PART II 4 page

was telling you that he could steal. But it was investment afterwards that mattered. What we

accumulated we must use. But I go ahead of myself. I killed animals. But I'll get to that in a

moment. Lestat killed humans all the time, sometimes two or three a night, sometimes more. He

would drink from one just enough to satisfy a momentary thirst, and then go on to another. The

better the human, as he would say in his vulgar way, the more he liked it. A fresh young girl, that

was his favorite food the first of the evening; but the triumphant kill for Lestat was a young man.

A young man around your age would have appealed to him in particular."

"Me?" the boy whispered. He had leaned forward on his elbows to peer into the vampire's eyes, and now he drew up.

"Yes," the vampire went on, as if he hadn't observed the boy's change of expression. "You see, they represented the greatest loss to Lestat, because they stood on the threshold of the maximum

possibility of life. Of course, Lestat didn't understand this himself. I came to understand it. Lestat understood nothing.

"I shall give you a perfect example of what Lestat liked. Up the river from us was the Freniere

plantation, a magnificent spread of land which had great hopes of making a fortune i n sugar, just

shortly after the refining process had been invented. I presume you know sugar was refined in

Louisiana. There is something perfect and ironic about it, this land which I loved producing

refined sugar. I mean this more unhappily than I think you know. This refined sugar is a poison.

It was like the essence of life in New Orleans, so sweet that it can be fatal, so richly enticing that all other values are forgotten.... But as I was saying up river from us lived the Frenieres, a great

old French family which had produced in this generation five young women and one young man.

Now, three of the young women were destined not to marry, but two were young enough still

and all depended upon the young man. He was to manage the plantation as I had done for my

mother and sister; he was to negotiate marriages, to put together dowries when the entire fortune

of the place rode precariously on the next year's sugar crop; he was to bargain, fight, and keep at

a distance the entire material world for the world o f Freniere. Lestat decided he wanted him. And

when fate alone nearly cheated Lestat, he went wild. He risked his own life to get the Freniere

boy, who had become involved in a duel. He had insulted a young Spanish Creole at a ball. The

whole thing was nothing, really; but like most young Creoles this one was willing to die for

nothing. They were both willing to die for nothing. The Freniere household was in an uproar.

You must understand, Lestat knew this perfectly. Both of us had hunted the Freniere plantation,

Lestat for slaves and chicken thieves and me for animals."

"You were killing only animals?"

"Yes. But I'll come to that later, as I said. We both knew the plantation, and I had indulged in one of the greatest pleasures of a vampire, that of watching people unbeknownst to them. I knew the

Freniere sisters as I knew the magnificent rose trees around my brother's oratory. They were a

unique group of women. Each in her own way was as smart as the brother; and one of them, I

shall call her Babette, was not only as smart as her brother, but far wiser. Yet none had been

educated to care for the plantation; none understood even the simplest facts about its financial

state. All were totally dependent upon young Freniere, and all knew it. And so, larded with their

love for him, their passionate belief that he hung the moon and that any conjugal love they might

ever know would only be a pale reflection of their love for him, larded with this was a

desperation as strong as the will to survive. If Freniere died in the duel, the plantation would

collapse. Its fragile economy, a life of splendor based on the perennial mortgaging of the next

year's crop, was in his hands alone. So you can imagine the panic and misery in the Freniere

household the night that the son went to town to fight the appointed duel. And now picture

Lestat, gnashing his teeth like a comic-opera devil because he was not going to kill the young

Freniere."

"You mean then... that you felt for the Freniere women?"

"I felt for them totally," said the vampire. "Their position was agonizing. And I felt for the boy.

That night he locked himself in his father's study and made a will. He knew full well that if he

fell under the rapier at four a.m. the next morning, his family would fall with him. He deplored

his situation and yet could do nothing to help it. To run out on the duel would not only mean

social ruin for him, but would probably have been impossible. The other young man would have

pursued him until he was forced to fight. When he left the plantation at midnight, he was staring

into the face of death itself with the character of a man who, having only one path to follow, has

resolved to follow it with perfect courage. He would either kill the Spanish boy or die; it was

unpredictable, despite all his skill. His face reflected a depth of feeling and wisdom I'd never

seen on the face of any of Lestat's struggling victims. I had my first battle with Lestat then and

there. I'd prevented him from killing the boy for months, and now he meant to kill him before the

Spanish boy could.

