Lasher lotmw-2

by Anne Rice

  “I’m sorry,” said Aaron. “But I must confess, Erich, that the Talamasca-at this moment-is no help to me. These are my people now, Erich. Glad to have met you.”

  This was dismissal. Aaron extended his hand. The tall blond one looked for one moment as if he would lose his temper, then he cooled, and drew himself up. “I’ll contact you in the morning. Where will you be?”

  “I don’t know,” said Aaron. “Probably here…with all these people,” he said. “My people. I think it’s the safest place for us now, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know how you could take this attitude, Aaron. We need your cooperation. As soon as possible, I want to make contact, speak with Michael Curry…”

  “No. That is not going to happen, Erich. You do what the Elders told you to do, as I’m sure you will. But you will not bother this family, at least not with my permission or with my introduction.”

  “Aaron, we want to help! That’s why I am here.”

  “Good-night, Erich.”

  In sheer consternation, the blond one stood there silently, and then he turned on his heel and walked away. The big black car was waiting for him as it had been for two hours, during which this act had been played and replayed.

  “He’s lying,” said Aaron.

  “He’s not Talamasca,” said Yuri, though it was more a suggestion than a statement.

  “Oh, yes, he is. He’s one of us, and he’s lying. Don’t turn your back on him for an instant.”

  “No, I wouldn’t. But Aaron, how can this be? How can such a thing…”

  “I don’t know. I’ve heard of him. He’s been with us for three years. I’ve heard of his work in Italy and in Russia. He’s very much respected. David Talbot thought highly of him. If only we hadn’t lost David. But Stolov’s not so very clever. He can’t read minds that well. He could perhaps if he himself weren’t putting on such an act. But the facade requires all his cunning. And so he’s not very good.”

  The black car had silently slithered away from the curb.

  “God, Yuri,” Aaron suddenly whispered. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  “I am too, Aaron. I don’t understand it. I want to contact the Elders. I want to speak directly to someone, to hear a voice.”

  “That will never happen, my boy,” said Aaron.

  “Aaron, in the years before the computer, what did you do?”

  “It was always typewritten. All communications went to the Motherhouse in Amsterdam, and the replies came by mail. Communication took greater time; less was said, I suspect. But there was never a voice attached to it, Yuri, or a face. In the days before the typewriter, a scribe wrote the letters for the Elders. No one knew who this was.”

  “Aaron, let me tell you something.”

  “I know what you’re going to say,” said Aaron calmly, thoughtfully. “You knew the Amsterdam Motherhouse well before you ever left it-every nook and cranny. You cannot imagine where the Elders came together, where they received their communications. Nobody knows.”

  “Aaron, you have been in the Order for decades. You can appeal to the Elders. Surely there is some way under such circumstances…”

  Aaron smiled in a cold, knowing way. “Your expectations are higher than mine, Yuri,” he said.

  The pretty gray-haired woman had left the porch and was coming towards them. Small-boned, with delicate wrists, she wore her simple flaring silk dress with grace. Her ankles were as slender and well-shaped as those of a girl.

  “Aaron,” she said in a soft scolding whisper. Her hands flew out, youthful, dainty, covered with rings, and clasped Aaron by the shoulders, and then she gently kissed his cheek. Aaron nodded to her in quiet understanding.

  “Come inside with us,” said Aaron to Yuri. “They need us now. We’ll talk later on.” His face had changed dramatically. Now that Stolov was gone, he appeared more serene, more like himself.

  The house was filled with good rich cooking smells, and a high tempestuous mingle of voices. The laughter was loud, bursting, the merry ecstatic kind of laughter of people at a wake. One could hear others crying. Women and men crying. An old man sat with his arms folded before him on a table, crying. A young girl with soft brown hair patted his shoulder over and over, her own face evincing only fear.

  Upstairs, Yuri was shown to a rear bedroom, small, faded, but quite appealing to him, with a narrow single four-poster bed, and a dark golden satin bedspread that had seen better days. There were dusty curtains on the windows. But he liked the warmth, the coziness, even the faded flowers on the wall. He glimpsed himself in the mirrored door of the chifforobe-dark hair, dark skin, too thin.

