Rising to darkness

by Lucia Guglielminetti

  Thus, on the Tuesday following Christmas Day, I carefully prepared myself to go to the Compton’s, but I discovered with dismay that Roger had already sent the boy. The old fox noticed and recognized my disappointment, but, wanting me to talk about it first, he feigned surprise and confusion. "You never told me that you wanted to make this delivery personally, dear Ray. Did he say that, Ambrosine?"

  Fox no.1 had a smile plastered on her face from ear to ear.

  "No, he didn't say anything, dear Roger."

  "And... why are you so interested?"

  I think I blushed up to the very tips of my hair, but I held on.

  "I like... the house..."

  "Ah yes, of course, the house."

  "Yes, sir, the house. It's... bright. Well, I'm going out. I must go... somewhere."

  "Go, dear, go ahead!"

  I went out into the street and when I turned to look back, I saw through the window that they were embracing each other with Ambrosine hopping like a little girl in a candy store. How could you possibly not love them?

  Almost a year later, on September 23, 1701, Kristen Compton gave me the honor of becoming my wife. Roger and Ambrosine, radiant with happiness, even though Roger's disease got worse every day, attended the ceremony and monopolized Kristen's parents, deafening them with grandiose praises on my account. They knew Kristen’s father wasn’t very happy when his daughter announced her intention to marry a coalman of unknown foreign origin and, so, they did everything they could to accentuate my positive attributes, supposing that I had some.

  The only sad note about the whole happy occasion was the absence of my beloved Zwart, who had left me no more than a few months before when he was fifteen. Lately, he hadn’t been accompanying me around anymore, preferring to stay at home with the Palmers in front of the fireplace, and they were glad of his company. One morning, when Ambrosine called him to eat, he did not come and we found out the sad truth. I picked him up and carried him in my arms with tears gushing from my eyes and loaded him on the carriage on which we had traveled so many times together as Ambrosine sobbed into her handkerchief and Roger constantly blew his nose. I never ever thought of abandoning him on the street like so many animals I had seen before. I wanted to find a nice place for him to rest. It was the least I could do for him, for having been my friend when I had no one else, and for sharing every single unpredictable moment with me. I drove the wagon out of town; when I found a beautiful meadow with an oak tree in the center, reminding me of my garden, I took the shovel and began to dig while speaking to him, thanking him and telling him that I would miss him a lot until I put him into the grave, wrapped in my old coat. Finally, I climbed onto the wagon and went back to London where I had one of the most sensational hangovers ever in my life. I didn’t know how I managed to find my way home, but Ambrosine and Roger had to put me in bed as I did nothing but weep and cry out Zwart’s name. In the morning, when I came down to the store, embarrassed by my behavior and green in the face, I was met with just smiles and solidarity. Yes, those people loved me and I loved them back.

  Kristen and I used to live in my apartment above the store, to which, in the meantime, the Palmers had added two rooms. We stayed there for three years before my transformation happened. She was beautiful, with long black hair, blue eyes, and a gorgeous smile. In just a short time, she gained the Palmers' affection and they treated her like a daughter. In the evenings, we had dinner with them, as they seemed to need our company, given that Roger's condition had worsened. At the beginning of 1702, he could no longer get out of bed as his whole body was convulsed by the bloody coughs, making him increasingly weak and emaciated; and yet, when we walked into his room, he never failed to give us a smile. One evening, maybe at the end of March of that year, he sent for me. Ambrosine was sitting by his bedside; she held his hand and kept silent in order to hold back her tears. A part of me was hoping that he would soon quit suffering, but the other part, the more selfish one, didn't want him to let go.

  I sat beside him and put together some sort of a smile. "How do you feel, Roger?"

  "I think we're almost there, Ray, and I'm fine with it..." His wife could not restrain a sigh. "I settled my things up, now. When the time comes, Ambrosine and I decided that everything would pass on to you: the store, the house, everything. Didn't we decide it like that, Ambrosine, dear?"

