The Book of Common Dread

by Brent Monahan

  "My herbs worked well, I see," Vincent said, consciously working his English accent. "Yet even without their help, I suspect you are that rare beauty who grows more lovely the more one looks."

  Frederika stared back boldly at his intense gaze. "And I suspect you are that class of charmer who grows bolder with each successful compliment."

  Vincent laughed. "Are you hungry? I thought perhaps something simple to eat and then a movie."

  "That sounds fine."

  Vincent pulled his coat off a hook next to the door. "Shall we go?" he invited.

  "Your radio or whatever is still playing," she pointed out.

  "Let's leave it on," he said. "This ill-spirited house needs it."

  In spite of their semiformal dress, Vincent suggested that they eat at P.J.'s Pancake House. Frederika agreed enthusiastically. He ordered his usual cheeseburger, fries, and Coke, and she followed his lead. He had been offering his impressions of Princeton when the food arrived but immediately fell silent and concentrated on his plate.

  Frederika's laugh halted Vincent in mid-chew. "What is it?"

  "You. My father used to tell a story about me when I was six. He, my mother, and I went to a very chic French restaurant. I supposedly said, 'I can tell when grown-ups really like food; they close their eyes.' That was over escargot. You're doing it over a cheeseburger."

  "Chacun a son gout," Vincent replied, shrugging. "Besides… this is not just any cheeseburger."

  "You really enjoy life, don't you?" Frederika observed.

  "That's… an understatement. Don't you?"

  "Sometimes."

  Vincent set the remaining burger on his plate. "And what could possibly prevent you from enjoying life as much as I do? Did you really come to me because you fear death?"

  "No," she answered, and he saw a duplicate of the unhappy face she wore when she came seeking answers from the dead. This was her secret he was circling, and he did not mean to; tonight was for lightness, laughter, and lethe.

  "I thought not," he said. "People your age think they're immortal. That's why so many die in automobile accidents."

  "I hate that expression: 'people your age.' Just how old does one have to be before one's entitled to wave it about?" Frederika asked.

  "In my case, forty-four. To a person your age, does that make a difference?"

  "No."

  Vincent had known the answer with proud confidence before asking it. He attracted women of all ages, had had dozens younger than this one. "Eat," he directed, affably. "The movie begins in five minutes."

  They walked to the Garden Theatre, virtually next door to the eatery, where Paddy Chayefsky's Marty was playing. Vincent said, "I was never one for the epics. Give me a 'little people' movie any time. Regular people solving everyday problems. The Apartment, The Goodbye Girl, The April Fools."

  "And Casablanca," Frederika said.

  "Absolutely," Vincent agreed.

  "They're also all love stories," she pointed out.

  "So they are. So they are." He took her hand in his and she offered no resistance.

  Even before they reached Vincent's front porch, he said, "Won't you come in for a drink? I bought a bottle of the most wonderful French Burgundy. They say it's excellent for the blood."

  " 'They' being the wine sellers," Frederika remarked, answering his invitation at the same time by climbing the porch steps.

  "Yes, of course. But I was thinking of the monks who nurtured and bred the vineyards into the treasures they are today."

  "Then let's drink to the monks," Frederika said.

  They entered the duplex and walked into the kitchen. By hallway light only, Vincent opened the wine bottle and decanted it. "We must give it room to breathe," he said, moving close to the young woman, inhaling the seductive scent of her perfume. He drew the coat from her shoulders by slowly insinuating his fingers across her collar bones and around her neck.

  "And what about me?" Frederika asked. "Shouldn't you give me room to breathe?"