  “I am grateful,” he said to the gray-haired woman, Beatrice, “but don’t you think I should go to the hotel, that I should look out for myself?”

  “No,” said Aaron. “Don’t go anywhere. I want you here with me.”

  Yuri was prepared to protest further. The house was needed for the family. But he could see simply that Aaron meant for him to stay here.

  “Oh, now, don’t start being sad again,” said the woman. “I won’t have it. Come on, now, we’re going to have something to eat and some wine. Aaron, I want you to sit down and drink a nice cool glass of wine. You too, Yuri. Now, both of you come.”

  They went down the rear stairs, into the warmer air, and the misty white layers of cigarette smoke. Around a breakfast table, near a bright fire, sat several people crying and laughing simultaneously. And one solemn man who merely stared morosely into the flames. Yuri could not actually see the fire. He stood behind the chimney, but he saw the flicker and he heard the crackle and he felt the warmth.

  He was distracted suddenly by a wraith of a female creature in a small back room, looking out the rear window into the night. She was very old, fragile; she wore gabardine and withered lace, and a heavy golden pin that was a hand with diamonds for nails. Her fine-spun white hair was soft around her face, nested in the old-fashioned way, with pins against the back of her head. Another woman, younger yet still impossibly old, held the hand of this very old one as if she would protect her from something, though how, one could not tell.

  “Come on, Ancient Evelyn, come with us,” said Beatrice. “Come on, darling Viv. Let’s go near the fire.”

  The very old woman, Ancient Evelyn, whispered something softly under her breath. She pointed to the window, her finger dropping as if she hadn’t strength to keep it aloft. Again she pointed; again the finger dropped.

  “Come on, now, dear, you’re doing it again,” said the woman addressed as Darling Viv. She was kind. “I can’t hear you. Now, Ancient Evelyn, you can talk.” She sounded as if she were coaxing a baby. “You know you can. You were talking words all day yesterday. Talk, dear, talk so I can hear.”

  The ancient one murmured again indistinctly. She continued to point. All Yuri saw was the dark street, the neighboring houses, the lights, the dark heavy soaring trees.

  Aaron took his arm.

  A young woman with jet-black hair and beautiful gold earrings approached them. She wore a red wool dress, and a fancy belt. She stood near to the fire for a moment, warming her hands; then she drew closer, gathering the attention of Aaron and Beatrice, and even Darling Viv. There was a cool authority to her.

  “Everyone’s together,” she said to Aaron meaningfully. “Everyone is all right. They are patrolling this block and the one across the street, and two blocks uptown and two blocks down.”

  “It will be peaceful for a while, I think,” said Aaron. “He blundered, like a child. He could have caused more death, more suffering…”

  “Oh, darlings, please,” said Beatrice. “Must we speak of this? Polly Mayfair, sweetheart, go back downtown to the office. They need you there.”

  Polly Mayfair, Sweetheart, ignored Beatrice completely.

  “We’re ready for him,” said Aaron. “We are many and he is one. He’ll come.”

  “Come?” Polly Mayfair, Sweetheart, was puzzled. “Why do you say he’ll come? Why would he come? Shouldn’t h
e be running away as fast as he can?”

  “What if he’s dead?” said Beatrice, “assuming there is such a personage! What if he wandered from that building in Houston and simply…you know…expired on the street?” She shuddered.

  “That would be too much to hope for,” said Aaron. “But if it’s happened, they’ll find him and then we’ll know.”

  “Oh, God, I hope so,” said Polly Mayfair, Sweetheart. “I hope she killed him when she hit him. I hope he staggered out and died.”

  “I don’t,” said Aaron. “I don’t want him to hurt anyone else. That must not happen. He must not harm anyone. That he brought harm is unspeakable. But I want to see him; I want to talk to him; I want to hear what he has to say. I should have confronted him a long time ago. I was a fool, a fool for others, as they say. But I cannot miss this opportunity now. I want to talk to him. Ask him what he thinks, where the hell he comes from, what he truly wants?”

