PART III 4 page

steps, with Claudia in his arms. She had that same dull expression on her face which she'd had all

during my talk with Armand. It was as if she were deep in her own considerations and saw

nothing around her; and I remember noting this, though not knowing what to think of it, that it

persisted even now. I took her quickly from Armand, and felt her soft limbs against me as if we

were both in the coffin, yielding to that paralytic sleep.

"And then, with a powerful thrust of his arm, Armand pushed Santiago away. It seemed he fell

backwards, but was up again only to have Armand pull him towards the head of the steps, all of

this happening so swiftly I could only see the blur of their garments and hear the scratching of

their boots. Then Armand stood alone at the head of the steps, and I went upward towards him.

" 'You cannot safely leave the theater tonight,' he whispered to me. 'He is suspicious of you. And my having brought you here, he feels that it is his right to know you better. Our security depends

on it.' He guided me slowly into the ballroom. But then he turned to me and pressed his lips

almost to my ear: 'I must warn you. Answer no questions. Ask and you open one bud of truth for

yourself after another. But give nothing, nothing, especially concerning your origin.'

"He moved away from us now, but beckoning for us to follow into the gloom where the others

were gathered, clustered like remote marble statues, their faces and hands all too like our own. I

had the strong sense then of how we were all made from the same material, a thought which had

only occurred to me occasionally in all the long years in New Orleans; and it disturbed me,

particularly when I saw one or more of the others reflected in the long mirrors that broke the

density of those awful murals.

"Claudia seemed to awaken as I found one of the carved oak chairs and settled into it. She leaned towards me and said something strangely incoherent, which seemed to mean that I must do as

Armand said: say nothing of our origin. I wanted to talk with her now, but I could see that tall

vampire, Santiago, watching us, his eyes moving slowly from us to Armand. Several women

vampires had gathered around Armand, and I felt a tumult of feeling as I saw them put their arms

around his waist. And what appalled me as I watched was not their exquisite form, their delicate

features and graceful hands made hard as glass by vampire nature, or their bewitching eyes

which fixed on me now in a sudden silence; what appalled me was my own fierce jealousy. I was

afraid when I saw them so close to him, afraid when he turned and kissed them each. And, as he

brought them near to me now, I was unsure and confused.

"Estelle and Celeste are the names I remember, porcelain beauties, who fondled Claudia with the

license of the blind, running their hands over her radiant hair, touching even her lips, while she,

her eyes still misty and distant, tolerated it all, knowing what I also knew and what they seemed

unable to grasp: that a woman's mind as sharp and distinct as their own lived within that small

body. It made me wonder as I watched her turning about for them, holding out her lavender

skirts and smiling coldly at their adoration, how many times I must have forgotten, spoken to her

as if she were the child, fondled her too freely, brought her into my arms with an adult's abandon.

My mind went in three directions: that last night in the Hotel Saint-Gabriel, which seemed a year

ago, when she talked of love with rancor; my reverberating shock at Armand's revelations or lack

of them; and a quiet absorption of the vampires around me, who whispered in the dark beneath

the grotesque murals. For I could learn much from the vampires without ever asking a question,

and vampire life in Paris was all that I'd feared it to be, all that the little stage in the theater above had indicated it was.

"'The dim lights of the house were mandatory, and the paintings appreciated in full, added to

almost nightly when some vampire brought a new engraving or picture by a contemporary artist

into the house. Celeste, with her cold hand on my arm, spoke with contempt of men as the

originators of these pictures, and Estelle, who now held Claudia on her lap, emphasized to me,

the naive colonial, that vampires had not made such horrors themselves but merely collected

them, confirming over and over that men were capable of far greater evil than vampires.

"'There is evil in making such paintings?' Claudia asked softly in her toneless voice.

"Celeste threw back her black curls and laughed.

