The Tale of the Body Thief (12 page)

I wanted desperately to pull him back, but I waited. At last he went on.

“I was in this café, as I said.”

“Yes.”

“And I realized I was overhearing this strange conversation … and it wasn’t in English and it wasn’t in French … and gradually I came to know that it wasn’t in any language really, and yet it was fully understandable to me. I put down my paper, and began to concentrate. On and on it went. It was a sort of argument. And suddenly I didn’t know whether or not the voices were audible in any conventional sense. I wasn’t sure anyone else could actually hear this! I looked up and slowly turned around.

“And there they were … two beings, seated at the table talking to each other, and just for a moment, it seemed normal—two men in conversation. I looked back at my paper, and this swimming feeling came over me. I had to anchor myself to something, to fix on the paper for a moment and then the tabletop, and make the swimming cease. The noise of the café came back like a full orchestra. And I knew I’d just turned and looked at two individuals who weren’t human beings.

“I turned around again, forcing myself to focus tightly, to be aware of things, keenly aware. And there they were still, and it was painfully clear they were illusory. They simply weren’t of the same fabric as everything else. Do you know what I’m saying? I can break it down into parts. They weren’t being illuminated by the same light, for instance, they existed in some realm where the light was from another source.”

“Like the light in Rembrandt.”

“Yes, rather like that. Their clothes and their faces were smoother than those of human beings. Why, the whole vision was of a different texture, and that texture was uniform in all its details.”

“Did they see you?”

“No. I mean to say, they didn’t look at me, or acknowledge me. They looked at each other, they went on talking, and I picked up the thread again instantly. It was God talking to the Devil and telling the Devil that he must go on doing the job. And the Devil didn’t want to do it. He explained that his term had already been too long. The same thing was happening to him that had happened to all the others. God said that He understood, but the Devil ought to know how important he was, he couldn’t simply shirk his duties, it wasn’t that simple, God
needed him, and needed him to be strong. And all this was very amicable.”

“What did they look like?”

“That’s the worst part of it. I don’t know. At the time I saw two vague shapes, large, definitely male, or assuming male form, shall we say, and pleasant-looking—nothing monstrous, nothing out of the ordinary really. I wasn’t aware of any absence of particulars—you know, hair color, facial features, that sort of thing. The two figures seemed quite complete. But when I tried to reconstruct the event afterwards, I couldn’t recall any details! I don’t think the illusion
was
that nearly complete. I think I was satisfied by it, but the sense of completeness sprang from something else.”

“From what?”

“The content, the meaning, of course.”

“They never saw you, never knew you were there.”

“My dear boy, they had to know I was there. They must have known. They must have been doing it for my benefit! How else could I have been allowed to see it?”

“I don’t know, David. Maybe they didn’t mean for you to see. Maybe it’s that some people can see, and some people can’t. Maybe it was a little rip in the other fabric, the fabric of everything else in the café.”

“That could be true. But I fear it wasn’t. I fear I was meant to see it and it was meant to have some effect on me. And that’s the horror, Lestat. It didn’t have a very great effect.”

“You didn’t change your life on account of it.”

“Oh, no, not at all. Why, two days later I doubted I’d even seen it. And with each telling to another person, with each little verbal confrontation—‘David, you’ve gone crackers’—it became ever more uncertain and vague. No, I never did anything about it.”

“But what was there to do? What can anybody do on account of any revelation but live a good life? David, surely you told your brethren in the Talamasca about the vision.”

“Yes, yes, I told them. But that was much later, after Brazil, when I filed my long memoirs, as a good member should do. I told them the whole story, such as it was, of course.”

“And what did they say?”

“Lestat, the Talamasca never says much of anything, that’s what one has to face. ‘We watch and we are always there.’ To tell the truth,
it wasn’t a very popular vision to go talking about with the other members. Speak of spirits in Brazil and you have an audience. But the Christian God and His Devil? No, I fear the Talamasca is subject somewhat to prejudices and even fads, like any other institution. The story raised a few eyebrows. I don’t recall much else. But then when you’re talking to gentlemen who have seen werewolves, and been seduced by vampires, and fought witches, and talked to ghosts, well, what do you expect?”

