The Mammoth Book of Dracula - [Anthology]
Page 14
Karolides had then become brisk. “Ravenna will be sleeping this afternoon but will join us at dinner. In the meantime I would suggest a little expedition. I have something interesting to show you. We will go by car, of course, but may I suggest four o’clock, as it will not be quite so hot at that time of day?”
Thompson had readily agreed and now he was waiting for Karolides’s call. It was still only half-past three, and he had put down his novel as much out of boredom as tiredness. He found his white-coated waiter at his elbow.
“Monsieur would like iced lemonade?”
Monsieur would, and he passed the remaining half-hour in pleasant contemplation of the scenery, all the time his mind revolving the enigma of Ravenna and whether the incident on the raft had happened or not—it had now assumed such a dream-like quality in his mind. Presently he heard the imperative salvo on the horn of Karolides’s car and descended to the hotel concourse to find the Greek already at the wheel, a blue silk scarf at the open vee of his expensive scarlet sports shirt, which he wore beneath one of his white tropical suits.
“A perfect afternoon for our little expedition, Mr Thompson,” he observed, as his guest slid into the seat alongside him.
“Where are we going?”
Karolides shot him a mysterious smile.
“All in good time, Mr Thompson,” he said softly. “A little way along the coast, actually. It’s rather a curiosity and connected with my own family at a great distance in time.”
Thompson was intrigued.
“Would you care to tell me a little more about it?”
Karolides glided expertly around a group of motorcyclists who were swerving too close, turned off the Corniche at the next junction and set the car’s long bonnet snaking up into the foothills.
“What would you say to the discovery of a Greek temple hereabouts along this coast?”
“I should say it would be extremely unlikely.”
Karolides gave a throaty chuckle.
“And you would be perfectly correct, my dear Mr Thompson. This is by way of being a folly, but I thought you might be interested.”
Thompson felt his curiosity quickening.
“Seeing that we both have Greek connections, Mr Thompson. It is of no great antiquity I might say. Only about a hundred and sixty years old, but an interesting curiosity just the same.”
And he said nothing further as the car effortlessly ate up the miles, guided by his skilful hand, and they climbed the corkscrew bends until the sea was a mere blue haze on the horizon. Once they traversed a dusty village square where locals dozed in the shade of a great tree outside a small bar, and a somnolent dog dragged himself lazily out of the way.
“We’re almost there,” Karolides said after they had driven a mile or two further and the road had narrowed to a tiny lane that bisected the parched terrain like a sinuous thread.
“Here we are.”
Karolides stopped the car and got out, slamming the door behind him. As Thompson joined him, the air hit him like a furnace and for a moment he regretted that he had come. Then they were in under the welcome shade of Spanish oaks, following a path that was barely visible beneath the tangled weeds that fringed the lane. A short distance more and they came to a rusty gate, which Karolides entered without a backward glance. The scream of its corroded hinges was like the drilling of a nerve in a tooth, the Englishman thought. He stopped to wipe the perspiration off his forehead with his handkerchief and in a flash Karolides had turned and was at his side.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, thank you. It is nothing.”
“We will be at the top of the rise in a few moments and there you will find a cooling wind.”
Sure enough, as they got to the rocky ridge, a breeze swept the hillside and through rusty railings Thompson could see broken columns and blanched pillars standing all awry. The place was bleached with the harsh sunlight and sparse grass grew, white as an old woman’s hair, that made a sharp rustling sound as the breeze caught the stems. Thompson could make out the far sea now, with the faint curve of the horizon. He followed the Greek along a path that wound among withered trees and stunted bushes. Then he saw the pediment of the temple, a stark white, though much mottled with age, some of the pillars beneath the vast portico split and seamed with long years of rain and sun. The paving around it was all cracked too and lizards ran in and out of the long grass that surrounded it.
“My ancestor’s folly,” said Karolides softly. “Interesting, is it not? It must have cost him a fortune, even in those days. Forty workmen and two years’ work. Circa 1810, I believe.”
Thompson went closer, lost in wonder, while the Greek looked at him with pleasure. The Englishman was suddenly conscious of a strange element in the atmosphere of the place. That is, even beyond the oddness of such a structure in a remote spot like that. Conscious too of the sun beating on his bare head, now that he was in the open. Then he became aware of something else, and he stared about him with dawning recognition.
“Why, this is a cemetery!”
Karolides nodded, smiling. “Long disused.”
Thompson took another step forward, came closer to the temple, his manner a little wild and disturbed.
“Then this must be a tomb!”
“Yes, that is perfectly correct.”
