The atmosphere did not allay my uneasiness. I strolled into the parlor and noticed Ilga standing next to one of the doors of the orchid conservatory. She was silent as always. For the first time I realized that even among the vampire she was a freak. Her flesh hung unnaturally. Her eyes held none of their age or sparkle.
At midnight a final coach drove up, unexpectedly. I heard a murmur of voices and returned to the foyer to investigate. Grelot opened the door. There in the entrance was a dream, a shimmering vision of a woman in a black and silver striped dress. I recognized the quiescent lips, the petal eyes at once. It was Madame Villehardouin. On her hands she wore white gloves. On her wrists, gold bracelets. The portion of her bodice covering her breasts was of a white translucent cloth and over this, an endless cascade of pearls. Her hair was up and fastened with a flower. In the midpoint of her decolietage was another bloom. She clutched a glittering gold mesh purse.
Again I was swept with the fog of her beauty. Unearthly, a caliber above all mortal beauty. As I have said, even though she appeared to be in her forties, there was a tremulousness in her, an emotion brought close to the surface. Beneath the gauze of her dress I was intensely aware of her breath rushing in and out. And yet, when she moved her head, the line of her neck, the ripple of her amber flesh was like a tigress.
“Does anyone come to greet me?” she said.
“Naturellement,” des Esseintes returned, proffering his hand.
She slowly crossed the room to accept it.
“My invitation seems to have been lost in the mail,” she said ambiguously. “I do hope it is not an absolute requirement.”
Des Esseintes smiled and shrugged. He led her toward the parlor. The other guests seemed abnormally attentive. It was odd. Something was going on. Had des Esseintes purposefully not sent her an invitation? Was she chiding him? Why would he want to snub a member of his own species, let alone such a singular creature?
I followed them.
Much to my interest, when Ilga caught a glimpse of the Oriental, a trifle of emotion actually filled Ilga’s face. Actually, it was more than a trifle. It was a look of heartfelt dread. Des Esseintes rushed to her comfort, and took the poor thing by the shoulder into the foyer Madame Villehardouin withdrew a small Chinese pocket spittoon from her purse and proceeded to use it— delicately, but vulgarly.
Now, why was that? I caught her eye and I could tell she recognized me. But of course. She was simply using the faculties of her breed. I recalled her scanning both Lady Dunaway’s and my face like some photographic machine the first time she had seen us. There was a hint of knowing in her glance. She walked by me. Uncontrollably, I held my breath like some retiring schoolboy She was so spectacularly beautiful. As she passed I felt the palpitation of my heart. But there was one thing I did not feel: the electrical atmosphere that these other vampire possessed. I turned and watched her stroll through the crowd. Why should she alone lack the drone of energy I had first sensed in des Esseintes in the orchid conservatory, and I now perceived so strongly in his brethren?
I felt the flesh on the back of my neck crawl from an ionized presence. I turned to see Fernande standing behind me.
“What is it?” I inquired. “Wasn’t Madame Villehardouin invited to the party?”
“I suspect not.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s a rogue. She wanders free from the herd.”
“Is that why she frightens Ilga?”
“Not exactly. Do you know about Ilga?”
I shook my head.
“There was a time when Ilga was a happy, normal young woman. She was a professeur, a teacher of mathematics. It is said her dream was to found a university in Kiev. She was in Kiev when it was sacked by the Mongols. She was one of the unfortunate ones who survived. You may understand that better when you are aware that witnesses after the fact say that for kilometers around, the countryside was dotted with skulls. Monsieur des Esseintes found her being taken care of in a nunnery. Her soul was gone. All that was left was machine. He preserved her for his own purposes.”
“Was Madame Villehardouin one of the invaders? Is that why Ilga shuns her?”
Fernande tossed his head back and laughed. “Madame Villehardouin— part of the Mongol invasion! No, Madame Villehardouin was quite some distance removed from the slaughter. She was a creature of silk and ermine, a concubine of the Emperor. It is not Madame Villehardouin that Ilga shuns. It is the epicanthic fold of her eyes.”
