by Anne Rice
"Laboratories?" she asked. "I have no idea. I didn't even know there were. Of course there's Gregory's own doctor, who pumps him up with Human Growth Hormone and special protein drinks and anything else he can to keep his youth and strength, and they do have some kind of hospital room so that if Gregory runs a temperature one degree above normal, his doctor can examine him in it, but there are no laboratories as such, not as far as I know."
"No, no, I mean big laboratories where people are working with chemicals and computers. Huge laboratories with sterile storage and people even dressed in funny clothes to protect themselves. I saw this tonight. I saw this in the Temple of the Mind. I saw some people wearing orange clothes that covered their whole bodies. I didn't think of it at the time. I was just looking for Gregory..."
"Orange suits, you're talking about suits that protect people from viruses. Good Lord, is there disease at the heart of this? Gregory has some disease? What the hell did he do to Nathan in the hospital!"
"I think I know. He didn't hurt his brother. And there is no disease in Gregory, I can tell you that for sure, or in the Rebbe. I would have known the moment I saw them. I sense these things."
She winced, the mere thought of her own sickness suddenly confusing her and muddling her mind.
"What does the Temple do that would require a team of doctors, a big team of brilliant men ever ready at Gregory's command? Research geniuses with microscopes and all kinds of equipment?"
"I don't know," she said again. "Of course one time they did contemplate a line of products, you know, trash like spiritually cleansing shampoo and 'wash away evil vibrations soap'--"
I laughed, I couldn't help it. She smiled.
"But we talked him out of that. He struck some incredibly lucrative deal with a New York designer for all the stock at his resorts and on his boats, and in his jungles..."
"There we are again, boats, planes, jungles, doctors, a necklace, a twin brother."
"What are you saying?"
"Look, Rachel, an identical twin is not just a brother, he is a duplicate of the man, and here we have a twin unknown to the world, and not recognized every day of the week perhaps because he wears the beard and the locks of the Hasidim. There are things one can do with an identical twin."
She stared at me. She was silent. Then a wince of pain came again.
"Look, I have to have water," I said. "I'll bring you some water."
"That would be good. Cold water. My throat is sore, I can't..."
She sank back down.
I hurried through the beautiful garden, and entered what seemed a grand storage place for fine foods, and sure enough, there were plastic bottles of water galore in the refrigerator. I brought two of these bottles and a lovely crystal glass which I picked off a shelf.
I sat down by her and gave her water first. She had covered herself now. She drank. I drank.
I really was exhausted. This was not the time to be exhausted, not the time to risk sleeping and letting this body disappear. I drank more of the water, and I wondered what had come out of my body into her, had it been real seed, or just a semblance?
I remembered something about Samuel. Samuel laughing at the Catholic nuns who claimed to be made pregnant by spirits. I remembered that from Strasbourg and then another lovely memory came, it was all sensory, it had to do with Zurvan, and I remember him saying, 'You can do it, yes, but it will take away your energy and you are never to seek a woman without my permission.' "
I couldn't remember the speaker, only the love, and the garden, and the words, and how much it was like this. It will take away your energy. I had to stay awake.
"What if we're wrong?" she said. "And he had nothing to do with Esther's death. He's a man who uses everything. He used her death but that doesn't mean--"
"The Rebbe said he killed her. I think he killed her. But there's more at stake. This temple of his, does it preach anything unique or of unique value?"
"Not really; as I explained, he invented the creed with a computer program. It's the nearest thing to a creedless creed you can imagine."
She sighed. She told me there was a dressing gown in the closet. Would I bring it to her? She was feeling a little cold. She said there were robes, too, if I wanted them. I did, but not because I was cold. It was a Persian or Babylonian disinclination to be naked.
I found a thick blue robe that fell to the floor, with a tie for the waist, and wrapped myself in this, feeling a little trapped, but it was fine for now, and I needed all my power.