Thompson was up close now, felt dryness in his throat and a slight giddiness. He was overtaken by faintness. Somehow, he did not quite know how, he found himself on the ground. There was a Greek inscription on the base of the temple. As he had told his host his Greek was extremely rusty. He could only make out one word: DRAKULA. It meant little to him, other than the misspelt title of a lurid Victorian novel, which he had never read. Then he lost consciousness.
~ * ~
VI
When he awoke he was surrounded by a sea of faces. There was a gendarme, a man in a white uniform with a red cross on the chest, and a crowd of gaping onlookers. Then Karolides came shouldering his way imperiously through the crowd, followed by two men with a stretcher.
“My dear Mr Thompson: what with the sun and your weakened state following your illness, I should never have brought you. A thousand pardons.”
Thompson tried to struggle up, was pushed back by the gentle hands of the attendants.
“Don’t try to move. You are in good hands.”
He could taste blood now, could see scarlet on his white shirt. Had he cut himself on the unyielding stone as he fell? As his vision cleared he saw Ravenna striding through the gravestones, her white dress torn and creased by the thorny plants. He felt feeble and unable to move. He did not stir when he was lifted on to the stretcher and must have lost consciousness for the second time, because when he again awoke he was in an ambulance with the anxious face of Karolides above him.
There was blood on the lapel of his white suit, Thompson noticed. He must have picked it up when he bent over Thompson on the ground to help him on to the stretcher. Absurdly, he thought that this trivial matter was assuming vast proportions in his mind. Should he not pay for Karolides’s cleaning bill? And what was the extent of the damage to his own body? The Greek leaned over him with a reassuring smile.
“Ravenna is following on behind with my car. She will stay with you in the hospital tonight. It is only a routine check. You must have slightly gashed your throat when you fell on those flinty stones. A touch of the sun, I suppose. It is all my fault. Again, a thousand apologies. The doctor who came with the ambulance team told me your injury was superficial and that they will keep you only a few hours for rest and an overhaul.”
He smiled bleakly.
“Can you ever forgive me, my dear Mr Thompson?”
Suddenly, Thompson felt as though he were about to cry. He seized the Greek’s extended hand and clung to it convulsively all the way to the hospital.
Contrary to expectations he was not discharged until three days later, still feeling a little weak, but as Karolides and Ravenna drove him back along the Corniche in the big op
en coupe, he felt his spirits reviving. The punctures in his neck had been cauterized and were now covered by a thin gauze bandage. He understood that his host had found him lying by the side of the mausoleum and had hurried back to the car to use his mobile telephone, which had brought the ambulance team, the gendarmerie and Ravenna out from the town.
Thompson thought she looked ravishing this morning as she sat close to him in the back seat of the car, squeezing his hand affectionately. That Karolides could see them in the rear mirror was obvious, as he gave the couple a subtle, approving smile, but Thompson no longer felt embarrassment and returned the smile in the same manner.
Back at the Magnolia he thanked his hosts again and went to his room to lie down. He woke more than two hours later to find a slip of paper had been pushed beneath his door. It was a message from Karolides, asking him to call at his suite if he felt up to it. It was Suite 44. Thompson made a quick toilet and took the lift to the fifth floor as he still felt a little weak. He found No. 44 without any trouble and tapped at the door but received no reply. He knocked again, but still there was no response so he turned the handle. The room was unlocked and he went in, closing the door softly behind him.
It was a magnificent panelled room, and the afternoon sun on the blinds made mellow patterns on the cream-painted walls. He called out Karolides’s name but there was still no response. He thought that perhaps the Greek had stepped out for a minute or two, so he decided to wait. He sat down on a gilt chaise-longue beneath an oil painting of a sumptuous nude and let his eyes glance idly around the room.
There was a rosewood desk some eight or nine feet away and he saw a scattered tumble of books, some with ancient bindings. He got up and went over to look at them. Curiously enough, they were in English. There was Chiromancy by Flud; Heaven and Hell by Swedenborg; and a curious volume which lay open. It was called Vampires By Daylight. Thompson was inwardly amused. Certainly the Greek’s tastes were esoteric, to say the least.
The latter volume was written by a man named Bjornson and had been translated from the Danish. He read a paragraph with mounting amusement: The modern vampire is a creature who walks about in daylight. No Fustian superstitions about being destroyed by the rays of the sun or stakes driven through the heart at the crossroads. He or she is often a sophisticated, cultured man or woman, who mixes unobtrusively in high society, behaves impeccably with great charm and suavity, and who is able to blend perfectly into the background of other people’s lives as he or she searches out victims.
Thompson put the book down with a smile when he was suddenly arrested by a thin volume which lay on the blotting pad. It had a wine-red cover, was sumptuously bound, and had been privately printed by an expensive and exotic London press; in fact Thompson had a number of their volumes in his own library. He opened the title page and saw: Poems by Ravenna Karolides. Fascinated, he took it up. The book fell open at page 14 and he read:
WALKING PAPERS
All times are bad times now
Now that the drear, sad tide of winter flows
Cheerless through the empty vaults of the heart.
