The Tale of the Body Thief (31 page)

A great optimistic energy bound all these beings together; one could feel it emanating from the students rushing between buildings on the university campus, or gathered together in close, warm restaurants to take lunch.

Like flowers to the light, these humans opened themselves, accelerating their pace, and their speech. And when I felt the heat of the sun itself upon my face and hands, I, too, opened as if I were a flower. I could feel the chemistry of this mortal body responding, despite the congestion in my head and the tiresome pain in my freezing hands and feet.

Ignoring the cough, which was growing worse by the hour, and a new blurriness of vision, which was a real nuisance, I took Mojo with me along noisy M Street into Washington, the capital of the nation proper, wandering about the marble memorials and monuments, the vast and impressive official buildings and residences, and up through the soft sad beauty of Arlington Cemetery with its thousands of tiny identical headstones, and to the handsome and dusty little mansion of the great Confederate general Robert E. Lee.

I was delirious by this time. And very possibly all my physical discomfort added to my happiness—giving me a drowsy, frenzied attitude rather like that of a person drunk or drugged. I don’t know. I only know I was happy, very happy, and the world by light was not the world by dark.

Many, many tourists braved the cold as I did to see the famous sights. I reveled silently in their enthusiasm, realizing that all of these beings were affected by the broad open vistas of the capital city as I
was affected by them—that it gladdened them and transformed them to see the vast blue sky overhead, and the many spectacular stone memorials to the accomplishments of humankind.

“I’m one of them!” I realized suddenly—not Cain forever seeking the blood of his brother. I looked about me in a daze. “I’m one of you!”

For a long moment I gazed down upon the city from the heights of Arlington, shivering with cold, and even crying a little at the astonishing spectacle of it—so orderly, so representative of the principles of the great Age of Reason—wishing that Louis were with me, or that David were here, and aching in my heart that they would so surely disapprove of what I had done.

But, oh, this was the true planet I beheld, the living earth born of sunshine and warmth, even under its shimmering mantle of winter snow.

I went down the hill finally, Mojo now and then running ahead and then circling back to accompany me, and I walked along the bank of the frozen Potomac, wondering at the sun reflected in the ice and melting snow. It was fun even to watch the melting snow.

Sometime in midafternoon I ended up once more in the great marble Jefferson Memorial, an elegant and spacious Greek pavilion with the most solemn and moving words engraved on its walls. My heart was bursting as I realized that for these precious hours I wasn’t cut off from the sentiments expressed here. Indeed, for this little while I mingled with the human crowd, quite indistinguishable from anyone else.

But this was a lie, wasn’t it? I carried my guilt within me—in the continuity of my memory, in my irreducible individual soul: Lestat the killer, Lestat the prowler of the night. I thought of Louis’s warning: “You can’t become human by simply taking over a human body!” I saw the stricken and tragic look on his face.

But Lord God, what if the Vampire Lestat hadn’t ever existed, what if he were merely the literary creation, the pure invention, of the man in whose body I now lived and breathed! What a beautiful idea!

I remained for a long time on the steps of the memorial, my head bowed, the wind tearing at my clothes. A kind woman told me I was ill and must button up my coat. I stared into her eyes, realizing that she saw only a young man there before her. She was neither dazzled nor afraid. No hunger lurked in me to end her life so that I might better enjoy mine. Poor lovely creature of pale blue eyes and fading hair!
Very suddenly I caught her small wrinkled hand and kissed it, and I told her in French that I loved her, and I watched the smile spread over her narrow withered face. How lovely she appeared to me, as lovely as any human I’d ever gazed upon with my vampire eyes.

All the sordid shabbiness of last night was erased in these daylight hours. I think my greatest dreams of this adventure had been fulfilled.

But the winter was heavy and hard all around me. Even cheered by the blue sky, people spoke to one another of a worse storm yet to come. Shops were closing early, streets would again become impassable, the airport had been shut down. Passersby warned me to lay in candles, as the city might lose electric power. And an old gentleman, with a thick wool cap pulled down over his head, scolded me for not wearing a hat. A young woman told me that I looked sick and should hurry home.