I brought the negligee to her. It was gold like so much in the room, and pure silk and full of beaded work rather like that of the dark scarf. She sat up and I helped her put it on, and I buttoned the pearl buttons for her, and then tied the sash. I buttoned the pearls at her wrists.
She stared at me.
"I have something else," she said, "that I want you to know."
"Tell me," I said, sitting beside her and taking her hand. "Gregory called me tonight right before the plane landed in Miami. He told me you killed Esther. He said you were seen at the scene of the crime. I'd seen your picture in the magazine, but I knew it was a stupid lie. I was about to hang up on him. It's useless, you know, asking him to be reasonable, but then he really went off the deep end. He said you were a ghost, and you needed to take Esther's place in the world, that's how you got in."
"That is trash!" I whispered. "He is a smooth-tongued man."
"That's what I thought. I just didn't believe it. But something seemed very certain to me then. You are here because of Esther's death. You are, and you're here to kill Gregory. I wish you would promise me, whatever happens, you'll kill him. I know it's a terrible thing I'm saying."
"Not to me," I said. "I would like to kill him but not before this mystery is solved."
"Can you possibly see to Nathan? See that he's safe?"
"I can do that," I said, "but I have grave suspicions on that. Never mind. Be assured, whatever happens, I will get to the bottom of it, and Gregory will pay with his life."
"Laboratories," she said. "You know he's crazy, Gregory. He believes he is here to save the world. He goes to other countries, he asks for reception by dictators and establishes temples in countries that...and then all this about terrorism. You know," she said as she lay back down on the pillows. "You can't go wrong killing him. This Temple is a racket. It's garbage, and it bleeds people, takes their savings, their fortunes..."
She closed her eyes, and suddenly went still, so still that her eyes half-opened and I could see only the whites.
"Rachel!" I said. "Rachel!" I shook her shoulder.
"I'm alive, Azriel," she said softly without moving anything but her lips. Her dark brows moved just a little. She didn't open her eyes. "I'm here," she said. "Will you cover me, Azriel? Even now I'm cold. It's warm, isn't it?"
"The breeze is wondrously warm," I said.
"Open all the windows then. But cover me. What is it? What's the matter with you?"
All the windows were open, even the big window doors to my left that looked out on a terrace above the ocean. But I didn't disturb her by saying so.
I was suddenly startled. I noticed her arms for the first time. Really beheld them beneath the sheer silk.
"Your arms, I've covered them with bruises! Look what I've done to you."
"That doesn't matter," she said. "That's nothing. It's only one of the drugs thinning the blood, makes me bruise without feeling it. I loved it, your being in my arms. Come here, will you stay with me? You know, I suspect I'm going to die right away. I left behind all the drugs that were keeping me going."
I didn't answer her but I knew she was going to die. Her heartbeat was too slow. Her fingers had a bluish tinge to them.
I lay down beside her, and covered her with the tapestried draperies that lay all over the bed, what are called "throws" and "lap blankets," though I had not realized it or thought of it.
She was nice and warm and she lay against me.
"I laughed so hard when
he said you were a ghost and you killed Esther to get into the world. And yet I knew you weren't a human being. I knew it. You'd vanished from the plane. I knew it. And yet I thought Gregory was so hysterically funny telling me all this black magic, that Esther had to be sacrificed like a lamb so that you could come into the world and evil beings had done it. He said you'd kill me. He said if I didn't come back, he'd alert the police. I don't want him coming in here, disturbing me. I don't want him to."
"I won't let him," I said. "Rest now. I want to think. I want to remember the laboratories and the men in the orange suits. I want to see the great scheme."
It was a horrid thing to look at, her purplish bruises, and I felt shame that I hadn't been more delicate, hadn't even watched for such a thing, hadn't looked for anything but the age-old juiciness, and for all the rest, what did I care.
I held her arms. I kissed these places, and I could see where needles had made holes in her, and I could see where bandages had been ripped from her, and all the fleece was gone.