" 'What can be imagined can be done,' she answered quickly, but her eyes reflected a certain

contained hostility. 'Of course, we strive to rival men in kills of all kinds, do we not!' She leaned forward and touched Claud ia's knee. But Claudia merely looked at her, watching her laugh

nervously and continue. Santiago drew near, to bring up the subject of our rooms in the Hotel

Saint-Gabriel; frightfully unsafe, he said, with an exaggerated stage gesture of the hands. And he

showed a knowledge of those rooms which was amazing. He knew the chest in which we slept; it

struck him as vulgar. 'Come here!' he said to me, with that near childlike simplicity he had

evinced on the steps. 'Live with us and such disguise is unnecessary. We have our guards. And

tell me, where do you come from!' he said, dropping to his knees, his hand on the arm of my

chair. 'Your voice, I know that accent; speak again.'

"I was vaguely horrified at the thought of having an accent to my French, but this wasn't my

immediate concern. He was strong-willed and blatantly possessive, throwing back at me an

image of that possessiveness which was flowering in me more fully every moment. And

meanwhile, the vampires around us talked on, Estelle explaining that black was the color for a

vampire's clothes, that Claudia's lovely pastel dress was beautiful but tasteless. 'We blend with

the night,' she said. 'We have a funereal gleam.' And now, bending her cheek next to Claudia's

cheek, she laughed to soften her criticism; and Celeste laughed, and Santiago laughed, and the

whole room seemed alive with unearthly tinkling laughter, preternatural voices echoing against

the painted walls, rippling the feeble candle flames. 'Ah, but to cover up such curls,' said Celeste, now playing with Claudia's golden hair. And I realized what must have been obvious: that all of

them had dyed their hair black, but for Armand; and it was that, along with the black clothes, that

added to the disturbing impression that we were statues from the same chisel and paint brush. I

cannot emphasize too much how disturbed I was by that impression. It seemed to stir something

in me deep inside, something I couldn't fully grasp.

"I found myself wandering away from them to one of the narrow mirrors and watching them all

over my shoulder. Claudia gleamed like a jewel in their midst; so would that mortal boy who

slept below. The realization was coming to me that I found them dull in some awful way: dull,

dull everywhere that I looked, their sparkling vampire eyes repetitious, their wit like a dull, brass bell.

"Only the knowledge I needed distracted me from these thoughts. 'The vampires of eastern

Europe...'

Claudia was saying. 'Monstrous creatures, what have they to do with us?'

" 'Revenants,' Armand answered softly over the distance that separated them, playing on faultless preternatural ears to hear what was more muted than a whisper. The room fell silent. 'Their blood

is different, vile. They increase as we do but without skill or care. In the old days--' Abruptly he

stopped. I could see his face in the mirror. It was strangely rigid.

" 'Oh, but tell us about the old days,' said Celeste, her voice shrill, at human pitch. There was something vicious in her tone.

"And now Santiago took up the same baiting manner. 'Yes, tell us of the covens, and the herbs

that would render us invisible.' He smiled. 'And the burnings at the stake!'

"Armand fixed his eyes on Claudia. 'Beware those monsters,' he said, and calculatedly his eyes

passed over Santiago and then Celeste. 'Those revenants. They will attack you as if you were

human.'

"Celeste shuddered, uttering something in contempt, an aristocrat speaking of vulgar cousins

who bear the same name. But I was watching Claudia because it seemed her eyes were misted

again as before. She looked away from Armand suddenly.

"The voices of the others rose again, affected party voices, as they conferred with one another on the night's kills, describing this or that encounter without a smattering of emotion, challenges to

cruelty erupting from time to time like flashes of white lightning: a tall, thin vampire being

accosted in one corner for a needless romanticizing of mortal life, a lack of spirit, a refusal to do the most entertaining thing at the moment it was available to him. He was simple, shrugging,

slow at words, and would fall for long periods into a stupefied silence, as if, near-choked with

blood, he would as soon have gone to his coffin as remained here. And yet he remained, held by

the pressure of this unnatural group who had made of immortality a conformist's club. How

would Lestat have found it? Had he been here? What had caused him to leave? No one had

dictated to Lestat he was master of his small circle; but how they would have praised his

inventiveness, his catlike toying with his victims. And waste... that word, that value which had

been all-important to me as a fledgling vampire; was spoken of often. You 'wasted' the

opportunity to kill this child. You 'wasted' the opportunity to frighten this poor woman or drive

that man to madness, which only a little prestidigitation would have accomplished.