“But God and the Devil,” I said, laughing. “David, that’s the big time. Maybe the other members envied you more than you realized.”

“No, they didn’t take it seriously,” he said, acknowledging my humor with a little laugh of his own. “I’m surprised that you’ve taken it seriously, to be quite frank.”

He rose suddenly, excitedly, and walked across the room to the window, and pushed back the drape with his hand. He stood trying to see out into the snow-filled night.

“David, what could these apparitions have meant for you to do?”

“I don’t know,” he said, in a bitter discouraged voice. “That’s my point. I’m seventy-four, and I don’t know. I’ll die without knowing. And if there is no illumination, then so be it. That in itself is an answer, whether I am conscious enough to know it or not.”

“Come back and sit down, if you will. I like to see your face when you talk.”

He obeyed, almost automatically, seating himself and reaching for the empty glass, eyes shifting to the fire again.

“What do you think, Lestat, really? Inside of you? Is there a God or a Devil? I mean truly, what do you believe?”

I thought for a long time before I answered. Then:

“I do think God exists. I don’t like to say so. But I do. And probably some form of Devil exists as well. I admit—it’s a matter of the missing pieces, as we’ve said. And you might well have seen the Supreme Being and his Adversary in that Paris café. But it’s part of their maddening game that we can never figure it out for certain. You want a likely explanation for their behavior? Why they let you have a little glimpse? They wanted to get you embroiled in some sort of religious response! They play with us that way. They throw out visions and miracles and bits and pieces of divine revelation. And we go off full of zeal and found a church. It’s all part of their game, part of their ongoing and endless talk. And you know? I think your view
of them—an imperfect God and a learning Devil—is just about as good as anyone else’s interpretation. I think you’ve hit on it.”

He was staring at me intently, but he didn’t reply.

“No,” I continued. “We aren’t meant to know the answers. We aren’t meant to know if our souls travel from body to body through reincarnation. We aren’t meant to know if God made the world. If He’s Allah or Yahweh or Shiva or Christ. He plants the doubts as He plants the revelations. We’re all His fools.”

Still he didn’t answer.

“Quit the Talamasca, David,” I said. “Go to Brazil before you’re too old. Go back to India. See the places you want to see.”

“Yes, I think I should do that,” he said softly. “And they’ll probably take care of it all for me. The elders have already met to discuss the entire question of David and his recent absences from the Motherhouse. They’ll retire me with a nice pension, of course.”

“Do they know that you’ve seen me?”

“Oh, yes. That’s part of the problem. The elders have forbidden contact. Very amusing really, since they are so desperate to lay eyes upon you themselves. They know when you come round the Motherhouse, of course.”

“I know they do,” I said. “What do you mean, they’ve forbidden contact?”

“Oh, just the standard admonition,” he said, eyes still on the burning log. “All very medieval, really, and based upon an old directive: ‘You are not to encourage this being, not to engage in or prolong conversation; if he persists in his visits, you are to do your best to lure him to some populated place. It is well known that these creatures are loath to attack when surrounded by mortals. And never, never are you to attempt to learn secrets from this being, or to believe for one moment that any emotions evinced by him are genuine, for these creatures dissemble with remarkable ability, and have been known, for reasons that cannot be analyzed, to drive mortals mad. This has befallen sophisticated investigators as well as hapless innocents with whom the vampires come in contact. You are warned to report any and all meetings, sightings, etc., to the elders without delay.’ ”

“Do you really know this by heart?”

“I wrote the directive myself,” he said, with a little smile. “I’ve given it to many other members over the years.”

“They know I’m here now?”

“No, of course not. I stopped reporting our meetings to them a long time ago.” He fell into his thoughts again, and then: “Do you search for God?” he asked.