"Rachel, you are suffering, and I've made this worse for you," I said. "Let me get for you what you need. Send me. Tell me. I can get anything in the world for you, Rachel. That's my nature. Do you have doctors of great skill? Only tell me who they are. I'll be lost in the winds if I roam searching for doctors and magicians. Guide me. Send me. Send me now for whatever it is..."
"No."
I studied her silent face; her smile had not changed. She seemed half-asleep; I realized she was singing, or humming with her lips closed. Her hands were too cold.
I sighed; this was the agony that comes with loving; this was just as fresh as if it had never happened to me before. This was just as hurtful and cruel as if I were breathing and young.
"Don't worry," she whispered. "All the best doctors in the world have done their damnedest to cure Gregory Belkin's wife. Besides...I want to..."
"...be with Esther."
"Yes, do you think I will be?"
"Yes, I do," I said. "I saw her go up in a pure light." I wanted to add, "One way or another, you'll be with her." But I didn't add it. I didn't know whether she believed we were all tiny flames that went back into God, or that we had a Paradise where we could kiss and hold each other. As for me, I believed we had a Paradise, and I had a dim memory of flying high once, to the very heights, and of gentle spirits up there concealing something from me.
I lay back. I had been so sure I wanted to die. And now the flame of life that blazed still in her, melting her like a candle, seemed utterly precious to me.
I wanted to try to cure her. I looked at her and tried to see all the workings of her, each thing connected to the next thing, and all bound with veins like woven gold thread.
I did lay my hands on her, and I did pray. I let my hair rest on her face. I prayed in my heart to all the gods.
She stirred. "What did you say, Azriel?" she said. She uttered some words. At first I didn't understand them. Then I realized it was Yiddish she was speaking. "Were you speaking Hebrew?" she asked me.
"Just praying, my darling," I said. "Think nothing of it." She took a deep breath and laid her hand on my chest, as if the very act of lifting her hand and setting it down exhausted her. I put my hand over hers. Too cold, her little hands. I made a heat for us both.
"You're really staying with me, aren't you?"
"Why does that surprise you?" I asked.
"I don't know. Because people try to get away from you when they know you're really dying. Those bad nights, when I was at my worst, the doctors didn't come, the nurses stayed away. Even Gregory wouldn't come. The crisis would pass, and then they would all come. And you, you are staying with me. Doesn't the air smell good? And the light. Just the light of the night sky."
"It's beautiful, a foreshadowing of Paradise."
She laughed a little laugh. "I'm ready to be nothing," she said.
What could I say?
Somewhere a bell rang. It throbbed. I sat up. I didn't like it. I was staring into the garden, at the big red flowers, like trumpets, and realized for the first time that there were dim electric lights there on these flowers. Everything was perfect. There came the bell again.
"Don't answer it," she said. She was damp all over.
"Look," she said. "Stop him, you stop the church. He's what we call a charismatic leader. He's evil. Laboratories. I don't like it. And these cults, these cults have killed people, have killed their own members."
"I know," I said. "It was always that way. Always."
"But Nathan, Nathan is so innocent," she said. "I can remember his voice, it was beautiful, and I thought of what Esther had said, that it was like seeing the man Gregory could have been. That's what the voice was like..."
"I'll find him and make sure he is safe," I said. "I'll find out what he knows, what he saw."
"The old man, is he so terrible?"
"Holy and old," I said. I shrugged.
She laughed a sweet delighted laugh. It was wondrous to hear it. I bent down and kissed her lips. They were dry. I gave her some more water, holding her head up so she could drink.
She lay back. She looked at me and only gradually did I realize that her expression meant nothing. It was only a mask for her pain. The pain was in her lungs and in her heart and in her bones. The pain was all through her. The soothing drugs she'd taken before she left New York were gone out of her body. Her heart was faint.
I cradled her hands in mine.
There came that noise again, the bell ringing, the alarm buzzing, and this time there was more than one. I heard the noise of a motor. It came from the elevator shaft.
"Ignore it," she said. "They can't get in." She pushed at the covers with her hands.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Help me, help me get up. Get my heavier robe for me, the heavy silk. Please..."
