“Michel, if you do that you’ll get big knuckles,” Gerlinde said.
“What’s wrong, Michael?” Carol asked him.
“Well, if you didn’t like each other, how come you had me?”
Carol wondered how to alleviate his fears without lying to him. Finally she put her arm around his shoulder.
“Your father and I have had an… unusual relationship. You know your birth was very special.”
“Yeah. Chloe told me all about it,” the boy said matter-of-factly, as though it didn’t really interest him. He picked up an iPad and began punching the buttons.
“Where’d you take me when you ran away?” Suddenly his mood brightened. He switched subjects in the same way he flipped channels on the TV.
“Well, I hitchhiked on the highway for a long time, heading for England. You were only a baby, just born, only two days old. It was snowing a little and very cold but I kept you close to me. I don’t think you were cold.”
“I didn’t cry, did I?”
“No. You were a wonderful baby.”
“Then where’d we go?”
“Well, we stopped a couple of times in gas stations and I fed you milk and changed you, the things you do with babies.”
She hugged him. He blushed and shifted away a little. “There was one place that was all burned out inside. I took you in there because it was so cold and there was no other place to go.”
“I ‘member that!” Michael yelled, looking up. “It smelled!”
How could he? Carol wondered. “I sang you songs, too.”
“Sing one.”
She smiled and kissed the top of his head then sang the lullaby that she’d sung to him as he had nestled against her heart. “Way down yonder, in the meadow, poor little baby crying mama. Birds and butterflies, flutter round his eyes, poor little baby crying mama. Dapples and greys, pintos and bays, all the pretty little horses.”
The iPad rested quietly in Michael’s lap. His eyes were very round. Suddenly he said, “How could I’ve been born if you didn’t love each other?”
Carol took his chin in her hand and turned his face towards hers. She felt very serious and wanted him to understand that. His eyes widened as they stared into hers with an expectation she had to meet. “Michael, listen to me. Both André and I love you very, very much. We may not always have loved each other, but I know that the night you were conceived we did because I remember that night. André loved me and I loved him for those moments and that’s how you came about, through that love. You’re the child of that love. Don’t ever forget what I’m telling you. No matter what happens, always remember that it was love that created you.”
The three were quiet. Michael snuggled in Carol’s arms.
Gerlinde watched mother and son with a look of wonder on her face.
Suddenly the door opened and André came in. He crossed the room and sat opposite the couch on the chair closest to the fireplace.
“Hey, André, did you see this movie with the guy on the motorcycle?” Michael jumped up and unpaused the movie he’d been watching earlier. A surly Marlon Brando appeared briefly on the screen before Gerlinde annihilated the image.
“Sorry, kiddo, bath time. Last one in is a rotten bratwurst.”
Michael groaned, but he kissed Carol and then went over and kissed André, who held him tightly. He ran towards the door with Gerlinde on his heels. Just before he went out Michael turned and yelled, “I love ya both!” then disappeared.
So warm and human.
She glanced at André. His grey eyes were soft, like old pewter, as he watched her. He didn’t seem as distant as she remembered him.
He rested his head against the back of the chair and she brought her feet up under her. They sat that way for a good half hour, each watching the other, without speaking, contained in the silence of the room. Outside the wind moaned softly and a branch tapped persistently against the window.
The sky was lightening and eventually André stood and switched off each of the lamps. Then he walked into the hallway and set the alarm. Carol got up and followed him downstairs.
She stood on her side of the bed slipping her running shoes and socks off and then her shirt. She unsnapped the clip that held her hair up. From the night table she picked up her brush and began brushing out the tangles.
Five nights are up, she thought. Will André let me stay? And if he won’t, what’s going to happen?
She drew the bristles through her thick hair many times, from the scalp to the ends, before finally pulling the hair over one shoulder.
Michael’s such a darling, she thought. I want to be with him more than anything. Now that I’ve found him I can’t live without him again.
She gathered the hair in one hand and brushed just the ends and as she did so her head turned slightly. She caught André’s eye and stopped brushing. He stood naked on the other side of the bed watching her. She looked away nervously, embarrassed, not wanting to encourage anything.
She ran the brush through her hair from the top of her scalp again but within seconds felt him up against her. His hands gripped her waist. He brought his lips to the exposed side of her throat and kissed her there. He smelled faintly of a spicy aftershave but his beard was a little rough against her skin.
His body was hot, even through her jeans she felt that. A sudden memory of familiarity erupted; he was hard and powerful. His pelvis rocked from side to side as he rubbed against her. He unsnapped her bra and caressed one of her breasts.
Carol felt trapped. Part of her locked into fear and another part clamped down on feelings that were startling. “I haven’t had anyone since you,” she blurted out, immediately wondering what had made her say that.
André kissed her hair. His lips slid along her ear, his breath tickling her skin, then down to her neck again.
His hand wandered across her waist. He unzipped her jeans.
“Don’t,” she said softly, feeling torn, afraid.
He pulled the snap on her pants open and with one hand eased her pants down over her hips.
“No,” she moaned as his fingers went up into her. Her vagina contracted and the wetness broke inside. She moaned again.