  She nodded in tears.

  I was shaking my head vigorously, refusing to listen.

  He squeezed my hand tightly and planted his feverish eyes in mine. "You know, many years ago, just after we got married, we had a baby. Her name was Megan, but she remained with us only a few months, cholera took her. We were shattered and we thought that nothing and no one would ever be able to fill that void. We thought that, didn't we, Ambrosine? "

  A new nod and then tears began to flow freely, for the past and the present.

  "Then, many years later, you arrived. Dirty, disheveled, desperate. We were glad to be able to do something good for someone, but we could never have imagined we would have come to love you so much, just like the daughter we had lost. Gratefully, it went that way and I thank the Lord for bringing you to our doorstep that day. Our life had a meaning again and, since then, you've brought happiness back into this house. When you die and, if you're lucky enough to have children, you will leave everything to them. And you, as far as I'm concerned, are my son. I only ask that you take care of our Ambrosine, but I know you will. Won’t you, Raistan?"

  It was the first time he said my full name and it would have moved me a lot if I hadn’t already been in tears. In a desperate attempt to hold back the sobs, I kept my teeth clenched, but the tears kept streaming down from my eyes. I nodded and then allowed myself something that I had never been able to do with my real father, that one thing I had been missing all my life: I bent over him and hugged him, noticing with despair how frail his body had become.

  "Thank you, father. Dank Vader, uw zoon heeft je lief, your son loves you," I whispered to him. I did not know why after so many years my native language came back to my lips: maybe a part of me was hoping to have my real father in my arms and to be able to address him in the language he would have understood.

  Roger left us that night, surrounded by the people who loved him. He looked at us, and then closed his eyes never to open them ever again. I left Kristen and Ambrosine to get some fresh air and ended up in a tavern where I came out from, once again, completely inebriated. This time, when I got back home, I didn't find any sympathetic faces, but an angry wife. "Do you realize what we went through?! You have been gone for five hours. Five, you got that? Ambrosine was mad with concern! You should be ashamed of yourself, especially after what had happened! That's how you're going to take care of her, make her die of a broken heart?! "

  My head was threatening to explode, so I dismissed her with a sharp: "Shut up, woman.”

  In response, I didn’t know how, given the difference in physical size, she managed to lock me out of our apartment. I was too ashamed to take refuge in Ambrosine’s house, so I sat down on the floor and fell asleep on the landing.

  Roger's death snapped something inside me. Not having him there anymore to please or to make him proud of me, made me lose the desire to do things. What was so exciting in selling coal? Mind you, I continued to do my job so as to live up to my promise, but, at night, I could no longer continue to lead a cloistered life. After all, I had never lived like a normal young man: I had no friends, I didn't go hunting, and I didn't do anything for me just for the hell of it. Between Kristen and me a heavy tension began to arise. Sometimes, I merely wanted to go out in the evening to have a beer, but she could not allow it and soon started to accuse me of neglecting her. She used to complain to Ambrosine who suffered knowing that we were having marital woes. I asked Kristen many times to leave her alone and to keep her out of our troubles, but she couldn’t help it, perhaps it was because she was lonely and needed someone to talk to.

  She accused me of being unfaithful, a thought
that had never crossed my mind, and my reassurances were never enough. Every time I got back home, she tormented me for hours. I'm not saying I was a good husband, not at all. Yet I know that I had loved her, though she never understood or, rather, did not accept the fact that she alone could not be my entire life.

  Then, the irreparable happened.

  7 - OLD DEATH, NEW LIFE

  In one of my wanderings, I discovered a smoky tavern located in a basement.

  But it was more than just a tavern.

  Through a small door next to the counter, you had access to a parallel, much darker world. Nevertheless, the entrance was at the discretion of the huge bouncer who stood in front of it.

