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I took her to the bed and laid her down on it. She sank gratefully,it seemed, into the mattress and the pillow. Things here were clean inthe modern way, fresh, and so repeatedly and thoroughly launderedthat they looked almost new.
I handed her my silk handkerchief. She took it, then looked at itand said, "But it's too good.""No, use it, please. It's nothing. I have hundreds."She regarded me in silence, then began to wipe her face. Herheart was beating more slowly, but the scent of her had been madeeven stronger by her emotions.
Her menses. It was being neatly collected by a pad of white cottonbetween her legs. I let myself think of it now because the menses washeavy and the smell was overpoweringly delicious to me. It began totorture me, the thought of licking this blood. This isn't pure blood,you understand, but blood is its vehicle and I felt the normaltemptation that vampires do in such circumstances, to lick the blood fromher nethermouth between her legs, a way of feeding on her thatwouldn't harm her.
Except under the circumstances it was a perfectly outrageous andimpossible thought.
There was a long silent interval.
I merely sat there on a wooden straight-backed chair. I knew shewas beside me, sitting up, legs crossed, and that she'd found a box oftissue which provided a world of comfort to her, and she was blowingher nose and wiping her eyes. My silk handkerchief was still clutchedin her hand.
She was extremely excited by my presence but still unafraid, andfar too sunk in sorrow to enjoy this confirmation of thousands ofbeliefs, a pulsing nonhuman with her, that looked and talked as if itwere human. She couldn't let herself embrace this right now. But shecouldn't quite get over it. Her fearlessness was true courage. Shewasn't stupid. She was someplace so far beyond fear that cowardscould never even grasp it.
Fools might have thought her fatalistic. But it wasn't that. It wasthe ability to think ahead, and thereby banish panic utterly. Somemortals must know this right before they die. When the game's up,and everyone has said farewell. She looked at everything from thatfatal, tragic, unerring perspective.
I stared at the floor. No, don't fall in love with her.
The yellow pine boards had been sanded, lacquered, and waxed.
The color of amber. Very beautiful. The whole palazzo might havethis look one day. Beauty and the Beast. And as Beasts go, I mean,really, I'm quite a stunner.
I hated myself for having such a good time in a miserable momentlike this, thinking of dancing with her through the corridors. Ithought of Roger, and that brought me back quick enough, and theOrdinary Man, ah, that monster waiting for me!
I looked at her desk, two telephones, the computer, more books instacks, and somewhere in the corner a little television, merely forstudy, apparently, the screen no bigger than four or five inches acrossthough it was connected to a long coiling and winding black cable,which I knew connected it to the wide world.
There was lots of other blinking electronic equipment. It was nonun's cell. The words scrawled on the white framework of the doorsand windows were actually in phrases, such as "Mystery opposesTheology." And "Commotion Strange." And, of all things, "Darkling,I listen."Yes, I thought, mystery does oppose theology, that was somethingRoger was trying to say, that she had not caught on as she shouldbecause the mystical and the theological were mixed in her, and itwasn't working with the proper fire or magic. He had kept saying shewas a theologian. And he thought of his relics as mysterious, ofcourse. And they were.
Again a dim boyhood memory returned to me, of seeing the crucifixin our church at home in the Auvergne and being awestruck by thesight of the painted blood running from the nails. I must have beenvery small. I was bedding village girls in the back of that church bythe time I was fifteen梥omething of a prodigy for the times, but thenthe lord's son was supposed to be a perfect billygoat in our village.
Everyone expected it. And my brothers, such a conservative bunch,they had more or less disappointed the local mythology by alwaysbehaving themselves. It's a wonder that the crops hadn't sufferedfrom their paltry virtue. I smiled. I had certainly made up for it. Butwhen I had looked at the crucifix I must have been six or seven atmost. And I had said, What a horrible way to die! I had blurted it out,and my mother had laughed and laughed. My father had been sohumiliated!
The traffic on Napoleon Avenue made small, predictable, andslightly comforting noises.
Well, comforting to me.
I heard Dora sigh. And then I felt her hand on my arm, tight anddelicate for only an instant, but fingers pressing through the armourof my clothing, wanting the texture beneath.
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