Beyond the flicker of candles I saw the subject of our conversation drift gracefully into the darkness of the adjacent hall. Fernande’s words had kindled an interest in me, but what was even more intriguing was the discovery that she did not emanate the enigmatic energy. I turned to follow, but as I stepped into the crowd the same mysterious thing occurred. Independent of one and other, several of the people in the parlor loudly snapped their thumbnails.
From nowhere, Perrenelle, a deathly beauty in her black crepe, appeared in front of me. Her sable eyes glistened.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something, Monsieur le Docteur.”
I glanced at her impatiently as Madame Villehardouin drew farther away. “Yes?”
“Are you married?”
Her question took me quite by surprise. I looked at the young Parisian woman and noticed what I thought was an honest interest in her eyes. Did I say ‘young’? How many centuries had this pale creature seen? “Why do you ask?” I inquired.
“Because we must seem rather callous to you. We’ve taken you prisoner. We intend to keep you in captivity for the rest of your mortal life, and yet we laugh and carry on around you like youke an ignored child. Do you have someone who misses you? Are you married?”
“No,” I said. “My wife passed away a few years back.” I was touched by her sentiment.
“Je me le regrette. Is there anyone else? A family?” How extraordinarily concerned, I thought. But then something struck me as being not quite right. “Yes, I have two daughters,” I said, trying to figure out what it was. “I miss them very much, and I’d do anything to see them.” She shook her head disconsolately. Something about her reminded me of someone else. She continued: “It is an unfortunate world we live in. You have no idea how desolate I am over the necessity of your captivity. But fate has chosen to put two intelligent species upon this earth, the mortal and the vampire, and it is the inexorable distance between us that makes our actions necessary.”
I wanted to believe her, but then I remembered. Many years before, when I had been an interne, I had encountered a middle-aged gentleman at a medical institution I was visiting for purposes of study. He reported to me at length about his incredible adventures in Ceylon, and all the while he spoke I had been troubled. It was only as he neared the end of his tale that I realized he had little or no awareness of my presence. In fact, he was a mental patient, and everything he had said had been a lie. I suddenly realized that Perrenelle possessed the same subtle detachment from what she was saying. It was a perfunctory condolence. In truth, the complex machinations of her thoughts were a thousand miles away from the words she was speaking.
“Please forgive us if we seem ignorant of your plight. We are so different. They say we are the undead, and it is true. Our mortal sensitivities became obsolete long ago. After so many years the human in us has died.”
I looked in her eyes. I admired the whiteness of her skin, her fragile features. “Tell me, Perrenelle, if the human in you dies, does love endure?”
She looked at me for several moments, but did not answer. She turned and stared at the man with the auburn goatee. For some reason her deliberation caused my heart to stop. I realized her answer meant more to me than I would have previously suspected. The rustling of her dress, her transcendent air only added to my suspense.
“Yes,” she finally said and I experienced a flush of relief. “But it is different. We are different. We have changed.”
I sadly gazed at her one last time before I excused myself and drew awa
y. I wandered down the corridor searching for Madame Villehardouin. I caught a glimpse of her as she rounded an immense Chinese vase, but when I reached it she was nowhere to be seen. Around the corner and out of sight I caught a fragment of conversation.
“Mademoiselle, does Savin continue?”
“No, a pinch of cardamom.”
“It was not ruined, was it?”
“Silk.”
“Only to taste.”
“He fell and ripped his suit.”
I turned the corner and rushed headlong into the gilt-and-turquoise sitting room only to see Grelot arriving with a silver tray and two steaming cups of coffee. A gentleman with a Hapsburg mustache took a pinch of cardamom, sprinkled it in one of the cups, and handed it to the woman he had been talking to. Both regarded me blankly. The same clicking of thumbnails passed quickly through the room.