"We were on horseback, racing after the young Freniere towards New Orleans, Lestat bent on

overtaking him, I bent on overtaking Lestat. Well, the duel, as I told you, was scheduled for four

a.m. On the edge of the swamp just beyond the city's northern gate. And arriving there just

shortly before four, we had precious little time to return to Pointe du Lac, which meant our own

lives were in danger. I was incensed at Lestat as never before, and he was determined to get the

boy. 'Give him his chance!' I was insisting, getting hold of Lestat before he could approach the

boy. It was midwinter, bitter-cold and damp in the swamps, one volley of icy rain after another

sweeping the clearing where the duel was to be fought. Of course, I did not fear these elements

in the sense that you might; they did not numb me, nor threaten me with mortal shivering or

illness. But vampires feel cold as acutely as humans, and the blood of the kill is often the rich,

sensual alleviation of that cold. But what concerned me that morning was not the pain I felt, but

the excellent cover of darkness these elements provided, which made Freniere extremely

vulnerable to Lestat's attack. All he need do would be step away from his two friends towards the

swamp and Lestat might take him. And so I physically grappled with Lestat. I held him."

"But towards all this you had detachment, distance?"

"Hmmm..." the vampire sighed. "Yes. I had it, and with it a supremely resolute anger. To glut himself upon the life of an entire family was to me Lestat's supreme act of utter contempt and

disregard for all he should have seen with a vampire's depth. So I held him in the dark, where he

spit at me and cursed at me; and young Freniere took his rapier from his friend and second and

went out on the slick, wet grass to meet his opponent. There was a brief conversation, then the

duel commenced. In moments, it was over. Freniere had mortally wounded the other boy with a

swift thrust to the chest. And he knelt in the grass, bleeding, dying, shouting something

unintelligible at Freniere. The victor simply stood there. Everyone could see there was no

sweetness in the victory. Freniere looked on death as if it were an abomination. His companions

advanced with their lanterns, urging him to come away as soon as possible and leave the dying

man to his friends. Meantime, the wounded one would allow no one to touch him. And then, as

Freniere's group turned to go, the three of them walking heavily towards their horses, the man on

the ground drew a pistol. Perhaps I alone could see this in the powerful dark. But, in any event, I

shouted to Freniere as I ran towards the gun. And this was all that Lestat needed. While I was

lost in my clumsiness, distracting Freniere and going for the gun itself, Lestat, with his years of

experience and superior speed, grabbed the young man and spirited him into the cypresses. I

doubt his friends even knew what had happened. The pistol had gone off, the wounded man had

collapsed, and I was tearing through the nearfrozen marshes shouting for Lestat.

"Then I saw him. Freniere lay sprawled over the knobbed roots of a cypress, his boots deep in

the murky water, and Lestat was still bent over him, one hand on the hand of Freniere that still

held the foil. I went to pull Lestat off, and that right hand swung at me with such lightning speed

I did not see it, did not know it had struck me until I found myself in the water also; and, of

course, by the time I recovered, Freniere was dead. I saw him as he lay there, his eyes closed, his

lips utterly still as if he were just sleeping. 'Damn you!' I began cursing Lestat. And then I

started, for the body of Freniere had begun to slip down into the marsh. The water rose over his

face and covered him completely. Lestat was jubilant; he reminded me tersely that we had less

than an hour to get back to Pointe du Lac, and he swore revenge on me. 'If I didn't like the life of

a Southern planter, I'd finish you tonight. I know a way,' he threatened me. 'I ought to drive your

horse into the swamps. You'd have to dig yourself a hole and smother!' He rode off.

"Even over all these years, I feel that anger for him like a white-hot liquid filling my veins. I saw then what being a vampire meant to him."

"He was just a killer," the boy said, his voice reflecting some of the vampire's emotion. "No regard for anything."

"No. Being a vampire for him meant revenge. Revenge against life itself. Every time he took a

life it was revenge. It was no wonder, then, that he appreciated nothing. The nuances of vampire

existence weren't even available to him because he was focused with a maniacal vengeance upon

the mortal life he'd left. Consumed with hatred, he looked back. Consumed with envy, nothing

pleased him unless he could take it from others; and once having it, he grew cold and

dissatisfied, not loving the thing for itself; and so he went after something else. Vengeance, blind

and sterile and contemptible.

"But I've spoken to you about the Freniere sisters. It was almost half past five when I reached

their plantation. Dawn would come shortly after six, but I was almost home. I slipped onto the

upper gallery of their house and saw them all gathered in the parlor; they had never even dressed

for bed. The candles burnt low, and they sat already as mourners, waiting for the word. They

were all dressed in black, as was their at-home custom, and in the dark the black shapes of their

dresses massed together with their raven hair, so that in the glow of the candles their faces

appeared as five soft, shimmering apparitions, each uniquely sad, each uniquely courageous.

