The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life (35 page)

“The troubadour stepped back, pleased at the childlike wonder he saw in my face. I turned, slowly taking in the details of my new world. I ran down through the meadow. I pity you that you do not see the
quiver,
for oh, what a wondrous world it was. As I trudged through the waves of millet and timothy all the night insects hidden in the grass glowed like fairies and took to the air in a sheet of sparks. Vast luminous undulations moved through the very meadow itself, like wind through the grasses, or the shadow of clouds. I could see the circulation of the fluids through the leaves of the trees. I discerned the very movement of the stars. When I dropped to my knees beside a forest pond my vision plummeted through the microcosm of the water and I saw the microscopic protozoa as if they were immense glowing beings. I could see their rippling hairlike cilia and the cytoplasm flowing ghostly blue among the granules of their organs.

“Through all of this the troubadour followed me and slowly I became aware of something else. There was heat rising off his body. I didn’t notice it at first, but at length I realized he was becoming cooler. His heart was slowing down. The throbbing filled my eardrums, dwindling more and more until it reached a familiar rhythm. He continued to smile, but the twinkle shifted in his eyes, and at last I saw the true depth of those impermeable orbs, the tomblike hush of inconceivable age.

“Like a stone dropped off a cliff... those eyes.

“‘So you are a vampire after all,’ I said.

“He nodded.

“‘Then who are you?’

“‘Lodovico....’ he said.”

Des Esseintes paused for breath.

Even though I was attending most carefully to his words, for some inexplicable reason my eye was drawn to the carriage window. To my surprise, all of the twilight people had vanished. On the street corner stood a lone figure, a woman, eyes painted with kohl, fat and red-haired, with a powdered face, black satin blouse, and red scarf. Her painted eyes blinked. Her hair and blouse fluttered, not unlike plumage as she proudly stood the wind, this first creature of the night.

“
I asked him how he had done it
.”

I continued to gaze out the window as des Esseintes spoke.

“
He shrugged
.”

The woman looked in our direction.

“
I asked him what he wanted
.”

We drew closer.

“‘
You,’ he said
.”

We rolled slowly by the woman, as if on a strange carousel. For a fleeting instant, as her face was closest to the carriage window, she stared right into my eyes. She blinked again and I saw the iridescence of her sedate and heavy lids, like fly’s wings, heavy with antimony.

I turned quickly to my companion. “You? What did he want with you?”

“To tell me something.”

“And what was that?”

“To tell me there were more things in the world to
see
than I had ever imagined. To help me enter a new realm of perception.”

“What else did he tell you?”

“He told me the Unknown Men were engaged in a very special work. He said someday I might help in that work, but I would have to prove myself.”

“How would you prove yourself?”

“He would not say. All he would tell me was that the time had come for me to leave the monastery of the Vosges permanently. He said I was to move to Paris and there further instruction would be given. When i asked what sort of instruction, he said to look for a flower. The true flower. The
veri floris.
Then he recited an ancient poem. He told me, ‘Under the figure of the true flower that the pure root produced, the loving devotion of our clergy has made a mystical flower constructing an allegorical meaning beyond ordinary usage from the nature of a flower.’”

“What does that mean? What is the true flower?”

Des Esseintes smiled as he tapped on the window and gave the boy in livery a nod. “I will show you.”

The hansom turned south and we headed back toward the Seine.

“So that is when I first came to Paris, at the very height of the Middle Ages. Surprisingly, the flavor and soul of Paris have not changed all that much, lo these many years. Oh, the skyline has altered. The city has spread and grown, but it is still magnificent. It is still dirty. And it is still a mecca for many learned men and women. In 1331 Petrarch described it as ‘a great basket in which are collected the rarest fruits of every country.’ You have no idea just how true those words are.”

My gentleman companion lapsed into silence as we sped on.