  "No," Vincent answered. He let the coat fall to the floor. His eyes roamed the features of her face possessively. A wicked smile crept into the corner of his mouth. "I'll breathe for you." He trailed his lips lightly over her cheek, across her eyelids, down the opposite cheek to the angle where her jaw met her neck. Her skin felt silky smooth. He felt her heat on his mouth, kissed her directly over the pulsing of her carotid artery. She moaned softly and lifted one hand to the back of his neck. He trailed light kisses along the line of her jaw and up her chin. He felt the expulsion of her breath on his cheek, and he lifted his lips to hers. She turned her face at the last moment and explored his ear with the hot tip of her tongue. Abstract wooing of eye and ear was abandoned for the direct pleasures of touch, arousing through texture, curve, and resistance. As his fingers explored her shoulders and lower back, hers combed through his thick hair. She sighed encouragement into his ear.

  To one of Vincent's experience, Frederika had immediately telegraphed sexual awareness. He was surprised, however, to find her so soon in his arms. Women of such beauty rarely yielded themselves because of mere physical attraction or intangible promises such as he had made. He had been willing to play the seduction game for her, although he had not wanted to. Sexual gratification was a life force almost as compelling as blood. He had foregone sex for almost two months. He had not coupled with a woman as beautiful and intelligent as Frederika in perhaps twenty years. Someone who possessed the still undefined qualities of soul and spirit he intuited in her he had chanced upon only once before, and that had been during his brief invasion of the court of Louis Quinze.

  Vincent was vastly thankful for Frederika's receptiveness, and he worked his accumulated lovemaking skills on her to prove it. Her dress unbuttoned in the back. He worked the buttons open from the neck downward, as Frederika tugged impatiently at his tie.

  "There's a better place for this," Vincent murmured. "Take the bottle and the glasses."

  "And what will you take?" Frederika teased.

  "You." Vincent scooped her up into his arms and carried her along the length of the age-browned hall, up the stairs, and into a large and very dark bedroom.

  "I can't flip the light switch-my hands are full," Frederika said.

  Vincent continued into the darkness with a bat's assuredness. "We don't want that light anyway," he told her. The bedstead creaked metallically as he lowered her gently onto the mattress. "Please remember I'm renting a furnished house," he said. "This is not my taste."

  The furniture was old enough but too shabby to be called antique. The banker's lamp on the clipper captain's desk across the room had a low-wattage bulb. Its weak yellow cast made the room look all the more decrepit. The furniture-chipped, white-painted iron bed with massive finials, smoky pier glass mirror, hideous Victorian etagere with porcelain wash basin and pitcher, and turtle-backed chair-might have been positioned by a stage designer with a skilled eye, but there was no duplicating the patina of the pegged board floors or the cabbage-rose wallpaper, dessicated everywhere except beneath the ancient print of The Seven Ages of Man.

  Frederika had arranged herself in a provocative state of dishabille, one shoe already dropped on the floor, golden hair fanned across the pillows, one shoulder and upper arm exposed and the hem of her skirt high on her thighs. "It's not so bad," she judged.

  Vincent looked unconvinced. "Just pretend we're in Act One of La Boheme." He walked to the chair and picked up the clown doll that had been in the dining room on Frederika's first visit.

  Frederika twisted around to place the glasses on the floor and fill them with wine. "Where are you going?"

  "You've heard of putting the cat out?" Vincent replied. "I can't stand a voyeur."

  Frederika giggled giddily. "Even one made of porcelain and stuffing?"

  "The part you can't see isn't stuffing," he corrected. "It's very solid wood. No, I want no prying eyes, real or not." He dropped the doll unceremoniously on the floor and closed the door.

  Frederik
a offered a filled glass. "Here. A votre sante."

  Vincent took it and clinked with the one Frederika held. "My health is perfect," he said. "Let's drink to yours instead."

  They resisted each other for several silent sips, then set the glasses down and collapsed together onto the pillows. Each was impressed by the other's skill and hunger. An unvoiced battle ensued, both vying to give the other more pleasure. Thorough as their explorations and ministrations were, they soon settled into the primitive rhythm, pausing only to change position. Vincent filled his mouth with wine, lowered his face to the valley between her breasts, and let the red liquid dribble down and across her stomach, to pool in the indentation of her belly. His lips sensed the aroused beating of her heart. He longed to fill his veins with the very liquid that made her flesh throb so lightly but he resisted, smiling with pleasure at his self-control. He had drunk only a few days before, at the house of the old professor and his hot-blooded wife, so the desire was not difficult to master. Moreover, he needed her for more than desire; his survival depended on hers. As soon as he had sucked the last of the wine from her belly, Frederika urged him on with her heels. When he began pistoning into her again she uttered little sounds which were of pain, pleasure, or both. She used no words to spur him; when he reached his climax he cried out sweet agony into her shoulder, but she only trembled in silence.