  From the very first evening, I noticed the comings and goings of people who crawled through the doorway after passing the scrutiny of the big beast. I asked the innkeeper where they were going, but after staring at me hastily, he advised me to go back to my beer. The seeds of curiosity had now taken possession of me; I finished the beer, went out, and lurked there. When one of the guys who I had seen crossing the mysterious border came out, I approached him and offered him five shillings to tell me what was going on in there and what I had to do to gain entrance. His tongue loosened instantly. "They're fighting with bare hands, man, sometimes someone snuffs it. You must know the password to enter. It changes every night. Tomorrow it will be 'Westminster' if you're interested."

  I was. I thanked him and went home, determined to return the next night to take a look. I had never seen a fight, even if I had heard about them, as they were quite common in London, especially in the lower echelon of the population. They were generally poor desperate people prone to slaughter each other to earn a few measly pennies. This thought, however, attracted me and the next day at work, I did nothing but thought about it and constantly repeated the password in fear of forgetting it. In the evening, ignoring Kristen's complaints as she wanted to detain me at home, I went back to the tavern, the '"Hammerfall", ordered a beer, and walked to my bouncer friend.

  "Back again, blondie?"

  "So it seems. Westminster, isn't it?"

  With a grunt, the big beast had no choice but to step aside and to open the mysterious door. The strange thing about the place, which looked very small from the outside, was the width of the ring and of the spectators’ stand: it formed an amphitheater with stadium seating bleachers so that everyone could see any match without any obstructions from any seat. Right then, two guys were savagely beating each other. Given their conditions, it had probably been lasting for quite a while. The stands were filled up to capacity, but the thing that struck me most was the variety of the spectators. There were many members of the lower strata of the population, but also many people fashionably dressed and several women, some of whom were quite elegant. They screamed and cheered for this or that fighter even more than the men did, every rule of proper etiquette thrown to the wind.

  Meanwhile, the two in the ring, one young and slim and the other older and portly, were slaughtering each other. They could hardly lift their arms due to exhaustion, their faces reduced to a mask of blood, but neither one was willing to surrender. Eventually the young man hit the other guy's jaw with an ultimate, devastating hook and knocked him out amongst the whistles and the shouts of the audience. Two people took him away, while the winner raised his arms in triumph and staggered like a drunken.

  I was torn between two conflicting emotions: disgust at seeing the level of barbarism in which my fellowmen had succumbed to and admiration for such reckless suicidal courage.

  .

  A slimy character had made his way onto the ring and asked in a sycophantic voice whether there were some volunteers in the audience willing to fight against another champion. He was dressed smartly, but, even from where I was standing, certainly not in the first row, I could see how dirty and unkempt his clothes were, as if he was disguised as a noble without really being one. His wig was crooked and disheveled and I didn't dare imagine the state of his own hair beneath it.

  You should already have known that, at that time, washing was considered a harmful practice: people thought that dirt sealed the pores and, therefore, did not allow bad spirits - the ancestors of today's viruses and bacteria - to penetrate the body making it sick. People followed this custom religiously and wore their clothes until they fell to pieces, never having been washed. The only body parts that occasionally were exposed to water were the hands and face, though even this revelation was not so obvious. Most people bathed once or twice a year which coincided with religious holidays, and that was all.

  Maybe because my mother was a very clean person, but I had more consistent hygienic habits and never liked approaching people smelling badly, even more so now since I have become a vampire and my sense of smell has become more refined. It has already happened that I had shrank back with disgust from a victim due to its stench, leaving it free to run. The rule was not to breath. It was the only way to sink my teeth, which had only tasted water for months and months, into a throat.

  Anyway, I'm digressing.

  The worm continued his enrollment speech: “So, is there really no brave man among you gentlemen willing to experience the thrill of the extreme challenge we're offering you? You, for example, sir - (he pointed to a little guy somewhere in the front rows, who frantically shook his head) - No? Too bad, you had just the physical fit! Then you, sir, with that mustache back there. Do not be shy; we can see that you are dying to pull some nice shots! - (Another hasty negative sign) - No? Come on, gentlemen, you do not want the evening to end here!”