It was well into the night now. Stars twinkled overhead. We passed little parks and small-waisted women standing with their lovers in the shadows, and still we moved with the hush of a ghostly Black Maria. We crossed the bridge leading to the Île de la Cité. We rolled by the huge eighteenth-century complex of administrative buildings, and an occasional
agent
until at last the Gothic outline of Notre-Dame loomed across a spacious square, flanked by leather-green trees. The horses slowed before the ancient cathedral.

“Closer,” des Esseintes directed.

We crossed the square until at last we stood before the spireless towers of the West Façade.

“Let us get out,” he directed.

He opened my door and I stepped down onto the pavement Again it was an odd sensation to be standing upon solid ground and in the open air. My captor slipped out behind me and placed a white hand upon my shoulder. He allowed the other to drift up toward the somber and majestic giant.

“Behold the true flower,” he said with a reverent calm.

I looked up at the profusion of Gothic ornament, the towers, the innumerable angels and saints, the stone quatrefoils. The granite shimmered blue-gray in the moonlight. Unavoidably my vision was drawn to the elaborate cartwheel of tracery in the great rose window. A rose. A great stained-glass flower.

“The
veris floris
,” I whispered in realization.

I recalled Lodovico’s poem. “Under the figure of the true flower that the pure root produced. Under the flower. I looked beneath the rose window at the three sets of massive iron doors.

“Very good, Monsieur le Docteur,” des Esseintes complimented. “You are quite correct. It
is
the doors. I am sure you do not see what I see when I gaze at those doors.”

I looked at the magnificently ornamented portals. I turned back to the vampire questioningly.

“Do you know who built the doors of Notre-Dame?” he asked.

I shrugged my shoulders.

My ancient friend smiled. “If you look it up in your history books you’ll discover a demon is matter-of-factly given the credit.” He threw his head back and laughed. “A demon! A demon named Biscornet!” He spun about, oddly amused by it all. “And it is true,
mon ami
, if you examine the doors you’ll discover they are incredible achievements. In all their ironwork it is impossible to perceive any break in continuity, any trace of brazing or welding. This complete lack of seams indicates each door was formed from a single sheet of iron. I suppose that is partly why the humans of the Middle Ages assumed Biscornet was a demon. They knew their human ironworkers were incapable of such an achievement. In their minds, only the fires of hell could have forged such doors.

“But it was no demon. It was the vampire who created those doors,”

It should have shocked me, the fact that the doors of one of the most famous churches in Christendom were built by creatures from our darkest mythology, creatures fully as strange as the gargoyles above our heads, but I was becoming numbed to the incredibility of des Esseintes’s world. “So vampires built the doors.”

“The doors and much of the church itself. My good Docteur, you owe it to yourself to do a little historical investigation. Often when the mortal architects of the Middle Ages were unable to finish their projects,
others
were called in,
others
who possessed knowledge far surpassing their human contemporaries. More often than not, your venerable old records list them as demons, as in the case of Biscornet. All over Prance are bridges attributed to these demons—the bridges of Beaugency, Pont de l’Arche, Vielle-Brioude, and Pont de Valentre, to name a few. There are ‘devil’s bridges’ all over England and Spain as well, and the Teufelsbrücke in Germany are exceedingly numerous. That is why the secret group of
others
first became known as stonemasons and freemasons, for they were the builders of the impossible monuments.”

“And all built by vampire?”

“To varying extents.”

“So what do you
see
when you gaze at the doors of Notre-Dame?”

“What do I
see?
I’ll tell you. After Lodovico vanished into the night and I moved to Paris, I searched the evening streets. And finally, when I discovered the great rose window and looked beneath it I saw all the secrets of the vampire revealed before me. You see, just as the elder vampire had hidden knowledge in code and cipher in the common Gospel books, so they had hidden great secrets in the hieroglyphics of those doors. Indeed, the entire history of the vampire is concealed in the iron and stonework of Notre-Dame. Do not grow anxious if you see nothing in the symbols, Monsieur le Docteur. You see, it takes a brain of a different order to perceive the hidden language of the doors. Not even all of the vampire possess this faculty.” He turned to me. “That is what I must communicate to you. As the bumblebee perceives the ultraviolet, as the migrating bird navigates by the stars even when it is cloudy, I move through a different world. It is more than just perception. I think differently, The very symbolic functionings of my brain have altered. I can immediately see meaning in patterns your brain can only understand as random. I may look human, but I am a separate species entirely. Just as the moth can never fully share the logic of the swallow, there are certain things I cannot convey to you.”

