Quot;What was this change?" asked the boy. 17 page

"'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 Claudia'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 stand 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 stopped 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 him 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 were words?'

"He shook his head. 'Not the way you mean. I only know the danger to you and the child is real because it's real to you. And I know your loneliness even with her love is almost more terrible than you can bear.'

"I stood up then. It would seem a simple thing to do, to rise, to go to the door, to hurry quickly down that passage; and yet it took every ounce of strength, every smattering of that curious thing I've called my detachment.

" 'I ask you to keep them away from us,' I said at the door; but I couldn't look back at him, didn't even want the soft intrusion of his voice.

" 'Don't go,' he said.

" 'I have no choice.'

"I was in the passage when I heard him so close to me that I started. He stood beside me, eye level with my eye, and in his hand he held a key which he pressed into mine.

" 'There is a door there,' he said, gesturing to the dark end, which I'd thought to be merely a wall. 'And a stairs to the side street which no one uses but myself. Go this way now, so you can avoid the others. You are anxious and they will see it.' I turned around to go at once, though every part of my being wanted to remain there. 'But let me tell you this,' he said, and lightly he pressed the back of his hand against my heart. 'Use the power inside you. Don't abhor it anymore. Use that power! And when they see you in the streets above, use that power to make your face a mask and think as you gaze on them as on anyone: beware. Take that word as if it were an amulet I'd given you to wear about your neck. And when your eyes meet Santiago's eyes, or the eyes of any other vampire, speak to them politely what you will, but think of that word and that word only. Remember what I say. I speak to you simply because you respect what is simple. You understand this. That's your strength.'

"I took the key from him, and I don't remember actually putting it into the lock or going up the steps. Or where he was or what he'd done. Except that, as I was stepping into the dark side street behind the theater, I heard him say very softly to me from someplace close to me: 'Come here, to me, when you can.' I looked around for him but was not surprised that I couldn't see him. He had told me also sometime or other that I must not leave the Hotel Saint-Gabriel, that I must not give the others the shred of evidence of guilt they wanted. 'You see,' he said, 'killing other vampires is very exciting; that is why it is forbidden under penalty of death.'

"And then I seemed to awake. To the Paris street shining with rain, to the tall, narrow buildings on either side of me, to the fact that the door had shut to make a solid dark wall behind me and that Armand was no longer there.

"And though I knew Claudia waited for me, though I passed her in the hotel window above the gas lamps, a tiny figure standing among waxen petaled flowers, I moved away from the boulevard, letting the darker streets swallow me, as so often the streets of New Orleans had done.

"It was not that I did not love her; rather, it was that I knew I loved her only too well, that the passion for her was as great as the passion for Armand. And I fled them both now, letting the desire for the kill rise in me like a welcome fever, threatening consciousness, threatening pain.

"Out of the mist which had followed the rain, a man was walking towards me. I can remember him as roaming on the landscape of a dream, because the night around me was dark and unreal. The hill might have been anywhere in the world, and the soft lights of Paris were an amorphous shimmering in the fog. And sharp-eyed and drunk, he was walking blindly into the arms of death itself, his pulsing fingers reaching out to touch the very bones of my face.

"I was not crazed yet, not desperate. I might have said to him, 'Pass by.' I believe my lips did form the word Armand had given me, 'Beware.' Yet I let him slip his bold, drunken arm around my waist; I yielded to his adoring eyes, to the voice that begged to paint me now and spoke of warmth, to the rich, sweet smell of the oils that streaked his loose shirt. I was following him, through Montmartre, and I whispered to him, 'You are not a member of the dead.' He was leading me through an overgrown garden, through the sweet, wet grasses, and he was laughing as I said, 'Alive, alive,' his hand touching my cheek, stroking my face, clasping finally my chin as he guided me into the light of the low doorway, his reddened face brilliantly illuminated by the oil lamps, the warmth seeping about us as the door closed.

"I saw the great sparkling orbs of his eyes, the tiny red veins that reached for the dark centers, that warm hand burning my cold hunger as he guided me to a chair. And then all around me I saw faces blazing, faces rising in the smoke of the lamps, in the shimmer of the burning stove, a wonderland of colors on canvases surrounding us beneath the small, sloped roof, a blaze of beauty that pulsed and throbbed. 'Sit down, sit down...' he said to me, those feverish hands against my chest, clasped by my hands, yet sliding away, my hunger rising in waves.

"And now I saw him at a distance, eyes intent, the palette in his hand, the huge canvas obscuring the arm that moved. And mindless and helpless, I sat there drifting with his paintings, drifting with those adoring eyes, letting it go on and on till Armand's eyes were gone and Claudia was running down that stone passage with clicking heels away from me, away from me.

Date: 2015-01-02; view: 647