Babette's face alone appeared resolute. It was as if she had already made up her mind to take the

burdens of Freniere if her brother died, and she had that same expression on her face now which

had been on her brother's when he mounted to leave for the duel. What lay ahead of her was

nearly impossible. What lay ahead was the final death of which Lestat was guilty. So I did

something then which caused me great risk. I made myself known to her. I did this by playing

the light. As you can see, my face is very white and has a smooth, highly reflective surface,

rather like that of polished marble."

"Yes," the boy nodded, and appeared flustered. "It's very... beautiful, actually," said the boy. "I wonder if... but what happened?"

"You wonder if I was a handsome man when I was alive," said the vampire. The boy nodded. "I was. Nothing structurally is changed in me. Only I never knew that I was handsome. Life

whirled about me a wind of petty concerns, as I've said. I gazed at nothing, not even a mirror...

especially not a mirror... with a free eye. But this is what happened. I stepped near to the pane of

glass and let the light touch my face. And this I did at a moment when Babette's eyes were turned

towards the panes. Then I appropriately vanished.

"Within seconds all the sisters knew a 'strange creature' had been seen, a ghostlike creature, and the two slave maids steadfastly refused to investigate. I waited out these moments impatiently for

just that which I wanted to happen: Babette finally took a candelabrum from a side table, lit the

candles and, scorning everyone's fear, ventured out onto the cold gallery alone to see what was

there, her sisters hovering in the door like great, black birds, one of them crying that the brother

was dead and she had indeed seen his ghost. Of course, you must understand that Babette, being

as strong as she was, never once attributed what she saw to imagination or to ghosts. I let her

come the length of the dark gallery before I spoke to her, and even then I let her see only the

vague outline of my body beside one of the columns. 'Tell your sisters to go back,' I whispered to

her. 'I come to tell you of your brother. Do as I say.' She was still for an instant, and then she

turned to me and strained to see me in the dark. 'I have only a little time. I would not harm you

for the world,' I said. And she obeyed. Saying it was nothing, she told them to shut the door, and

they obeyed as people obey who not only need a leader but are desperate for one. Then I stepped

into the light of Babette's candles."

The boy's eyes were wide. He put his hand to his lips. "Did you look to her... as you do to me?"

he asked.

"You ask that with such innocence," said the vampire. "Yes, I suppose I certainly did. Only, by candlelight I always had a less supernatural appearance. And I made no pretense with her of

being an ordinary creature. 'I have only minutes,' I told her at once. 'But what I have to tell you is of the greatest importance. Your brother fought bravely and won the duel---but wait... You must

know now, he is dead. Death was proverbial with him, the thief in the night about which all his

goodness or courage could do nothing. But this is not the principal thing which I came to tell

you. It is this. You can rule the plantation and you can save it. All that is required is that you let no one convince you otherwise. You must assume his position despite any outcry, any talk of

convention, any talk of propriety or common sense. You must listen to nothing. The same land is

here now that was here yesterday, morning when your brother slept above. Nothing is changed.

You must take his place.'

" 'If you do not, the land is lost and the family is lost. You will be five women on a small pension doomed to live but half or less of what life could give you. Learn what you must know. Stop at

nothing until you have the answers. And take my visitation to you to be your courage whenever

you waver. You must take the reins of your own life. Your brother is dead.'

"I could see by her face that she had heard every word. She would have questioned me had there

been time, but she believed me when I said there was not. Then I used all my skill to leave her so

swiftly I appeared to vanish. From the garden I saw her face above in the glow of her candles. I

saw her search the dark for me, turning around and around. And then I saw her make the Sign of

the Cross and walk back to her sisters within."

The vampire smiled. "There was absolutely no talk on the river coast of any strange apparition to Babette Freniere, but after the first mourning and sad talk of the women left all alone, she

became the scandal of the neighborhood because she chose to run the plantation on her own. She

managed an immense dowry for her younger sister, and was married herself in another year. And

Lestat and I almost never exchanged words."

"Did he go on living at Pointe du Lac?"

"Yes. I could not be certain he'd told me all I needed to know. And great pretense was necessary.

My sister was married in my absence, for example, while I had a 'malarial chill,' and something

similar overcame me the morning of my mother's funeral. Meantime, Lestat and I sat down to

dinner each night with the old man and made nice noises with our knives and forks, while he told

us to eat everything on our plates and not to drink our wine too fast. With dozens of miserable

headaches I would receive my sister in a darkened bedroom, the covers up to my chin, bid her

and her husband bear with the dim light on account of the pain in my eyes, as I entrusted to them

large amounts of money to invest for us all. Fortunately her husband was an idiot; a harmless

one, but an idiot, the product of four generations of marriages between first cousins.