His eyes drifted back to the ancient structure, scanning the bell turrets and the winged monsters. “I know nothing of the spiritual. I don’t pretend to, but I do know one thing about the brain. There is evolution. There is change. If there is an afterlife, perhaps the same thing happens to you after you die. Perhaps we change because we do not die. All I know is that I have transformed. I was fortunate. It took me only five hundred years to mutate, to shed the last vestige of my humanity. That is why the
abbés
could not tell me certain things. They were waiting for my brain to be able to understand them. Lodovico saw I was changing. He assisted, but it was as I stood before the portals of Notre-Dame that I truly understood what it meant to
see.
To be illuminated. An
illuminatus
.”

Once again I regarded the complex and foliate decoration of the doors. Was I so blind? Were we mortals so piteously inadequate beside creatures such as des Esseintes? Try as I might, I could discern nothing in the symmetrical decorations that even faintly resembled a secret language. When I turned to des Esseintes, however, he appeared to be experiencing a distinct restlessness. He held himself with composure, but something feverish shone in his face. I was taken aback. It was the most emotion I had felt emanating from him since he had crackled with energy in our first encounter in the orchid conservatory. I looked again at the dark portals and still saw nothing. The trees flanking the church rustled.

“What do you see in the doors?” I beseeched the tall and pallid gentleman.

“What do I see?” he asked as he continued to gaze at the iron monoliths with a wandering and vacant air. He took a slow step forward. “Oh, so many things. I see the most incredible and carefully guarded alchemical secrets of the vampire. And more, I read my destiny. I perceive my purpose, my role in the work of the vampire.”

“And what is that?”

“To survive, Monsieur le Docteur. To preserve our culture and our learning.”

“But never to share that learning?”

He turned on me as if in a rage, but again his face was calm. “You are wrong. Have I given you that impression? We shared our knowledge. As I have said before, you owe us more of a debt than you have ever realized. When I arrived in Paris in the twelfth century there were already many special vampire living here. Like me they had been drawn and changed by the lodestone of the doors. All of this had been planned long ago by the Unknown Men and recorded here for us. We formed a center of learning for mortal and vampire alike. At night we met in the cloisters of this old church and held classes. As the years passed the number of our students grew. Within time it was known all over Europe that Notre-Dame was the haunt of alchemists. That is where you get your expression
sub rosa
or ‘under the rose,’ referring to a meeting held in secret. It was the school of Notre-Dame that ultimately became the University of Paris.”

“It was the vampire who taught at the school of Notre-Dame?”

“Yes.”

“Why hasn’t history recorded the names of the vampire teachers?”

“We kept our identities hidden, but really, Monsieur le Docteur, you know us by our students. Look at the names of those men who were pupils at the school of Notre-Dame, such distinguished intellectuals as Abelard, Albertus Magnus, John of Salisbury, Siger of Brabant, Roger Bacon, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura, Duns Scotus, William of Occam—nearly the entire history of philosophy from 1100 to 1400.”

“You were the teachers of these great men?”

“I and my brethren.”

“What did you teach them?” I asked as a warm wind suddenly caught us up in a little devil’s eddy. Des Esseintes paused before answering as the trees enclosing the cathedral continued to whisper. He folded his arms and frowned. “I will tell you, but I fear we must start back. It is a little too hot out here for my blood.”

He returned to the hansom ahead of me.

For a moment I was swept with an impulse to run. I feared it would be my last chance to escape for quite some time, and yet I was torn. Something held me back.

Des Esseintes slowly turned around, arms still clasped. “You are doing well, Monsieur le Docteur,” he said with an utter calm. “Don’t ruin it now.”

I succumbed and followed him to the carriage.