  “Aaron, let’s not go into the ghost stories,” pleaded Beatrice. “Come, all of you-”

  “You think it will be like that? He’ll speak?” asked Polly Mayfair, Sweetheart. “I never thought of it. I thought we’d find him and we’d, you know…take care of this…destroy him. We would put an end to something that should never have been allowed to begin. No one would ever know. I never thought of speaking to him.”

  Aaron gave a little shrug. He looked at Yuri as he spoke.

  “I’m only undecided on one point,” Aaron said. “Will he go to First Street? Will he go to Mayfair and Mayfair? Will he go out to Metairie to those gathered at Ryan’s house? Or will he come here? Whom will he seek out-to speak with, to trust, to lure to his side of it? I haven’t figured it all out.”

  “But you believe he will do that!”

  “Darling, he has to,” said Aaron. “This is his family. They are all under lock and key. What else can he do? Where else can he go?”

  Twenty-eight

  THE MUSIC CAME from electric mouths high up on the white walls. The people danced in the center of the room, awkwardly, rocking back and forth, but right with the music, as though they too loved it. The musicians were many, and they had crude instruments, nothing as beautiful as the bagpipes or the clarsach. It was as if she could hear that old music in this music, but the two were twined, and she could not think again. Just music. She saw the glen. She saw all the brothers and sisters dancing, and singing. And then someone pointed. The soldiers had come!

  The band stopped. The silence clattered in on her. When the door opened, she jumped. People laughing inside, someone staring at her, a woman in a baggy sad dress.

  She ought to go on to New Orleans. She had miles and miles to walk. She was hungry. She wanted some milk. They had food there but they didn’t have milk. She would have smelled it if they had it. But there were cows in the fields. She’d seen them, and she knew how to take the milk. She should have done it before now. How long had she been here listening to this music? It had all started so long ago, and she couldn’t remember, but this was just the first real day of her life.

  When the sun had risen, she had opened the door of a small kitchen, and taken the milk from the refrigerator and drunk the whole container. That had been morning, the delicious taste of cold milk, and the warm yellow sun coming down in long slender dusty rays through the thin, dead-looking trees, and over the grass. Someone from the house had found her. She had said thank you for the milk. She was sorry it was all gone, but she had to have it.

  In the long run, these things weren’t important. These people wouldn’t hurt her. They didn’t know what she was. In the old days, if you had stolen milk like that they would have run after you, chasing you deep deep into the mountains, maybe even…

  “But all that is no longer important,” said Father. “This is our time to rule.”

  Go now, to New Orleans. Find Michael for Mother. Yes, that is what Mother wanted with all her heart. Stop in the field where the cows stand in sleep, waiting for you. Drink the warm milk from the udder. Drink and drink and drink.

  She turned, but the band started. Once more, the music. Warming it up with three or four notes and then pounding up through her shoes, and through her throat, as if she were breathing it in through the mouth. She closed her eyes, just loving it. Oh, the world is wondrous. She began to rock.

  Someone touched her, and she turned and looked at a man who was almost as tall as she. Wrinkled and tan and smelling of smoke all over, an old being, in a dark blue shirt and pants stained with grease. He spoke to her but she could only hear the music, beating and beating. She rocked her head back and forth. This was lovely.

  He leant over and said right in her ear:

  “You been watching a long time, honey. Why don’t you come in and dance?”

  She stepped back. It was so hard for her to keep her balance with this music. She saw him take her hand, felt his harsh dry fingers. All the tiny lines in his hands were full of grease. He smelled like the highway and the cars that shot by. He smelled like cigarettes.

  She let him tug her gently through the door, into the warm enfolding light, where the people were dancing. Now the vibration passed all through her. She might have gone slack all over, and fallen down in a heap on the floor. There she could have lain forever listening and singing with it, seeing the glen. The glen was as beautiful as the island ever had been.

  It was either that or pull herself together with it, dance and dance and dance.

  That’s what they were doing; the man had begun to dance with her, had placed his arm around her waist and had come close to her. He said something. She couldn’t hear it. She thought it was “You smell good!”