"But though these things went well, we began to have our problems with the slaves. They were

the suspicious ones; and, as I've indicated, Lestat killed anyone and everyone he chose. So there

was always some talk of mysterious death on the part of the coast. But it was what they saw of us

which began the talk, and I heard it one evening when I was playing a shadow about the slave

cabins.

"Now, let me explain first the character of these slaves. It was only about seventeen ninety-five, Lestat and I having lived there for four years in relative quiet, I investing the money which he

acquired, increasing our lands, purchasing apartments and town houses in New Orleans which I

rented, the work of the plantation itself producing little... more a cover for us than an investment.

I say 'our.' This is wrong. I never signed anything over to Lestat, and, as you realize, I was still

legally alive. But in seventeen ninety-five these slaves did not have the character which you've

seen in films and novels of the South. They were not soft-spoken, brown-skinned people in drab

rags who spoke an English dialect. They were Africans. And they were islanders; that is, some of

them had come from Santo Domingo. They were very black and totally foreign; they spoke in

their African tongues, and they spoke the French patois; and when they sang, they sang African

songs which made the fields exotic and strange, always frightening to me in my mortal life. They

were superstitious and had their own secrets and traditions. In short, they had not yet been

destroyed as Africans completely. Slavery was the curse of their existence; but they had not been

robbed yet of that which had been characteristically theirs. They tolerated the baptism and

modest garments imposed on there by the French Catholic laws; but in the evenings, they made

their cheap fabrics into alluring costumes, made jewelry of animal bones and bits of discarded

metal which they polished to look like gold; and the slave cabins of Pointe du Lac were a foreign

country, an African coast after dark, in which not even the coldest overseer would want to

wander. No fear for the vampire.

"Not until one summer evening when, passing for a shadow, I heard through the open doors of

the black foreman's cottage a conversation which convinced me that Lestat and I slept is real

danger. The slaves knew now we were not ordinary mortals. In hushed tones, the maids told of

how, through a crack in the door, they had seen us dine on empty plates with empty silver, lifting

empty glasses to our lips, laughing, our faces bleached and ghostly in the candlelight, the blind

man a helpless fool in our power. Through keyholes they had seen Lestat's coffin, and once he

had beaten one of them mercilessly for dawdling by the gallery windows of his room. 'There is

no bed in there,' they confided one to the other with nodding heads. 'He sleeps in the coffin, I

know it.' They were convinced, on the best of grounds, of what we were. And as for me, they'd

seen me evening after evening emerge from the oratory, which was now little more than a

shapeless mass of brick and vine, layered with flowering wisteria in the spring, wild roses in

summer, moss gleaming on the old unpainted shutters which had never been opened, spiders

spinning in the stone arches. Of course, I'd pretended to visit it in memory of Paul, but it was

clear by their speech they no longer believed such lies. And now they attributed to us not only

the deaths of slaves found in the fields and swamps and also the dead cattle and occasional

horses, but all other strange events; even floods and thunder were the weapons of God in a

personal battle waged with Louis and Lestat. But worse still, they were not planning to run away.

We were devils. Our power inescapable. No, we must be destroyed. And at this gathering, where

I became an unseen member, were a number of the Freniere slaves.

"This meant word would get to the entire coast. And though I firmly believed the entire coast to be impervious to a wave of hysteria, I did not intend to risk notice of any kind. I hurried back to

the plantation house to tell Lestat our game of playing planter was over. He'd have to give up his

slave whip and golden napkin ring and move into town.

"He resisted, naturally. His father was gravely ill and might not live. He had no intention of

running away from stupid slaves. 'I'll kill them all,' he said calmly, 'in threes and fours. Some

will run away and that will be fine.'

" 'You're talking madness. The fact is I want you gone from here.'

" 'You want me gone! You,' he sneered. He was building a card palace on the dining room table

with a pack of very fine French cards. 'You whining coward of a vampire who prowls the night

killing alley cats and rats and staring for hours at candles as if they were people and standing in

the rain like a zombie until your clothes are drenched and you smell like old wardrobe trunks in

attics and have the look of a baffled idiot at the zoo.'

" 'You've nothing more to tell me, and your insistence on recklessness has endangered us both. I might live in that oratory alone while this house fell to ruin. I don't care about it!' I told him.

