The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life (26 page)

“I don’t know,
monsieur.
”

She moved the cart out of sight and began to serve Lady Dunaway. To my relief I heard a stirring next to my apartment.

It hadn’t crossed my mind that des Esseintes would leave us in our cells, but Geneviève’s bewilderment struck a note of worry into my heart. The worry was momentarily eclipsed by awe when I lifted the silver lids. Before me was a breakfast of splendid dimensions: figs garnished with prosciutto and tiny boiled eggs; cruets of
fino
sherry, and
crème
sherry with salted almonds;
galette
potatoes with carefully arranged sprigs of parsley; croissants and French breads; cheeses, marmalades, and preserves.

“Do you know what kind of eggs these are?” I called to my companion.

There was a moment of silence. “Why, no, I don’t. I don’t believe I have any eggs,” Lady Dunaway replied. “Oh, my goodness!” she exclaimed. “Now how was des Esseintes to know that I love toasted muffins?”

“He couldn’t,” I replied, doubting if even des Esseintes’s perceptive abilities were that acute. “It must have been a lucky guess.”

“Do you have codfish?” she asked.

“No. Do you have figs garnished with prosciutto?”

“No,” she returned. “We must have been served different breakfasts.”

I nodded, about to say something, but then I realized that the knowledge we had been served different breakfasts was far from being a significant fact. I looked at Geneviève and noticed she was waiting quietly for us to finish so she could remove our dishes.

“How often does des Esseintes have need of these cells?” I asked between sips of
crème
sherry.

At first she looked at me as if she were not going to answer, but then she obviously realized the harmlessness of the information. “This is the first time since I’ve lived here that he’s used them,” she said.

“Do you know when they were last used?”

Again she grew nervous. Her eyes darted back and forth between the two cells. “A long time ago, during the Revolution, two young men broke into the house. They were Royalists. One of them was my great-great uncle.”

“How long have you lived with des Esseintes?” I continued.

“I have always lived with Monsieur des Esseintes.”

“And your parents?”

“They were born here as well.”

I became aware of a tremor of pride in her face.

“We can trace our ancestors back many generations. I serve Monsieur des Esseintes as my grandmother and great-grandmother served him.”

“Don’t you ever have any desire to escape?”

She became confused. “Monsieur des Esseintes does not keep us prisoner. We are free to go about as we wish. I spend a lot of my time going for long walks. I like the
Marché aux Oiseaux
on the Île de la Cité. Do you know what that is? I go there every Sunday.”

“The ‘Market of the Birds’?” I translated loosely, but the young woman’s English was minimal.

“
Oiseaux,
” she repeated and pointed at the falcon.

I nodded to show her I understood the word.

“Every Sunday from morning to afternoon they hold a street fair and the vendors sell birds, all manner of birds, cage after cage of doves and finches, canaries and mynahs. They also sell funny dogs, and monkeys.”

“Does it amuse you to see things in cages?” I asked, peering at the bars of my cell.

“Oh, no,” she returned. “It makes me very sad. In fact, des Esseintes gives me spending money just so I can buy a few birds every weekend and let them go. I go up to the top of Notre-Dame and let them go.”

I felt a pang of sympathy for the insipid young girl. “How nice,” I heard Lady Dunaway murmur between bites of her melba toast.

I carefully opened one of the tiny eggs—quail eggs, from what I could tell—and began to eat it. “You worship Monsieur des Esseintes, don’t you?”

“Oh, no,” she said quickly, recoiling almost as if in fear. “Monsieur des Esseintes tells us not to worship him because...” She knitted her brow, trying to remember the words. “
Demon est... Deus... inversus.
Yes, that’s it.
Demon est Deus inversus.
God is the devil backward.” She was most pleased with herself for remembering so properly.

The words struck me as sinister. “What do you think that means?” I asked Lady Dunaway.

She did not immediately answer, but I heard her stand up from her breakfast table as if she had been particularly struck by the remark. “
Demon est Deus inversus
,” I heard her repeat.

“Does that mean anything to you?”

“I’m not sure, but I would guess it’s something to the effect that in great adoration there is all the potential for great hatred.”