"My head was spinning. A common mortal headache. I longed to get away from these vampires,

and only the distant figure of Armand held me, despite his warnings. He seemed remote from the

others now, though he nodded often enough and uttered a few words here and there so that he

seemed a part of them, his hand only occasionally rising from the lion's paw of his chair. And my

heart expanded when I saw him this way, saw that no one amongst the small throng caught his

glance as I caught his glance, and no one held it from time to time as I held it. Yet he remained

aloof from me, his eyes alone returning to me. His warning echoed in my ears, yet I disregarded

it. I longed to get away from the theater altogether and stood listlessly, garnering information at

last that was useless and infinitely dull.

" 'But is there no crime amongst you, no cardinal crime?' Claudia asked. Her violet eyes seemed

fixed on me, even in the mirror, as I stood with my back to her.

" 'Crime! Boredom!' cried out Estelle, and she pointed a white finger at Armand. He laughed

softly with her from his distant position at the end of the room. 'Boredom is death!' she cried and

bared her vampire fangs, so that Armand put a languid hand to his forehead in a stage gesture of

fear and falling.

"But Santiago, who was watching with his hands behind his back, intervened. 'Crime!' he said.

'Yes, there is a crime. A crime for which we would hunt another vampire down until we

destroyed him. Can you guess what that is?' He glanced from Claudia to me and back again to

her masklike face. 'You should know, who are so secretive about the vampire that made you.'

" 'And why is that?' she asked, her eyes widening ever so slightly, her hands resting still in her lap.

"A hush fell over the room, gradually then completely, all those white faces turned to face

Santiago as he stood there, one foot forward, his hands clasped behind his back, towering over

Claudia. His eyes gleamed as he saw he had the floor. And then he broke away and crept up

behind me, putting his hand on my shoulder. 'Can you guess what that crime is? Didn't your

vampire master tell you?'

"And drawing me slowly around with those invading familiar hands, he tapped my heart lightly

in time with its quickening pace.

" 'It is the crime that means death to any vampire anywhere who commits it. It is to kill your own kind!'

" 'Aaaaah!' Claudia cried out, and lapsed into peals of laughter. She was walking across the floor now with swirling lavender silk and crisp resounding steps. Taking my hand, she said, 'I was so

afraid it was to be born like Venus out of the foam, as we were! Master vampire! Come, Louis,

let's go!' she beckoned, as she pulled me away.

"Armand was laughing. Santiago was still. And it was Armand who rose when we reached the

door. 'You're welcome tomorrow night,' he said. 'And the night after.'

"I don't think I caught my breath until I'd reached the street. The rain was still falling, and all of the street seemed sodden and desolate in the rain, but beautiful. A few scattered bits of paper

blowing in the wind, a gleaming carriage passing slowly with the thick, rhythmic clop of the

horse. The sky was pale violet. I sped fast, with Claudia beside me leading the way, then finally

frustrated with the length of my stride, riding in my arms.

" 'I don't like them,' she said to me with a steel fury as we neared the Hotel Saint-Gabriel. Even its immense, brightly lit lobby was still in the pre-dawn hour. I spirited past the sleepy clerks, the long faces at the desk. 'I've searched for them the world over, and I despise them!' She threw off

her cape and walked into the center of the room. A volley of rain hit the French windows. I

found myself turning up the lights one by one and lifting the candelabrum to the gas flames as if

I were Lestat or Claudia. And then, seeking the puce velvet chair I'd envisioned in that cellar, I

slipped down into it, exhausted. It seemed for the moment as if the room blazed about me; as my

eyes fixed on a gilt-framed painting of pastel trees and serene waters, the vampire spell was

broken. They couldn't touch us here, and yet I knew this to be a lie, a foolish lie.