  After he lay drained and his breath had returned, Vincent became again aware of the music, floating up from the kitchen. It was Ravel's Pavane pour une Infante Defunte. Before his death, Ravel had admitted that he had proclaimed the infanta dead only for the euphony; what he had really imagined when writing the piece was a Spanish princess dreamily dancing a pavane in a large, empty salon. Vincent closed his eyes and saw Frederika swaying, in a gown of pure white tulle. He opened his eyes and looked at her. She was awake but content to curl up in the hollows of his body and enjoy her afterglow. He turned his head and glanced at what he could see of them in the pier glass. He was as visible as she was in the mirror. He smiled to himself at the superstitious fools of past generations who imagined him sleeping in a narrow pine box, cowering at the sight of crosses, seeking out human company for nothing but their blood. Who in his right mind would choose to endure such an existence through the centuries? Would not the greatest lover of life not soon expose himself to the instantly killing sun of these same superstitions just to be done with the unending monotony? Men who invented a monster even more dangerous than themselves did so only from the viewpoint of their own fears. Who would choose immortality unless he had some chance at enjoying the pleasures of the world? Tonight alone, the food, the walk through a lovely town, the movie, the company and body of a beautiful, intelligent young woman were enough to justify the present limitations of his existence, enough to sustain his willingness to murder for blood, and for the elixir that kept him young. But soon, he hoped, the limitations would shrink drastically; soon, he hoped, he would need to kill merely for his own needs.

  Vincent ran his hand lightly along Frederika's flawless flank. Then he eased himself away and twisted so he could reach the pocket of his trousers, lying in a heap on the floor. In masking shadow, he steathily withdrew a small plastic vial and uncorked it.

  "What are you doing?" Frederika asked, in a languid voice.

  Vincent dumped the contents of the vial into Frederika's glass, then set the empty container under the bed. "Pouring you another glass of wine," he answered. He reached for the half-empty bottle.

  "Are you trying to make me drunk?" she accused, playfully.

  Vincent handed her the refilled glass and smiled. "I'm trying to make you much more than that."

  Frederika drained the drink to the dregs.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  December 19

  Remember too those angels who were not content to maintain the dominion assigned to them, but abandoned their proper dwelling place; God is holding them bound in darkness with everlasting chains, for judgment on the great day.

  -Letter of Jude 6

  Simon set down his pencil and pinched the bridge of his nose. He glanced at his watch. There was so much material available for review and all of it seemingly useless. In the morning he had scanned through twenty years of The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature, the span of time from Frederik Vanderveen's first public attention in 1959 to his death in 1979. His work had been chronicled in thirty-eight different magazines and journals, in a grand total of 311 articles. His private life had rarely been alluded to. Simon found the names of only four persons who might shed light on the familial aspects of Vanderveen's past. In the afternoon, Simon had hauled down twenty years of the New York Times Index, using its stories on Vanderveen's accomplishments as the surveyor's points from which to explore other world newspapers' articles, whenever Vanderveen had had on his seven-league boots.

  Through the microfilm articles, the picture of Frederik Vanderveen as consummate diplomat came into increasingly sharp focus. There was no question that tens of thousands of the world's least fortunate people owed, if not their very lives, some improvement of their existence to him. But Vanderveen the private man remained an enigma. Not that Simon was surprised that reporters had not scrutinized his personal life. The diplomat was not, after all, a movie star, rock singer, or even a high-level politician. Understanding the fact failed to relieve Simon's frustration.