Mute mockery of the peaceful summer days
The “ifs” and “might have beens”
The promise in bright eyes, the sheen of light brown hair.
Are all men thus?
Is it always the same?
When a lover is given his walking papers?
When the surge of emotion flings the heart
Forward, bursting in white spray
Like cherry blossom on the May hedgerow
And the hot, dry ebb in the throat
Burns into the slow ache of loneliness.
Bitter now are the remembrances of the lovely, far-off times.
Are all men thus?
Is it always the same?
When a lover is given his walking papers?
Or should one laugh and drink with the forgetful throng?
Drowning the sound of distant laughter
The heart-stopping loveliness of a glance
As soft, as fleeting, as ephemeral as mist
Rent by the wind after the time of storm?
It is hard to forget such things
Are all men thus?
Is it always the same?
When a lover is given his walking papers?
One remembers when the bright lilies of love burnt
Strong, sure to outride the tempests of life.
When the touch of a hand on the shoulder was enough.
When lip to lip, limb to limb, love throbbed
In white ecstasy and then to blissful sleep.
One remembers too much, life is too long.
Are all men thus?
Is it always the same?
When a lover is given his walking papers?
All times are bad times now
Now that the rain taps the window’s frosted pane
The empty chair mocks, bright were the glances
That flickered each to each
When love was at the peak in that happy, long-lost time.
It will be a bad winter.
One wonders idly, all hope gone
Are all men thus?
Is it always the same?
When a lover is given his walking papers?
Thompson put the book down slowly and carefully, deeply moved, despite himself. He was roused to a consciousness of his surroundings by a slight noise. He turned to see the tall, silent figure of Karolides, dressed in a quilted white silk dressing gown, one hand on the doorknob of an adjoining room, his eyes fixed sorrowfully on his visitor. Thompson fell back from the desk.
“Please forgive me. I had no right to look at those books. I can assure you that I did knock and call out when I arrived.”
Karolides smiled a sad smile, coming forward into the room.
“There is no need to apologize, Mr Thompson. I heard you come in.”
The Englishman was surprised.
“Then I was meant to see those books?” he surmised.
Karolides shrugged.
“Perhaps,” he said softly. “What did you think of the poems?”
“Interesting,” the visitor replied. “But...”
The Greek broke into a broad smile.
“You found some of the wording obscure and the similes inapposite, perhaps? It has been translated from the Greek, of course.”
“But what does it mean? The poem about Walking Papers?”
Karolides came closer.
“It happened to her,” he said simply. “But she changed the gender. She was to have been married. Some ten years ago.”
“What happened?”
“The man died,” Karolides said abruptly. “It took her years to get over it. Our wanderings became even more frequent, as I hoped to take her mind off things. So she transposed the piece into a lament by a man for a lost woman.”
“I see.”
The two men stood deep in thought for a few moments more.
“There are some beautiful things in it,” Thompson said awkwardly, feeling that he had been less than enthusiastic about the piece.
“Thank you, Mr Thompson. I just thought I would warn you about this matter, as I note that you and she are becoming good friends. It was a long time ago, of course. But such memories run deep and I would not wish her to be hurt again.”
“I understand.”
Then Karolides came forward and put his hand on Thompson’s shoulder in what was becoming a familiar gesture.
“What I really wanted to tell you was that Ravenna would like to take you to a very entertaining little restaurant in town.”
He glanced at his watch.
“Shall we say an hour’s time? In the lobby downstairs?”
~ * ~
VII
The tzigane orchestra was low and pleasing and the food excellent, even if Thompson found the bizarre decor a little garish. But he had no time for the blurred background to their meal, as he was concentrating entirely on the girl.
&
nbsp; She looked extremely beautiful in a dark low-cut gown with just a simple gold pendant around her neck. He noticed that somehow—perhaps with a type of white make-up—she had obscured the tattoo marks, for which he was thankful, as he was conscious that the two of them were the centre of attention.
“You look wonderful,” was all he could manage as they waited for the dessert to be brought to the table.
And it was true. The recent transfusion she had undergone had worked a remarkable transformation in her. Her eyes were sparkling, her cheeks flushed, her whole manner animated and vivacious. The melancholy had gone from her expression and she smiled frequently, exposing the beautiful white teeth.
“This is all due to you, Mr Thompson,” she said in a low voice.
Thompson shrugged deprecatingly. Ravenna smiled again.
“Your blood now runs in my veins. That means a great deal in our country.”
Thompson felt uneasiness, not for the first time.