" 'I am in danger, danger,' Claudia said with that smoldering wrath.

" 'But how can they know what we did to him? Besides, we are in danger! Do you think for a

moment I don't acknowledge my own guilt! And if you were the only one...' I reached out for her

now as she drew near, but her fierce eyes settled on me and I let my hands drop back limp. 'Do

you think I would leave you in danger?'

"She was smiling. For a moment I didn't believe my eyes. 'No, you would not, Louis. You would

not. Danger holds you to me...'

" 'Love holds me to you,' I said softly.

" 'Love?' she mused. 'What do you mean by love?' And then, as if she could see the pain in my

face, she came close and put her hands on my cheek. She was cold, unsatisfied, as I was cold and

unsatisfied, teased by that mortal boy but unsatisfied.

" 'That you take my love for granted always,' I said to her. 'That we are wed...' But even as I said these words I felt my old conviction waver; I felt that torment I'd felt last night when she had

taunted me about mortal passion. I turned away from her.

" 'You would leave me for Armand if he beckoned to you...'

" 'Never...' I said to her.

" 'You would leave me, and he wants you as you want him. He's been waiting for you...'

" 'Never...' I rose now and made my way to that chest. The doors were locked, but they would

not keep those vampires out. Only we could keep them out by rising as early as the light would

let us. I turned to her and told her to come. And she was at my side. I wanted to bury my face in

her hair, I wanted to beg her forgiveness. Because, in truth, she was right; and yet I loved her,

loved her as always. And now, as I drew her in close to me, she said 'Do you know what it was

that he told me over and over without ever speaking a word; do you know what was the kernel of

the trance he put me in so my eyes could only look at him, so that he pulled me as if my heart

were on a string?'

" 'So you felt it...' I whispered. 'So it was the same.'

" 'He rendered me powerless!' she said. I saw the image of her against those books above his

desk, her limp neck, her dead hands.

" 'But what are you saying? That he spoke to you, that he...'

" 'Without words!' she repeated. I could see the gaslights going dim, the candle flames too solid in their stillness. The rain beat on the panes. 'Do you know what he said... that I should die!' she

whispered. 'That I should let you go.'

"I shook my head, and yet in my monstrous heart I felt a surge of excitement. She spoke the truth as she believed it. There was a film in her eyes, glassy and silver. 'He draws life out of me into

himself,' she said, her lovely lips trembling so, I couldn't bear it. I held her tight, but the tears stood in her eyes. 'Life out of the boy who is his slave, life out of me whom he would make his

slave. He loves you. He loves you. He would have you, and he would not have me s tand in the

way.'

" 'You don't understand him!' I fought it, kissing her; I wanted to shower her with kisses, her

cheek, her lips.

" 'No, I understand him only too well,' she whispered to my lips, even as they kissed her. 'It is you who don't understand him. Love's blinded you, your fascination with his knowledge, his

power. If you knew how he drinks death you'd hate him more than you ever hated Lestat. Louis,

you must never return to him. I tell you, I'm in danger!'

"Early the next night, I left her, convinced that Armand alone among the vampires of the theater could be trusted. She let me go reluctantly, and I was troubled, deeply, by the expression in her

eyes. Weakness was unknown to her, and yet I saw fear and something beaten even now as she

let me go. And I hurried on my mission, waiting outside the theater until the last of the patrons

had gone and the doormen were tending to the locks.

"What they thought I was, I wasn't certain. An actor, like the others, who did not take off his

paint? It didn't matter. What mattered was that they let me through, and I passed them and the

few vampires in the ballroom, unaccosted, to stand at last at Armand's open door. He saw me

immediately, no doubt had heard my step a long way off, and he welcomed me at once and asked

me to sit down. He was busy with his human boy, who was dining at the desk on a silver plate of

meats and fish. A decanter of white wine stood next to him, and though he was feverish and

weak from last night, his skin was florid and his heat and fragrance were a torment to me. Not

apparently to Armand, who sat in the leather chair by the fire opposite me, turned to the human,

his arms folded on the leather arm. The boy filled his glass and held it up now in a salute. 'My

master,' he said, his eyes flashing on me as he smiled; but the toast was to Armand.