  Because of limited time, Simon had chosen twenty magazine and fourteen newspaper articles by headline and length and skimmed them for personal references. In truth, he borrowed the library's time, researching when he should have been cataloging the Schickner Collection. A diligent and honest worker, Simon had rarely stolen hours, and it bothered him. What bothered him more was the uncertainty of the length or direction of the path he had set himself off on. If he found a cousin, what could he say besides "That little girl who visited you one summer… why did I find her digging dirt from her father's grave?" Or, to an uncle: "Remember Frederik Vanderveen's girl… the one you dandled on your knee? I'd personally like to know if you're the reason for her sexual preferences, or was it her father's fault?" What could he possibly ask if he didn't know what she was seeking?

  As he wound through reel after reel, Simon felt increasingly uncomfortable. He genuinely sympathized with Frederika's sufferings, but he questioned his motivation for investigating the private life of a virtual stranger. He suspected that seeking to cure her unhappiness was an excuse; he needed a quest right now, an opportunity to show himself and Lynn that he could act rather than just watch life go by. He also doubted that he was maintaining the objective distance his psychiatrist friend had admonished. He wound the microfilm off the spindle and reached for another spool.

  ***

  DeVilbiss's face went slack. He drew in a deep breath, then sighed it out. His eyelids fluttered momentarily. Then he seemed to come to himself, staring across the table at the woman who held his hands so tightly.

  "Did I make contact?" DeVilbiss asked.

  Behind her thick lenses, the woman's eyes glowed. "Yes, yes you did! It wasn't much, but it happened! The table shook, and strange lights flashed around the room." A sheen of perspiration bespangled her forehead, just below her headband. Her head jittered with excitement, making the huge golden hoops of her earrings dance beneath the tight curls of her impossibly red hair. She called herself "Mrs. Raymond," and although she had pointedly avoided mention of her age during her tedious dissertation on the reason for her visit, she was sixty-five if she was a day.

  "That's all?" DeVilbiss asked, screwing his face into a mask of deep disappointment. "If that's the case, I've failed. You owe me no-"

  "No, that wasn't all! You spoke in another voice," Mrs. Raymond assured. "It must have been that criminal you mentioned."

  "Roderick Miller."

  "Yes. He spoke with a low-class English accent, and his words were like those in a Shakespeare play. But real, I mean."

  "I'll take your word," DeVilbiss said. The woman continued to squeeze his hands w
ith her plump fingers, and he did nothing to break their contact. "When I'm in a channeling trance I'm completely out of it, as you Americans say. Did he have contact with your husband?"

  "He said that he knew no Arthur Raymond, but that he would search." The furrows above Mrs. Raymond's eyebrows grew even deeper. "If your contact is a criminal, Mr. DeVilbiss, isn't he in hell?"

  "Not according to what he has told others," DeVilbiss answered. "Evidently hell is reserved for souls who have done far worse than stealing horses."

  Mrs. Raymond nodded her understanding.

  "Of the three hundred or so contacts I've tried to make," he went on, "Roderick's been able to search out almost half. He's in purgatory, I believe. Evidently, far more souls go there than directly to heaven or hell."

  "Well, Arthur was a good man but certainly not perfect," Mrs. Raymond confirmed. She gave DeVilbiss's thin hands a good squeeze, then lifted her own thick ones to primp her hair. "So then, I should come back again?"

  "Most definitely," DeVilbiss said, rising. "And I'll do my best to place you in contact."

  "Wonderful!" Mrs. Raymond picked her purse off the floor and dug into a side pocket. "How much do I owe you?"

  "Just thirty dollars." While the woman produced a pen and her checkbook, he offhandedly said, "I don't know why, but some questions are easier for the dead to answer than others."

  "Really?" Mrs. Raymond bit. "Shouldn't I know that, so I can plan what to ask next time?"

  "Well, tell me now precisely what you wish of Mr. Raymond, and I'll tell you what chance you have of being answered." For all of her tedious dissertation on wanting to reach her husband, she had neglected to specify what she wished to ask him.