Geneviève began to nod. “
Oui, madame,
that is it. Monsieur des Esseintes tells us only to accept, never to adore. He says that one man’s evil is another man’s good.” She seemed a little swept away by this and began blinking rapidly. She anxiously eyed my dishes to see if I was done.

“I have another question.”

Geneviève folded her hands and shyly regarded her feet. “Does it hurt when they bite you?”

“Oh, no,” she offered suddenly and then calmed herself. “No, it is very pleasant. First Monsieur des Esseintes gives us the pipe to smoke and then he plays the harmonium. There are the most wonderful dreams... and dizziness. He has an ointment that makes us feel no pain.”

“What sort of music does he play?” I heard Lady Dunaway ask with macabre delight.

“He does not play music,” Geneviève said cryptically. She became stiffer still, worried that she was saying too much. She approached the cell. “Are you finished, Docteur?”

“Yes, but I still have several questions.”

“I think you should ask Monsieur des Esseintes.”

“When will I see him again?”

“I don’t know, Docteur.” She gathered up the dishes. The falcon ruffled its wings as she left the room.

We occupied the rest of the afternoon by talking, and I found my esteem of Lady Dunaway growing. Her courage was unbelievable. Whereas any normal woman would have paced her cell with worry, my indomitable companion simply sat rocking. From the sound of her scribbling it was apparent she was taking notes about the situation, writing down every possible iota of information that might later prove helpful or valuable. Geneviève did not come again. Our other two meals were brought in by Grelot. By what I assumed to be only an hour or two before dawn I was in a near panic. What if Monsieur des Esseintes intended merely to lock us up and forget about us? I could tell my companion was growing worried as well, but by and large she still maintained her composure, yes, even better than I.

In his last visit Grelot brought us a sleeping draught, but both Lady Dunaway and I judiciously refused to touch it. Once again I lay awake in the canopied bed listening to the constant running of the water. I drifted in and out of sleep as in a fever, and I have no idea how many hours passed when I became aware of a movement in my room. I sat up quickly and listened.

For a moment there was silence, but then, in the constant glow of the torches, I spotted a large rat standing on its hind legs and sniffing at the reading table where I had taken my meals. The falcon, of course, had seen it long before and had frozen into a stare. “Good God!” I cried, throwing a copy of
Le Comte de Monte-Cristo
at the creature. The book clattered against the chair, but the rat did not appear to be intimidated. It turned away from the table, content that there were no remains, and ambled bravely toward the bed. I lifted a candlestick up from the night table, preparing to bludgeon the little monster if it came any closer.

The falcon remained motionless.

At length I spied the uneaten remains of a biscuit, also on the night table, and I gently tossed it outside the bars. The rat immediately waddled toward the scrap, but just as it reached the barrier it paused. It sniffed, looking at me suspiciously, and then back at the food. It contemplated the situation. And then finally it passed beyond the safety of the cell.

Like the branch of a young sapling being pulled back and released, the falcon pounced. The rat squealed piteously. The little neck snapped within the beak. The long tail quivered in a final convulsion.

At the same instant I thought I heard another sound, a disruption in the water similar to the splash I had heard the night before. I rushed over to the opposite wall and listened. This time it was unmistakable, the sound of human, or vampire, voices and the agitated lapping of the water. I heard a hideous rending of flesh as the falcon started to eat its filthy prey.

“Lady Dunaway!” I shouted.

She did not stir.

“Lady Dunaway!”

Still no reply. I ran to the bars and called as loudly as I could. The falcon attacked and narrowly missed my fingers. Was it possible she was so deeply asleep? Had someone come in and taken her, and if so,where?

At last the falcon finished its meal. The sounds subsided into the distant rushing. I lit all the torches and candles in my room and sat up for hours listening for some faint indication that Lady Dunaway was still in the cell beside me, or to hear the sound of someone bringing her back. If she had been taken away I reasoned that it must have been through a passage other than the cell door. The sound of the metal bars being opened and closed would surely have roused me from my sleep. I have no idea how long I sat in that timeless, quiet world. Finally, I went back to the bed and fell into a leaden sleep.