  As if guided by an alien will, I saw with amazement my hand rise. Before I had time to realize what the hell I was doing, the dirt ball had pointed me out to the entire audience and I was left with nothing to do but to get up, eyeballed by those three hundred pairs of eyes, and to walk towards the ring with my heart in turmoil. The floor of the ring was covered with stains of blood, sweat, and splashes of various liquids hard to identify. The wrestlers who had preceded me were barefoot, but I'd preferred to keep my boots well secured to my feet if I was able to because it was slippery like ice. I was asked to remove my shirt and, when I obeyed, I heard several howls from women, but I was not in the mood to appreciate any of them.

  Meanwhile, the louse of an announcer, reveling more and more, was introducing my opponent. With horror, I saw a kind of gorilla standing on the platform, with no neck but with the biggest arms I had ever seen, towering over me at least 6 inches. I froze in my place, at the left corner, as I felt my eyes widen ever more in fear. I was pressed up against the hemp ropes marking the contest area and I couldn't even think anymore. Then, the bell rang to start the match and, suddenly, my perceptions changed, becoming sharper. It was the only word that came to my mind to describe the sensation of extreme focus that took possession of me, along with a glacial calmness. The fear was gone too.

  The big man wasted no time and headed towards me with a heavy step and his huge arms stretched down, fists clenched. Clearly, he thought to resolve the matter in just a few minutes and he didn't even deign to keep his guard up. I moved away from the ropes - it was the first movement I performed - and slowly shifted to the right, never looking away. That monster's eyes were devoid of intelligence, motivated by a primal instinct and the desire to maim. Suddenly he lunged forward and tried to sink the first blow with his right arm, but I found him so slow that I had no difficulty dodging it, leaning backwards. I heard the crowd roar and felt a twinge of excitement, the one that, in a few months, would become my drug. The ape tried again, this time with the other arm. Another sidestep, another cheer, another small step towards my addiction.

  For the first time, I sensed the feeling of being accepted by people and liked it.

  Meanwhile, I had gotten around him, with no needed haste. He was the one with his back to the ropes, now. An arrogant smirk came to my lips; I felt good, master of myself. My blood pumped in my veins, I was alive!

  The first time I hit him, then, oh, rapture! The pa
in in my hand was terrible, but it only gave me a new charge. When the punch caught him in the face, he was shocked for a moment: it was not what he had expected. Then he lowered his head and, with a speed that caught me with surprise, he hit me with all his weight and wrestled me down to the ground underneath him, aiming for a methodical restructuring of my facial bones. Disgusted by his foul breath a few inches from my face, I shoved my thumbs into his eyes, pressing them well inside, making him scream with pain and fury. He raised his hands to bring them to his face and I hit him in the throat with all my strength, twice, and then pushed him away, turning him over like a turtle. I got up, fueled by the incitement of the crowd, and, while he was still on the ground howling for his poor eyes, I began to strike him in every possible way allowed: punching and kicking with no remorse or compassion and, if I would dare say, even with malice. His movements became weaker and weaker until he stood motionless, his face turning into a mass of bloody flesh.

  Did I kill him? I do not know. I never met him again.

  Do I care? Well, no. I've done much worse. Am I supposed to care about a guy like that knowing that I had never felt remorse for any of my victims during my three hundred years of night raids? You expect too much from a poor vampire.

  That evening, with the announcer lifting my arm in victory, decreeing the birth of a new boxing star, I realized that I could no longer forsake the cry of the crowd shouting my name. "Dutchman," they called me, and, night after night, they flocked to attend to my fights. Someone once told me that it was like watching a dance, the deathly dance of a spider approaching its prey caught in its web. The speed and agility that I had always possessed became useful at last. I was beginning to earn a lot of money too; the betting was remarkable and the winner was entitled to a percentage of those earnings won in his favor, but this wasn't something that interested me a lot. I'd have done it for free.