" 'Your slave,' Armand whispered with a deep intake of breath that was passionate. And he

watched, as the boy drank deeply. I could see him savoring the wet lips, the mobile flesh of the

throat as the wine went down. And now the boy took a morsel of white meat, making that same

salute, and consumed it slowly, his eyes fixed on Armand. It was as though Armand feasted upon

the feast, drinking in that part of life which he could not share any longer except with his eyes.

And lost though he seemed to it, it was calculated; not that torture I'd felt years ago when I stood

outside Babette's window longing for her human life.

"When the boy had finished, he knelt with his arms around Armand's neck as if he actually

savored the icy flesh. And I could remember the night Lestat first came to me, how his eyes

seemed to burn, how his white face gleamed. You know what I am to you now.

"Finally, it was finished. He was to sleep, and Armand locked the brass gates against him. And

in minutes, heavy with his meal, he was dozing, and Armand sat opposite me, his large, beautiful

eyes tranquil and seemingly innocent. When I felt them pull me towards him, I dropped my eyes,

wished for a fire in the grate, but there were only ashes.

" 'You told me to say nothing of my origin, why was this?' I asked, looking up at him. It was as if he could sense my holding back, yet wasn't offended, only regarding me with a slight wonder.

But I was weak, too weak for his wonder, and again I looked away from him.

" 'Did you kill this vampire who made you? Is that why you are here without him, why you won't

say his name? Santiago thinks that you did.'

" 'And if this is true, or if we can't convince you otherwise, you would try to destroy us?' I asked.

" 'I would not try to do anything to you,' he said, calmly. 'But as I told you, I am not the leader here in the sense that you asked.'

" 'Yet they believe you to be the leader, don't they? And Santiago, you shoved him away from

me twice.'

" 'I'm more powerful than Santiago, older. Santiago is younger than you are,' he said. His voice was simple, devoid of pride. These were facts.

" 'We want no quarrel with you.'

" 'It's begun,' he said. 'But not with me. With those above.'

" 'But what reason has he to suspect us?'

"He seemed to be thinking now, his eyes cast down, his chin resting on his closed fist. After a

while which seemed interminable, he looked up. 'I could give you reasons,' he said. 'That you are

too silent. That the vampires of the world are a small number and live in terror of strife amongst

themselves and choose their fledglings with great care, making certain that they respect the other

vampires mightily. There are fifteen vampires in this house, and the number is jealously guarded.

And weak vampires are feared; I should say this also. That you are flawed is obvious to them:

you feel too much, you think too much. As you said yourself, vampire detachment is not of great

value to you. And then there is this mysterious child: a child who can never grow, never be self-

sufficient. I would not make a vampire of that boy there now if his life, which is so precious to

me, were in serious danger, because he is too young, his limbs not strong enough, his mortal cup

barely tasted: yet you bring with you this child. What manner of vampire made her, they ask; did

you make her? So, you see, you bring with you these flaws and this mystery and yet you are

completely silent. And so you cannot be trusted. And Santiago looks for an excuse. But there is

another reason closer to the truth than all those things which I've just said to you. And that is

simply this: that when you first encountered Santiago in the Latin Quarter you... unfortunately...

called him a buffoon.'

" 'Aaaaah.' I sat back.

" 'It would perhaps have been better all around if you had said nothing.' And he smiled to see that I understood with him the irony of this.

"I sat reflecting upon what he'd said, and what weighed as heavily upon me through all of it were Claudia's strange admonitions, that this gentle-eyed young man had said to her, 'Die,' and beyond

that my slowly accumulating disgust with the vampires in the ballroom above.