I grew apprehensive. What did it mean? Their conversation was nonsensical. It followed no direct line of reasoning, yet there was a hint of convoluted sense to it. I suddenly remembered des Esseintes’s remark about restructuring his language in a way that we could comprehend. In a flash of wonder I understood. They had hammered it into me. Their thinking processes were different. The syntactical logic of their language had permuted, gone beyond our plodding and linear communications. I surveyed the crowd of half a dozen vampire standing in the room. In all of my experience I had never known des Esseintes to reveal a hint of nervousness. He was as placid and immutable as the Sphinx. As I scrutinized the figures before me, however, I detected a host of minute fidgetings and movements. Here a finger flexed. There a cheek twitched. I also noticed that the vampire in the room were exceedingly observant of all of this. Eyes moved languidly from movement to movement. Thumbnails clicked. It dawned on me that they were signaling one another. I have heard it said that the ancient Incas possessed a language of knotted strings. More and more I realized I had to consider the vampire a separate culture—indeed, a separate and distinct civilization existing hidden and within our own. Why wouldn’t they have developed a language just as alien and unique? The incalculable generations of their camaraderie alone would have created such a language. They knew each other like actors who had spent a lifetime on the stage together. I suspected the complexity of communication conveyed in their glances, in their most subtle gestures, was greater and more rapid than most mortal conversations.
As I moved through the room I realized they might be discussing anything, the price of attar of roses, or the fate of my own life, and I would have no inkling of it. I was an exile among most peculiar foreigners. I could understand the words, but not the language.
As I entered the room the conversation shifted into a decidedly different gear. It became more narrative and understandable to me, but something about it still suggested it was a code of some manner and possessed a second veil of meaning.
“I discovered a curiosity shop the other day,” said a young woman with a camellia corsage. “I wished to purchase a gift, a stereopticon, to give to a woman. She lay in her deathbed, you see, and I wished to raise her spirits.
I met her in the darkness and placed the magic lantern in her hands. It spun... chatoyant... emitting changeable rays like the eyes of a cat in the dark. It tinged her eyelids, and molded the lineaments of her hands.”
At exactly the same moment, two people at opposite ends of the room lightly scuffed their feet.
A woman standing opposite the first continued the patter. I circled the room looking for Madame Villehardouin. I was forming a theory about her as well, and if I was correct I suspected she, if anyone, might provide the key to my escape. I did not see her in the room. I turned to leave, ignoring the allegorical conversation of the two young women, when my ear suddenly selected a meaningful fragment from the prattle. “—Rue de la Glacière.”
I spun about.
The two women stood against the wall. The gentleman with the Hapsburg mustache had joined them. Intrepidly, I approached the group. “Excuse me for interrupting so rudely, but did you just mention the Rue de la Glacière?”
“Oui.”
“I only venture to say something because that street above all others means something to me. It’s a very special little street, don’t you think?”
“All streets are special, Docteur,” she returned calmly. “Ah, yes, but I still maintain the Rue de la Glacière is special above all others.”
“Chacun a son gout,” she said politely and nodded her head. I noticed her glance at the palpitation of the heartbeat in my temple.
“You do not see the ‘quiver,’ do you, mademoiselle?” I said.
“Non,” she returned, reassessing my eyes.
I gave a courteous bow and walked away. I was about to continue to the next room when Grelot appeared and announced dinner.
Like the finest of genteel crowds, the guests moved in a slow and ceremonious wave toward what I presumed to be the dining room. I had not seen the dining room before. It had always been packed with human servants, and I had not wanted to burst into the middle of them. Now, as I passed through the tall amboina wood doors, I saw it for the first time. I need not describe its opulence in detail, save that it was a masterpiece of fine woods and marquetry. The two most prominent features of the room were the great chandelier of deer antlers over the table, and the carved falcon heads on the arms of each of the numerous walnut chairs.
As we entered I heard Fernande mutter, “The buffet once belonged to Louis XV.”
I looked at the buffet and saw that it was, indeed, worthy of the possession of a king. Furthermore, it was covered with a kingly array of food. That was rich, I thought, glancing at the canines of a young woman tilted back in laughter.