Only a cold, I answered. A good cough tonic or whatever they call it now would be perfectly fine. Raglan James would know what to do when he reclaimed this body. He wouldn’t be too happy about it, but he could console himself with his twenty million. Besides I had hours still to dose myself with commercial remedies and rest.

For the time being, I was too relentlessly uncomfortable overall to worry about such a thing. I’d wasted enough time upon such petty distractions. And of course help for all the petty annoyances of life—ah, real life—was at hand.

Indeed, I’d forgotten all about the time, hadn’t I? My money should be at the agency, waiting for me. I caught a glimpse of a clock in a store window. Half past two. The big cheap watch on my wrist said the same thing. Why, I had only about thirteen hours left.

Thirteen hours in this awful body, with a throbbing head and sore limbs! My happiness vanished in a sudden cold thrill of fear. Oh, but this day was too fine to be ruined by cowardice! I simply put that out of my mind.

Bits of remembered poetry had come to me … and now and then a very dim memory of that last mortal winter, of crouching by the hearth in the great hall of my father’s house, and trying desperately to warm my hands by a waning fire. But in general, I had been locked to the moment in a way that was entirely unfamiliar to my feverish, calculating, and mischievous little mind. So enchanted had I been by what was going on around me, that for hours I had experienced no preoccupation or distraction of any kind.

This was extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary. And in my euphoria, I was certain that I would carry with me forever the memory of this simple day.

The walk back to Georgetown seemed at times an impossible feat. Even before I’d left the Jefferson Memorial, the sky had begun to cloud over and was fast becoming the color of dull tin. The light was drying up as if it were liquid.

Yet I was loving it in its more melancholy manifestations. I was mesmerized by the sight of anxious mortals locking up storefronts and hurrying against the wind with sacks of groceries, of lighted headlamps flashing brightly and almost cheerily in the deepening gloom.

There would be no twilight, I realized that. Ah, very sad indeed. But as a vampire I often beheld the twilight. So why should I complain? Nevertheless, just for one second I regretted that I had spent my precious time in the teeth of the bitter winter. But for reasons I could scarce explain to myself, it had been just what I wanted. Winter bitter as the winters of my childhood. Bitter as that time in Paris when Magnus had carried me to his lair. I was satisfied. I was content.

By the time I reached the agency, even I knew that the fever and chills were getting the best of me and I must seek shelter and food. I was happy to discover that my money had arrived. A new credit card had been imprinted for me under one of my Paris aliases, Lionel Potter, and a wallet of traveler’s checks had been prepared. I shoved all these in my pockets, and as the horrified clerk watched in silence, I shoved the thirty thousand dollars into my pockets as well.

“Somebody’s going to rob you!” he whispered, leaning towards me across the counter. He said something I could scarce follow about getting to the bank with the money before it closed. And then I should go to the emergency room, immediately before the blizzard came in. Lots of people with the flu out there, practically an epidemic every winter it seemed.

For the sake of simplicity I agreed to everything, but I hadn’t the slightest intention of spending my remaining mortal hours in the clutches of doctors. Besides, such a step wasn’t required. All I needed was hot food, I thought, and some hot beverage, and the peace of a soft hotel bed. Then I could return this body to James in tolerable condition, and shoot cleanly back into my own.

But first I must have a change of clothes. It was only three-fifteen,
and I had some twelve hours to go and could not bear for a moment longer these dirty and miserable rags!

I reached the great fancy Georgetown Mall just as it was closing so that people could flee the blizzard, but I managed to talk my way into a fancy clothier’s, where I quickly made a pile for the impatient clerk of everything I thought I would need. A wave of dizziness caught me as I gave him the small plastic card. It amused me that he had now lost all impatience and was trying to sell me random scarves and ties. I could scarce understand what he was saying to me. Ah, yes, ring it up. We’ll give all this to Mr. James at three a.m. Mr. James likes to get things for nothing. Sure, the other sweater, and why not, the scarf too.

As I managed to escape with my heavy load of shiny boxes and sacks, another wave of dizziness hit me. Indeed a blackness was rising all around me; it would have been very easy to sink to my knees and pass out on the floor. A lovely young woman came to my rescue. “You look like you’re going to faint!” I was sweating profusely now, and even in the warmth of the mall I was cold.