His warm penis pressed insistently against her skin. Carol pushed herself back against him, responding. But she heard herself say, “No,” once more.
He turned her face up and to the side so she would look at him, his eyes large silver-grey almonds. His fingers continued to massage her, spreading warmth into the wetness.
“Carol, should I listen to your words or your body?”
She felt her legs go weak, her heart race and her breath quicken. She couldn’t answer him. More than anything she wanted him to make that decision so she wouldn’t have to.
And when she hesitated a strained look marred his face. He started to edge away.
“No!” she cried, locking onto him, forcing his fingers back into her, grabbing his hair, dragging him down until his lips joined hers in a passionate kiss.
He maneuvered them onto the bed. She lay face down with him on top, his fingers still inside her, triggering sensations in her and sounds out of her. But soon he moved them both onto their sides, him behind.
Why? she tried to ask herself. Why is this happening again? And why am I doing this? I don’t want to start anything. I don’t want to get enmeshed.
He lifted her leg and entered her. The feel of him sliding in so deep left her breathless and interrupted the questions. Gently he bent her leg and pressed it down again, filling her.
“Kiss me,” she whispered, her throat dry, her voice low.
He held a handful of her hair and gently pulled her back until her upper body lay flat against the bed. While his tongue and lips spoke to hers and his fingers answered the demands of her swollen clitoris, he moved inside her, his thrusts deep, responding to another need.
At first Carol saw herself as a starved animal that had waited too long; she was over-hungry and couldn’t take anything in. But then, suddenly, se
nsation flooded her and she felt ravenous, on the brink of receiving what she had forgotten she needed. He thrust harder and faster and within seconds both of them came together, moaning, interlocked, intertwined.
Afterwards Carol cried. Not because she was either happy or unhappy, just because she felt released.
André covered her with the blanket and snapped off the light. He nuzzled her hair and wrapped his arms around her as if he would never let her go. And she held onto him as though she wouldn’t let him let her go.
She could still feel him inside her as they both drifted off to sleep.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
As Carol awoke, cool lips kissed hers passionately in the darkness. “Is it night?” she asked groggily, wrapping her arm around André’s neck.
“Yes. Why don’t you sleep a little longer? Karl and I are taking Michel to a science shop. We’ll be gone for a couple of hours.”
“Okay.” She curled into a ball under the blanket he tucked around her. She’d been exhausted lately and needed a lot of sleep.
But as soon as André left, she felt his absence and couldn’t go back to sleep so she switched on the lights. She dressed quickly, realizing she’d been wearing the same clothes, jeans and a flannel shirt, for five days. Maybe Gerlinde’s got something I can borrow so I can wash these, she thought.
Carol hugged herself and smiled. She felt warm and soft and wanting. This could be the beginning of something good, she thought. Maybe we can make it work this time, despite what he is.
After she showered and dressed, she decided to look around before going upstairs for breakfast. She’d been in André’s room many times in Bordeaux, and every night since she’d been in Montréal, but had never really seen what he kept hidden away. She knew so little about him.
She slid one of the closet’s double doors open. Hangers holding stylish, new-looking clothing crammed the space that took up one entire wall. On the shelf above sat an array of hats plus a baseball bat, a lacrosse stick, a couple of mitts and softballs, a tennis racket and a soccer ball. On the floor below dozens of pairs of shoes and boots, casuals, sandals, dress, sports shoes filled a shoe rack. She closed the door.
Besides the bed, there were three other major pieces of bedroom furniture. The larger dresser and the armoire contained what she expected, more clothes, neatly folded or hung, orderly, precise. Another, smaller dresser, held a bunch of odd items in the top three drawers, including a fleur-de-lis pin, a banner and a program from the 1941 World Series, where the Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers four to one, coins from different countries, ancient military metals, old grainy French newspaper photographs and clippings of a sports team—she tried to pick out André and thought she did in a couple of pictures—a faded grade school primer, in French, with the name André Francois Emil Moreau written in a precise but child-like hand. There were other things from his life too: a photograph of André, Karl and a blonde-haired man who looked very sensitive, arms around each other’s shoulders, all smiling for the camera. On the back was the inscription Victory Studios, Madison Avenue, New York, and the year 1949. There were ticket stubs for La Soif, by Henri
Bernstein starring Jean Gabin in Paris, dated February 20, 1949.
Also two playbills: Cat On a Hot Tin Roof starring Burl Ives and Ben Gazzara at the Morosco Theater in New York, March 15, 1955, and Shakespeare’s Coriolanus at Stratford-on-Avon, July 7, 1959, starring Laurence Olivier and Edith Evans. Inside the last a New York Times review had been clipped out, the paper yellow with age. She read part of it:
“Coriolanus is the least likable of all Shakespeare’s tragic heroes, because the sin by which he falls is a fierce, intolerant personal pride. He is that most difficult character—a man undeniably great who is yet not great enough to be humble.
No modern audience in this age, which prefers its great men to be regular fellows when not on show, can readily take to such a man.”
He’s been all over. And he must have lived in the States, she realized. That’s why his English is so good.