I got the robe, the one to which she pointed, and she put it on. She stood trembling beneath the weight of the ornate robe.
There was huge noise outside the main door.
"Are you sure they can't get in?"
"You don't have to fear, do you?" she asked.
"No, not at all, but I don't want them..."
"I know...ruining my death," she said.
"Yes."
She was completely white. "You're going to fall down."
"I know," she said. "But I intend to fall where I want to fall. Help me out there, I want to look at the ocean."
I picked her up and carried her out the doors to the balcony. This was due east. The doors faced not the bay but the true sea. I realized it was the same sea that washed the banks of Europe, the shores of ruined Greek cities, the sands of Alexandria.
A pounding noise came from behind us. I turned around. It was coming from within the elevator. There were people in the car of the elevator. But the doors were locked.
The breeze ripped across the broad terrace. Under my feet the tiles felt cool. She seemed to love it, putting her head against my shoulder, looking out over the dark sea. A great ship, hung with lights, glided by, just short of the horizon, and above, the clouds made their spectacle.
I cuddled her and held her, and started to pick her up.
"No, let me stand," she said. She tugged herself gently free of me and put her hands on the high stone railing. She looked down. I saw a garden far down there, immaculate and full of trees and bright lights. Egyptian lilies galore, and large fanlike plants, all waving just a little in the breeze.
"It's empty down there, isn't it?" she asked.
"What?"
"The garden. It's so private. Only the flowers beneath us, and beyond, the sea."
"Yes," I said.
The elevator door was being forced open.
"Remember what I said," she said. "You can't go wrong killing him. I mean it. He'll try to seduce you, or destroy you, or use you in some way. You can bet he is already thinking in those terms, how best to use you."
"I understand him perfectly," I said. "Don't worry. I will do what is right. W
ho knows? Maybe I will teach him right and wrong. Maybe I know what they are. Maybe I'll save his soul." I laughed. "That would be lovely."
"Yes, it would," she said. "But you're craving life, craving it. Which means you can be lured by him with all his fiery life, the same way you were lured by mine."
"Never, I told you. I'll put it right."
"All of it, put it all to right."
Several men had just broken through the front door, with a clumsy pounding noise. I heard the wood splinter.
She sighed. "Maybe Esther did call you down. Maybe she did," she said. "My angel."
I kissed her.
The men were blundering into the room behind us. I didn't have to look at them to know they were there. They stopped short; there was a rumble of urgent voices. Then Gregory's voice carried.
"Rachel, thank God you're all right."
I turned and I saw him and he saw me, and he looked hard and determined, and cold. "Let my wife go," he said. Liar.
He was blazing with anger, and anger made him evil; anger took away his charm. I suppose it had done that to mine before. And I realized slowly as I stood there that I loved again, and didn't hate. I loved Esther and I loved Rachel. I didn't hate even him.
"Go to the door and stand between us," Rachel said. "Do that for me, please." She kissed me on the cheek. "Do that, my angel."
I obeyed. I put my hand up on the steel frame. "You can't pass," I said.
Gregory roared. He let out a terrible roar, a roar from the soul, and the whole company of men rushed towards me. I turned around as they buffeted my shoulders, passing me. But I knew already what had made them cry out.
She had jumped.
I went to the railing, pushing them aside, and I looked down into the garden and I saw her tiny empty shell of a body. The light hovered around her.
"Oh, God, take her, please," I prayed in my ancient tongue.
Then the light blazed and went straight up and for a moment it seemed that lightning lashed the southern sky, exploded behind the clouds, but it was only her passing. She'd gone up, and for one second perhaps I'd seen the Door of Heaven.
The garden held nothing but its bed of Egyptian flowers and her empty flesh, her face unhurt, intact, staring blindly upward.
Go up, Rachel, please, Esther, take her up the ladder. I deliberately envisioned the Ladder, the Stairway, replete with all the hanging remnants of memory.