"I felt an overwhelming desire to speak to him of these things. Of her fear, no, not yet, though I couldn't believe when I looked into his eyes that he'd tried to wield this power over her: his eyes

said, Live. His eyes said, Learn. And oh, how much I wanted to confide to him the breadth of

what I didn't understand; how, searching all these years, I'd been astonished to discover those

vampires above had made of immortality a club of fads and cheap conformity. And yet through

this sadness, this confusion, came the clear realization: Why should it be otherwise? What had I

expected? What right had I to be so bitterly disappointed in Lestat that I would let him die.

Because he wouldn't show me what I must find in myself? Armand's words, what had they been?

The only power that exists is inside ourselves...

" 'Listen to me,' he said now. 'You must stay away from them. Your face hides nothing. You

would yield to me now were I to question you. Look into my eyes.'

"I didn't do this. I fined my eyes firmly on one of those small paintings above his desk until it ceased to be the Madonna and Child and became a harmony of line and color. Because I knew

what he was saying to me was true.

" 'Stop them if you will, advise them that we don't mean any harm. Why can't you do this? You

say yourself we're not your enemies, no matter what we've done...'

"I could hear him sigh, faintly. 'I have sto pped them for the time being,' he said. 'But I don't want such power over them as would be necessary to stop them entirely. Because if I exercise such

power, then I must protect it. I will make enemies. And I would have forever to deal with my

enemies when all I want here as a certain space, a certain peace. Or not to be here at all. I accept

the scepter of sorts they've given me, but not to rule over them, only to keep them at a distance.'

" 'I should have known,' I said, my eyes still fixed on that painting.

" 'Then, you must stay away. Celeste has a great deal of power, being one of the oldest, and she is jealous of the child's beauty. And Santiago, as you can see, is only waiting for a shred of proof

that you're outlaws.'

"I turned slowly and looked at h im again where he sat with that eerie vampire stillness, as if he were in fact not alive at all. The moment lengthened. I heard his words just as if he were

speaking them again: 'All I want here is a certain space, a certain peace. Or not to be here at all.'

And I felt a longing for him so strong that it took all my strength to contain it, merely to sit there gazing at him, fighting it. I wanted it to be this way: Claudia safe amongst these vampires

somehow, guilty of no crime they might ever discover from her or anyone else, so that I might be

free, free to remain forever in this cell as long as I could be welcome, even tolerated, allowed

here on any condition whatsoever.

"I could see that mortal boy again as if he were not asleep on the bed but kneeling at Armand's

side with his arms around Armand's neck. It was an icon for me of love. The love I felt. Not

physical love, you must understand. I don't speak of that at all, though Armand was beautiful and

simple, and no intimacy with him would ever have been repellent. For vampires, physical love

culminates and is satisfied in one thing, the kill. I speak of another kind of love which drew me

to him completely as the teacher which Lestat had never been. Knowledge would never be

withheld by Armand, I knew it. I would pass through him as through a pane of glass so that I

might bask in it and absorb it and grow. I shut my eyes. And I thought I heard him speak, so

faintly I wasn't certain. It seemed he said, 'Do you know why I am here?'

"I looked up at him again, wondering if he knew my thoughts, could actually read them, if such

could conceivably be the extent of that power. Now after all these years I could forgive Lestat

for being nothing but an ordinary creature who could not show me the uses of my powers; and

yet I still longed for this, could fall into it without resistance. A sadness pervaded it all, sadness for my own weakness and my own awful dilemma. Claudia waited for me. Claudia, who was my

daughter and my love.

" 'What am I to do?' I whispered. 'Go away from them, go away from you? After all these

years...'

" 'They don't matter to you,' he said.

"I smiled and nodded.

" 'What is it you want to do?' he asked. And his voice assumed the most gentle, sympathetic tone.

" 'Don't you know, don't you have that power?' I asked. 'Can't you read my thoughts as if they

Date: 2015-02-03; view: 556