“Certainly not,” I answered. “I can’t imagine a bigger waste of time, even if one has centuries to waste. I’m finished with all such quests. I look to the world around me now for truths, truths mired in the physical and in the aesthetic, truths I can fully embrace. I care about your vision because you saw it, and you told me, and I love you. But that’s all.”

He sat back, gazing off again into the shadows of the room. “Won’t matter, David. In time, you’ll die. And probably so shall I.”

His smile was warm again as though he could not accept this except as a sort of joke.

There was a long silence, during which he poured a little more Scotch and drank it more slowly than he had before. He wasn’t even close to being intoxicated. I saw that he planned it that way. When I was mortal I always drank to get drunk. But then I’d been very young, and very poor, castle or no castle, and most of the brew was bad.

“You search for God,” he said, with a little nod.

“The hell I do. You’re too full of your own authority. You know perfectly well that I am not the boy you see here.”

“Ah, I must be reminded of that, you’re correct. But you could never abide evil. If you’ve told the truth half the time in your books, it’s plain that you were sick of evil from the beginning. You’d give anything to discover what God wants of you and to do what He wants.”

“You’re in your dotage already. Make your will.”

“Oooh, so cruel,” he said with his bright smile.

I was going to say something else to him, when I was distracted. There was a little pulling somewhere in my consciousness. Sounds. A car passing very slowly on the narrow road through the distant village, in a blinding snow.

I scanned, caught nothing, merely the snow falling, and the car edging its way along. Poor sad mortal to be driving through the country at this hour. It was four of the clock.

“It’s very late,” I said. “I have to leave now. I don’t want to spend another night here, though you’ve been most kind. It’s nothing to do with anyone knowing. I simply prefer … ”

“I understand. When will I see you again?”

“Perhaps sooner than you think,” I said. “David, tell me. The other night, when I left here, hell-bent on burning myself to a crisp in the Gobi, why did you say that I was your only friend?”

“You are.”

We sat there in silence for a moment.

“You are my only friend as well, David,” I said.

“Where are you going?”

“I don’t know. Back to London, perhaps. I’ll tell you when I go back across the Atlantic. Is that all right?”

“Yes, do tell me. Don’t … don’t ever believe that I don’t want to see you, don’t ever abandon me again.”

“If I thought I was good for you, if I thought your leaving the order and traveling again was good for you … ”

“Oh, but it is. I don’t belong anymore in the Talamasca. I’m not even sure I trust it any longer, or believe in its aims.”

I wanted to say more—to tell him how much I loved him, that I’d sought shelter under his roof and he’d protected me and that I would never forget this, and that I would do anything he wished of me, anything at all.

But it seemed pointless to say so. I don’t know whether he would have believed it, or what the value would have been. I was still convinced that it was not good for him to see me. And there wasn’t very much left to him in this life.

“I know all this,” he said quietly, gracing me with that smile again.

“David,” I said, “the report you made of your adventures in Brazil. Is there a copy here? Could I read this report?”

He stood up and went to the glass-doored bookshelf nearest his desk. He looked through the many materials there for a long moment, then removed two large leather folders from the shelf.

“This is my life in Brazil—what I wrote in the jungles after, on a little rattletrap portable typewriter at a camp table, before I came home to England. I did go after the jaguar, of course. Had to do it. But the hunt was nothing compared to my experiences in Rio, absolutely nothing. That was the turning point, you see. I believe the very writing of this was some desperate attempt to become an Englishman again, to distance myself from the Candomble people, from the life I’d
been living with them. My report for the Talamasca was based upon the material here.”

I took it from him gratefully.

“And this,” he said, holding the other folder, “is a brief summary of my days in India and Africa.”

“I would like to read that too.”

“Old hunting stories mostly. I was young when I wrote this. It’s all big guns and action! It was before the war.”

I took this second folder as well. I stood up, in slow gentlemanly fashion.

“I’ve talked the night away,” he said suddenly. “That was rude of me. Perhaps you had things to say.”

“No, not at all. It was exactly what I wanted.” I offered my hand and he took it. Amazing the sensation of his touch against the burnt flesh.