  She shut her eyes, and turned round and round, leaning on his arm, holding tight to him, tilting from side to side. The man was laughing. In a flash she saw his face, saw his mouth moving with words again. The music was thunderous. When she closed her eyes, she was back with the others, dancing in the circles, round and round, out from the stone circle, so many circles that those in the first could not see all the way to those in the last. Hundreds and hundreds dancing to the pipes and the harp.

  Oh, but those were the first days, before the soldiers came.

  In the glen, later, everyone danced together, tall and little and poor and rich, human and nonhuman. They had come together to make the Taltos. Many would die, but if the Taltos were made…If somehow there were two…She stopped, her hands to her ears. She had to go. Father. I’m coming. I’ll find Michael for Mother. Mother, I did not forget. I am not childish. All of you are simpletons, children! Help me.

  The man pulled her off balance, but then she realized he was just trying to make her dance some more. Turning her, twisting her. She began again, sliding into it, loving it, rocking back and forth ever more violently, letting her hair swing.

  Yes, love it. In a blur, she saw the real music makers. Scrawny and fat and wearing glasses over their eyes, they scratched at their fiddles, and sang in high voices, through their noses, rapidly, unintelligibly, and they played a little bellows organ of which she did not know the name. That was something not inside her, that word. Or the word for the mouth instrument, like the Jew’s harp, which wasn’t quite the same. But she loved this music, she loved the insistent pulse of it, the divine monotony, the buzz all through her limbs. It seemed to tap on her eardrums, to tap on her heart, to freeze her and consume her.

  As in the glen, these humans here danced-old women, young women, boys and men. Even little children. Look at them. But these people couldn’t make the Taltos. Get to Father. Get to…

  “Come on, honeybabe!”

  Something…a purpose. Leave here. But she couldn’t think while the music went on, and it didn’t matter.

  Yes, let him make her twirl. Dance. She laughed delightedly. How good it felt. Now was the time for dancing. Whoa! Dance. Father would understand.

  Twenty-nine

  IT WAS FOUR a.m. They were gathered in the double parlors-Mona, Lauren, Lily and Fielding. Randall was also ther
e. Soon Paige Mayfair from New York would come. Her plane had arrived on schedule. Ryan had gone to get her from the airport.

  They sat quietly and waited. Nobody believes in it, thought Mona. But we have to try it. What are we if we don’t give it a try?

  Earlier, Aunt Bea had come from Amelia Street, to lay a midnight buffet out on the table. And she had put thick votive candles in the two fireplaces. They were only half melted away and the hearths still gave a warm and dancing light.

  Upstairs, the nurses on standby talked in low voices-having made a station, so to speak, with their coffee and their charts in Aunt Vivian’s room. Aunt Vivian had graciously gone up to stay at Amelia Street, yielding to the firm attachment of Ancient Evelyn, who had gestured and murmured all evening to Vivian, though no one was sure that Evelyn really knew who Vivian was.

  “Two old ladies meant for each other,” said Aunt Bea. “Let’s call them Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Ancient Evelyn isn’t speaking again. It’s a cinch, she’s Tweedledum.”

  Throughout the house, in other rooms, even up on the third floor, in makeshift beds, cousins slept. Pierce and Ryan and Mandrake and Shelby were all here, somewhere. Jenn and Clancy were in the front bedroom upstairs. Other Mayfairs were out in the guest house beyond Deirdre’s oak.

  They heard the car stop in front of the gate.

  They did not move. Henri opened the door, admitting the woman whom none of them had ever seen in their lives. Paige Mayfair, great-granddaughter of Cortland and his wife, Amanda Grady Mayfair, who had left Cortland years before and gone north.

  Paige was a lithe little woman, not unlike Gifford and Alicia in face and form, and only a little more birdlike, with long thin legs and wrists. That type of Mayfair, thought Mona. The woman’s hair was sharply bobbed, and she wore those huge dazzling clip-on earrings which a woman must remove before answering a phone.

  She was matter-of-fact in her entrance. All but Fielding rose to greet her, to bestow the kisses that were customary even with a cousin whom no one had ever seen before.