What I needed was a taxi, I explained to her, but none was to be found. Indeed the crowds were very thin on M Street, and the snow had begun to fall once more.

I had spied a handsome brick hotel only a few blocks away, with the lovely romantic name The Four Seasons, and to that point I hurried, waving good-bye to the beautiful and kind young creature, and bowing my head as I burrowed into the fierce wind. I’d be warm and safe in The Four Seasons, I thought merrily, loving to speak the meaningful name aloud. I could dine there, and need not go back to the awful town house until the hour for the exchange drew near.

When I finally reached the lobby of the place, I found it more than satisfactory, and laid down a large deposit in guarantee that Mojo would be as clean and gentlemanly during our stay as I would be myself. The suite was sumptuous, with large windows over the Potomac, seemingly endless stretches of pale carpet, bathrooms fit for a Roman emperor, television sets and refrigerators concealed in handsome wood cabinets, and other little contraptions galore.

At once I ordered a feast for myself and Mojo, then I opened the small bar, which was stuffed with candies and other tasty tidbits as well as spirits, and helped myself to the best Scotch. Absolutely ghastly taste! How the hell could David drink this? The chocolate bar was
better. Damned fantastic! I gobbled all of it, then called back the restaurant and added every chocolate dessert on the menu to my order of only moments ago.

David, I must call David, I thought. But it seemed an impossibility to climb out of the chair and move to the phone on the desk. And there was so much I wanted to consider, to fix in my mind. Discomforts be damned, this had been a hell of an experience! I was even getting used to these enormous hands hanging an inch below where they ought to be, and this porous dark skin. Mustn’t fall asleep. What a waste … 

Then the bell startled me! I had been sleeping. A full half hour of mortal time had passed. I struggled to my feet, as if I were hefting bricks with every step, and managed somehow to open the door for the room service attendant, an attractive older female with light yellow hair, who wheeled a linen-draped table, laden with food, into the living room of the suite.

I gave the steak to Mojo, having already laid down a bath towel for a dog tablecloth, and he set about to chewing lustily, lying down as he did so, which only the very large dogs do, and which made him look all the more monstrous, like a lion lazily gnawing upon a Christian pinned helplessly between his huge paws.

I at once drank the hot soup, unable to taste anything much in it, but that was to be expected with such a miserable cold. The wine was marvelous, much better than the vin ordinaire of the last night, and though it still tasted very thin compared to blood, I downed two glasses of it, and was about to devour the pasta, as they called it here, when I looked up and realized that the fretful female attendant was still there.

“You’re sick,” she said, “you’re very, very sick.”

“Nonsense, ma chère,” I said, “I have a cold, a mortal cold, no more and no less.” I fished in my shirt pocket for my wad of bills, gave her several twenties, and told her to go. She was very reluctant.

“That’s quite a cough,” she said. “I think you’re really sick. You’ve been outside a long time, haven’t you?”

I stared at her, absolutely weakened by her concern, and realizing that I was in true danger of bursting stupidly into tears. I wanted to warn her that I was a monster, that this body was merely stolen. How tender she was, how obviously habitually kind.

“We’re all connected,” I said to her, “all humankind. We must
care for each other, mustn’t we?” I figured she would be horrified by these sloppy sentiments, issued with such thick drunken emotion, and that she would now take her leave. But she did not.

“Yes, we are,” she said. “Let me call a doctor for you before the storm gets any worse.”

“No, dearest, go now,” I said.

And with one last worried look at me, she did at last go out.

After I’d consumed the plate of fancy cheese-sauced noodles, another bit of salt and tastelessness, I began to wonder if she wasn’t right. I went into the bathroom and switched on the lights. The man in the mirror did look dreadful, his eyes bloodshot, his entire body shivering, and his naturally dark skin rather yellowish if not downright pale.

I felt of my forehead, but what good did that do? Surely I can’t die of this, I thought. But then I wasn’t so sure. I remembered the expression on the face of the attendant, and the concern of the people who’d spoken to me in the street. Another fit of coughing overcame me.