it is very pleasant. First Monsieur des Esseintes gives us the pipe to smoke and then he plays the harmonium. There are the most wonderful dreams... and dizziness. He has an ointment that makes us feel no pain.”

  “What sort of music does he play?” I heard Lady Dunaway ask with macabre delight.

  “He does not play music,” Geneviève said cryptically. She became stiffer still, worried that she was saying too much. She approached the cell. “Are you finished, Docteur?”

  “Yes, but I still have several questions.”

  “I think you should ask Monsieur des Esseintes.”

  “When will I see him again?”

  “I don’t know, Docteur.” She gathered up the dishes. The falcon ruffled its wings as she left the room.

  We occupied the rest of the afternoon by talking, and I found my esteem of Lady Dunaway growing. Her courage was unbelievable. Whereas any normal woman would have paced her cell with worry, my indomitable companion simply sat rocking. From the sound of her scribbling it was apparent she was taking notes about the situation, writing down every possible iota of information that might later prove helpful or valuable. Geneviève did not come again. Our other two meals were brought in by Grelot. By what I assumed to be only an hour or two before dawn I was in a near panic. What if Monsieur des Esseintes intended merely to lock us up and forget about us? I could tell my companion was growing worried as well, but by and large she still maintained her composure, yes, even better than I.