I awoke groggy and confused about my whereabouts. It took me several vigorous blinks to orient myself. When I finally pieced the world together out of the blur, I saw a well-dressed gentleman standing like a dandy in the middle of the room with his foot upon the chair.

“You did not like
Le Comte de Monte-Cristo,
Docteur Gladstone?” said a familiar voice as the man stared at the fallen book. To my surprise it was des Esseintes.

I sat up in bed.

“You sleep very late,” he said, walking over to my side. “It is well past midnight. Get up. Get dressed.”

“You’ve changed considerably,” I said, eyeing his attire. He was fastidiously dressed in a black pinstriped suit with a white silk shirt, and a resplendent white orchid on his lapel. His fingers were covered with scintillant opals, as was his stickpin, and he boasted an expensive gilt cane. He was the complete antithesis of the monkish figure; the heir apparent of the loftiest aristocracy.

“I’ve already run an errand,” he explained, gesturing at the suit. “I only wear the monk’s robe when I’m being the monk.”

“An errand?”

He chuckled as he swept around the bed, his eyes never losing me in their focus. “Oh, it’s not what you think. I don’t go out digging up graves or playing ghoul. I had a few papers to sign.”

Again I was puzzled.

“Well, I do have business holdings. I have to have an income, you know.”

“May I ask what businesses you own?”

“Of course not.”

“Why?”

“Because the only other person besides myself who knows my business holdings is Ilga. It’s safer that way.”

“What about your solicitors?”

“What about them?”

“Are they human?”

“Most of them.”

I pondered the remark. “And do the human ones know your business holdings?”

“Of course they do... but they do not know I am a vampire.”

This surprised me once again. “Well, how do you manage that?”

“It is really very easy,” he said, polishing his cane, “for two very simple reasons. First, solicitors and men of business care very little who it is they are taking their money from. I could be a murderer or a political maniac and they would not ask questions. In their way of thinking there is no good money or bad money. And second, if you are very rich you can get away with being as quaint as you want. As far as my solicitors and business managers know, I am an obsessive recluse. When I am with them, I pretend to hate going out. I also pretend to be morbidly afraid of the germs of human contact.” Again he laughed. “Indeed, if you ever learn of an extremely wealthy person who seems to be a terrified hermit and never goes out, you might ponder the possibility that he is not an eccentric, but merely clever, a being of a higher order—”

“Oh, so you’re a being of a higher order?”

“Most definitely, Monsieur le Docteur. Did you think I would be modest? Come now, you must accept my apology for leaving you in here so long. Unfortunately, a very urgent matter arose that took up most of my time these last few nights. I wouldn’t normally be so cruel as to leave you locked up. As soon as you’ve finished dressing we must have a more leisurely chat, both you and Lady Dunaway.”

“Lady Dunaway,” I said abruptly as I remembered the incident of the night before. “Is she all right?”

“Are you all right, my dear?” des Esseintes called.

“I’ll be all right in a minute,” grumbled Lady Dunaway’s voice as she obviously aroused from a deep sleep.

“Come now,” des Esseintes prodded. “I told you to get dressed.”

I heard her sniff again followed by the distinct sound of the brush going through her hair.

“What are we going to chat about?”

“About you. For instance, I don’t even know what kind of a doctor you are.”

“I’m a virologist.”

“You’re a virologist—see, I’ve learned something already. We have many things to chat about... about your future. Since our first encounter I’ve had time to think about a lot of things. I’m so isolated, so attached to my own perspective. I’ve been myself for so long, I don’t immediately grasp how you might be viewing all of this. Well, I’ve had time to put myself in your shoes and I’ve realized how confused and frightened you must be. Especially after I was so insidious the other evening, talking about the falcon and all. I’m not really such a bad fellow. I thought if we had a more leisurely conversation you might be put more at ease.”

“And will we still be kept prisoners?”

“We will talk about that also.”

At last Lady Dunaway appeared, dazed but carefully groomed and still wearing her ulster, only minus the hat. I scrutinized her closely. It
was
Lady Dunaway, not an imposter. She didn’t seem changed in any significant moods or aspects. There were no markings upon her neck. “Good morning,” she greeted.