Because this was quite true. 'But you must have all the things you never had of life and make of

immortality a junk shop in which both of us become grotesque. Now, go look at your father and

tell me how long he has to live, for that's how long you stay, and only if the slaves don't rise up

against us!'

"He told me then to go look at his father myself, since I was the one who was always 'looking,'

and I did. The old man was truly dying. I had been spared my mother's death, more or less,

because she had died very suddenly on an afternoon. She'd been found with her sewing basket,

seated quietly in the courtyard; she had died as one goes to sleep. But now I was seeing a natural

death that was too slow with agony and with consciousne ss. And I'd always liked the old man; he

was kindly and simple and made few demands. By day, he sat in the sun of the gallery dozing

and listening to the birds; by night, any chatter on our part kept him company. He could play

chess, carefully feeling each piece and remembering the entire state of the board with remarkable

accuracy; and though Lestat would never play with him, I did often. Now he lay gasping for

breath, his forehead hot and wet, the pillow around him stained with sweat. And as he moaned

and prayed for death, Lestat in the other room began to play the spinet. I slammed it shut, barely

missing his fingers. 'You won't play while he dies!' I said. 'The hell I won't!' he answered me. 'I'll play the drum if I like!' And taking a great sterling silver platter from a sideboard he slipped a

finger through one of its handles and beat it with a spoon.

"I told him to stop it, or I would make him stop it. And then we both ceased our noise because

the old man was calling his name. He was saying that he must talk to Lestat now before he died.

I told Lestat to go to him. The sound of his crying was terrible. 'Why should I? I've cared for him

all these years. Isn't that enough?' And he drew from his pocket a nail file, and, seating himself

on the foot of the old man's bed, he began to file his long nails.

"Meantime, I should tell you that I was aware of slaves about the house. They were watching and

listening. I was truly hoping the old man would die within minutes. Once or twice before I'd

dealt with suspicion or doubt on the part of several slaves, but never such a number. I

immediately rang for Daniel, the slave to whom I'd given the overseer's house and position. But

while I waited for him, I could hear the old man talking to Lestat; Lestat, who sat with his legs

crossed, filing and filing, one eyebrow arched, his attention on his perfect nails. 'It was the

school,' the old man was saying. 'Oh, I know you remember... what can I say to you...' he

moaned.

" 'You'd better say it,' Lestat said, 'because you're about to die.' The old man let out a terrible noise, and I suspect I made some sound of my own. I positively loathed Lestat. I had a mind now

to get him out of the room. 'Well, you know that, don't you? Even a fool like you knows that,'

said Lestat.

" 'You'll never forgive me, will you? Not now, not even after I'm dead,' said the old man.

" I don't know what you're talking about!" said Lestat.

"My patience was becoming exhausted with him, and the old man was becoming more and more

agitated. He was begging Lestat to listen to him with a warm heart. The whole thing was making

me shudder. Meantime, Daniel had come, and I knew the moment I saw him that everything at

Pointe du Lac was lost. Had I been more attentive I'd have seen signs of it before now. He looked

at me with eyes of glass. I was a monster to him. 'Monsieur Lestat's father is very ill. Going,' I

said, ignoring his expression. 'I want no noise tonight; the slaves must all stay within the cabins.

A doctor is on his way.' He stared at me as if I were lying. And then his eyes moved curiously

and coldly away from me towards the old man's door. His face underwent such a change that I

rose at once and looked in the room. It was Lestat, slouched at the foot of the bed, his back to the

bedpost, his nail file working furiously, grimacing in such a way that both his great teeth showed

prominently."

The vampire stopped, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter. He was looking at the boy. And

the boy looked shyly at the table. But he had already looked, and fixedly, at the vampire's mouth.

He had seen that the lips were of a different texture from the vampire's skin, that they were silken

and delicately lined like any person's lips, only deadly white; and he had glimpsed the white

teeth. Only, the vampire had such a way of smiling that they were not completely revealed; and

the boy had not even thought of such teeth until now. "You can imagine," said the vampire,

"what this meant.

"I had to kill him."

"You what?" said the boy.

"I had to kill him. He started to run. He would have alarmed everyone. Perhaps it might have

been handled some other way, but I had no time. So I went after him, overpowering him. But

then, finding myself in the act of doing what I had not done for four years, I stopped. This was a

man. He had his bone-handle knife in his hand to defend himself. And I took it from him easily

and slipped it into his heart. He sank to his knees at once, his fingers tightening on the blade,

bleeding on it. And the sight of the blood, the aroma of it, maddened me. I believe I moaned

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 708