There were also tin-types of a young man and woman and a later sepia photograph of the two of them, now middle-aged, with a baby. She wondered if they were his parents. The woman was dark-haired and beautiful, gentle-looking, shy. The man, tall, well-dressed, sporting a long moustache, had a humorous grin on his face. They both resembled André. The baby was in a long white dress of the day and it was impossible to tell if it was a male or female or even see its face clearly. There was also a family shot, the same man and woman, the same age, with the same baby and six boys ranging from fifteen or so to probably early forties. They all had dark hair and looked a bit like André.
The bottom drawer was locked but she’d seen a key in the top and tried it. It worked.
Inside the drawer were only four items, two together, neatly aligned in a row. On the left sat a gold heart-shaped locket, the chain carefully arranged to make a larger heart around it. Carol lifted the locket out and opened the clasp. On the left was a portrait of a young woman with warm eyes, dark hair and a generous smile. She looked French. André’s picture was on the right. He appeared exactly as he did now except the shirt and sweater he wore and his haircut were obviously from another era, maybe the twenties. On the back of the locket words had been inscribed: Mon Amour, Mon Coeur. She replaced the locket and carefully rearranged the chain around it. In the center of the drawer was a beige ladies handkerchief, old-fashioned, with a delicate lace filigree border, the initials SV embroidered in pink at one corner. She lifted it out and smelled it—a faint trace of lavender. The most surprising things were on the right.
There was The Empress Tarot card and the smoky quartz Jeanette had given Carol. The card was perfectly centered between the top, bottom and side of the drawer and the crystal stood upright in the middle of it. She picked both up. Memories pressed in on her, moments with Jeanette, with André, Michael’s birth, alone with Michael in the burnt-out garage, snippets of time when André had been kind and loving to her.
He’s sentimental, she realized. I never knew that. She wondered who the woman in the locket was and whose initials were on the handkerchief. They must be old loves. But where are they now?
Carefully Carol replaced the items. She fussed with them until satisfied they were in exactly the place she had found them, then locked the drawer and replaced the key. She went upstairs, made breakfast and had just walked into the living room when there was a knock on the front door.
Jeanette. Carol sat by the fireplace watching the vampires greet each other. They were all very affectionate, hugging, kissing, even nibbling at each other’s ears like puppies, really glad to see one another. Nobody noticed her but for the moment she didn’t mind. They’re all so respectful, caring of each other, she thought. Yes, caring respect, those are the right words.
More human than many human beings. It was fascinating to watch.
A few minutes later Karl came in, with André right behind him. André looked at Carol; she had the sense he wanted to come to her first but Julien called him and he joined the others. She saw Michael peer into the room then duck back out again. Then she heard him thundering up the steps to the second floor.
If they had a problem with Julien giving her the address, they had obviously worked it out. She couldn’t discern signs of hostility between any of them. It was strange to see, really. A group of vampires, and Carol wasn’t even sure what that meant because she knew they weren’t like in the movies. They seemed ordinary, like everybody else—except for the blood. But it was always in the back of her mind that for them the bottom line was she never ceased being food. Yet there was something enviable about them. They were connected somehow, connected yet separate. Carol felt a yearning to be part of something larger than herself, to have what they had.
The door bell rang and Julien answered it, just as though this were his home. He returned with an extraordinary looking woman. Everyone stopped talking and turned towards her.
She was as tall as Julien wh
o was, himself, about six feet. Her hair, mostly silver, shone in the incandescent lighting. She wore it in a loose chignon. One thin streak of jet black ran from a widow’s peak all the way back. Her skin was clear and pale but strange; her features looked Eurasian, especially her eyes. They were slanted and possessed the quality of stars, flickering, like jewels when the facets are caught just so by the light. Intense, intimate geodes the deepest shade of violet Carol had seen outside the flower itself. Her eyes reminded Carol of Julien’s and she wondered if the longer these vampires existed, the more they became like the deepest geological layers of the earth itself, closer to the source of life. And death.
The woman was dressed in very casual but stylish cotton and silk clothing, layer on layer, calf-length pants over longer pants, with a maxi skirt underneath and a mini over it all. A blouse, a waist-length sweater-like drapey garment and a loose open jacket, two scarves, a shawl, all in shades of black and grey with dabs of white. She wore large chunks of silver jewelry embedded with turquoise and another stone, brownish green, with what looked like streaks of blood running through it.
This startling woman walked towards the group, gliding almost, smiling, her bearing regal. She was ageless but not young.
Julien introduced Jeanette to her in English. Jeanette, tall herself, didn’t quite reach this woman’s stature. He then said simply, “Jeanette, Morianna, of whom I have spoken.”
The woman smiled so warmly at Jeanette that the latter melted before Carol’s eyes. Morianna took Jeanette’s face in her hands and Jeanette touched the older woman’s waist. “Oh, yes!”
Morianna exclaimed, her laughter shimmering through the air. “You are a match for him.” She kissed Jeanette on both cheeks.
Next she was introduced to Karl and Gerlinde. She spoke in German to them, touching both lightly on the face. Gerlinde blushed a little.
With Chloe she spoke in French, smiling warmly, hugging her, calling her, “Ma soeur.”
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