I was still searching the guests for Madame Villehardouin when Lady Dunaway appeared in the doorway I had forgotten about her. To my surprise she wore a low-cut black evening gown. It was the first time I had seen her broad white shoulders and long neck. Once again I marveled at how she carried her large and awkward frame with such an exotic beauty. Her black hair was done up atop her head and elegantly accented her broad face. The only flaw remained her glasses, ever present, and she wore long black gloves. The regretful smile had faded from her face. Now she was only watchful and distant.
At last Madame Villehardouin appeared and Grelot begrudgingly set a place for her.
And then he began to serve the food.
The table was set in a magnificent explosion of silver and crystal. Wine was poured. Platters were served. But not a morsel was eaten. Instead, they only sniffed it, luxuriating in the vapors like some fairy aristocracy congealed for a make-believe party in the material world. Forks lifted. Goblets clinked.
And what a feast it was. Roman-style suckling pig with pine nuts. Truffles and cognac-perfumed duck. Escargot à la Bourguignone, black breads, and cheeses. Consommé with marrow and puree of chestnuts with Bordelaise sauce.
I ate, but I was so luridly fascinated with the macabre spectacle going on around me I merely picked at the food. I was no longer cognizant of the secret communications going on between the vampire, but I did not doubt for a moment that they were there. I suspected each chink of silver. I looked for other meanings in every glance. I was enveloped with a feeling of utter loneliness and isolation. In my low spirits I became painfully aware of something else. In some ways I considered myself the oldest member at the table. My face had started to crease. My hair was graying. I looked at my hands. They were not old yet, but they were different from all the others around me. In them was the shadow of what they would become. Time had begun to sculpt.
I surveyed the crowd.
These were not old people. They were children, strange young children with sloe and scintillant eyes, toasting and inhaling life. Château Hautbrion flowed like blood. Oranges in Grand Marnier syrup passed before me. Pastries with buttercream mousseline. Rum mousse and candied violets.
Across the table I saw Lady Dunaway sitting silent. She nibbled listlessly on a sliver of duck. Her hand
brushed against the locket around her neck. Every ounce of her attention was upon me. She was a very special woman. Even against the vampire she fared admirably, a creature of rare determination and voracious instincts. Perhaps she had been manipulated by des Esseintes. Perhaps I could understand, but the fact remained, we had come into this together. We had fought and worked together, and she had betrayed me. Our eyes met for one brief second. I could take it no longer. I stood and left the room.
In the foyer I heard footsteps. I looked up and saw Hatim standing on the balcony, his eyes trained on something in the shadows. There was a fascination in his gaze, much like the falcon’s when it spied a rat in the cellar. More footsteps, but not Hatim’s. He was stalking someone.
Whoever it was vanished before I saw him. The Persian boy followed. I made my way up the rosewood staircase. The falcon followed behind. I looked in the direction I had last seen the hunter and his quarry. At the end of the corridor I heard a woman gasp. It was an odd exhalation, ambiguous as to whether it had been caused by pleasure or fear.
By the time I reached the end of the hall they had already gone farther into the warren of ancient rooms. I heard someone stumble. The footsteps quickened. There was another slight cry. I scaled the second set of stairs two at a time, and this caused quite a bit of frenzy in my feathered foe. It obviously did not like me moving so frenetically. I reached the damp and mildewed hallway in time to hear the creaking of the steps leading to the turret room. There was another series of faint and rapid exclamations. Was it a playful panic? Was the woman in trouble? I reached the steps of the turret room.
The door clicked shut.
I lifted a foot to ascend the stair when I caught the brazen eye of the falcon. There was a thud, as of someone sitting or being thrown upon the filthy mattress.
For a few moments I was frozen, wondering who the woman was. What was happening? It was useless to feel the rage of helplessness. The ancient boards creaked. There was movement in the room. A gasp. Movement. With a shudder I recalled the wretched smell of the little chamber.
The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life Page 31